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islandgirlejfan

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About Me

  • Location
    Catonsville, MD
  • Interests
    Concert going, camping, gourmet cooking, yoga, travel, Miatas, friends, travel, wines and CRUISING!
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Is there a bad one I should know about? =P
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Anywhere

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islandgirlejfan's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. Back in a day a long time ago, I used to always have two bags with me.....I'd say easiily 7 pairs of shoes. These days, it's usually 4. I can pack light, but I never know how happy my feet are going to be after an excursion, comfortable shoes or not.
  2. We go carry on and still packed too much for 9 days! We were on Holland this past cruise. I almost find it hard to believe that I was ever a serious overpacker at one time! I will continue the practice after one of our group had her luggage go missing and she was *hoping* it would show up in Curacao. I'm finding these days 3 pairs of shoes will do it. I don't need 5 (yes, I packed 4 and had a pair on) Marie Kondo folds for the win! I have a bunch of new sets of compression cubes. I just don't know what I was thinking (perhaps I wasn't!) but they just don't work well for me. I graduated from bundling, which while it works, can be a pain in the butt. Knits, tanks, thinner material clothing. I also have ExOfficio undies....they dry fairly quick. We tried the laundry on HAL as a test for our TA next year. It's a winner! I will however be finding my clothespins for the handy clothesline that HAL still believes in. It's helpful for wet clothing, but it's nice when you don't want to send your good undies out! I will either cut up sheets or bring a small amount of detergent with me. I bought medication bags and filled them. They worked nice! I don't believe I'm bringing the shampoo any longer. What I used on the ship worked just fine, even on my dyed whatever the color is now hair!! We have done the toothpaste tablets.....big meh. I'd rather just have a smaller tube of toothpaste. They are ok in a pinch, but they aren't my thing. I changed toothbrushes before leaving and packed our old ones. Pitched them when we were done. Make a small first aid kit in an old glass case. I needed Aleve or something like it for my planters fasciitis. I brought Tylenol, which does not seem to relieve the pain. 15 dollars later at the ships small assorted items....I found Aleve-YAY, go me! Put in Imodium, pain reliever, sinus pills, Ny-quil tabs, bandaids, antibiotic cream, anything else you might need. I learned a valuable lesson on this one. I'm working on what I want to take for the TA. October frightens me because I've lived in Europe. I'm going to have this figured out though.
  3. I just came off a cruise on the Rotterdam. I went to Ulta because pretty much all my makeup had went bad and I didn't want to look haggy for the evening. I'm not a huge user of it, so it totally PAINED me when the bill came $200.....I signed up for a credit card that I really didn't want because I wanted to save $40. I can't even talk about how I felt in Ulta as a 62 year old woman! LOL, I felt like a fish out of water trying to even find what I wanted! It was right there with buying bras.....I don't care for that either! =P What I really wish is that I could get *samples* like Avon or Mary Kay used to provide. The Mary Kay stuff was neat because it was just enough, not to mention the sizes would be just enough to pack and not having it laying around forever. I really wish I could get something like this. I have looked at eBay and seen them, however you don't know how old that stuff is either.
  4. We like being connected while onboard and HAL’s net was absolutely impressive, compared the speeds and price we’ve paid on Celebrity and RCCL. We did the upgrade which was 50 dollars each. I was able to FaceTime my friend and son. It really was blazing fast! I put a video up on Facebook and it took no time at all to upload. Adding a picture of the speeds midday outside at the pool deck. My oldest son works for Cisco and is a huge fan of Elon Musk/Starlink/Space X/Tesla and was so amazed at the speeds (he and his wife also cruise!) that he wanted to share them with the Starlink group he belongs to. My hubby and I thought it was great!
  5. I just want to throw this out to everyone. I bought a lovely sparkly jacket from Maurices as well at three tank tops, two black, one of them having gold snaps and one white, all of them very fashionable material, washed on delicate very nicely and I hung them to dry. No wrinkles at all. The jacket in particular can take pretty much change casual to formal very easily. I'm a 2X and their sizing seems to be right on. Just a suggestion if you are looking for any clothing items for an upcoming cruise.
  6. I love them as well as Tieks, however all of mine are going to be going. Sadly the no support thing is not helping my knee issue or my planter fasciitis. I love all the colors and how fun they are. I've tried everything to wear them. I love them particularly for cruising because they take up little space. Age sucks sometimes!
  7. It's just sort of meh, honestly. I don't think the positioning of the restaurant is helpful either. Beautiful views, but it's basically part of the buffet during the day, in a uber busy area between the buffet and the pool, and then it has to try to be an Italian restaurant in the evening. No real ambiance and much of the food has no wow factor. We wanted to try all the pay restaurants and as I had a lot of OBC, it allowed us to do that. As much of an Italian foodie as I am, I can pass on this one.
  8. There are some very interesting itineraries on HAL and we mostly had a great time. The aft is where it's at for us. My pictures from there are stunning and we do love that the Rotterdam isn't like Celebrity S-Class and there is actually some protection from the sun. It is a beautiful ship.
  9. We didn't do either. People in our group when to Eden and seemed very happy with it. She said it was 10 dollars a piece for a chair with an umbrella. Chogogo sounds like a great deal as well.....we probably would have done that, but the golf cart thing was really neat. We will go to Chogogo the next time. I personally don't think you can go wrong with any of them. Lots of neat videos on YouTube about all of them! 🙂
  10. We were port, so that does explain much. I must admit, I haven't been frequenting CC as much as I have in the past. I maybe should have read some before booking, however aft rooms are usually coveted, at least on Celebrity ships. I also don't always go searching for everything because CC can be wonky. I tried to find something out about additional tipping of our staff. It didn't like the criteria, so I just went ahead and did what I was going to do in the first place. I was just looking for the guidelines and didn't get a hit. Admittedly it was on my phone on the ship and not my computer at home, but it was something I didn't give thought to until I was in the situation. This was the last room aft when we booked and I can't lie, I didn't give a lot of thought to smoking or reading up on anything. That's my bad. I got used to it being that easy on Celebrity and didn't think it would cause any issues. It's an easy solution for us. No aft on HAL unless maybe maybe it's sixth floor or lower . It's that simple. I know for the next time.
  11. Agreed. The night we did go to Billboard, we sat on the back wall near Notes and enjoyed whiskey smashes. Didn't have an issue then. Our room was one floor below the aft pool. It was not good. The night we went to the Rolling Stone Rock Room, we were able to get a seat near the steps going to the casino. That also didn't work.
  12. I don't think the smoking was from the veranda, I have to be honest. The pool deck was right above us that allowed people to smoke. The buffet was on the same floor. I smelled cigarettes but I also smelled breakfast cooking at 3:30/4:00 AM on a few days. It honestly had something to do with the way it was coming into our room, but nevertheless, I smelled it. It was specific to the area we were in which was the back of the ship. I'm not going to lie, I doubt it was our neighbors. They had a suite and we never saw them the whole time. To be honest, this is the first cruise that we really didn't encounter people in the hallways or banging their doors. LOL, I think it's because all of these people may have been all tiptoeing to the pool deck to stake their claim and didn't want anyone to know!!
  13. They offered a deal a few months ago where if you charged 1200(?), you got 300 back on a new booking. It was a no brainer for us. We were getting Premium Have It All to include paid gratuities for the Transatlantic from HAL, OBC from our agent, AARP 200$ credit and stockholder credit as own stock in Carnival. Scan your offers monthly. I saw a posting in one of my other groups and I jumped on it. Once we retire, we will be able to go a little more last minute. My husband can't always get the time at work as they have limited employees, so we still plan.
  14. My father may he rest in peace, used to always say that *variety was the spice of life*. He didn't coin the phase of course, but he really always just tried to see the best in much. My mother was the polar opposite, she was more pessimistic. I tend to try and see the best but also know that it may not go the way I want it to. That said, there are times in my life I could probably be happy on a freighter or a garbage scow, just because I want to get away. Thanks for your kind words. LOL, there are a lot of unwritten reviews over the years. I just decided that I was going to put my thoughts into words this time. I really love to write, so I have no excuse!
  15. We not been on Disney other than to say my oldest son who will be 40 said never again. I don't think he or his wife were impressed. It wouldn't be our thing unless we took our grandsons. The food on all the lines are good and certainly a meal can be off....we just felt like from our last few trips on Celebrity, HAL was a notch above. We went to the Fine Cut Steakhouse on the Edge in 2022 after everything opened up with Covid and it was off. My steak was overdone and certainly I could have sent it back, but I really felt for anyone working in a mask trying to make a living. The bit of staff that was on the Edge in 2022 was working so very hard. I was so happy to be back aboard, I just didn't care to complain. The movies were very good on HAL....I don't think the entertainment affects us as much because we just want to go dancing somewhere and there is not nearly enough of that. If anyone out there in cruiseline land is listening, this would be something I'm sure many would enjoy! A good band and a fun time is really all we want to do. We did retreat to the room because of the upper respiratory stuff that was happening to us. We have been Celebrity cruisers so long that we forgot what it's like to have smoke affect us like that. This is and will continue to be an issue for people who have sensitivities. People who have issues aren't trying to make people crazy. There are just things that affect us just like a certain food may be an issue for those with an allergy because that is what they are....allergies. Not a Grand Turk fan and for me it really is right there with Falmouth. I'm in love with Bonaire. It's like no stress there. No one is trying to stick a monkey on you, no one is being a hard sell. It was the main reason we wanted to do the ABC itinerary again! I'm sure we would have loved Half Moon Cay, but the surgery and the fact there was no guaranteed cover for my DH was a killer on this. He has rosacea which has caused many problems. You do what you have to do and there are just times you make lemonade out of lemons. We sat on our balcony and had coffee at the Dutch Cafe. There is always the next time on going to HMC. I hope you had a great time. Right now, price has got us. This cruise for a aft was 2K less than a 7 day on Celebrity. We used to pay maybe 200 dollars more for AQ. LOL, well that's no longer! I want to cruise more, not less. Our next is on the Sea Princess in November. Truly looking forward to that. I'll be comparing prices, but I do know we have one more on HAL as I got an amazing deal with my AMEX card on the TA coming next October 2025.
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