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kitkat343

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  1. It does seem like RC should at least tell people by now if the two cruises prior to the dry dock are going to be cancelled. Given the fact that both alternative ports are within driving distance, I can understand delaying announcing the location of the new embarkation port until Monday, but I think people should be informed by now whether the next two sailings will be cancelled. RC sails out of Bayonne year round; they should know at this point whether it is technically possible to sail from there for their next two cruises. They might choose the other port later, but they should know if it is possible to add sailings from Bayonne since they need to be familiar with its capacity.
  2. I don't know what the OP is experiencing (something could have happened between when I sailed and their sailing), but I sailed AOS without any stabilization issues. The ship was a very solid ship - we booked for itinerary and because we liked the itinerary we were happy with it. If you are looking for luxury/lots of ship amenities this might not be your best choice, but if you found a good itinerary at a reasonable price hopefully you will be happy.
  3. It will depend on what your kids are used to and their age. For years we sailed for itinerary and had sailed the oldest ships around with few amenities for kids and our kids were happy just being on a cruise ship and getting lots of yummy food and going to the kids club. But once we had three small kids, we decided to sail from our homeport, and the ships there had some nice amenities for for kids. After sailing on the Getaway, my kids wanted waterslides on all their cruises and that's never going to happen on Cunard. One good feature Cunard has is an indoor pool, which is quite helpful on our cruise that left out of NY in December. Their kids clubs last December were strongly improved from the first time we'd sailed with them 6 years ago. They also have a great feature I hope other ships adopt - you sign up for kids club slots one day in advance. On other ships over Xmas/major holidays people often need to line up for the kids club early since it gets full. But on Cunard, once you sign up your slot is your slot and you can show up whenever you want to claim it. Your child can leave and come back so it's much more convenient that showing up early three times a day to wait on line to secure a slot. The food on Cunard is generally excellent, especially the lamb and afternoon tea food. But they unfortunately do not do such a great job with either their vegetarian options or kids meal food. My oldest enjoys steak and sushi, so he was very happy with the dining on Cunard. My youngest likes burgers and he was very sad with the food. I have no idea how a. line that can perfectly cook Beef Wellington in the MDR can't cook a burger, but apparently it can't. The pizza in the MDR was also inedible (it's better in a pizza station near the buffet but still not very good). They also have a lot of difficulty just getting the kids food, with it taking nearly an hour to bring my daughter spaghetti for Christmas dinner (and this is after we had explained to them to please bring the kids food as quickly as possible because she can eat and then go to the kids club). The long waits for kids food was a huge problem because there is a portion of Cunard cruisers who believe the line should be entirely child free, and are not happy with kids being on the ship. So when I would try to walk my child around the ship waiting for her food, people were not happy if she was in venues they thought should be child free (like the small ballroom that was right next to the MDR). It was really frustrating because if the waiters could just bring the food quickly, we'd bring her to the kids club where everyone could be happy. But my oldest (13) found a group of teenage friends, wandered the ship with them, and went to trivia and even a ballroom dancing class with them. One more odd thing is that Cunard didn't advertise the port times anywhere, so if you want private excursions (highly recommended with kids) you should search the port schedules to determine what times you are in port.
  4. Here's the good news - when I was supposed to sail to the DR last January, all the private tour operators responded to my emails by first explaining their generous refund policies if the ship didn't dock. I thought that was a strange thing to highlight in an introductory email until I learned that NCL had run a ship aground there the previous year and were cancelling a bunch of stops in the DR after final payment (or sometimes even after boarding) so the private tour operators were very familiar with changes to itineraries and at least all the providers I contacted to seemed very generous with moving dates. On my cruise, NCL cancelled the port stop in the DR after final payment, claimed it was to help the environment, continued to advertise the original itinerary and didn't let anyone cancel - not even the people who booked directly with NCL after the port was cancelled and were not notified of the changes prior to booking. The DR providers dealt with this mess for nearly a year, and they seemed to be handling it very well. I'd recommend contacting your provider to see what their cancellation policies are. Hopefully, RC will let you know soon and the DR providers will continue to be generous with their cancellation/rescheduling policies.
  5. There will be a program for all children aged 3-17. If your children are on the boarder of being eligible for the teen club, you can try to ask politely if they can be moved up. That's really up to the people who happen to be working in the kids club. Sometimes they allow kids to move up or down, and sometimes they don't. If they are 12, you should also consider how much freedom you want to give them on the ship, including whether to give them sign in/sign out privileges into the kids club. My 13 year old just spent his last cruise with new friends and they took him to trivia and even a ballroom dancing class (we sailed Cunard). I saw him about 15 minutes a day even though we shared a room, and he had a wonderful time. Oh I forgot to mention you need to check the cancellation policies for private excursions since some are nonrefundable in Europe in case the ship doesn't dock. If you are getting private travel insurance it should be covered, but I don't know what NCL insurance covers.
  6. It's more convenient leaving from Amsterdam, but Stockholm was definitely a city I would have liked to have spent more than one port day. When it is just one day, everyone gets up early for the sail in and then everyone is trying to rush off the ship when it first docks. So I remember that as being a pretty stressful day since we started running around early and kept going all day long since there was so much to see in Stockholm. If you do pick the cruise with just one day in Stockholm, make sure you have all your tickets and transportation arranged in advance. You can use public transportation to get around, just buy the card ahead of time. I like the fact that both ships have long days in Tallinn, which was another favorite on the Baltic cruise. We had a really nice lunch there, and that would be a great place to also enjoy a leisurely dinner and get to stroll around at night.
  7. We didn't take kids on the Med, but took a 3 year old on a Baltic cruise. My 3 year old was able to make it through 2 full days of touring St. Petersburg and everywhere else because we had private tours for just our family in each port (or DIY so we could set the schedule.) Whenever he got cranky we stopped and got him a treat. We identified exactly what highlights we absolutely wanted to see ahead of time and started with those. We skipped minor highlights (the rooms in the center of Catherine's palace tend to be repetitive, so we spent a decent amount of time in the first two and then jumped to the Amber room). I'd just really try to identify what you want to see and what they want to see in each port and stay as long as they can manage. Museum cafes are your friends - one parent can sit with the 7 year old and the other can visit the exhibits, and you can switch off depending on what each of your priorities are. The second we got back on the ship, we took our son to Splash Academy because we were very tired. He was fine and could have continued running around St. Petersburg (which was surprising since we actually visited all of the major highlights over two full days traveling). So you'll just see how long your kids will make it. Good luck!
  8. Jamaica and Roatan are both lovely stops. But in both, you should prearrange a tour, either from a private tour operator or through RC. I would not recommend getting in a random cab or wandering either country alone (the people we met on our 3 trips to Jamaica and 2 to Roatan who tried to explore by themselves were not happy) but we had 5 lovely days in both countries, with interesting excursions and felt safe because we had prearranged private tours with drivers that we researched on tripadvisor.
  9. They ran out of bananas on the Getaway too, which was a little strange since the fruit they had is usually more expensive than bananas. I was once on a RC cruise in which all of the skim milk went bad (we keep some in our room fridge for our child and woke up one morning and all the containers in our fridge had spoiled, and the milk had solidified). There was no skim milk containers anywhere on the ship from that point on, so I assume something happened to their supply. Maybe all the bananas went bad on our ship and yours too. Sorry about the Indian food - the ethnic food is usually some of the best food across the cruise lines. If they have a meat carving station, that's often quite good.
  10. Yes - if RC determines that Labadee is currently too dangerous I support their cancelling, but I really hope they do everything they can to reroute the ships so they don't. have an extra sea day. There's nice waterfalls in the DR and Jamaica and places to go for people who like animals for those who want to leave the ship and St. Marteen is beautiful (and Maho beach is interesting).
  11. Try the St. Kitts board for additional confirmation because I'm not certain of this information and understand how important this is for your family: I believe (but am not certain) that this is St, Kitts official port schedule. They ports usually have government webpages, but this one doesn't so I'm not sure - the st kitts board will know where the official schedule is if this isn't it: https://portzante.com/cruiseship-schedule/ If the above poster is correct and there is space for 4 ships to dock, you can search the schedule and see how many ships are currently scheduled on your potential sail date. We had a cruise to the DR and since NCL wasn't using one of the ports there for awhile, we were able to figure out our stop was likely to be cancelled a few weeks before we were notified by NCL. So you might be able to determine this yourself.
  12. Ah thanks - I sailed there on the Coral princess so that would make sense. It's a shame they couldn't deepen the harbor since being close to Dunn's river falls is great, but sometimes that happens.
  13. I'm really disappointed in this because last time I went to Jamaica the ship stopped in Ocho Rios, which is right next to Dunn's river falls and Dolphin's cove (a really nice animal place for kids). Now, its an hour drive each way to these attractions from Falmouth. An overnight in Falmouth would make it easier to reach these attractions, but I don't know why they would want to route the ships in Falmouth versus Ocho Rios (if anyone knows of better excursions closer in Falmouth please tell me since I'd love to know!)
  14. As a general rule, having travelled with my kids on many cruises I'd recommend private excursions whenever possible. If you can afford private (just your family) excursions that will let you control the itinerary and take breaks whenever you need to and stay longer where your kids are interested. You don't want to be waiting around for 50 people to be loaded onto a bus, or wait for everyone to take a bathroom break or wait for stragglers to return from independent time on the tour. The private tours made a big difference in terms of how much we have been able to see on vacations with kids. In St. Petersburg, cruise ship tour bus passengers had to wait on line because the museums staggered entrance to prevent bottlenecks. Since there were only 3 of us, we could park closer to the entrance and not wait on line. My oldest was 3 when we went to St. Petersburg, and he hit his limit after an hour in the Hermitage. I took him to the cafe, bought him cake and sent my husband ahead to look at the impressionist paintings (we'd seen my favorite - the Renaissance paintings first since we knew this was likely to happen). My son completely recovered thanks to the sugar, and we continued on and were able to visit al the major attractions in two days. Please note one issue - Norway was the only place we've visited so far where car seat laws are enforced on taxis for small children. We wound up stuck a few times in Stavanger and Bergen because the ports are too small for extensive public transportation, and cabs were forbidden to transport us. So be sure to prearrange all of your transportation - the Norway tour office confirmed later that cab companies are required to provide car seats upon request, but since we tried to arrange transportation last minute we were not able to book transportation in Bergen. In Olden, you can email Olden adventures since they run busses to both the Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier and they can hopefully advise you on how much time both will take. We did both easily, but were there 3 days after the Loen Skylift opened, at a time when there weren't even ship excursions running there yet. I've read on the forums of lines there, and obviously can't comment since my experience was so long ago it isn't relevant. But Olden Adventures or tripadvisor can hopefully let you know how much time you'll need for both. Someone here or olden adventures might know where the official port website is, and hopefully the times are listed there (Cunard does the same thing, and I. had to research port times from the official port websites for my last cruise to plan private excursions). The skylift was amazing, but quite expensive, so it's hard to predict the weather far in advance and know if its worth it but Olden adventures might know whether tickets to the Skylift tend to sell out now. The Flam railroad certainly will, so that you'd need to buy ahead of time and hope for the best in terms of weather/visibility. Go to the buffet on the first morning with a. diaper bag, and bring back yogurt, fruit and cereal (you might need plastic bags since most ships stopped using boxes of cereal) so you are never stuck with a hungry, cranky child in your room during the times when there are few food options available. Bring snacks (technically only sealed food can exit the ship) with you so you can feed your child whenever they are about to melt down. My review of my Norwegian cruise in my signature line might be helpful - this is a great trip with kids and I hope you have a wonderful time!
  15. Good luck to you and the rest of the passengers!
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