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xxHadleyxx

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About Me

  • Location
    Germany
  • Interests
    travel, reading, quilting, Girl Scouts
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    RCI
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Variety
  • If you have a personal or hobby CRUISE or TRAVEL BLOG, include the url here:
    http://hadleyswanderingsandramblings.blogspot.de/

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  1. Barcelona is one of the fastest ports to disembark we sail. As stated, if all ports are EU there will not even be customs or immigration. In our experience, it is nearly always faster to jump in the taxi queue than to find a pre arranged car...and pricing is generally fairly close if you are going into teh city or to the airport. For the 10 euro or so price difference, we prefer to not stress about the time and just grab a taxi. This is the ONLY port for which we prfer to use taxis, because it is the only one where there are always lots of them and the queue moves super fast.
  2. Yes, you just take checked bags up to the porters at the curb and drop it at any time from about 10:00 a.m.. It is a bit of a walk nack over teh bridge into town...with limited time you would probably be best to grab a taxi after you drop your bag, if you are able to do so.
  3. My youngest, now 24, was super picky as a child. One trans atlantic he ate only pasta with butter, pears and grilled cheese the entire two week cruise. He was never willing to eat typical kid foods like chicken nuggets, hot dobs, burgers, or even fries. (I am happy to report he is much less picky now). We paid for him at Chops and similar places several times (back when there was no lower price for children). He was taking up a space at the table, meaning we needed a larger table and someone else could not sit there. AND, he did take some attention from the waitstaff who refilled his drink, chatted with him, still had to set a place and napkin for him, etc. If we did not want to pay the listed price for him, we would have eitehr skipped dining there, had him go to Adventure Ocean, or allowed him to hang out in the stateroom watching movies. FWIW: your child might be different, but mine would sometimes at least nibble on a roll or some bread and eventually, most of what he did try new in his younger years he tried on ships: when he was relaxed and in a good mood and not stressed about being pressured to eat or not having food available then he was more likely to want to try something new; but we never went in pressuring him to eat OR assuming he would not. In fact, the fisr time he would eat salad was at Chop's.
  4. 7 points each for you, your wife ech of the kids. You would only get an extra point per night if one of you were the only person (not only adult) in a cabin and booked it as a single with the supplement.
  5. We sailed Odyssesy in October and loved her. She and Wonder are both brilliant IMO.
  6. Hmmm. When we were new cruisers, we wer younger, had less income and with kids had more expenses. We figured getting to cruise was THE excitement and we spent VERY little beyond gratuities. We did not buy photos or drinks, we did not do specialty dining. We didn't go to the spa, etc. Around about when we hit Diamond on RCI, as the kids were hitting their late teens and our income got better, plus we were getting a little "bored" with the smiliarity from cruise to cruise, we started buying speicalty dining or packages on about half our trips. I usually go to the spa once or twice. We pay for virtual reality or cupcake decorating or sushi making, etc. We buy drinks as we ant them once the vouchers run out, or wine for dinner, or the refreshment package, etc. AND we nearly always bring along friends who are not cruisers, friends who would not quite be up for trying it on their own....most all of whome them continue to cruise after that. We have cruises this year into January of next booked, things booked from before the prices jumped. We'll keep those, but based on recent experiences, paired with continued cutbacks, soaring prices and lack of flexibility in booking, we are shifting to more land based trips with some Princess or Disney cruises thrown in for 2024 and beyond at this point. It's not a threat or a tantrum, etc...just a shift based on RCI slowly but steadily eroding the value and joy we find on their offerings to a point at which it is no longer among our top choices. That said, on our January cruise on Anthem we had a mix of old and new menus. Our food was good and we particularly liked the new menus. We thought they were very good, lots of good choices, well prepared, and the best desserts we have had on RCI....not so pretty but actually tasty.
  7. I assume it is more about the cost in employee hours to check lists and stock to our individual preferences versus having a standardized item all D+ and higher gets. Probably cuts the time down by 80 percent or so. I'm still disapointed though. Ah well.
  8. I finally got my Wonder block from its April TA last week. I had pretty much lost hope (and earned another block in the meantime)
  9. We got off of Odyssey on Sunday and the announcement was a day or two later, so it is very recent. Anywhere which has a set price for a whioe meal and considered a normal specialty dining venue (including Mason Jar, even at brunch, unless things have chaned since we were on Wonder in April) is always included with no daily limits. The one exception is Izumi Teppanyaki which has an upchage on top of the UDP ($15 per person for one protien, more for two...this price went up at the same time the limited snacking announcemnt was made). You can still have lunch and dinner if the resturants are open (brunch is the same as lunch). Izumi also counts the same, but it is a set menu or 35$ credit for the meal. Special things only offered occasionally (like Chef's table, special brunches with tours, sushi making classes, etc) are not included. Places with a la cart dining that are more "snack" like such as playmakers and vintages now get ONE time per day up to $20. Apparently people would just sit in Playmakers all day and open one $20 tab after another so this is the solution. It is not yet clear to me where Johnny Rockets fall into these categories. (snack or meal? Hopefully meal as it is a set price) Stinks that such people ruined it for the rest of us. On our recent sailing we would often stop at Playmekers for a starter in the late afternoon (poppers, onion rings, etc), head down to dinner and then skip dessert at the dinner location and go back to playmakers after the show for a cookie. I am hoping that might still be possible by only billing ONE of the two of us with the UDP for the first visit and the other for the second. We were defeintly not unfairly holding tables nor abusing the system or over eating...it would stink to be restricted out of what we enjoy.
  10. I have had the refreshment or soda package several times since the voucher system started and have never had them auto apply a voucher to a drink that was covered by my package, and I don't say anything about the vouchers when ordering unless I am ordering something NOT on my package.
  11. I like the comfort/familiarity of being on a cruise and even on the same brand but aso the variety of different activities and feelings that comes with sailing on several different ship classes. Smaller ships often feel more intimate and have really fun and more personal crew led acvtivites..plus, as most have said often go to much more interesting places and/or are more resonably priced. Big and new ships are fun too...but it is a very different experience. I am not after the same thing trip after trip.
  12. Interesting. I still haven't gotten my Wonder block from the April TA. Looks like it's time to call again
  13. and schools in Baden Wurtemburg and Bavaria didn't go back until this past week either (they are still in school all through June and July though). I guess the answer to Op's "why aren't kids back in school here" is that Europe is not the USA and our schedules to not all line up with Florida 🤷‍♀️
  14. It depends so much on the kid and how responsible and how comfrotable they are. It also depends some on the ship (how big is it, how crowded is that sailing, etc). My kids are grown now, but the first time we were comfortable with them regularly off on their own was a smaller ship (Disney Magic) on a TA that was only 60% occupised. By day 2 we knew many of the fellow passengers and even before boarding we knew a lot of the crew from past cruises. The kids knew the layout of the ship well and were comfortable approaching crew for help, etc if needed. I think they were 8 and 10 on the trip. I would probaly not have felt comfortable with them being on a sold out oasis class sailing on their own at that age. By age 11 or 12 we were comfortable with our kids on their own but checking in, on pretty much any ship we sailled, and usually booked gty staterooms and ended up putting the kids in one and adults in another, (so not always right near by). The kids had been sailing their whole lives, were used to a lot of freedom going on their own with public transit in Europe, etc.
  15. On the other hand, if your husband had a normal flu with fever, or threw his back out and was in too much pain to walk around on the ship, etc...no one would get any refund. It is a risk we take when we travel (on ships or on land). I personally think RCI is doing a good job walking the fine line of offering something, and enough of something that people feel up for trying a cruise, but not so much that they are losing gobs of money on it or being taken advantage of. It would help if the letter told us to call for that refund if that is what they want us to do, but .. ... It stinks for you though, and I am truly sorry. That is not the vacation you wanted and it is very dissapointing. It was awfully disapointing for us to have to cut our holiday short, and drive home for a looooong day in the car while my husband was ill (and I knew being confined to the car with him for 14 hours was going to make me ill eventually, which it did).
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