Bringonthesun01

We did this cruise 4 years ago and we leave for it again in 5 days. This is by far the best cruise I have ever done. The islands are amazing and 3 of the 5 for us are grab a taxi and go to a small beach. However, I will have to say, this is the only cruise I have ever taken naps on. It is a port heavy cruise, but it is well worth it to see some of these amazing islands.

9 days till the Fascination out of San Juan.

Carambola is a very nice beach and beach club. We went to Shipwreck and walked up to Carambola for a drink. The difference between the two...

Carambola is a beach club, well maintained, more expensive.

Shipwreck... I found out about this from a friend, that this is where the Vet school kids go. Very laid back, cheaper drinks, my personal opinion great food! There are monkeys there, and the Vet kids usually bring their dogs to lay on the beach.

Hope it helps! We will be heading to Shipwreck again in 36 days!!

I cannot comment on the Ritz, but this will be our second time staying at Stellaris in two years. Agree with the price, it is rather expensive. However, the hotel is very nice. They have a large pool and a nice beach that your 4 year old would enjoy just as much as the Ritz's. I would personally go with make my decision based off the distance from the port. Stellaris is a quick trip to the port, but the Ritz would be closer to the airport for when you would fly in. I do not think you can go wrong with either.

Someone complained on JHs FB page about this and he said "l will have more news on this ship in the future so please stand by". I wonder if she's getting more upgrades or what the "news" could be?

 

We are considering sailing out of San Juan as well. There is only one sea day on the 7 day in 2018 we are looking at so I am thinking we won't have much time/energy for doing much else on the ship if it were a bigger ship. We are all disappointed there is no Guy's though [emoji853]

Did he ever give any more information on her? I do not believe I read anything from him about the Fascination. We cruise on her 33 days, cannot wait!

We cruised this same itinerary 2 years ago on the Valor, and could not complain about a thing. So when it came time to booking on the Fascination, I can say I was not pleased as it has been many years since I have been on a Fantasy Class ship, but it is not stopping us from going.

Great review so far!! One question about Puerto Rico, were there many mosquitoes? We are staying right on the beach for two nights before, but I figure the bugs should be bad.

We buy ours through our rewards program with Verizon. I am sure you have seen the other threads with them, but if you have myRewards with Verizon they are usually $10 off of $100, so you pay $90 or $50 off of $500, so you pay $450. I usually monitor the rewards site, but when ever the cards do go up on Verizon, you will more then likely see a post on here that they are up again. AARP does 10% off too.

I wait until I can get a deal on gift cards, and then add them to my SS card when we board. You can do this at the kiosk around the ship or at guest services. When we do online check in we put a CC down, but they will withdrawal from the gift cards and cash before they do anything to your credit card. Happy sailing!!

We did not have FTTF when we did this cruise in 2012. One of our three rooms were ready when we got on the ship, so thankfully we were able to put our carry ons in that room and lock up our valuables that we did not want to carry around in Old San Juan. When we were able to get on the ship, it was around 12:30pm and most of the rooms were still blocked off not allowing passengers in. With this ship being smaller, they might have a quicker turn around time to get rooms ready, but we did not want to chance it this time around so we got FTTF because we have 6 rooms going this time.

I cannot speak of the cabins on the Fascination yet, as I cruise in October. However, i have stayed right at the elevators before on another ship, and you are correct you can hear the dinging of the elevator and people talking. I prefer to stay by the stairs/elevator so we have quick access to the other floors. I usually stay a few doors down from the actual opening. From looking at the floor plan, there seems to be a bump out in the ship so you would not be directly in front of the doorway. I would go with the U121, I do not think you will hear much. Enjoy!!

This is the link that I used to plan my family/s vacation. Their cruise is in November 2016. I found that the actual website and Carnival's height descriptions for the excursion were different, so not sure which one is correct.

https://www.visittci.com/grand-turk/things-to-do/flowrider

This was on the Pride in 2012, but we had 10 people from 5 different rooms. We were only given one bottle, and we questioned it and finally after some complaining they brought over one more bottle. So that is 2 bottles for 10 people. We haven't booked the steakhouse on the first night since.

We sailed out of Baltimore in October 2012. Surely we thought we were at the end of hurricane season and that we would be good. HAHA. We were hit by Hurricane Sandy and she had our ship a rocking. That was my 5th cruise and I had never been sea sick a day in my life until that cruise. I highly suggest Bonine, it took about a day to kick in since I was already sea sick when I started taking it. When you would walk around the ship, everyone would just sway with the ship, there was no straight line walking that cruise. They had to cancel all of the shows and entertainment because it was not safe for the crew. We were on a 7 day cruise and we were able to get off the ship for a total of 4 hours in Grand Turk. The Captain ended up getting us home a day early so we could get off the ship before they closed the Port of Baltimore down. I am sure the crew was happy since they then had to head back out to sea for 24 hours before they were able to get back into port and pick up the next sailing.

With that all being said, we still had a blast, maybe drank a lot more then we would have on a normal cruise, but what else can you do when you are stuck on a ship. We sail again this October out of Puerto Rico, so crossing our fingers for an uneventful cruise weather wise.

We sailed out of Baltimore on the Pride in October of 2012. The boarding was a breeze and we had 16 people in our group. You can drive right up to the port and park with no issues, it is actually one of the easiest ports to board and debark from. Like another poster said, the first two days will be chilly, but by the time you hit SC/GA it will start to get warm. We unfortunately were hit by a hurricane, so we got to know the ship VERY well because on our 7 day cruise we were able to get off at Turk for 4 hours then it was back on to try and out run the hurricane. We couldn't of asked for a better ship to be stuck on! When it was time to get off the ship we did the self assist, which was a little much, with how their gangway was set up. However, I did read that you are not boarding that way right now, so you should be good. I would cruise out of Bmo more often if they had other itineraries. Have fun!!

In June we were on Fascination, and we had a balcony room which had NO fridge ... luckily we didn't need one. Our room number was M119 (if it helps).

Did you have a hair dryer in the cabin?

We did this cruise in Feb of 2014 and are doing it again this October. The elegant nights on the 2014 cruise were more elegant then the past couple cruises we went on. There were women in long dresses every time I turned around. I would say it all just depends on what you want to wear. I wear a cocktail dress.

As for the ships, on our October cruise, we are the only ship in port at all the ports.

Goff's Cay!!! Beyond great tiny island. If you like to snorkel, the snorkeling was great. If you like to lay on the beach or wade in shallow water, this is the place to do it.

My family will be in port from 1pm to 10pm, it will be 4 adults and 4 children (11,9,6,4). I am looking for something to do, not an excursion, as we have ours booked on other islands already. I have been looking into Mambo Beach, as a stop for a couple hours for beach time and I think the boys will like to see the Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge as well. Any other suggestions would be great!!

John said on his facebook page that he would be posting it today for the rest of the year, but that was last week sometime. So not sure when we will see it.

We are all for the laid back beaches, so we can sip a drink and go snorkel whenever we want. We take our snorkel gear to Secret Harbour and walk right in and go snorkeling. The last time we were there was (2014) and we are going this October and we will be doing the same thing. There was no crowd, there is a dive shop to rent gear (if you do not have your own), rent chairs and umbrellas. There is also a beach type bar there that you can get food and drinks as well. From the port, I believe it is $10 per person each way by taxi, but do not quote me on that one. I will be taking a group of 9 there, so hopefully they have as much fun as we did on our last trip :eek:

Do you have to fly to get to the port? If so then you need to consider those prices. I would assume flights would be more for a holiday weekend. I do look to see how many people will be in port on our days, but that is only so I would know what excursions to book. Personally, I would go with the later week. We did almost this exact trip last year out of Miami, with my 4 nephews. I saw you said you were staying on the ship for Belize, but I would recommend you looking into Geoff's Cay. My nephew (10, 8, 5, 3) had a blast there, they still talk about it.

Welcome back to cruising! On our last cruise, we sailed with my nephews (10,8,5,3) which was their first time cruising (but not traveling abroad). We did not sail on one of the newly renovated ships, but our ship still had water slides and play area for kids.

They loved Camp Carnival, now Camp Ocean, and had a blast. The 5 year old was a little upset because he wanted to be with his older brothers, but the 3 year old was happy to have him in his age group. On most nights the boys stayed and had dinner with the camp, which allowed for my Sister and BIL to have dinner with us without the kids. They also offer Night Owls, which means if you want to go to the comedy club or a show, they will entertain the kids after camp hours (for a small fee). Since you will have a 2 year old, they will give you a cell phone for emergencies. Make sure to register your kids in the camp before hand and once you board check the fun times for when check in is for the camp. You do not need to take the kids with you if you do not want, or you can and show them the play rooms. But this is when they would give you the cell for the younger kids. It is best to get there early if you want a cell phone because I am pretty sure they only have a few. The cruise we took was one that we did not leave the Carnival Beach area, so we were able to walk off the boat and walk back within 5 mins. For this day only the eldest came off the ship with us. The 3 younger decided they wanted to stay aboard and play in Camp Carnival. The cell phone still worked since we were so close to the ship. The boys had a blast, and are sailing again come November now.

My sister opted for the Junior Suite because of the extra room. Two of the boys were in with my parents, but on nights they wanted to sleep in with everyone else they had plenty of room. I would say with just the 4 of you, you should be good to get a balcony for 4 because they are a little bigger then the standard balcony.

I wrote on his facebook wall because there was a mess up on Carnival's part with linking 5 rooms together for dinner. One of our rooms was given early seating and the rest were confirmed late, even though the room was linked properly. Called the 1-800 number and that room was then wait listed for late dinning and they could not promise it would get sat with the other rooms. I mentioned it on his page, and a very nice lady responded and had it fixed the same day as my post.

My last cruise was the first time I have ever purchased FTTF. What made me consider it was we were traveling with my 4 nephews. We had three rooms, two balconies which bought it, and then a suite which did not because they get most of the perks. However the main reason was 2 of our 4 ports were tender ports, and you get priority tendering after the carnival excursions get off. I plan all of my own excursions, so to me this was well worth it. Not to mention, we had issues with the boys SS cards, and I could walk right up and have them fixed. Which I do have to say, I think that was the first time that I actually had to go to guest services on any cruise.

To me it was worth it, to others it is not. There will always be that one Platinum person that whines because they earned their perks. Well FTTF can give you a few of their perks.

Is this something they are doing ONLY in Miami? Or is this going to be fleet wide?

We did this sailing in 2014, and you will not notice anything different from any other ships disembarkation. When we picked up passengers in Barbados, there was maybe only a hand full of people, not enough to notice. As for getting off the ship, I want to say they started letting people off around 8am. They get everyone off ASAP, because they let people start boarding around 11am at this port.