Pr0spect0r

Some destinations can be as cheap as cruising, but both have their advantages. Being Canucks, about 2/3 of our travel budget is usually eaten up by airfare, so for us, those prices aren't really relevant.

The advantage of cruising to me is that you get to see a little bit of a lot of places.

The advantage of staying is that you get to see a whole lot of a little place.

For us Cuba is a deal. We can stay a week with flight included for $1700 for two adults in a nice all-in resort. (a quick search without hunting for deals - flight out of Toronto.) I hear that Dominica is similar price/quality wise. But the food can't compare, and the shows are not as good as on the cruise. Child care is a joke. But on a cruise, its hard to match that price once you roll in the flights.

Has anyone else noticed that on certain days of the week there are better deals out there than others? Maybe its just my imagination, but it seems like the hot deals come out on Tuesday & Thursday, and mediocre deals come out on other days.

Am I crazy, or has anyone else noticed the same trend?

I thought a small quantity for personal use was allowed.

Anyways, honest mistake, and we hid nothing. We put a 12 pack of Canada Dry in my daughter's carry on, the beer in mine, and the coolers in my wife's.

They asked to inspect the Canada Dry at the X-ray machine, and when they saw it was a sealed case, had no comments.

After that we blithely lugged it on to the boat. I doubt we could have been less discrete about it - we had it in those cloth shopping bags.

Not sure. I wonder if we could have worked something with guest services or something. They don't give you the luggage tags until the night before, and by then we were so swamped with packing and rounding up the kids that we just couldn't afford the time to stand in line at GS.

What we did with the extra time was we hitched a ride to the Miami airport on Alamo's shuttle (tipped the driver $10 for the ride) and rented a car for $60. We had enough time to drive south beach, get lost in little Havanna, get out to the Everglades for an air boat tour and lunch, return to Coconut Beach and play at a park then returning to Miami Airport for 4:30 to clear our flight.

You may be able to stitch something similar together.

Where do you find these FTFF's? Are they under excursions? :confused:

Yes - excursions. $50 buys everyone in the room a chance to sort of jump all the lines. It says $50 per person, but it only charges the room.

Some limitations... At Debarkation, you will be whisked through the security lines and customs lines faster, and you will be checked in faster, but then you will still have to wait for them to call FTTF for boarding. This means you are ahead of many, but still have to wait until general boarding begins (at 1:30 for our cruise)

Also, your room is supposed to be ready, and your luggage delivered early. We got to our room but no luggage was there. So don't count on having your swimsuit waiting in your room when you board.

FTTF is also supposed to put you in a priority line for the tenders and at the ports, but we never saw anything like this. Travelling with kids, I think it was worth it. For just SWMBO and I , not so much.

We got ours the week before sailing. Keep an eye on it. I think they are ratio based so it just depends on how many folks sign up.

We had a 4 person balcony room on Victory.

- King (or two twins)

- sofa converted to single

- upper bed came down from ceiling

- trundle bed under king.

With all 5 beds set up there was noplace to sit or stand. So we put all the kids to bed at once, and went out on the balcony. It would have been better if we had asked them to remove the chair from our room since it was always in the way.

As soon as the kids woke up we got rid of the trundle bed so there would be standing room.

Sadly I don't have any good photos of the room. As I said earlier, our was a balcony, so the layout could be very different.

We had to reprint our boarding passes to get the logo on them. Maybe try that?

WRT embarkation, we were the 2nd or third group to board. It went VIP's, then Gold/Platinum, then us. Our room was made up but luggage did not reach us until much later in the day.

For debarkation we were group 2, which is a mixed blessing. Since we had a late flight, it actually would have been beneficial to wait and debark later in the day. IIRC, for our cruise, we had to debark at 07:30 AM, which is pretty early after a week of sleeping late.

We limited ourselves to one round of fancy drinks on deck and wine at dinner. Between the airport and cruise terminal we picked up a 12 pack of beers and another of coolers.

We left a few beers behind. Light drinkers. Next time we'll bring an inflatable ice bucket for in the room.

Even so, our bar tab came in at $30 per day. The Cheers deal would have been worth it if we had gone 6 rounds or more per day. Count on $15 per round.

We are fresh back from a 5 day Carribean with a 3, 5, and 16 yr old.

We chose Carnival (I am halfway through blogging it starting here: http://frosthaus.blogspot.ca/2014/02/2014-family-vacation-day-1-2-buffalo.html )

Since we just got back here is what we found:

1. Carnival included the kids under 16 free on our ticket. Not sure if that is normal, but they just paid taxes and gratuities.

2. We had a single room with balcony. It was very crowded at night, but manageable when the pullout bed was put away in the daytime. Our 16 yr old was given a free pass and did not keep the same schedule as the rest of the family.

3. The balcony was a godsend. Either get a balcony or the second room mentioned already.

4. We scheduled shore activities outside carnival's suggested activities by using websites like this one and lonely planet guides. We were able to recreate Carnival's shore excursions for about half their price.

Pricewise, we flew from Buffalo for around $1800 and cruised for around $1500 (or vice-versa) making it a $3300 family trip. Hotels in Buffalo and Miami are on top of that.

We spent close to $1000 while on vacation. (Tips, shore days, etc.) Our target was to keep the vacation under $5000.

With the waterslide... our 5 yr old recruited six or so thirty-somethings to see who could go down the waterslide best.

Every trip to the top he would goad another guy into joining the contest.

It was the funniest thing you ever saw.

Started off with one guy complimenting him on how good he was at the waterslide, after that every guy in that row of seats was recruited.

You never know just what your kids might get up to, so keep an eye on them, but hold on loosely, its their vacation too.

Our kids had their first ever cruise last week.

3 yrs old, 5 yrs old, 16 yrs old.

The little guys absolutely loved it, but it was hard for us to relax while we spent the week worrying about them. It kind of went like this...

Are we bad parents for putting them in kids club? Better pull them out for family time. Are we bad parents for our kids annoying all these people in the pool? Better move them to the waterslide. Kids, stop running up the stairs. Dammit better take them to mini golf. Hey, play by the rules, don't butt in front of those people! Dammit, better take you back to kids club. Are we bad parents for putting our kids in kids club?

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Our great vindication came on the last dinner of the cruise when an older lady from a table near ours stopped in to say she was amazed at what lovely children we had, and how she had noticed that they were always so well behaved when she saw them.

But it certainly wasn't a relaxing vacation for either of the parents. If I did this again, I think I would aim for more use of the kids club and let the social consequences be damned. I'll never see these people again anyways.

We were on Carnival Victory last week and had a 3 & 5 yr old in the kids club. We were given a phone, and older kids' parents could sign up for a phone 'on priority basis' So disabled/high risk kids first etc.

When I went to get some room service type stuff from the buffet, I was able to call our room on the phone and get advice from my wife ("Do you want the chocolate cake, or the banana pudding?") but when our son wet himself and the kids club phoned, we were in the theatre, and the music was so loud that we didn't hear the phone ring anyways.

In an unfortunate mistake, our son't wrist band was put on too tight by the KK staff, and he developed a nasty heat rash/eczema under it. Keep an eye on your little guys in that area! You may need to have the band snipped and replaced.

Thanks for your compliment! I'm updating daily so I should be done on Saturday or so!

Our family was non-plussed by Half Moon Cay in general. Although we didn't book a cabana, I can't say that it is a stop I would be in a hurry to return to. Maybe a cabana would have made a difference, but it irked me that on the island you pay for everything.

It doesn't surprise me that folks were swiping your cabana supplies - there is nothing to do on the island unless you start by pulling out your wallet. We found a lounger under a tree and stayed there most of the day, but really it was no different that a day at sea, and far worse than most days in port.

We walked the nature trail, played at the beach, looked around at stuff, and decided that the best we could make of the day was to sit under a tree. Our lunch was really bad that day too.

If this is the best Carnival can do with their private island experience, then no wonder folks are swiping gear to find some kind of adventure. Call me cheap, but really, I paid for a cruise so I wouldn't have to pay for this stuff when I got there.

In case this is misread, I am not saying it is OK for folks to swipe the mats, just that it doesn't surprise me.

Hey guys, I'm not sure of outside links are allowed, but in any case, here is our family's blog with a writeup of our trip last week.

http://frosthaus.blogspot.ca/2014/02/2014-family-vacation-day-1-2-buffalo.html

Our trip started with a drive from Toronto to Buffalo, flight to Miami, then a night in Miami before the cruise. It was a family trip with 2 small boys, a teen daughter, and Mom and I. This was our first time cruising as a family, and mom and my second time cruising.

If you have any questions, please ask.

The one thing going for 'good luggage' is its lighter weight, which may mean the difference between extra fees or not.

On the downside, lighter isn't always as strong, so it may not endure.

Thanks - I need a oneday to get from the airport to our hotel, then another one day to get from the boat to the airport. Travelling with a family means taxis aren't really the best way to go.

Do Alamo et al. have a drop off downtown where we could ditch the car? It would seem silly to rent at the airport, drive the family downtown, then drive back to the airport to drop off the rental.

Since our ship returns to port at Oh-My-God-Its-Early, and we don't have to catch a plane until 7:00 PM, we are thinking of renting a car for our day of fun in Miami.

Anyone here have advice on getting rentals at the port of Miami? I see that Hertz offers a service to the port, but their 'best rates' are dependent on prepaying and giving a time of day to pick up the car.

Not sure what time we'll roll out of bed and get down the gangway. Of course I guess I could tie myself to a schedule, but whats the fun in that??

Any other options?

Any idea what time the streets reopen on Sunday? We are arriving in the afternoon and staying at the Biscayne Marriott

Last time we went on a cruise, we were the only Canucks aboard a ship in the Mediterranean. We watched the Summer games on-board. Since the ship was mostly full of Brits, all the coverage was via BBC and we cheered alongside them. It was fun.

This go-round, we are in the Caribbean, and it will be the winter games aboard a ship full of mostly Americans. We are hoping to watch at least a few of the hockey games and to see if our snowboarders get in their gold medal performances.

I know there is a lot of anit-Putin sentiment going around, and that this Olympics is becoming increasingly political. I'm not sure how that will go down on a fun vacation, and that the US may not be tuning in at all.

What are the chances of catching a CBC broadcast on-board that lets us see how our women's hockey team is doing? Will we even hear about the Canada-vs-"Not USA" hockey games? This kindof matters to us since we have a cousin on the women's team.

Of course we recognize that we will be on an American Ship sailing out of an American port, and need to respect our hosts. Just wondering if there will be a chance of watching the games.