OriginalFlamingo

We stayed at La Terrazza de San Juan in Old San Juan.

LOL. I was excited by the possibility!

Wow! I didn't know you could bid below the minimum!

We bid $75 pp for a Balcony and $100 pp for a mini-suite on our 11/12 cruise out of Puerto Rico. Our Balcony bid was accepted today. Went from an OB to a BA for $150 total.:cool:

Yes, I know this to be true, because I booked my cruise (11 more days!) on February 2, 2017!;p

In expectation of the upgrade bid email coming out (we're just over 80 days out), I have been watching the availability in the categories I would be able to bid on. Most categories are showing 14 or 15 staterooms (on the Dawn) available. Does anyone know if the website limits the "recommended cabins" to 15 showing? If not, it is very coincidental that so many of the categories are showing 15 staterooms available...:confused:

We have only cruised four times. The first time, we didn't know any better, and we flew in the day of the cruise, no problem.

For our second cruise, we were cruising out of Houston, but arranged to meet some people we had met on our first cruise for dinner the evening before, so we flew in the day before. On that flight, the airline somehow lost my luggage, and it didn't appear until late that evening. If we had flown in the day of the cruise and that had happened, I would have been cruising with the clothes on my back....not a good look!=:o

For our third cruise, we were cruising out of New York. We had an early morning flight the day before the cruise, but there was bad weather in Dallas that must have affected our incoming flights, and our flight was significantly delayed. Our flight that was supposed to land in New York at 10:00 a.m. got in at approximately 4:00 p.m. If that was the day of the cruise, we would have missed the ship!

Our fourth cruise and flight went off without a hitch - yes, we flew in the day before!

This is why we always fly in the day before. :ship:

Word of warning, if at all possible, I would give them a call to very your reservation. We booked "La Terraza" thru a 3rd party site for our Dawn cruise Jan 7th, 2018.

My sister was in San Jaun this past November on another cruise and went to check out the hotel for us. When the hotel checked my reservation, they said they would not honour my reservation, and if I wanted to stay there, I would have to pay an additional $350 a night. By the way, my reservation was paid in full.

Upon further investigation, I have now read several reviews of when a person goes to check in, the hotel has either over sold their rooms and does not have any rooms for you when you try to check in, or of the hotel demanding more money, or the hotel cancelling reservations weeks prior to your arrival date.

We too thought La Terraza look amazing, but have sinced booked AC Hotel by Marriot because I would not give in to their tactic of asking for further cash.

 

 

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That doesn't sound good! Here's hoping for better luck!

DH and I are on the November 12 sailing of the Dawn, and the "name of the game" intrigues me! Can you explain? Thanks!:cool:

We are looking at doing a Segway tour on embarkation day. Wondering when we HAVE to be on the ship. It looks like the tour is 1:00 p.m., so I don't think we can count on getting on and then back off and over to the tour office before 1:00....Tour probably lasts until 3:30 or 4:00...

We booked La Terrazza de San Juan. I can't officially recommend it, because I have never been there, but it looks cool and gets good TA reviews.

Silly question but what is a taxi form?

Good question! I was wondering the same!

:confused:

FYI - after not cruising for nearly 10 years, I had forgotten my CC sign on, and had to start all over again! Our roll call alone had more than 150 pages on it!

Thank you for your review! It brings back lots of memories....you see, we were scheduled to be on the very FIRST sailing of the Pride of America from San Francisco to Hawaii, then around the islands. If you don't know the history of the Pride of America, we were anxiously awaiting our cruise, with a very active CC roll call thread, and regular updates from the shipyard in Germany, where the POA was being built, when we got the news that our ship, the POA had actually sunk to the bottom of the shipyard in Germany. Evidently, a large storm came up and someone left a (evidently somewhat large) door open, the ship took on water and sunk to the bottom. Granted, the shipyard was not very deep, but it was deep enough! NCL hurried up with the refitting of the Pride of Aloha (I forget it's original name) and put us all on that ship instead....Our roll call mascot was the Flamingo, and we were somewhat famous! That said, many were upset, but we flamingos were determined to have a good time. We planned and planned all of our excursions, and we all had a blast! I still occasionally hear from some of the other flamingos!!:*

You should be able to find a reasonable hotel (by NYC standards) somewhere in Midtown West or Chelsea. Those two areas are the nearest to the port. There are so many hotels, and prices fluctuate a lot, so it is difficult to send you to a particular hotel. You might check the hotel booking sites for those two areas, to narrow it down. For most hotels, parking is as expensive as it is at the port, so no help there. You might want to do a comparison between the cost of flying into NYC and the cost of parking for a week, then go with the best.

You should never end up with extra money from this transaction. If you buy two certificates, they first CHARGE your onboard account $500, then they credit $250 back. This transaction puts your account down by $250. The good news is that, for that $250, you got $500 in cruise certificates. Hopefully, this will help clarify.

We are also booked this November (on the first cruise after the repo, I believe). Will be watching this thread. We have been on smaller ships, but our last two cruises were on Breakaway Class ships. The cruises before that were so long ago, I simply can't remember the details. If you happen to be booked on the November 12 cruise, jump over and get yourself on the roll call!

We stayed in a mini-suite last year on the Breakaway. We also did a cabin crawl. To me, the balcony cabin and the mini-suite look exactly the same, with the exception of the bathroom.

Just to share my experiences with travel to ports. I have only cruised three times. The first time, we booked everything through the cruise line, and we didn't have any problems. This isn't because we booked through the cruise line, we just didn't have any problems.

Now, having been a CC member for some time, the next cruise, we were leaving from Houston. We flew down the day before the cruise - luckily. Somehow, my luggage got lost! It was delivered to our hotel room the evening we arrived, but if that had been cruise day, I would have been traveling with no luggage!

The most recent time we cruised, we were on the BA from NYC last month. We were scheduled to fly into NYC on Friday morning on the early flight, getting to LGA at approximately 10:15 a.m. We got a call the evening before, telling us that our flight had been cancelled, and we were rescheduled on a 10:45 flight, getting us to LGA around 2:30 p.m. When we got to the airport that morning (3 hours before our flight), the lines were tremendous! We checked in with no seats at the kiosks and went to the gate. The new flight was delayed twice, getting us to our hotel at around 5:00 p.m. This was 2 days before the cruise, but if it had been the day of the cruise, we would have missed the ship!

I have well learned my lesson....I will never fly into a port on the day of a cruise!

Could you please let us know if bus/ferry tickets (not passes) are available yet at the dockyard? Thank you & hope you have a great cruise!

 

 

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I was on the May 11 cruise. We were able to purchase bus/ferry passes, as well as tokens for individual rides, in the building right off the ship. When you leave the ship, you have to go through a building that includes a gift shop and a desk that sells passes/tokens. We purchased a 2-day pass, assuming that we would not leave the wharf area on Friday, but we decided to go to the beaches on Friday, so we purchased individual ride tokens that day.

I want to say it was at 2:30, but I could be mistaken.

I personally enjoyed the "one port" itinerary. It was only our third cruise, but our first two were pretty port intensive. It was nice to be able to come and go, and plan our own excursions, with no worries about missing the ship, if we were gone too long. I recommend it!

We were on the Breakaway May 11- May 18. We received a bottle of wine in our cabin when we arrived, as well as the cake card. We had to ask someone what the cake card was. It simply said that we should present it to a waiter at any restaurant...didn't say what would happen when we did...we asked someone - gotta love the Cruise Critic meet & greet!

I agree to get there plenty early (30-45 minutes should be plenty). They sat all of the children in the seats at the stage end of the tables closest to the stage, from what I could see at my showing, but they probably need to see you there to know that there are kids who need those seats.

If you prebook the first night, you will be charged the full amount. That said, they will credit you and re-charge the lower price once you are on board.

The BA Cirque is more animal-based. Starts with a guy coming in dressed in safari clothes, and many of the characters are dressed as animals, at least they are at certain times. Many of the acts, though, are the same.