NavyVet1959

It has been made in Texas for many years.

I only recently learned that though. Last I remember, it was made in Canada.

I am really thinking that person made a mistake since have seen several places where quoted less than $35 still. Maybe a bucket of Fosters for $35???

I heard that Fosters is made in Fort Worth these days...

Be very careful not to book particularly an inside cabin near the stern on Deck 6, its very noisy from the galley above, and the noise goes on ALL night as the cleaners are in there.

Sound insulation between decks is poor to non existent, and the cleaners have carts with hard tired wheels, and there are ceramic tiles on the floor above with grout lines!

We were pretty much right below the disco (more forward than you) and the thumpa-thumpa crap music went on until 2am every night. Luckily, I had some foam earplugs (plus my hearing is probably not that great), so it didn't really bother me. My wife definitely didn't like it though. :)

Now, if the noise had been the same frequency as my wife's voice, I would have *never* heard it. :)

Maybe, I could order the Grey Goose straight up and a glass of tonic. I don't need the drink to be overly strong, but I don't much care for other vodkas. I think I would rather buy a bottle of Grey Goose for $115 ( highway robbery) for my cabin and buy the bubbles package.

Is it that difficult to bring a bottle of your own spirits aboard? I did it once and although they (Celebrity) stole other stuff from my luggage, they did not touch the bottle of rum that I had in there.

They went through a LOT of wine on that cruise. I spoke with one of the crew about halfway through the cruise and they said that they had already gone through 4000 bottles of wine. You might think that this was a lot of money, but after the cruise, I spent some time in France and found that it is entirely possible to buy adequate wine for very little money even in single bottle quantitites. I was at a grocery store (Auchan, I believe) after the cruise and saw large selection of wines with many in the €3 per bottle range. I even saw some for less that €2 per bottle. A saw a Merlot for €1.79 and a white wine for €1.29. Just for curiosity, I bought the Merlot to see how good a really cheap bottle of French wine might be. Admittedly, I do not have a very refined wine palate, but it seemed perfectly acceptable to me. It was at least as good as any of the "bag wines" that you see in the cardboard boxes or gallon jugs in the grocery stores around here from California. Since my wife does not drink, I also learned that a single bottle of wine is about as much as I would want to drink at a single sitting.

Just got back from a 4 week vacation that included a 2 week Atlantic crossing on CDF. I didn't use the pool even once on the trip, so adding a pool to a cruise ship doesn't entice me in the least. With the CDF cruise, it was more a case of needing eye bleach after crossing the pool deck considering the number of 70+ year olds in bikinis and speedos... Some things just cannot be un-seen, no matter how much you would like to... :)

Arrived back in Houston at around 6pm this evening. Spent the last two nights in Barcelona and left the hotel at 03:00 local time (which would have been 20:00 Houston time. Arrived back at around 18:00 Houston time and by the time we got through Customs and got home, it was 21:00 local time, , so 25 hours traveling "today". The food on Turkey Airways was actually pretty good and they complementary alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, vodka, etc). Couldn't really get any sleep on the flight because the couple behind us had two toddlers that kept crying during the pressure changes and when they weren't crying, they were kicking the back of our seats. No matter how many times I gave them dirty looks or even resorted to asking them to control their kids, it did not make a difference for very long. To say the least, I'm dog tired right now.

So much for our 4 week vacation... Now just wait for the A/C to cool down the heat soaked house to 70F so I can sleep until next week.

We went to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triumphe on Monday... Only problem was that the Louvre was closed on Monday... Walked the exterior of it and took some photos... Came back on Tuesday and went inside... It is *massive*... We definitely did not see all of it, but after the first couple of hundred painting and statues, they all kind of look alike... The layout is not exactly what you might consider straightforward though... There's a lot of going up and down a half floor (or more) for no apparent reason... I think the floorplan was designed by a drunk Frenchman... Drove around Paris a *lot* and the street design is totally screwed up... Parking is hard to find and the underground parking is so narrow that you need a *really* small car to get into it comfortably... I was in an SUV and it was a VERY tight fit...

His cabin was a couple of doors down from ours and according to our cabin cleaning person, he tipped the workers $100 each before his "disembarkation". We were pretty close to Puerto Rico when he "disembarked".

After the cruise arrived on Saturday, I drove from Barcelona to Toulouse. We spent Sunday n Toulouse and then drove towards Paris that evening. We stopped in Limoges for the night got a hotel. On Sunday, we drove to Château de Chambord, toured it, and then drove onto Paris. Drove via the local roads for most of the way and got to drive through a LOT of small towns. Discovered that my phone uses up battery power faster than the car power adapter can resupply it when the GPS is turned on and the display is set bright enough to read during daylight, thus the battery eventually runs down even though the unit is plugged in. Stumbled across a Chinese buffet restaurant that included unlimited wine and beer in the cost of the buffet. First time I ever encountered that... Didn't drink that much though since still had a couple hours of driving until getting to Paris.

I think this was the route we ended up taking:

Google Map Link

Prices will keep going up until people get tired of paying their inflated prices and quit booking cruises. Supply and demand...

I pay for the cruise... I'm not going to allow them to screw me over any more with their inflated drink prices. I have been known to pick up a bottle of rum at the duty free store prior to the flight and drink rum screwdrivers for the entire cruise. :)

Having had a good friend of my wife's die because she fell into the pool at her house and didn't know how to swim, I would recommend that anyone who does not know how to swim should stay as far away from the water as possible.

Lol NavyVet1959. I really enjoy your adventures. Can't wait to meet you and your wife!

I will be the one with the sunburn on most of the head. :(

Today (Thursday), my wife decided that she wanted to go to La Romana and see Casa de Campo. She said that they had created an imitation Roman village there and she wanted to see it. Well, we've been to Italy and seen the real thing and this was a complete waste of money. You get to pay $25 per person to have the "privilege" of driving around their neighborhood and seeing houses that you could see in a lot of other golfing communities in the US. Eventually, you encounter the "Roman" village. I have to wonder how long this will last before it ends up like the other abandoned resort community developments that I've seen in the Dominican Republic. All in all, it looks nice -- in a "Disney Does Ancient Rome" sort of way. :)

Back to the hotel to rest and cool off, only to find that the damn hotel (Villa Capri) turned the air-conditioner off to our room and it was rather warm in there (especially since the windows face west). On the first day I was here, I tried to tell them that the air-conditioner was not working correctly. I have it on it's lowest setting (17C) and it has to run all night before it gets comfortable in the room. They said that they called an air-conditioner guy to work on it, but I doubt he knows what he is doing. Either that or the hotel doesn't want to spend the money for the repairs. With an air-conditioner, there should be around 10F (5-6C) temperature differential between the intake air and the output air. There is no way that there is this sort of temperature differential coming from this unit. So, the air-conditioner ends up running constantly instead of cycling on and off as necessary to keep the proper temperature. As such, it uses more electricity while not keeping the room at the desired temperature than it would if it was working properly. There's enough of a communication gap that I can't quite explain this to the hotel management though. I just need to remember to hide the air-conditioner remote control so that the maid won't be able to turn the air-conditioner off on me again. Luckily, only two more nights here. Another thing I have noticed is that the sinks in the bathroom don't have traps under the them, so the sewer gas is not prevented from coming back into the room.

On Wednesday, we walked along the Boca Chica beach and got to experience the high pressure sales tactics of all the street vendors. Apparently, the Boca Chica beach is home to at least 20 different bars that claim that they have the best pina coladas on the island. Now, if someone had actually claimed to have the second best pina colada on the island, I might have been a bit more inclined to believe them. :)

There were street venders offering fish cooked in their "traditional way" (whatever that is). Considering the fact that the fish were not on ice / refrigerated and there were numerous flies swarming around / landing on it, we decided to pass on that experience.

Later in the day, we drove to Punta Cana. There are 3 toll booths along the route from Boca Chica to Punta Cana -- $100 DOP, $50 DOP, and $100 DOP. The actual beach is difficult to find. It seems that most of it has been bought up by resort properties and they don't allow public access. I found a "road" on the north side of the airport that eventually led me down to the water, but it was not a sandy beach -- more of a rock cliff / coral outcropping shoreline. I found the remains of was was probably supposed to be some sort of resort / beachfront development at one time and we started to encounter some sand. I nearly got stuck, but manged to just barely get out of it. It looked worse for driving the further I went, so I turned around and managed to make it back to more solid footing. Eventually, I found the way back to the main highway. As far as I can tell, this is the route that I ended up taking while trying to find the beach:

Google Maps link

We eventually drove further north and found a public access beach, but it was not that easy to find. My wife was navigating on that portion of it, so I'm not sure exactly where we ended up.

NOTE: Current exchange rate is $1 US = $44.75 DOP (Dominican Pesos)...

On Tuesday, we drove to Sabana de la Mar so that we could visit Los Haitises National Park. The GPS routed us via San Jose De Los Lllanos, San Geronimo, and Hato Mayo del Rey. This is definitely NOT the way to go! It *will* get you there, but it is basically a rock trail after awhile.

GPS Route Link

At one point, the road descended down to a stream and there was no bridge. It seemed a bit of a steep descent and ascent up the other side for the little Kia Picanto I was driving and combining that with having to drive through the water, I figured I was done for at that point and neeeded to turn back and endure a couple more hours of that "road" on the way back. :( There was a guy walking in the water and he motioned that I should drive across. Not being one to trust someone on blind faith, I got out of the car and walked across the stream to see how deep it was and how solid was the bottom. It was hard rock and only slightly above ankle height, so I decided to give it a try. The crossing and ascent up the other side was successful.

Satellite view of the crossing

This is the route that we *should* have taken. We took it on the way back and although it wasn't paved all the way, it was mostly paved.

Google Maps Route link

Eventually, we made it to Sabana de la Mar and ate dinner at a large red building / restaurant near the coast. My wife learned a lesson at this restaurant -- if they don't have a menu with prices, don't order eat there. She had ordered was was *supposed* to be "shrimp for two", but there was hardly enough for *one*, much less *two*. The shrimp were kind of small and when she got the bill, she realized that by not seeing the prices beforehand, she had given them a blank check to rip us off.

There was a "tourist info" stand near the restaurant and one guy originally quoted $200 DOM per person for what we were thinking was a boat tour of the park. That was a really good deal, but looking back, it might have just been for a boat ride to the other side of the bay. There definitely was a language barrier going on. There was also something about us not being able to go at that time since it was after 5pm. Another guy said $50 US per person, but he said we would need to drive 20 minutes to get to where the boat was docked. That didn't make sense to me since I had seen the boats not more than 5 minutes away from the restaurant. At this time, our inflated restaurant bill arrived ($600 DOP per person for just the shrimp) and that just didn't give us a warm and fuzzy feeling about the locals, so we just decided to call it a loss and drive back to the hotel (albeit via another route to hopefully avoid the previous "road"). I had seen a "road" that went into the park on Google Maps and got to wondering if maybe that was the 20 minute drive that the 2nd guy had wanted us to make. We still had some daylight, so I decided to give it a try and see if I could get there. It was one of those "roads" where you see more people on horses than you see on cars / trucks / motorcycles. Eventually, we ended up somewhere around <here> and as we stopped to see whether to continue on, a guy came up and asked if we wanted to tour park by boat. He wanted $2500 DOP (total) for the tour and we rode through the mangrove swamps, along the coast, and then a short hike to the cave / cavern.

Well, we survived the flight to Santo Domingo from Houston on Saturday morning. Spent yesterday driving to the NE and coming back via some "road" called #41. Went through some sort of national park (Valle Nuevo).

https://www.google.com/maps/@18.8341197,-70.7255218,13z

It would be a lot more fun in a Jeep or ATV instead of the subcompact Kia that I rented, but it was drivable in the subcompact even though it had no ground clearance -- it just took more skill at plotting you line to avoid the ruts and rocks. Some places it seemed more like a goat trail than a road though. Underneath the dust and water is basically solid rock, so it would probably be rather difficult to get stuck as long as you stay out of the ruts and don't bottom out. The poor little 2 hp (hamster power) Kia had a bit of difficulty getting up some of the *paved* hills even before we got to the goat trail portion of the road. I had to drive it downshifted to 1st gear with the auto transmission quite often. I really wish it had had a standard transmission (and a couple more hamsters under the hood). Although the road/goat trail looks pretty bad, as long as you take it slow, none of it is any worse that the speed bumps and potholes around here.

We are staying in Boca Chica. We drove to the old colonial section today and ate at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. I had the beef noodle soup. It wasn't what I would consider "great", but it was better that anything I've tasted elsewhere on this island so far. We walked around the old colonial part of town and took some photos of the old stone archicture. They pretty much roll up the sidewalks around there at 5pm and then you get to experience their traffic. Even on our worst days, Houston and Dallas have great traffic compared to here. You will get honked at if you stop at a red light and no car is coming from the other way. The small motorcycles / scooters are zigging between cars, cutting in front of you and crossing, passing you on the right when you have your blinker on to make a right turn, and even the cars won't stay in their lane. The lane line are mere suggestions and most people don't even pretend to care about them.

Found the cruise ship terminal today after we had finished with the old colonial portion of the town. It is located on the east side of the river, a bit south from highway #3 (the major E-W road around here). I think this is it:

https://www.google.com/maps/@18.470703,-69.876388,18z

I got strawberries, a $100 OBC, and a bottle of wine :rolleyes: I haven't sailed on Carnival since.

That $100 OBC costs them *maybe* $10 if you use it for drinks. :(

I did a cruise on Carnival a few years ago. Someone on the ship stole some items from my bags. I know it was them because I had a security tab on my luggage so that I would know if they had been accessed and the tab was intact when I arrived at the airport and I watched the luggage get placed on the bus with me and removed from the bus. The only place that I did not have eyes on it was after I gave it to Carnival for them to take to my room. I complained and they gave me some worthless onboard credits which I just left as tip to the staff (hopefully NOT the same ones who stole my stuff from my bag). It wasn't a large monetary value, but it was the principle of the thing. Plus, one of the things that they stole was an SD card for a camera and that meant that I did not have an extra one just in case. Let's just say that it left a bad enough impression that I have not sailed on Carnival (or any other cruise line) since then. I hoping that this won't happen on my upcoming trip. If it does, I'll just have to drink even more than I'm already planning on drinking (it's an all-inclusive).

Welcome @NavyVet1959. Looks like we are going to have a good number of English speakers on board for this 2 week adventure.

 

In case you are interested in meeting the other English speakers, we're doing a quick meet up at the back of the ship at the Terrasse Et Grill at the beginning of sail away. Wear some Mardi Gras beads so we know you are one of "us". Merci. :)

My wife might have the beads... She's been reading here and knows about the meet&greet.

Don't care if anyone speaks *English*... I would rather they speak Texan... :)

I'm down to only 9 hours before I need to head to the airport for this trip. We're spending a week in Santo Domingo prior to the cruise and a week in Europe after it. Still got to pack my laptop and electronics to pack though... Was hoping to get my taxes done before the trip, but it looks like I'll be finishing them up while in Santo Domingo before the cruise. I wonder if they have an official post office aboard the ship and they'll postmark an envelope on 4/15 even if we are at sea... That would give me a few more days... :( I wish the US would just switch to a strictly consumption based tax system so that April 15th would just be another day in the year...

Seems like this question took a wrong turn! [emoji12]

All internet topics eventually morph into either sex, politics, or guns.

Speaking of which... Do the ships still have skeet shooting on board? I remember seeing that periodically on the old Love Boat TV show, but I've never noticed it on any of the cruises that I went on.

Variety is the spice of life ... haven't had a bad cruise yet ... the grass is green on both sides of the fence.

 

All the cruise lines are comparable .. food is subjective .. all have good ships and not so good ships .. entertainment is subjective .. grumpy people aren't happy on any ship or cruise line .. etc

 

Bottom line .. a cruise is what you make it .. do your homework before the cruise .. kick back and enjoy :-)

We had a saying in the Navy -- "A bitching sailor is a happy sailor"... From some of the threads that I've seen on this board, I suspect that there must be a lot of "happy" cruisers also. :)

I have spent a lot of time out at sea. Maybe more than some of the folks around here that list a screen full of cruises in their tag lines. I've been to at least one destination that I suspect that most people here have not been to though -- Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Didn't get to do anything, but I can technically say that I've "been" there. :)

If you look at all the diseases that can be acquired by contact with fecal matter and how common stopped up sewage systems aboard ship appear to be, it's a wonder we don't hear about more shipboard GI-tract outbreaks.

It's not just a matter of whether you trust your kids, but whether you trust EVERYONE else onboard. Plus, kids do stupid things and there's a lot of ocean for them to fall into without anyone noticing.

If a cruise line was so inclined, it wouldn't really cost that much to implement a shipboard intranet that allowed communication between people aboard ship while not necessarily allowing internet access (if they still wanted to charge for that portion of it). Since most people have smartphones these days, the ship could either use an intranet based text messaging app or each person could have an on-board email address that was only accessible via the ship's network.

What is so important to plan your relaxing cruise to the second?

I know more than a few people who are like that. They just can't handle uncertainty. They will spend 9 months planning a 1 week vacation.

Hurry, wake up... Hurry eat breakfast... Hurry, go here... Hurry, go there... It's 12:01, we're late for lunch... We're a minute late, we're going to miss *everything*. Their vacations are more stressful than work.

I'm definitely not that type of person... I'm more of the type "once I get there, I'll wing it". Besides, why would I want to get up earlier when on vacation than I do when I'm NOT on vacation ?????? Aren't vacations *supposed* to be RELAXING?

You can look it up... Harley's on Celebrity.

 

There were a number of cruisers with their Harley's that we watched get off in Puerto Rico in January

While doing a search, I came up with this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254382/Royal-Caribbean-How-2-500-hairy-bikers-ruined-familys-4-000-cruise.html

I had to laugh my ass off though. From the look of the woman making the complaint, I'm pretty sure I would rather have a cruise ship full of bikers than a cruise ship full of people like here.

Kind of looks like Paul Teutul (Sr) of Orange County Choppers sitting by the pool. Except that he's missing some ink, so it's probably not him.

Hey I know... Segways! ;)

Yeah, that'll get you to the end of the dock at least... Might even get you out of the tourist trap area that is near the dock... I'll take a bicycle over a Segway.

Seriously though, vehicles just don't seem to be the type of thing a cruise line would want customers to be bringing onboard (although I wouldn't be surprised if the crew had a few onboard). Especially anything that has liquid fuels that might leak, emit fumes, etc.

 

Moreover, it undercuts their excursion revenue stream.

If it was reasonably priced, I would be even more inclined to take cruises. Since there are some agencies that book cruises with bikes, any safety concerns have already been addressed. One of my motorcycles is routinely parked inside an enclosed air-conditioned space and if had even the slightest fuel leak or vapor escaping the tank, I would know about it. Not every motorcycle is like this, of course.

I'm not a big fan of the shipboard excursions. I like to do my own thing and not be lead around with a tight schedule telling me what I must see and when I must see it.