ruth1964

can recommend blackexecutive cars.

we used them from airport to hotel and then following morning to cruise.

we used the bus service for getting of the ship direct to the airport - probably paid over the odds per person in comparison to one vehicle for the 4 of us - still it was ok.

we reserved on line using ccard and then paid cash on the day. received an email invoice/receipt for each journey.

dont leave it too late to book them as they get busy!

ruth

We have sailed on both Navigator and Voyager. Navigator was deck 7 hump. thoroughly enjoyed it.

Voyager was JS aft deck 10 1st week and then E2 deck 8 corner aft 2nd week.

Have to say JS whilst a huge cabin with lovely views.... did not get much sun due to the overhanging closed in balcony roof structure - but if your not a sun worshipper or a large party of 4 then great just for chilling out on.

We much preferred the deck 8 corner cabin. Whilst it was diddy in size comparison to a JS, and only had a single door to the balcony, it easily accommodated the three of us with two recliners, two armchairs, table and the coffee table from the cabin!

We had originally had a deck 6 aft booked but got the option to move up. I think overall what made our balcony great on deck 8 was that it was on the corner - so much so that is what we have booked for 2009!

Regarding noise/vibration - I would say that compared to the hump cabin we did notice occasionally a slightly distant sort of humming noise and perhaps were aware sometimes of the propeller vibration as we pushed away from dock - overall it was not an annoying or iritating sensation in anyway and certainly not offputting. Perhaps on deck 6 you may get a slightly louder version of what we experienced?

Anyway I am sure you will enjoy the experience, where ever you end up!

Ruth1964:)

jerseyjk

glad the info helped. just to give you an idea of how many points you might need.......

i appreciate that we probably paid more on site, commission, hype, etc!! but we bought 154,000 points....... we were given a bonus of 50,000 valid for the first year only - hence why we had a lot of points and didnt want to lose the bonus.

Our holiday is on 16 dec 06 and we got a JS for 3 and still needed to borrow from our 2007 allocation - cant remember off the top of my head but it was around a total of 300,000 points combined, leaving us with about 50000+ points for 2007, this is enough for a week somewhere hot in Europe or we can leave them to roll into 2008.

What I seemed to find is that there is no direct correlation between RCCL price and point values - for example i seem to remember pricing a similar holiday but at a slightly different time of year [similar cash prices though] and with the earlier one [october] I could nearly afford 2 balcony cabins E grade I think, where as the December one I could only afford one cabin... hence the decision to splash out a bit on the JS.

So the only difficulty is in actually trying to work out what a cash cruise is worth in points....... you are in RCI hands, and again i think they work on supply and demand. Interval International might have a similar system but require less points purchased have you looked at them?

Finally the bonus with points for cruises, is that when you look to book land based accommodation for v popular places, ie Miami then you have no chance really even if you do it at the beginning of the time window for general booking, as owners get a priority window so take up most of the allocation! With cruising although you still need to adhere to the booking window of opportunity, there are usually cabins available on majority of cruises 10 months before sailing..... hope this makes sense!!

So I would suggest that for cruising you are going to need RCI points in the 120,000+ range to be sure of getting a weeks cruise at least every other year, with a balcony cabin for 3 if you like to book in advance! Play the waiting game and you might get more cabin/nights for your points. Another option is part points and part cash, but to be honest I found that they wanted nearly all the points and nearly full cash price and that wasnt good value.

Anyway enough of my ramblings.......

Ruth.

Just so you know, we bought our points at SilverLake, Kissimmee - we went for the upper end [3bed etc, sleeps 10 - approx one week for life] but realistically we will never need a unit that size - could use our points for something smaller and then be able to stay for longer and go to other places to stay, not limited to silverlake.

We live in the UK and I have had timeshare points before [messy divorce!] so understand how they work..... however the beauty with this one is that we actually own a piece of real estate in USA whereas the uk ones you dont physically own any bricks or mortar!

I appreciate that you can buy cheaper through resale agents, but for us it was not an option - too many ifs and buts........ just a point, did you know that you can just buy physical points from RCI, you dont need to actually have a home resort?

Anyway, hope this extra info helps a little.... I dont profess to know it all about points, and must say I found that the actual process of booking the cruise via RCI was a bit messy at first, till I got the direct line of their cruise department [uk number] so could then ring her up and make her do all the searching etc - some staff members were more helpful than others!

Will hopefully use the points for other things than just cruising, but who knows!!??

FINALLY, after deciding to do the week in december using the points, we then decided to go down the old fashioned route of booking a 2nd week using cash! - the logic was that we had already paid for our flights etc., the 1st week cost very little in fees, so we topped up and are now doing a back to back - not a JS 2nd week though, that was just a luxury splurge!!!

Good Luck whatever you decide!

Ruth.

We are doing this for the first time this year......

we own a points based system [we own in florida but can use our points for all over world, can use points for fixed weeks in the RCI system and also trade for cruises].

we had a lot of points that we needed to use either this year or 2007. Basically you tell the time share company [our case RCI] what ship/week you are looking at and then they contact RCCL for an upto date price - they convert your points accordingly - the only thing you cannot use points for is the port tax/insurance - so you need to pay for this cash along with any 'excange/booking' fee your timeshare company imposes when you book any holiday.

we opted for a december 2006 cruise, and our points were not quite enough so we borrowed from 2007 - this means that our 2007 remainder allocation will allow a short holiday or can be banked into 2008.

overall i dont think it is necessarily a better value for money system, but it does mean that you actually get to use your points for the holiday you really want rather than just a making do and using the points up. I did phone RCCL direct and see what they had charged RCI for my cruise and it was exactly the same as if I had booked it through them direct. Oh, and i used a crown and anchor voucher towards the booking, this i believe will be credited back as cash on my card against the tax/port fees that i paid - still waiting for that bit! but was told it will be closer to the actual holiday date.

we splashed out and got a JS on the voyager for the 3 of us! Booked the flights directly. So in theory our cruise has cost us flights and tax/port fees. The timeshare costs are incurred whatever we choose to do with the points.

must admit that when we bought the time share, it was always with the intention of being able to get cruises too - just never thought it would come around so quickly!

hope this helps.......

Ruth.