Ralphinsc

Thanks! Seems I may want to go ahead and grab the cruise now or at worst wait to see if there is a bounceback offer after my April cruise. No rush either way well over a year out.

Currently have a couple of Carnival cruises booked and we are eyeballing a cruise aboard the Mardi Gras in June 2023. Is there any benefit that would make it worthwhile to wait and book while onboard versus just grabbing it online during a good sale? Is doing such a  thing even pushed anymore? Are they offering any good OBC deals or benefits, or does the Future cruise booking onboard now just mirror what offers you can get online? Thanks in advance!

Thanks so much for the info! 😁

On 2/14/2022 at 5:15 PM, bluecruisin said:

Can someone if lunch here is free?

Lunch in the port is not free. Amber Cove is more like a Mahogany Bay or a Costa Maya setup than one of the private islands. 

22 hours ago, Theo1429 said:

Coming from Vs flight leaves at 6am where can we get tested Thursday for a Saturday cruise

If it is a Carnival sailing, they just extended the testing window out to 72 hours for vaccinated passengers. Might be helpful in case you can possibly schedule now prior to flying out.

1 hour ago, brevardcruiser said:

So to be clear, the website it not up to date, If your kids are up to date on vaccination they do NOT have to wear masks?

It looks like the only place that masking will be heavily encouraged is in Adventure Ocean programs.

On 2/16/2022 at 9:23 AM, joetop2467 said:

We will be in St. Thomas next week on the Symphony of the Seas.  There is a Royal Caribbean of the Skyride.  It is on sale for $40.99. Is it worth it?  Is it possible to do the Skyride on your own.  It looks like tickets are $25 but we’re not sure if that is one way or two and how you would get to it.  Please help 

We bought tickets on our own the last time we were in St. Martin. It's just a short walk there if you at Havensight. The ticket office is located along the same road as that port, across the street. Tickets are round trip. 

12 hours ago, wardwhitty said:

We were there in January and will be going back in March and again in June.  We loved the pool area.  The staff was great, the food delicious and the drinks were strong.  We rented the Pool cabana which was awesome and we will be doing that again.  They had a zipline which most in our party did and said it was very fun.  They have pedicabs from the boat to the pool and then back again that are free but they appreciate tips.  The shops were okay but they are still not open 100% .

We have the poolside cabana rented as well for our upcoming trip in April. Was the zipline included in the cabana rental? Willing to pay extra for that if not included. Were there any included drinks, snacks, or other amenities with the cabana? Certainly prepared to buy drinks and pay for lunch there as well. Is private wait service included? And how were those hammocks? Also, was the area controlled via wristband or something? We have eight booked but there are another five in a third cabin who are just planning to do the regular pool that day. 

No. It is a lot like Mahogany Bay or Costa Maya in that it is owned by the company, but all food and drink ashore is for purchase. 

On 2/15/2022 at 2:23 PM, cruisegirl1 said:

Some terrific tips.
 

However, since they removed many chairs from the pool area,  they have them stored in those very nice alcoves in the walking deck.

 

Plus, for our cruises in January and our current cruise on harmony (february13) solarium  bistro is closed 

 

m

I has sads over this. Hope things change around a bit for the better as Omicron wanes. I like both the Bistro and those little coves. We have until June before our Harmony back to back to hope for betterment. Keeping fingers crossed.

- If open, the Solarium Bistro is a good alternative to the main dining room for a no cost "specialty" dining experience

-There are some little known sitting areas off of the running track around deck 5 that are often empty. A possible good place to relax while enjoying the ocean breeze in quiet

-Almost all of the amenities are running on embarkation day. Take advantage to get on the zipline or flowrider with little to no wait.

-The upstairs deck at Dazzles is a great place to enjoy music and watch dancing without being right on top of the dance floor

-The wonderland bar has great cocktails and you do not need a reservation to grab a drink from there

-The same with Sabor. Great margaritas at the bar.

-Figure out a good rough schedule of activities before you go. Schedule your shows as soon as you board. Make sure you schedule the AQUA shows as early in the week as possible, as they are the ones most often cancelled due to wind, rain, and seas. You definitely want to have an opportunity to catch a missed show.

-If open, breakfast at Johnny rockets is no upcharge.

-The Park cafe is a great spot for a grab and go lunch, especially on embarkation day.

-The tapas menu at Vintages has a lot of the same dishes as the appetizer menu at Jaime's (and I'm not complaining a bit)

From some cruisers I have heard from that came off recently, the Bistro is basically the first venue they "cut" from their lineup if they are having staffing issues due to quarantines and positive cases. It is not a revenue generating specialty restaurant and has a different menu that can be more labor intensive to make. Hoping that as staffing levels on the fleet stabilize that they can run it more consistently. 

We had a deck 14 Central Park cabin on our last cruise. It was below the forward starboard pool. The pools are quiet at night and the nighttime parties are elsewhere instead of on the pool deck like other lines. We had no issue with noise at all. With the exception of pleasantly sitting on the balcony and listening to string quartets or musicians playing down in the park. Good issues to have. I found it quieter than having an outside facing balcony due to the wind being cut down. 

23 hours ago, lgonquin said:

I recently read on TripAdvisor that Honeymoon Beach facilities were closed.  Beach open, but facilities and amenities closed.  That info was posted on Feb 9th.

Anyone recently been to the island and confirm/deny said situation.

 

Thanks

So did both Dinghy's AND Heidi's close down? I know Heidi's was closed from a recent review, but Dinghy's was still open. I see the same report(s) you are seeing. 

We went to the shore excursions desk when we boarded and picked out Villa A. It worked great. 

8 minutes ago, topnole said:

I hope so and maybe things are dying out faster than many expected in the mid West.  However, I’m not sure Covid is in its dying gasp.  There are still 16K cases per day avg in Florida for example. That is still quite high, but agree it is on the way down.  I’m pretty surprised it is this high still.  I really thought it would be down below 10K avg by now.   I’ll blame it on all the out of state cruisers.  😂

Yeah, I'm sure there will be more waves. I'm not holding out hope for anything altered for my upcoming April cruise. And of course I'm willing to cruise as is on everything currently in place. Maybe by June for my back to back things will feel almost "normal". Keeping fingers crossed. 

And we promise not to try to bring anything down from South Carolina on any of the four upcoming Florida trips we have over the next few months. 😂

Really looking forward to doing this a few times on our upcoming Harmony cruise with UDP!

On 2/7/2022 at 5:25 PM, Capt_BJ said:

launches are very frequent now .... unless there is something 'special' about the launch you'll have NO impact.

 

or in other words

 

unless the launch involves potential loss of life

 

no significant impact in the area traffic wize ..... <I'm a local>

Not sure how this one is going to rank if it goes through. It will be the first ever fully private manned mission to the ISS (no NASA crew, just AXIOM and SpaceX) Our plan right now is to skip our planned afternoon in St. Augustine and just push on through to Canaveral as quickly as we can get down. Our hotel is right near the pier. Keeping eyes on things and being flexible. And if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. 

Definitely used OBC and nothing but OBC to buy two Cheers packages, rent a cabana, and buy another shore excursion for a different port for my April cruise. I made these purchases with the OBC back in November, before I even submitted final payment. 

57 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

Can't answer your specific question, but it sure looks like the Captain of the Harmony of the Seas is in for a good spanking for sailing right into the launch exclusion zone for a recent launch...

 

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/money/business/2022/01/31/coast-guard-begins-investigation-royal-caribbean-ship-caused-spacex-scrub/9287700002/

Yeah, saw that. Shouldn't affect our April cruise but I hope Royal can afford to get the ship out of the impound lot before our June B2B 😆

1 minute ago, brillohead said:

 

They have been providing the testing free of charge on the morning of the last full day of the cruise (the day before Turn Around Day). 

 

Awesome! Thanks! One less thing to worry about. I hope mimosas do not affect a false positive 🤪

12 hours ago, NRWPA said:

I just did this on Allure in January. Just took everything out of drawers and from shelves and threw it all in my suitcases in no good order. Leave the rest on hangers in the closet. Don't forget to take items in the fridge that you want to keep.Take things like passport, jewelry, cash with you when you go for the meeting (ours was in the theater) where they will give you your new cruise card and vaccination band. Then you'll go into the terminal for CBP (it was just facial recognition). Everything was moved before we arrived back on the ship on turnaround day.

Question since we will be doing a B2B in June and it seems you just completed one. Are they doing testing between the cruises? I know to embark for the first leg we need one. Do they do something for the second leg or just carry over your previous testing requirement as having been met? Thanks! (We managed to ensure we booked for the exact same room on both cruises to avoid the having to move bit)

We have a cruise due out on April the 2nd from Port Canaveral and are due to arrive in town on March 31st. That also happens to be a day that a crewed SpaceX launch is scheduled to the ISS. I have read some things in the past of the causeways being blocked off and traffic being a nightmare during launches. Do we need to just forgo all other travel plans that day (late lunch in St. Augustine, etc) and just get down to the area as soon as we can? We fortunately already have a room booked for the night at what should be a good viewing location. Just don't want to be stuck in traffic when we could be watching the launch. 

2 minutes ago, nascartim said:

I'll be on the Elation on Monday, I check my booking daily, nothing. I even called about a week ago after hearing a lot of people getting upgrades, they said nothing was available. I think I'm being punished b/c I got a good casino offer, $500 obc. I've also not gotten any of the great offers I hear a lot of people getting. I've decided not to book any future cruises to see if I get offered any great deals. I have some friends that don't gamble as much as I do and they've gotten multiple offers of $25 rooms. I'm still trying to figure it out.

You might be on to something. Our offer was off of a straight booking (albeit twice cancelled previously due to COVID). Not sure if they pull from the same lists when sending out upgrade offers, the casino may very well have their own allotment and upgrade setup.

We just got the offer in yesterday on the Elation to go from Balcony to Grand Suite. With canceling some other paid for items that the suite perks would be redundant for, we closed it for just under $400! Super stoked and excited. The first time the upgrade fairy has come a calling.