moesyk4

We actually somehow booked while it was cheaper (don't ask me how...4th of July sale??), than what it is today with the kids sail free promo. While we would love to explore upgrades, the reality for us is even the interior room is "expensive" in our eyes (it's all relative, I certainly understand and can appreciate why some would never consider this room type), and staying in this category allows us to have a little more spending money for other activities on board the ship.

 

Thanks so much for the replies so far, reassuring on the Aquanauts program. I'd love to hear more feedback if it's out there.

 

Thanks

 

Haha you are preaching to the choir...my Dh and I have done a Carnival cruise on an upper/lower room aka bunk bed room on deck 1 of the ship next to the storage closet. Had a fantastic time! Interior is our go to, this time it happened to be very close in price to the balcony for us so it worked out.

I would be pretty pissed...that is an awful switch!

HIPPO, but I would recommend a change of pace with NCL in their Breakaway class or newer. We found the shows and activities on par with Royal and in some cases better...we are sailing Allure next year and I am going to really miss Getaway's ropes course and slides. You can literally go out over the ocean and the side of the ship in their ropes course. It was incredible. Shows were great, we got the specialty dining package and did the free drinks promo and had great service and wonderful drinks. Freshly made mojitos at the mojitos bar were awesome!

 

Gorgeous ship and we also did the spa balcony...thorougly enjoyed their spa options. Not a single complaint.

My DH and I have only been to St. Maarten once about 10 years ago and it is the only port we have ever disliked!

We are going next May on the Allure and it will probably be our biggest excursion stop as we will do the beach in Labadee and San Juan is a short stop.

I looked at Captain Bob's and it looks perfect, but wow, that price for kids is high! I understand they take up a spot on the boat so I know the reasoning, but it would be 600 for the 5 of us with tip and I don't think we cam swing that.

Don't want just a beach day, but like a beach stop. Easy snorkeling would be awesome. Any ideas?

We have not used RCCL's program, but have heard nothing but good things. When we sailed Norwegian and took our then 6 year old, we just stated it as a fact he would go to the kid's club in the evening. We knew he would enjoy it way more than the 2 hour dinner and he did.

Off topic, but have you repriced your room with the kids sail free promo? It is the only sale that I feel is actually a true sale and saved us over 1,000 on our sailing vs. the regular "sale". You may find you can upgrade to a balcony for a similar price!

We are currently booked in 9132 which is the last balcony cabin towards the front on that deck. We needed a cabin that slept 5 and that was on of the few left...I picked it out of the options bc it was closest to the kid's clubs, Central Park, etc.

It is the last balcony cabin though and I wasn't sure if there was amy disadvantage to it like an obstructed view? It is the same location as 8130, 7130, etc. And then 9532 and 8530, etc. On the other side.

We booked this for next April for 5 of us (2 are little) in a Central Park balcony on the Allure for just over 2,000. I absolutely couldn't believe it and was thrilled! We had almost booked a Carnival cruise for 2900 and we got to majorly upgrade.

Moesyk are you going on the sailing that leaves March 23rd?

 

 

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Yes! Are you as well?

I have used Budget using the downtown near the port, I have never had to wait that long for my rental. Have never had any hassles getting on the shuttle. Once you arrive at the office, one person go to the counter right away while the others sort out the luggage.

 

Is the shuttle running continuously or do you have to let them know you want to use it? Is there a special code or anything you have to put in?

We are going on a short 4 day cruise next week, so excited! I noticed that they have a coffee card for $31 which is for 15 drinks...the little research I have done on here has some mixed reviews just in the fact that it may not necessarily include the larger sizes.

We got a Ninja coffee bar for Christmas and it has made me super picky about my coffee and so it has me interested. Obviously I can't drink 15 drinks in 4 days, but I'm assuming one of my sisters may split it with me. Has anyone had any experience using this on the Empress? I'm assuming I can get a post dinner cappucino or use it at Cafe Royal?

Someone else can confirm, but I have read several times on here that they were badly damaged in the hurricane last October and were nowhere near done rebuilding.

We are booked for dead man's reef (paradise cove) in a couple of weeks, the reviews sound great! We booked directly through the website.

We did snorkeling through Blue hole watersports a year or two ago and had a great time. It is a short walk from the port on the beach at the Hilton and the boats are small...it was just the 4 of us. He took us to a place out off of an island and we snorkeled there for a good 30 minutes and then went to a beautiful coral reef. It was just us and we spent at least 45 minutes snorkeling. We then went around Atlantis and got some nice pictures. My MIL stayed on the boat and still had a great time. I want to say we paid around $65 a person? My son was 6 at the time and had a blast.

We leave in 2 weeks for our 4 day cruise out of Miami. We are going to stay a night in Ft. Lauderdale afterwards and are renting a car to head up there and see the area. We currently have a Budget rental at their downtown office...I am getting mixed reviews as to whether they have a shuttle, but we are fine taking a taxi or Uber as I really hate fighting 50 other people for a shuttle van. I have heard some horror stories though over the downtown locations not being staffed well and waiting for hours.

Would it be better to take a shuttle to the airport through the rental cars and rent from there for better service? Are the shuttles a communal shuttle and how often do they run? Or is it per rental agency? The best rate out of the airport is through Dollar and as they are considered more of a budget line, I don't know if that affects how often the shuttle runs.

Also, we are a group of 4 with plenty of luggage and so I'm assuming we will need Uber XL to go anywhere. The estimates run quite a bit higher to use them....would it be easier to just use a taxi or do you still think Uber would be cheaper? We are staying in Brickell precruise so that is primarily what we are concerned with. Thanks!

My husband and I only book private excursions and I despise ship excursions, but my mom is coming with, God love her, and she is terrified of not going on a ship's excursion. I am close to convincing her otherwise for Nassau because we are there from 7 am to midnight so if something goes wrong we have time to recover, but I'm not sure I will have any luck with a shorter stop, unfortunately :(.

We are going on the Empress of the Seas in March, stopping in Freeport. Currently there are no excursions listed on RCCL's website. I know they sustained some damage in October, but surely they have an idea of at least some of the excursions...does anyone have a clue on timeline?

We will be in Nassau from 7 am to midnight on the Empress of the Seas in March. This is maybe my 4th time to Nassau, but the rest of our party's first. We are big snorkelers, don't mind a little touring, but mostly water stuff. We would like to make the most of our long day in port. While we enjoy beach time, we don't want a full day of just lying around the beach either. I have done Stuart's Cove, Blue Hole Watersports, as well as hung out at Junkanoo Beach and enjoyed all three, but none of those would take up a ton of time. Any thoughts? I am considering Sandy Toes but up for other suggestions!

We had a really bad experience with RCCL customer service a couple of years ago...we had booked during a kids sail free promo and also a wow sale so I thnk we got an additional $100 in OBC as well. We booked the family oceanview with nice sleeping areas....8200 I believe? on a b2b on the Liberty of the seas. We transferred our booking to a TA to get their perks a couple of weeks later.

When I checked our bill with the TA a couple of days later, it was much, much higher than we had paid and showed no OBC. Confirmed with the TA that it was how RCCL had transferred it...basically they had taken away all of our promos (KSF) and put us in the current promo at the time of transfer.

It took hours and hours and hours on the phone with them to get it figured out. The KSF wasn't too bad....once they confirmed it was a valid sale it just took a long time for them to transfer it back (with their stupid 2 separate reservations for rooms that have over 4 people).

The hard one was the OBC...they just would not believe that we had gotten it. After awhile, I had wasted way too much time arguing with them, but it was on principle at that point. I had all my original booking documents showing the OBC with the date, etc. but they wouldn't give us the stupid credit! Thanks to this board, I was finally able to find the original "flyer" for the WOW sale that showed the exact dates and they begrudgingly let it go.

 

After all that, I was so fed up that we ended up cancelling the cruise and having an amazing time with NCL.

Where not she

It varies greatly depending on the service received. I don't ever think a tip should be expected for mediocre service, nor demanded ever. We went on a cruise excursion that was like a booze cruise, we had planned to tip and had a great time, but at the end they let us know tipping was not only expected but gave us the amount. I totaled it up and they were expecting to EACH earn about 800 on top of what they were paid. Left a really sour taste with us and we tipped less than we had planned.

 

Generally,private tours we tip about 5-8 a person. Group excursions is around 10 -15 for the three of us. Excursions where they are just providing a non personal ser if (like the ncl excursion to the baths with 200 others) we don't tip. I was a server for 2 years and generally tip 20% for good service, but even as a server I expected to be tipped for how well I did. It irks me to no end that people are tipped in our country for just doing their job she no extra level of service or personal care is provided (taxi driver, barista, porter, etc)

I have cruised seven times, never with a passport, always with my birth certificate. Every single travel companion I have ever sailed with has always used their birth certificate. You will have no issues getting on board with a state issued certificate. We just did it last month 😊. I don't know why people are so vehemently upset when people mention traveling without one when LEGALLY it is a valid form of id for closed loop Caribbean cruises. Sheesh. In the minute event you miss the ship in Nassau, it is probably the easiest place to gain an emergency passport. Read a story just recently of a guy that missed the ship and was back on board 24 hours later with his emergency passport. Obviously not an ideal situation (or cheap) but that would be the case passport or not. Rest easy and enjoy your cruise 😊.

Sas sorry autocorrect

We used was...15 a person with a three dollar charge total for a credit card. It was maybe a 30 minute trip to downtown Miami?

i honestly think those lower category rooms are like the training grounds for room stewards. We took a last minute budget cruise and chose an upper/lower, we had a great time except our room steward really stunk, the one and only time on 7 cruises I had a bad experience with any staff member.

I don't consider it a "mistake" but I loved dressing up for formal nights and on our B2B cruise in 2007, I packed my sister's giant prom dress to wear because I loved it. It literally took a suitcase on its own.

[quote name='Nickyde69']I think my concern re the sea days is there's no land in sight, so if it gets rough, we're out there. Just went through Hurricane Joaquin but I was on land so that I can handle. Am hoping for calm seas! :)[/QUOTE]

Yes, my MIL gets motion sickness and vertigo VERY easily, her sister jokes that she gets motion sickness in a car that isn't even turned on. So I was worried to say the least. We were very lucky to have very calm seas with the exception of maybe 1-2 days. If you are prone to sickness, I would get the prescription patch. She had that and didn't get motion sickness even once, including when we were on the littler boats for the excursions. Overall though, I think you will do fine :).

Spider Mountain is a tower about 15 feet tall with "layers" of webbing kids can climb up and through. There is a slide at the top that is super fast to get down. I believe the weight limit was 120 for this? They limited it to about 6 kids on at a time but when we were there it wasn't a problem, no one really waited. It had limited hours, usually 10-12 and then occasionally back open 6-8.

I didn't find the lines at the slides or ropes course to be bad at all. They would vary, so we would wait 3 minutes for the drop slide and then immediately get back in line and wait 15 minutes. I don't think we ever waited more than 15 minutes though for either and that was only once or twice.