carohs

5 hours ago, reeinaz said:

My rule has always been, if it's leather it's a sandal. If it's rubber/plastic, it's a flip flop. That is a hill I am willing to die on. 

 

Honestly, I couldn't care less what footwear anyone chooses to use but I could see that distinction as an argument for/against the MDR allowability. 

BUT I will argue that any shoe with a toe thong and no ankle support that makes a "flop" noise when walking deserves the to be called a "flip-flop" regardless of material used in its construction. And they do all make the sound, if you walk in a quiet enough space.

4 hours ago, jrt.mom said:

My "sandals" are rubber on the bottom and are leather on the top. What does that make them? Not being flip, just seeing if I can wear them to dinner...

You do you, boo.

What is this chair vs deck chair nonsense? I too never heard a distinction before. Is this like comparing sandals to flip flops? Some people argue adding bedazzled flip flops are indeed fashionable sandals suitable for MDR, etc. So let's all bedazzle some regular outdoor chairs and call them deck chairs! Woohoo 🎉 

1. We spend much about the same time in our room/balcony on a port day or sea day, so not a big factor. Port day excursions are replaced by sea day activities. 

2. for sure

3. I would much rather look at blue horizons than sit outside on a cold Alaskan day. Yay for differing preferences 🙂

4. Varies

5. Does one really need a balcony for bow chica wow wow? 🤣 JK, JK. 

6. As an introvert I appreciate getting away, but that can be in the room as well as outside as well as at a poolside lounger with my nose in a book

7. does not apply

21 hours ago, vswan said:

I guess I look at this differently. I have the credit card. There is no yearly fee and I pay my bill monthly and carry no balance. I chose this card because of the points/dollar value and to me the points/dollar value is a perk. I understand I could take the $600 value as OBC, but the savings for a cabin jump for 2 people from inside to balcony is much greater.

Looking at it from the POV of OPs question, you have decided that upgrading to a balcony is worth it for you and that the upgrade "cost" or "value" of $600 is your breakpoint. You are in fact giving up OBC to upgrade to a balcony because you get more value out of it that way. Some may argue they'd rather have the inside room and keep the OBC. Because either choice is a viable option, you can't claim the upgrade to be "free" even if it didn't cost you out of pocket. Personally, I look at financial decisions as a net effect. If I choose to keep the inside and OBC, I could pay gratuities, excursions, or drink packages out of that and not spend out of pocket for those items. Or, I could pay out of pocket for the extras, but also have a balcony room upgrade. In this case, the upgrade to a balcony has cost me the dollar value of my extra purchases or $600, which ever is less.

20 hours ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

I realize RocketMan has chosen to take the moral hgh ground on this, but as I see it - the WP I acrue are “free”, meaning, I exerted no perspiration or indigestion  to earn them, I have not paid tax on them so they are silent  income.  Yes, I could get $600 for them, but I choose to avoid a much greater amount to upgrade,  I have “spent $600 of potential income but I diverted that to an upgrade.   The money is lagniappe not real earned income.  Big sigh.  Let it go, man.

Silent income, but why not strive to maximize the value out of it? In either case, it's not free. Companies pay a % of transactions to the credit card processors in fees, which can add up to thousand of dollars easily. You bet some of those costs are passed on in some way to the consumer. But I can choose to charge my everyday purchases to a cruise line rewards card, an airline miles card, or a simple cash back card. Depending on any individual's lifestyle, one card may make more sense over another. Again, I look at the net financial affect. I'm not familiar with the card that will reward you with a balcony upgrade, how much does one need to spend to earn said upgrade? What would that equivalent spend earn on a different rewards card? Based on what you prioritize, then yeah upgrading to a balcony could be your maximum value. But what's true for one person, is not true for everyone. 

9 hours ago, Joe Denver said:

1 room with 4 people and 1 room with 1 person = $1336 + $828 = $2164

1 room with 3 people and 1 room with 2 people = $2,672

This math is off. 

Scenario one includes t/f/p for 3 out of 5 passengers.

Scenario two includes t/f/p expenses for 4 out of 5 passengers. 

If you ignore the t/f/p for all passengers in both scenarios, assume 3&4 are free you see that:

(399 + 399 + 0+ 0) + 559 = 1357

VS

(399 + 399 + 0) + (399 + 399) = 1596

The difference is 239. 

31 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

If you book early, you can book an inside that doesn't have pullman beds hanging off the wall.  Otherwise, just have the steward separate the beds.

Thanks, but there's four of us. It's the bed when it's pulled down that tends to be problematic. And only because I'm a total klutz that will manage to forget at least once a day and boink my head. 

Oooh before we change the channel to retirement savings, here's my two cents. I mostly have a hard time justifying the upgrade to balcony. On NCL specifically, when I'm looking at sailings I'm interested in they seem to be 2x or more of the cost of an inside. When there's no difference to amenities included in the cruise, and the only thing that changes is a little square footage, I'm not seeing the value of the upgrade. But the more we cruise, the more I've decided that not having a bunk bed directly over my head is worth an added cost. I've yet to find exactly what that number is per night or per person. On the POA I wanna say it was $75/pppd and that was a hard no. The next cruise we have on the books the cost difference ended up about $65 pppd; because of the itinerary, time of year, and availability of vacation time, we decided it'd be worth it this time. We'll see if we use it as much as we think we will. 

On 5/13/2024 at 4:01 AM, mitsugirly said:

I would notice that they were calling self assist off the ship before they started calling those who had checked their luggage. Was there a blooper in the scheduling system when I had decided to check our luggage over self assist with the times? I'm not sure. That was the only reason why we had picked that instead. I know I was getting worried for sure. 

On the Radiance, I too saw they had us picking debarkation times for self-assist. I was even thinking maybe I imagined it but now that I see your posts, I know I didn't. In our case we picked the latest but it didn't seem to matter because like on your cruise, they called all the self assist before the checked luggage people. 

On 5/13/2024 at 4:48 AM, mitsugirly said:

I hope everyone enjoyed the review and maybe found some of the things we did interesting and it possibly helped you in deciding if it is something you might (or might not) want to do when in some of these ports

I enjoyed it lots! Your trip looked so fun, and is giving me ideas for our second trip to the Riviera next April for sure. The weather is slightly concerning, but we did a similar itinerary the second week of April last year and had 80 degrees in Cabo, and high 60s the day we were in Mazatlán. Keeping my fingers crossed we get that kind of weather again, and not your chilly experience.

Aww looks like you had a great birthday day, even with the rain. Happy late birthday 🎂  🎉 

I'd never seen a towel cake before. So awesome! Note to self: take a birthday cruise and eat all the cake and ice cream I could ever want. 

Oooh yay!! And not just teachers, but staff too. Where would we be without our lunch ladies, classroom help, and district support teams? Comes just in time for teacher appreciation week. 😎

For me it's pretty simple. Don't gamble more than the standard deduction... 

6 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

these were from the OP 9 pages back who farted and left the building for the rest of us locked inside to smell.

😂😂

My first embarkation experience (out of only two, admittedly) with NCL was pretty awful. Everything went pretty much as expected until we got through the initial check in. I can only assume there was a delay with debarkation because we sat in the terminal for a while. Then it took longer than normal between each group being called. Or maybe it seemed longer than normal because I was excited to be on the ship and impatient. Anyway, it probably took an hour from the time our boarding group was called to actually stepping foot on the ship. That is most assuredly not normal. As far as I could tell, the bottleneck causing all of this were people crowding the elevators. The bottleneck was so bad the line zig-zagged on the platform and there was a near-incident on the escalators. Rather than fix the issue, they turned off the escalators. At this point in time it was all e-muster, so there wasn't any kind of delay with people not knowing where to go or being lost or something else to explain why people couldn't keep walking onto the ship. Now, tell me that staff onboard the ship couldn't have done a better job directing people traffic so as to keep everyone moving. Sheesh. I could certainly blame none other than NCL but it didn't stop us from having a great time onboard.

21 minutes ago, Oakman58 said:

 

I don’t think you understand the machismo of a young man in not wanting to look like he’s a wimp to his girlfriend’s adventurous family.  Seasick pills for him?  Naaaa, he says. Now think of him mentally making guttural sounds similar to what Tim Allen did on the Home Improvement show.

 

Want to go scuba diving?  Sure!  Him making those same mental guttural sounds.  As I read your report my first thought was, he has a fear of deep water and didn’t want anyone to know, hence the panic attack.

 

Of course Karl’s biggest sacrifice to be with your daughter, being confined in a 185 square foot cabin with HER parents for 8 nights. LOL!

 

I’ve been enjoying your report and pictures.

That's definitely not how I saw the situation. We weren't there, of course, and can only go by Mitsugirly's commetary. I interpreted it more of a "it'll never happen to me" attitude most teenage kids tend to have. It's that stage of life that we make questionable choices despite the advice of all the adults around us. Machismo, while a possibility, I don't find as likely. It has become much more okay to express insecurities than it used to be, or saying "no, I don't feel comfortable doing that." 

Aww poor Karl. But the resiliency of youth is amazing. Good for him for wanting to try again!

40 minutes ago, pinto18 said:

woah ok first of all I can't believe I signed up for CC that long ago!! But also Feb 20 was my Dads birthday...His name was Karl ..thats who I named my son after 

commented too soon, lol. Just had to chime in that Feb 20 is my wedding anniversary. Good day.

3 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

Well at least the cliff divers don't actually have to climb the cliff to get to the top. 

 

3 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

 

hey, that's cheating! 

So far I'm enjoying reading your review lots! Every new post is like waiting for the next book in a series or the next episode of a favorite show. The anticipation is half the fun! 

5 hours ago, tootsiescurly said:

I realize there is a listed time however our past experience says the ship can be cleared earlier. I want to hear from individuals who have taken this cruise recently.

oh I see. So you want to book an excursion on the hope that most people have been cleared earlier? What will you do when the ship docks on time, but a bunch of people on cruise critic told you in their experience it would clear earlier?

the information is on your itinerary. It's not a tender port so you'll be off the ship the earliest at whatever time is listed on your itinerary. 

Good choice. 6 days vs 7 and better ports? No brainer. Plus you lose a day kinda with the B2B and no cheers available. 

It's entirely possible that TA may not be able to remove the FAS per policy or just doesn't know how. But asking cruise critic is helpful in these situations. We all know one person doesn't always have all the answers. In which case, a second opinion holds value, and why not ask this forum where not only can you get a second opinion but several and from people who are specifically experienced in the subject you are asking about. It will either reinforce what the TA has said, or give you the confidence to tell someone no that's not right, check again or tell me why.

And it also allows for the decision of whether the FAS is worth keeping the TA or booking elsewhere. I'd rather have a capable TA, and without asking here, well you may not have realized their limitations and if something else comes up where you really need a good TA they wouldn't be able to help you then either. You'd be SOL and all because you didn't know better because you blindly trusted the opinion of one person. 

On 4/25/2024 at 8:08 AM, Catchum said:

influenza swept through and mortuary vans lined up with the excursion coaches at ports

Yikes!! 😬 

Tested it on a random sailing cuz their advertised pricing can sometimes be glitchy with more than two people. It seemed to work fine, except the desktop site still only shows a subtotal while mobile shows the real total. 

8 minutes ago, fshagan said:

 

Disney shows the all-in price, for two people in a cabin, including taxes and port fees. None of that "per person, double occupancy" scam stuff.

I was just gonna say this too. As far as I know DCL has always shown the all-in price for a stateroom. But if you needed two rooms it shows only the price for the first. Kinda wish it added it up in advance. 

I would just use your CC. You can always go to guest services and deposit cash or a gift card to your account as you incur charges and lower the amount remaining to be charged to your cc. Not sure but they may even let you deposit exactly your balance. 

13 hours ago, Ranyw said:

 

Hello, I can do one better,  Here is a copy of our receipt.  I believe at the time $1 US dollar was about 15.6 Mexican Pesos.

 

It's right there "tipo de cambio 15.70". So $8 for a bottled water and $17 for each of those kids plates. 😲😲😲 Nope, nope, nope. And don't get me started on chicken strips and fries when you're in Mexico. 

But looks like y'all had a great time so far, can't wait to read more. 

If you have 4 passengers (in one cabin), but only 1&2 have Plus, does Princess charge for shipping the medallion to 3&4?