kimberlym322

My question would be.....wont you need wifi to do this? like everyone else....I'll keep the paper, I bring them home for scrapbooking and future reference anyway.

I, myself have never been to San Juan. Its on my bucket list to do one year. With each Island offering so much to see and do, my suggestion would be the following. Take what everyone says on here and do some research about each Island on your own. Put all the information into a binder for each family that is going, and let everyone have input on what to do. And remember you all can split up....on St Kitts you may all be together because ya want to do the same thing but on St Thomas some of you may want to do this and the rest want to do that. Because you are going during the school year I would also suggest that children's parents speak to their teacher's about work they would miss....when we took my nephews out of school for trips they teachers would have them keep a journal of what they did each day and present it to the class when they got back. If this is something that your children's teachers have them do I would get "local" money from each island, post cards, brochures, lots of photos, and maybe even figure out something cheap from each island to take back for their class....candy is good for this (if you do privet tours the driver should be more then happy to stop at a store for you.) The most important thing with the family vacation is have fun and enjoy this special time together.

My suggestions are in red above. This is based on what we like to do and our opinion of the island. With the size of your group I would check into privet tours. When we go to the islands we try to find things we can't do on a vacation close to home. We have had some great times on most of the islands you are going to. Because we do privet tours we have been told we see and do more on the islands then most others on "group" tours. You get so much more out of the privet tours....we have had some great food, seen some amazing sights, found some amazing fabric to make clothes, hobo bags, and crafts with, and met some great friends along the way. The most important thing is whatever you do have fun and enjoy yourself!

Phillips is a famous brand. They closed the last Phillips down here last fall. In my 30+ years living in OC I think I ate there 3 times. Did not like their food at all. Hoopers, Watermen’s, and Crab Ally use to be good but over the years have gone down hill! The places in this town the prices keep going up and the quality of the food goes down. Like there is a sub shop in OC that a large cheesesteak sub is almost 15.00, and all you get is 2 stakeums on it…not even real stake but they charge 15.00! We go to a place called Old Mill in Delmar Delaware about an hour from OC when we want good seafood. As a matter of fact I am going Sunday to celebrate what would have been my dads 72nd birthday there….he loved the Old Mill!

From what I have read yes even if staying on the ship you have to have a visa. Your TA should be able to help you with getting one or how to get one. You can always google how to get an India visa. Good luck and have a wonderful trip.

I live on Delmarva (eastern shore of MD) and we have lucked out some this year. Mix of sm and med's have been going for about 120-130.00 for a bushel. Or we go catch our own.

I could not agree more.

Thank you for the laugh. I think you hit it on the head. You made me remember when my nephew got into it with the waitress and manager of Rain Forest Café at Disney when he was 9 years old. (a few disclosers about the up coming story. 1. this happened in 2004 when he was 9 years old. 2. we live in MD so we have grown up on MD blue crabs. 3. My nephew has been eating seafood since he was 6 months old...everything from shrimp and crabs to mussels and clams...he has been picking blue crabs since he was a year old (he was eating them faster then me or my sister could pick them for him and we were getting none so we showed him how to pick them, same with his brother) 4. no he is not/was not disrespectful, he was just telling them the way it was because they were treating him like an idiot.) With that being said on with the story. We had lunch at Rain Forest and there was "real MD crab cakes" (what the menu said...I have the photo) on the menu. My nephew asked the waitress if they were truly real MD crab cakes, and the waitress said yes. So he ordered them. He took a bite of them and they were frozen over binder (bread/crackers) filled crab cakes with hardly any crab in it (really don't think any crab was in it). The waitress came over and asked if everything was okay...he spoke up and told her she lied that she should not say they are true MD crab cakes because they are not. This waitress went on to be little my nephew telling him that he didn't know what a crab cake was, he should never ordered it, she was a spoiled rude child for telling her she lied to him. He nicely asked to speak to the manager...this made the waitress even madder. (I will interject with this now this is were he got a little disrespectful and my sister let him handle the problem because to tell ya the truth the waitress should not have been a waitress and if my sister or I said something to the waitress it would have not been nice and we would have walked out in cuffs that is how rude the waitress was and later the manager.) When the manager came over she started be littleing my nephew also. After my nephew had his say with the waitress and manager, my sister stepped in and said something of how they treated a paying guest, she got their names and called corp on them. The lesson learned from this story.....NEVER ORDER A MARYLAND CRAB CAKE UNLESS YOU ARE IN A MARYLAND RESTURANT!!!!!

An idea no one ever thinks of is, if you want to have like a 100.00 in foreign money, you can always western union it to yourself before you go on vacation. Like right now today (8/21/22) if you were to send yourself 50.00 to Mexico you would get about 1002 pesos. I know a few friends that do this. You just have to know where a local WU is in the country your going to.

You will LOVE Cosol Tours in St. Lucia. That is the tour company I use when I go there. The food you get on the our is sooo good. Hint for ya when ya get the bread and cheese on the way back to the ship put the cheese inside the warm bread so much better. Hopefully when you do the tour in Barbados you get to go to the Green Monkey reserve. Enjoy your trip!

ONLY if he is under 18 years old and lives in your home.

If this is the case you are not getting a true Maryland crab cake! Maryland crab cakes have just enough breading so that they do not fall apart when fried! When you bite into a MD crab cake you should only taste lump crab meat and old bay....if you bite into it and all you taste is breading tell them they are lying about it being a TRUE MARYLAND CRAB CAKE! Even my nephews when they were 3 and 4 knew the difference between a MD crab cake and a fake one!!!!

If this is the case you are not getting a true Maryland crab cake! Maryland crab cakes have just enough breading so that they do not fall apart when fried! When you bite into a MD crab cake you should only taste lump crab meat and old bay....if you bite into it and all you taste is breading tell them they are lying about it being a TRUE MARYLAND CRAB CAKE! Even my nephews when they were 3 and 4 knew the difference between a MD crab cake and a fake one!!!!

Its always an adventure with the 3 of them. I will not even go through airport security with them. I let them go and then go through after them.

That's funny, my one nephews name is Kevin. And believe it or not my dingbat sister did leave him home the one time...we were only 3 houses away when she realized it. She was putting the stuff in the car, she thought he got in the car, but he went in to get his pillow and layed back on the bed to sleep until she had the car packed. Only reason she realized he was not in the car was because she was asking if he used the bathroom before getting in the car.

I always carry a deck of cards, in case there is down time when there is nothing going on that we want to do. We have them in the outside pocket of our luggage that isn't big enough for much...we keep the pen, highlighter, cards, zip ties, mini notebook, and pack of 6 thank you cards in it. The paperback books, I take one or two and when I get done reading them leave them on the ship for someone else to read...But with the OP going over seas for the cruise it is better just to take a kindle.

Lol. My sister and nephews are ones that are still packing as we are walking out the door and they still forget stuff. Someone in my family has to be organized. I remember one trip...we were driving to Florida...that we turned around 3 times because they forgot stuff, 1 time (5 minutes away from home) sister forgot one nephews luggage, 2nd time (an hour away from home) she forgot the bag of everyone's medicine, the 3rd time (2 hours away from home) realized she forgot her pocketbook with money, credit cards and drivers license in it. So because I am so organized I have my stuff ready to go (it helps to have just vacation clothes also that stays in a tote) and I am in charge of making sure everything gets out the door and in the car. Once that system was in place we have only ever had one problem with luggage and missing stuff...and that was when we had a layover at the Philadelphia airport and someone stole stuff out of checked luggage.

I forgot the OTC meds. But I will add to that to take band aids, gauze pads, roll gauze, tape and antibacterial ointment. I say this because I took a cruise thinking nothing of taking that stuff. I ended up cutting my foot (partly because of my mother and sister). When we docked the next morning we went into a store by the port to buy some and ended up spending 30.00 on the stuff. And before anyone askes why I did not go to medical on the ship...I plea temporary brain dead on that one. Why is to early to start packing...anything even clothes? When I go on vacation the day I book the trip, weather it is a cruise or land vacation, I make a list of everything I will need for that trip. I get a tote and start putting what is on the list in there. That way at a month/2 weeks out from the trip I have everything I need and start putting it in luggage. This way anything that I have not gotten as of yet can be gotten or if something was crossed off by mistake I know I need to pack it. The last thing packed is my take with me bag that has my medication, wallet, phone charger, vacation paperwork, set of clothes. It helps when you are spreading it out over a good amount of time then trying to running around 2 weeks before the trip trying to buy everything you need to take that you don't have...that cuts into your trip spending money.

I have cruised with Royal and never had a problem. I have taken locally baked good, local food, prepackaged foods and drinks.

Pack less and take more money then you think you will need. Clothes wise pack interchangeable outfits. Take 2 or 3 swimsuits. Take a good book to read. Take a deck of cards. Take a highlighter and a pen and some paper (the little pocket size notebooks work great). Take 2 pair of sunglasses. Take some magnetic clips to hold things on the wall if need be. Don't forget to take your medication. Research the ports you are going to ahead of time. Don't be afraid to use privet companies for excursions. Most import have fun and just go with the flow of things. Expect the unexpected.

I have been on 6 cruises. On 3 I did a ship excursion. And I will tell you all but one I did not like. On 1 cruises I did group tours with privet company, on 2 cruises I spent the extra so that it was only my mom and I on the tours. We enjoy the privet-privet tours because we got to see and do so much more then other passengers...even some that were with the same tour company. When booking the privet-privet tours, we tell them things we would like to see and do, like eating at a local place to try the area's food, and we always tell them the ship's sail away time is XX:XX time so we have to be back on board by YY:YY time and we would like to be back a hour before that time. So if sail away time is 6 pm and they say we need to be on board by 5 pm we tell them we would like to be back to the port at 4 pm. It has never been a problem...getting back like that also gives you a little time at the port for last minute shopping and such.

Cosol Tours in St. Lucia. Have done the tour 3 times and loved it each time. On their tour you get to try local food, swim in a waterfall, take a mud bath. And the bread and cheese they give to enjoy on your way back to the port is sooo good....nice and hot the cheese starts to melt on the bread.