kontraxed

The Margaritaville in Falmouth does have a small pool but I don't believe it is big enough to keep a group of teenagers interested for any length of time. The Falmouth port area is nice and clean with a variety of vendors and shops. I have read a lot of security warnings about crime in Jamaica so I would advise staying with either a ship's tour or a well known travel group. We are thinking about going to the Rose Hall Hilton for the day. Be safe and have fun!

I just read that Celebrity is canceling formal nights. I wonder if Royal Caribbean will follow suit?

I haven't told my wife that I booked a cruise on Liberty out of Galveston for January 2017. It's going to be pretty hard to keep that a secret for a year.

In May 2015, while on the Navigator of the Seas, I booked my next cruise for the Oasis in March 2017. The only real benefit was being able to book the cruise with "only a $100" deposit. Well, a few months go by and I figured I would start making my small monthly payments. I've got 18 months to go. I go to make a $100 online payment and it is rejected. The web page said I had to make a minimum payment of $500. Huh? So, I called Royal Caribbean and was told their system requires a minimum of $500 for the initial deposit. After that, I can pay what I want. The guy did offer to accept the payment over the phone but I would have to continue to do that until I made the additional $500 payment in total. While I am not "outraged" I do feel that this "only a $100 deposit" is rather misleading. So, I guess this was my first and last time booking on the ship because this was absolutely nothing special.

We are also repeat cruisers out of Houston (including Galveston). In that RCCL seems to only do the Western Caribbean, we look for good ships. We went out of Galveston on May 3rd on the Navigator and had a great cruise. We didn't get off the ship for the most part. I don't have much interest in Jamaica or Cozumel and no interest in other ports like Belize. I would also really like to see RCCL do the Eastern or Southern Caribbean. I am sure they wouldn't have any problem filling up 10-12 day cruises to those regions. How about the Panama Canal? Instead of spending millions on ports like Falmouth, Jamaica - I'd like to see them invest in smoothing out their operations in the Galveston Port.

Clarea, thanks for the great information!

I always wanted to try a zip line but I am concerned with what the weight limit is. Does anyone know what the limits are for using the Oasis zip line?

Thanks for the quick answers!

I will be soon going to Galveston for the Navigator. I will be parking across the street from the terminal. I have never used a porter before so please help me with the following. If they get your bags in front of the terminal, will they get on the ship or do I have to do something else with them? I will have three medium sized suitcases. What is the right amount to tip a porter? My bags will have the ship luggage tags on them. Anything else I need to know?

Thanks for your help!

We're going on the Navigator in seven days (May 3rd). We live in Spring, TX so we're a little over an hour away from Galveston too. I think we'll use your same timing - leave our house at 9:00 and get on the ship as soon as possible. I'm looking forward to your review. We are also doing the Mystery Dinner the first night. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Which itinerary did you do? Did you eat at Sabors?

I'm a week away from my long anticipated cruise on the Navigator when I see this post about a canceled cruise. I figured it had to be the Navigator for sure. Thank God it isn't!

My wife and I cruise about once a year. In making the decision which cruise line we will go with, we look at the Price, then the ship and then the destination or ports. When we look at Price, we look the total price with taxes and fees and then factor in any benefits such as included drinks, OBC, etc. We always book a junior suite so that's part of the price. Frankly, at our level, there are no real loyalty benefits so that's not really a factor. We do look at our preferences such as, we choose not to cruise with Carnival. We found the Caribbean Princess to be kind of a small public area. NCL Epic had terrible bathroom layouts. Being a gold level member of RCCL doesn't mean much. If their prices get too high, then we will go with NCL or maybe try Holland America.

I agree with Norbertsniece above. Your pre-paid gratuities cover all normal tipping. If someone (a particular waiter or room steward for instance) goes out of their way to provide me particularly good and friendly service, I will give them an extra $20 at the end of the cruise. This amount may be too little or too much for others, it is just the figure I pay and, frankly, not often.

First, thanks for a great review!

Was the Solarium pool normally covered for shade? Did the ship keep it to primarily adults?

How was the tendering from the ship to shore at Grand Cayman? Was the tender ride very rough?

Thanks!

I'm with Martikus. I wish there was no automatic gratuity. Is it really a gratuity if it is automatic? Just raise the price $12 a day per person, say the gratuities are included and let me give a voluntary additional tip for good service that was provided to me. I know some folks won't provide any additional tip but they wouldn't have to. This also allows me to not give any additional tip if the service isn't good. I don't know why the cruise lines are hooked on making you pay extra for gratuities and sodas. Just include them in the base price!

This is from the RCI FAQ:

Guest gratuities go to the following crew and staff members:

•Dining Services

•Stateroom Attendant

•Other Housekeeping Personnel

I weigh close to 300 and always found the showers a little tight. Not to be too graphic, but washing my feet became a problem! One solution is to use the gym showers which are nice and big. Another solution (for us) is that we get a junior suite because it has the tub/shower combo which is more than big enough.

I dislike these age based assumptions. I am 63 and I'm one of the folks who prefer shorts. I don't think age has anything to do with it. If anything, I spent my entire adult life dressed up for work and every other event and now I like to be comfortable - in shorts. Again (to prevent the flamers), if the rules require slacks, I will wear slacks.

I live near Houston, TX where it is hot and humid nine months out of the year, pretty much like the Caribbean (if not hotter). I wear shorts exclusively during that time including in restaurants. It seems kind of odd that I have to sweat my posterior off in long pants to go to dinner on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. That being said, if that is the prevailing rule, and it is evenly enforced, I will wear said long pants.

I have sailed on Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Princess. If I had to pick a favorite, I would probably give a slight nod to Norwegian closely followed by Royal Caribbean. Now here's where I could get flamed. I have never sailed on Carnival nor do I want to. While it seems that their reputation may be improving, I have heard too much about "Booze cruises" drunkenness, and a general lack of cleanliness and maintenance. Combine that with ships breaking down at sea for a few days and they're off my list. It's the same with Costa and their accident record. I base cruise selections on price, the size of the cabin and the bathroom (especially the size of the shower), the ship and the ports. For instance, we went on the Norwegian Epic. The layout of the bathroom in each stateroom was horrible. Add to that the fact that you could not walk laps around the outside of the ship (and the ship is aesthetically ugly) and we would not sail on the Epic again. The Caribbean Princess was a fairly nice ship but it had a very small promenade. Also, you had to pay a lot for the Sanctuary area whereas the Royal Caribbean has a free adults pool area. Smoking (or the lack of it) is extremely important to us but all the cruise lines seem to be handling that in the same way. So, the whole cruise selection process is very subjective and just depends upon what is important to each person.

Even though Royal Caribbean are not very good communicators, I really don't like to have a third party middleman in my cruise bookings. I don't want to call RCI and be told I can't talk to them because I went through a travel agent. My preference has probably cost me a few dollars worth of missed cruise perks but this is how I prefer to book.

While I agree that there is a huge market for cruises in the Houston/Galveston port area, I also believe that RCL must expand beyond the typical Cozumel, Belize, Roatan or Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Falmouth itineraries. Both Princess and Carnival are experimenting with longer cruises and other destinations. RCL is going to have to try to keep up. The big ships are interesting but so are the destinations and, in my opinion, the western Caribbean destinations are just not that interesting.

We're on a May 3rd Navigator of the Seas cruise and the restaurant bookings opened up 59 days prior to the cruise date. RCI communication and their process was very poor on this topic.

Just as alcohol revenue is part of the cruiseline profit calculation, so too are all the various cruise price elements that go into my selection of what cruise I will take. I look at Norwegian Cruise Line and they now offer the option of including your choice of gratuities, drink package, dining package or just an onboard credit. I will also say that their basic cruise fare isn't particularly jacked up to include this option. So now, if I want to compare pricing between RCI and NCL, I have to take into consideration one of these options. I am not particularly interested in the mega ships so the ship size and itineraries are pretty similar. Photos, spas, etc. are all pretty similar (outrageously expensive!) so, believe it or not, an inclusive drink package could make the difference in which cruise line I select.

While it may have appeared that we were given an answer (49 days prior to cruise) about when the MTD Reservation process would open, that answer was wrong. In fact, the MTD reservations opened today, 59 days prior to sailing. As to why this was important to me, my wife and I prefer to eat early and this way we were able to get the time slots and reservation choices that we wanted. We are certainly looking forward to this cruise!