kctwinmommy

Will you be on the Nov 12th cruise? We will..along with kids 10 and 12.

Yep!! With our 13 year old son and another couple with their 14 year old son. I know my son will be in Circle C a lot. The other boy will too, but they do their own things apart from each other sometimes too! =)

I'm not sure I would risk that either. We had a domestic flight at 1:00, or a little after, and we got there around 10:00, but we waited for the crowds to get off, so maybe about 30-40 minutes after the mass rush to get off the ship. Traffic was a little busier in the morning rush and then if there are multiple cruise ships coming & going, the line to check in for the flight as well as going through TSA was about 45-60 minutes.

its an island(s)20 miles off key west

Interesting, there's both! LOL! That's odd!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquesas_Islands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquesas_Keys

You'll find many different opinions, and several posts about this already. We have always flown in the day before, taken Cocoa Beach Shuttle to Cocoa Beach, they had the best prices for the 3 of us. And then we've stayed at the Radisson, again, nice hotel with the best price for us. Then they have a cruise shuttle in the morning, make sure you sign up the night before. Many hotels have this too. We don't rent a car because when we get to MCO, I just want to kick back and relax, not worry about driving through traffic and all that. CBS has been good for us. And then we book CBS to get us back to MCO the morning we dock.

So, we're thinking of doing one of the snorkeling trips with BWD. I know the snorkeling trips are 2.5 hours, which is perfect, I didn't want to be gone all day. We have already reserved a cabana in M-ville as well. I know 1 person in our part of 6 won't be able to go snorkeling, and not sure if the other 2 will want to. My husband, son and myself are wanting to go for sure.

Soo... does anyone know how it works getting your key for your cabana? Is it first come, first serve for getting them? I mean, we have the excursion reserved for one already, but as to which one you get, I know you don't know until you get there. And I'm trying to figure out if we'll have time to go to the cabana, get set up there, and then meet up for the snorkeling trip? I'm going to email BWD to see what times they have available, so this will help me figure it out too. I know we're in port from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Thanks!

Interested as well... I know, based on the roll call, that it's a big gambling cruise. I'm hoping that means people will spend their time there and not so much on the decks! ;) This will be the biggest ship we've been on.

Our first cruise was on the MSC Melody, back in 2002 and wow! Was a bit surprised at the amount of nudity on that one! However, very different type of people on that ship than Carnival. The cruise we did was the last Caribbean one of the season, then they were heading across the Atlantic to cruise the Med. At least 50% of the passenger, probably closer to 60% were European In fact, announcements were typically done in I believe 6 languages! I know the CD spoke at least 6, we'd actually listen to her talk to passengers and her ability to speak them all so fluently and switch was amazing. A large portion of the passengers were staying on the cruise to do the TA cruise as well. But, it's a more common thing I feel in the European cultures, so it was very normal for many people to participate in the nudity! :eek:

That may have been your experience but ours was as i said when we got back on board there were a number of people in line at the tour desk complaining so i just want to give others a heads up on what to expect or questions to ask before they fork over $$.

Yes, I understand, not disagreeing or saying it didn't happen. But I think that's rare. We heard many people raving about it the entire time and people saying they regretted not doing it. I think it depends on the route and ice when you sail.

We chose YTD on our last 2 cruises. I have to say that I much prefer the early set dining time - mainly because of the relationship you develop with the wait staff. Yes, I know you can ask for the same staff each night in YTD, but the wait always seemed to be longer

I agree. I wasn't impressed with being on YTD for our last cruise. The waitstaff we had the first night was very inattentive, not friendly at all. I feel that when we have the set dining, and the staff knows you're going to be their table for the whole cruise, they put forth a better effort. We had some better staff on other nights, but still didn't feel it was the same level on interaction.

We did the Alaska cruise this August and the Tracy Arm Fjord excursion but had to do Endicott Arm Dawes Glacier because to much ice in the water to navigate. We wanted to be up close to the glacier on the small boat which was amazing BUT what they don't tell you is the cruise ship will also take you up close to the glacier if i had known i would have saved my $$ and stayed onboard, the pictures onboard the cruise ship were as good as the small boat pictures. So i just want to get this info. out there to those that may be interested

But that's not always the case. Our cruise ship was about 3-4 miles away, we were maybe 1/4-1/2 mile from the glacier. When it calved, it rocked our boat. They do say that the cruise ship follows the small boat in, because then they drop off the first group and pick up the 2nd. But our view was much better than on the ship, we know because it didn't move for a bit after we got back on board.

However, along the way to the glacier, we went into little parts, saw waterfalls, wildlife, etc... It was nice to be able to see everything, from both sides, instead of being on the big ship with 2,000 other people. Just my thoughts.

You may find it by searching the threads in here, to see if others have suggestions. We've used Cocoa Beach Shuttle several times. I would call them and see what they have regarding car seats. It does have a section on their on-line reservation form to check for car seats (toddler or booster).

We will be cruising during the World Series and will be celebrating our RANGERS first Championship!!!!! Go Rangers!

Boo... hiss.... ;)

We're cruising Magic Oct 1-8 and my beloved Cubs will be playing game one of the NLDS on 10.7. Anyone know where I might be able to catch the game?

 

Thanks!

No idea, but I'm hoping when I cruise in November I'll be celebrating that World Series trophy finally coming to the Cubs!!! ;) In fact, heading to the game tonight!!! :D

GO CUBS!!!!!

You'll find several threads that talk about this already. We use Cocoa Beach Shuttle to get to the hotel. We stay at the Radisson and they have a shuttle to the port in the morning.

FWIW - if doing a concentration on Seattle area (w or w/o cruise) plan it for August to Mid-Sept. This tends to be the most sunny or at least a rain free period of the year. Some people say to cruise Alaska in May for best weather and that may be true for the AK Panhandle but not Seattle.

It's funny, as we were flying into Seattle (in July), the weather forecast showed rain all 4 days. When we landed, it showed nothing. And we ended up with 4 full days of sunshine! We got quite lucky from what we were told! ;)

I don't know the other ones mentioned here, but we used Already There and it was $50 for the 3 of us in a town car. The rate was the same to our hotel on the north side of the city as well as from Pier 91 to Seatac. And we had a reservation set, only had to wait a few minutes for the cars to get through traffic. In fact, on our return from the cruise, we got off an hour earlier than we reserved, and they still had a car there in 5 minutes!

I've looked into all these places and want to see them as well. Also the Skyview Observatory is supposed to have great views and be less crowded than the Space Needle. The Freemont Troll looks interesting too. Another great view is the view from Green Lake. Of course, I want to go to Pike's Market and see the Gum Wall but that can be done within a few hours.

Yeah we picked the Skyview because it was a better deal. Every time we went by the Space Needle, which was at least twice/day, it was busy with a line. Not only that, the Skyview offers a return trip on the same ticket. So we went in the late afternoon, went back to our hotel after some dinner, rested for a little bit, then went back around 9 p.m. And it's cheaper than the Space Needle. I'm pretty sure I have a couple Skyview pics in my trip report.

We did not get to the Freemont Troll though.

I am from the NYC area so traffic is normal for me. I did check the downtown hotel prices and they are quite high. I was looking into the airport hotels and using the light rail or an AirBNB which are a little more reasonable.

Then you'll be pleasantly surprised by Seattle! ;) I've been to NYC, but it was a long time ago. I still remember how busy & noisy it was. We just didn't see the same level of traffic at all when we were in Seattle. We stayed by the Seattle Center so we could hop on the monorail to get downtown when we wanted. Plus, we wanted to see the Chihuly museum, EMP, and Space Needle.

By all means focus on the cruise and the sorts of activities you could experience during those 7 days.

 

One thing about the Seattle city area during cruise season is that it's very crowded and very expensive.

I will say that this depends on where you're from. Being from Chicago, we were shocked at the "rush hour" times for the city. It was nothing compared to what we're used to. And we were also there over the weekend and even then, just wasn't as crowded as what things are in the city during the summer. Now expensive - yes!! We stayed a little further north, near Seattle Center, and it was still a little more than $200/night. The downtown hotels were all around $325-375/night.

So, July is the height of the tourist time, that's when we went. We weren't in a big hurry, we had a 1:30 flight. But we still did self-assist, and walked off around 8:30 a.m. (again, taking our time, ate breakfast on the Lido deck, relaxed a bit). And we were able to pretty much walk right off. Got through customs in a few minutes and we were in our towncar by 9:00 a.m. The tricky part actually came at the airport. Thankfully, we were able to go through the first class check-in, thanks to hubby working a little magic. ;) And we also have the TSA pre-check, so we got through security in less than 10 minutes. The reason I say the tricky part is that the Southwest rep said there were 5 cruise ships passengers they were dealing with that day, on top of the regular traveling. So the SW line for regular passengers was about 45 minutes to check-in. I still think you'll be fine with a noon flight.

We get them from AARP when they are available. They sell them for 10% off in $100 and $500 increments. You don't have to be a paying member to get them, but you do have to accumulate points on their site. It's 1,000 points plus $90 for a $100 card and 5,000 points and $450 for a $500 card.

 

We are using them to pay for our cruise next July plus onboard spending.

We do the same. The benefit being we save $50!

We sailed in July, hoping to get the warmest weather. We got lucky and had no rain, but it wasn't "warm" for the most part. One day, in port, it was in the 70s, nice and sunny. But usually I was in jeans & sweatshirts. And my parents went on the first cruise of the season 10 years ago and had 70s almost every day.

Thanks for the link but I am more looking for where my kids are going to refill their cups. Not crazy about them going to the bar.

It's truly not a big deal. The bars are right next to the pools, which is where my son usually gets his drinks. Or if we're on our way to dinner, in the main lobby area. He never went into the closed off bars (like Red Frog, etc...). There are always kids "at the bar" getting their sodas.

Thank you for the tip about pre cruise vs. post cruise and your trip report which is very helpful. Covers a lot of what I planned to do in Seattle. Very helpful information on the Enterprise service as well. Which location did you initially rent from that provided a shuttle to the pier?

We rented from the one on 3rd St., downtown.