leaveitallbehind

My understanding is you can consume it in your stateroom and anywhere on the ship with the exception of bars and dining venues, which would then subject you to the corkage fee. Your stateroom is not the only area you can consume brought on board wine in our experience, unless this is a very recent change. Not sure how they can monitor or enforce passengers with a glass of wine in their hands that could just as easily have come from any venue. As mentioned previously, although not big wine drinkers, we have done this in the past - including taking a glass of wine to dinner with no issues. And to your other point there is no corkage fee just for bringing it on board - only if it is opened, served, or stored in one of the bars or dining venues.

Seeing as how it is an Eastern Caribbean itinerary in question, I would guess that most of those ports of call are likely to have multiple ships in port on any given day, so the diluted experience would likely be several fold of the one ship and would have a similar affect on any smaller capacity ship in port at the time. And to your point, both cruise lines in question have mega ships, so the choice in that regards becomes rather moot IMO.

You are correct and my mistake regarding Amber Cove. Thanks for pointing this out clarifying. As a generalization, I also consider T & C's as part of the Bahama's - at least in terms of climate v the Caribbean, based on their location at the southern end of the Bahama's chain. But as they are on the southern end, they certainly will have the better climate from the Bahama's in general, but are still north of the Caribbean - which was the reference I was making in that post.

I think RCCL's Liberty of the Seas is the only remaining ship in their fleet with a cigar lounge, although that may have changed. Cigarette smoking is permitted in all of their casinos and on one outside pool deck. IMO all of the RCCL gyms are good.

Once again I may not have been clear and did not mean to imply that commissions are on top of fares - their commission DOES come out of the cruise fare. And if you book directly through the cruise line, the fare is the same amount normally charged through the TA, but the commission is just kept by the cruise line to cover their internal representative's costs. It works like this with TA bookings: you are given your fare - part of that fare is the commission to the TA - if a TA perk to you is offered, they issue it in advance from that commission amount out of their pocket - once the cruise is actually completed they receive their full commission as a rebate to the TA - that amount less whatever perk they gave you is their net earned commission, but the full fare amount to the cruise line is paid up front. What TA's will frequently do is reserve a block of rooms on a given cruise (or cruises) which results in a % discount to the full fare based on the size of the block. This reduced fare is NOT published to the public as it is the fare provided to the TA's based on that given block. And there will also be cruise line sponsored perks for the customer based on the block size. The TA will then sell to you and me those blocked rooms individually which then will show that reduced price on their booking confirmation. With each room booked, the customer's cruise line booking confirmation will then also indicated the reduced fare. It works the same if, as example, you want to book a group of rooms for your family, or an organization, etc. But everything else regarding the TA commission works the same as with individual bookings.

I think you are correct with your thoughts. The Caribbean is in its high season in the winter and as such is extremely nice for cruising as you indicate. But since the OP's cruise is entirely in the Bahamas, while the weather should be very nice, it will not be as nice as the conditions of the Caribbean as that is about 500 miles south of Nassau and about 300 miles south of Grand Turk. And as you indicate, it wasn't until Grand Turk until you felt it was warm enough to suit you. We have also done winter cruises that included the Bahamas and always felt very comfortable, but it can also be hit or miss.

Not likely they would be noted at embarkation as typically they are carry on bottles - which is most cruise lines preferred manner - and are checked along with all your carry on items by security at check in. Those who man the security lines are port employees, not cruise line employees. All they care about is that you are within the cruise lines policy for carry on bottles. And in our 30 years + experience they have never been noted in any manner that is reported to the cruise lines. Typically anything outside of the policy or over the allowance is kept at security and likely "disposed of" by them. Items in your checked luggage are things that would be noted by the cruise lines and then held by the cruise lines until the end of the cruise to be returned to you if not within their policy. Besides in our experience corkage fees are typically only charged if a bottle is opened, served, or stored by a dining or beverage venue - not as it is brough onto the ship. If you open it yourself and enjoy it anywhere else on the ship, no corkage fee applies.

It's a matter of semantics, I guess. What I am saying is if a TA gives you back a portion of his commission, that is indeed a somewhat lower rate. But THEY are still conveying (from your payment through them) the full published website fare to the cruise line. Any reduction to you is coming out of their pocket - and not the cruise line, as they are still receiving the full published rate. The only other reduced fare option is through group rates issued to the TA from the cruise line. While that may not be a publicly published rate, it is the rate THEY must pay so any savings to you are a direct pass through to the cruise line.

The pools on the ship will reflect the weather and air temperature that the ship is in, so I would think they would be relatively comfortable as you will be in the same basic climate the entire time - and likely warmer as you reach Grand Turk.

Drink packages and loyalty tier coupons all apply on CocoCay.

This post will likely be moved to the Princess board, but what is happening currently in that region is something that the cruise lines monitor very closely with passenger, crew, and ship safety as their main priority. You would have to confirm what the late date cancelation penalty would be, but likely the cruise line will either alter the itinerary so as to avoid any risk or if they cancel it, advise as to what rebooking or credit options you will have. Unfortunately this may a late decision on their part due to the complexity of the situation and to reschedule. I would reach out to them directly or my TA for any guidance that may be available.

Each cruise line can be different but typically (at least with the mass market cruise lines) there are on board booking credits in the form of OBC, welcome parties, private venue events, excursions, etc., that are tiered with the number of staterooms booked that apply directly to that group. There is also a reduced fare for each booking issued by the cruise line based on the size of the group that is usually based on blocks of 8 staterooms booked, with 8 as the typical minimum required for a group rate. Also typically for every 8 staterooms booked at double occupancy, there is a one person's fare credited to the host. This can be used as a nominal rate reduction spread across the booked staterooms or as as fare benefit to the host. It is up to the host as to how that particular benefit is applied. The size of the group and relationship to the host may influence that decision.

See my responses in RED above.

Can't determine your preferences - only you can do that. But I will say that IMO I would not do any cruise under 7 nights. From your list, that would eliminate all but NCL and the 7-night Disney. But neither of those cruise lines would be my first choice - in particular since you have no kids and many kids will be on either one. Maybe consider Celebrity - adult demographics with few children.

You always pay "full price" as the price charged by any TA is that which is published by the all of the mass market cruise lines. Their fares are not negotiated. As pointed out, typically any reduction to this would be through group rate pricing or give backs from the TA's commission.

Got it! Thanks for clarifying - I didn't think you meant it the way I was questioning but wanted to be sure. (As I think you've seen before I can occasionally misinterpret things - LOL!)

Just for my own clarification, are you suggesting that once a stateroom is selected that the cruise line might change it to open it up for a GTY? If so, that would sound unusual as once you select a stateroom that should be locked on your behalf. I know, as example, with RCCL / Celebrity that GTY staterooms are typically blocked in advance with that offer (sometimes as the less desirable locations), or assigned to unreserved staterooms when issued. Just curious.

Understood. I was, as you suggest, referring to taking the full / unopened bottle to the venues. That being said, although we are not big wine drinkers, in the past when we have taken a bottle with us they have not enforced the corkage fee policy. But this has not been recently.

You can take them anywhere on board to drink, but their policy is to charge a $25 corkage fee if consumed in a bar or dining venue. I am not sure how strictly enforced this policy is, however.

This is historically very accurate, and applies as well to RCCL / Celebrity, and others. This constant flux is in large part responsible for (using RCCL as example) the lower and more attractive non-refundable deposit (NRD) fares now having a 100% change and cancelation penalty and suite bookings requiring a NRD to reserve as a method to try to stabilize this. Refundable fares are typically at a significant premium over NRD as well to encourage more NRD fare bookings in this effort. In other words, the mass market cruise lines don't like this constant stateroom dance and look to find ways to stabilize it.

What I am saying is the only way the information could be made available to a third party site would either be by that site accessing the information directly - or - the cruise lines providing it. The cruise lines clearly would not allow this information to be accessed, nor would they likely commit the manpower to update it daily and provide it to the third party. But the real issue here is that I originally interpreted the OP's question to be looking for stateroom information across multiple cruise lines via a third party website (like a lot of hotels do), which is what my discussion evolved to. In looking back now I likely misunderstood that! LOL. So even if it is information within a single cruise line, I am not aware of that being available. Sorry if I led you down a rabbit hole with this! Have a good weekend!

You are likely correct, But I also know that they would not allow a third party direct access to their internal stateroom data, which means the only way that data could be made public to such a site would be for the cruise lines to release it to them. As there is so much data that literally changes on a daily basis - private or not - I doubt they would commit the manpower to manage it for an external site. But, to your point regarding the OP's question, it would not be a bad thing to have.

Maybe not stated well - but individual stateroom sales information per itinerary and available remaining capacity is not information that is generally released. It is internal information to the cruise lines. A given stateroom category availability is only something that would be seen when searching that specific stateroom category on a given itinerary - and even then the total available staterooms is not necessarily provided.

Many of the RCCL older ships have balconies similar to that. I'm sure other lines would as well.

The short answer is no. Within each cruise line's web site, you need to determine a preferred cruise region and date first, and then scan the specific itineraries and ships that sail that region and date, then select your preferred choices and look at availability for your desired stateroom category by each ship and itinerary. There are so many ships, itineraries, and dates, in any given region with so many staterooms available for each sailing that change daily that it would likely be impossible to have any one third party site or search engine be able to track availability by given stateroom category. Besides, I'm not aware of any cruise lines that release that information in the manner you seek to any third party site. If for no reason other than they are too busy managing their own internal data to desire to take on that task as well. They also tend to guard that information as private and as most ships within the mass market cruise lines tend to sail fully booked, it just isn't necessary to list stateroom availability externally. Your other option would be to contact a travel agent and have them assist in your search.