islandgirlejfan

Back in a day a long time ago, I used to always have two bags with me.....I'd say easiily 7 pairs of shoes. These days, it's usually 4. I can pack light, but I never know how happy my feet are going to be after an excursion, comfortable shoes or not.

We go carry on and still packed too much for 9 days! We were on Holland this past cruise. I almost find it hard to believe that I was ever a serious overpacker at one time! I will continue the practice after one of our group had her luggage go missing and she was *hoping* it would show up in Curacao. I'm finding these days 3 pairs of shoes will do it. I don't need 5 (yes, I packed 4 and had a pair on) Marie Kondo folds for the win! I have a bunch of new sets of compression cubes. I just don't know what I was thinking (perhaps I wasn't!) but they just don't work well for me. I graduated from bundling, which while it works, can be a pain in the butt. Knits, tanks, thinner material clothing. I also have ExOfficio undies....they dry fairly quick. We tried the laundry on HAL as a test for our TA next year. It's a winner! I will however be finding my clothespins for the handy clothesline that HAL still believes in. It's helpful for wet clothing, but it's nice when you don't want to send your good undies out! I will either cut up sheets or bring a small amount of detergent with me. I bought medication bags and filled them. They worked nice! I don't believe I'm bringing the shampoo any longer. What I used on the ship worked just fine, even on my dyed whatever the color is now hair!! We have done the toothpaste tablets.....big meh. I'd rather just have a smaller tube of toothpaste. They are ok in a pinch, but they aren't my thing. I changed toothbrushes before leaving and packed our old ones. Pitched them when we were done. Make a small first aid kit in an old glass case. I needed Aleve or something like it for my planters fasciitis. I brought Tylenol, which does not seem to relieve the pain. 15 dollars later at the ships small assorted items....I found Aleve-YAY, go me! Put in Imodium, pain reliever, sinus pills, Ny-quil tabs, bandaids, antibiotic cream, anything else you might need. I learned a valuable lesson on this one. I'm working on what I want to take for the TA. October frightens me because I've lived in Europe. I'm going to have this figured out though.

I just came off a cruise on the Rotterdam. I went to Ulta because pretty much all my makeup had went bad and I didn't want to look haggy for the evening. I'm not a huge user of it, so it totally PAINED me when the bill came $200.....I signed up for a credit card that I really didn't want because I wanted to save $40. I can't even talk about how I felt in Ulta as a 62 year old woman! LOL, I felt like a fish out of water trying to even find what I wanted! It was right there with buying bras.....I don't care for that either! =P What I really wish is that I could get *samples* like Avon or Mary Kay used to provide. The Mary Kay stuff was neat because it was just enough, not to mention the sizes would be just enough to pack and not having it laying around forever. I really wish I could get something like this. I have looked at eBay and seen them, however you don't know how old that stuff is either.

We like being connected while onboard and HAL’s net was absolutely impressive, compared the speeds and price we’ve paid on Celebrity and RCCL. We did the upgrade which was 50 dollars each. I was able to FaceTime my friend and son. It really was blazing fast! I put a video up on Facebook and it took no time at all to upload. Adding a picture of the speeds midday outside at the pool deck. My oldest son works for Cisco and is a huge fan of Elon Musk/Starlink/Space X/Tesla and was so amazed at the speeds (he and his wife also cruise!) that he wanted to share them with the Starlink group he belongs to. My hubby and I thought it was great!

I just want to throw this out to everyone. I bought a lovely sparkly jacket from Maurices as well at three tank tops, two black, one of them having gold snaps and one white, all of them very fashionable material, washed on delicate very nicely and I hung them to dry. No wrinkles at all. The jacket in particular can take pretty much change casual to formal very easily. I'm a 2X and their sizing seems to be right on. Just a suggestion if you are looking for any clothing items for an upcoming cruise.

I love them as well as Tieks, however all of mine are going to be going. Sadly the no support thing is not helping my knee issue or my planter fasciitis. I love all the colors and how fun they are. I've tried everything to wear them. I love them particularly for cruising because they take up little space. Age sucks sometimes!

It's just sort of meh, honestly. I don't think the positioning of the restaurant is helpful either. Beautiful views, but it's basically part of the buffet during the day, in a uber busy area between the buffet and the pool, and then it has to try to be an Italian restaurant in the evening. No real ambiance and much of the food has no wow factor. We wanted to try all the pay restaurants and as I had a lot of OBC, it allowed us to do that. As much of an Italian foodie as I am, I can pass on this one.

There are some very interesting itineraries on HAL and we mostly had a great time. The aft is where it's at for us. My pictures from there are stunning and we do love that the Rotterdam isn't like Celebrity S-Class and there is actually some protection from the sun. It is a beautiful ship.

We didn't do either. People in our group when to Eden and seemed very happy with it. She said it was 10 dollars a piece for a chair with an umbrella. Chogogo sounds like a great deal as well.....we probably would have done that, but the golf cart thing was really neat. We will go to Chogogo the next time. I personally don't think you can go wrong with any of them. Lots of neat videos on YouTube about all of them! 🙂

We were port, so that does explain much. I must admit, I haven't been frequenting CC as much as I have in the past. I maybe should have read some before booking, however aft rooms are usually coveted, at least on Celebrity ships. I also don't always go searching for everything because CC can be wonky. I tried to find something out about additional tipping of our staff. It didn't like the criteria, so I just went ahead and did what I was going to do in the first place. I was just looking for the guidelines and didn't get a hit. Admittedly it was on my phone on the ship and not my computer at home, but it was something I didn't give thought to until I was in the situation. This was the last room aft when we booked and I can't lie, I didn't give a lot of thought to smoking or reading up on anything. That's my bad. I got used to it being that easy on Celebrity and didn't think it would cause any issues. It's an easy solution for us. No aft on HAL unless maybe maybe it's sixth floor or lower . It's that simple. I know for the next time.

Agreed. The night we did go to Billboard, we sat on the back wall near Notes and enjoyed whiskey smashes. Didn't have an issue then. Our room was one floor below the aft pool. It was not good. The night we went to the Rolling Stone Rock Room, we were able to get a seat near the steps going to the casino. That also didn't work.

I don't think the smoking was from the veranda, I have to be honest. The pool deck was right above us that allowed people to smoke. The buffet was on the same floor. I smelled cigarettes but I also smelled breakfast cooking at 3:30/4:00 AM on a few days. It honestly had something to do with the way it was coming into our room, but nevertheless, I smelled it. It was specific to the area we were in which was the back of the ship. I'm not going to lie, I doubt it was our neighbors. They had a suite and we never saw them the whole time. To be honest, this is the first cruise that we really didn't encounter people in the hallways or banging their doors. LOL, I think it's because all of these people may have been all tiptoeing to the pool deck to stake their claim and didn't want anyone to know!!

They offered a deal a few months ago where if you charged 1200(?), you got 300 back on a new booking. It was a no brainer for us. We were getting Premium Have It All to include paid gratuities for the Transatlantic from HAL, OBC from our agent, AARP 200$ credit and stockholder credit as own stock in Carnival. Scan your offers monthly. I saw a posting in one of my other groups and I jumped on it. Once we retire, we will be able to go a little more last minute. My husband can't always get the time at work as they have limited employees, so we still plan.

My father may he rest in peace, used to always say that *variety was the spice of life*. He didn't coin the phase of course, but he really always just tried to see the best in much. My mother was the polar opposite, she was more pessimistic. I tend to try and see the best but also know that it may not go the way I want it to. That said, there are times in my life I could probably be happy on a freighter or a garbage scow, just because I want to get away. Thanks for your kind words. LOL, there are a lot of unwritten reviews over the years. I just decided that I was going to put my thoughts into words this time. I really love to write, so I have no excuse!

We not been on Disney other than to say my oldest son who will be 40 said never again. I don't think he or his wife were impressed. It wouldn't be our thing unless we took our grandsons. The food on all the lines are good and certainly a meal can be off....we just felt like from our last few trips on Celebrity, HAL was a notch above. We went to the Fine Cut Steakhouse on the Edge in 2022 after everything opened up with Covid and it was off. My steak was overdone and certainly I could have sent it back, but I really felt for anyone working in a mask trying to make a living. The bit of staff that was on the Edge in 2022 was working so very hard. I was so happy to be back aboard, I just didn't care to complain. The movies were very good on HAL....I don't think the entertainment affects us as much because we just want to go dancing somewhere and there is not nearly enough of that. If anyone out there in cruiseline land is listening, this would be something I'm sure many would enjoy! A good band and a fun time is really all we want to do. We did retreat to the room because of the upper respiratory stuff that was happening to us. We have been Celebrity cruisers so long that we forgot what it's like to have smoke affect us like that. This is and will continue to be an issue for people who have sensitivities. People who have issues aren't trying to make people crazy. There are just things that affect us just like a certain food may be an issue for those with an allergy because that is what they are....allergies. Not a Grand Turk fan and for me it really is right there with Falmouth. I'm in love with Bonaire. It's like no stress there. No one is trying to stick a monkey on you, no one is being a hard sell. It was the main reason we wanted to do the ABC itinerary again! I'm sure we would have loved Half Moon Cay, but the surgery and the fact there was no guaranteed cover for my DH was a killer on this. He has rosacea which has caused many problems. You do what you have to do and there are just times you make lemonade out of lemons. We sat on our balcony and had coffee at the Dutch Cafe. There is always the next time on going to HMC. I hope you had a great time. Right now, price has got us. This cruise for a aft was 2K less than a 7 day on Celebrity. We used to pay maybe 200 dollars more for AQ. LOL, well that's no longer! I want to cruise more, not less. Our next is on the Sea Princess in November. Truly looking forward to that. I'll be comparing prices, but I do know we have one more on HAL as I got an amazing deal with my AMEX card on the TA coming next October 2025.

The only thing we did was go to Billboard Onboard one evening and listen to the piano players one night and did some dancing at the Rolling Stone Rock area another evening. This was another place you almost had to plant yourself in order to get a seat. The entertainment was fine, however as I stated, the smoke was another problem for us coming from the casino area. We aren't going to be necessarily looking for trivia.....sometimes for us, it's about the conversation. One day, we sat in the Ocean Bar watching the gulls dive bomb the ocean for food. Maybe not entertainment for all, but we really found it interesting! It may seem odd or weird to many, but we really keep our schedule the same as we do at home. We have a night or two we seek entertainment *maybe*, however we are usually just happy relaxing, mainly because both of us have busy lives during the week. We are up early in the AM and go to bed early. Truthfully, I'm as happy just watching a movie on a ship or sitting on the balcony.

We just came back from the 5th thru 14th January sailing of the Rotterdam and I thought I would give my impressions while everything is still fresh in my mind. This is our first cruise on Holland as we typically sail Celebrity. A little about the two of us, hubby is 64 and I am 62. We are both still working, so we book cruises to really relax....we camp on weekends in the good months, which is a little more crazy! We have been on Norwegian, Costa, Princess, Celebrity and now HAL. I booked the ABC islands, which we truly love. Unfortunately, Aruba was cut and Grand Turk was added. We flew into Fort Lauderdale the day before so we could meet up with our friends that live in Pompano Beach. They were suppose to be on the cruise with us, however due to some of those pesky things that happen in life every so often, they were unable to go. My response was to cancel, however my hubby was eager to cruise, so we kept the booking. We stayed at the Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale Cruise Port, which was located close to a plaza area we were able to have lunch and pick up some last minute things. This worked out very well for us. We met our friends and had dinner at YOLO in Fort Lauderdale which was amazing! Really enjoyed the vibe there. It's a little loud, but nothing we couldn't deal with. On cruise morning, we had breakfast at the hotel as it's in the price. Most of the people that we met in the lobby during breakfast are sailing the Rotterdam. It was a bit chaotic, more because people sit and talk at tables rather than get up and allow others to sit. We would have probably taken our food upstairs to our room, however they were working on the elevators and there was only one running, so it was a little crazy. We eventually found a seat on the sofa and spoke to a few other seasoned HAL cruisers. We took a shuttle to the port. It was 18 dollars, plus the tip, but we got there around 10:30 and a few minutes later, they were herding us in for check in. The process seemed a little more crazy than what we are used to with Celebrity on one hand, on the other hand, I already had everything in their system, so basically all we did is get our picture taken and go have a seat. We are in group 2. We boarded around 11:30....most of the ground employees very pleasant. There is always the one that is beyond serious about the job and this cruise was no exception. Let me say, for years I didn't feel as we met the target age of HAL. The couple sitting next to us waiting I ended up having a conversation with. They are definitely much younger than we are, dare I say 40ish and they tell me they love HAL. In looking around, the ages appear to be late 30's to 70's. I'm sure this may look a little different as we have a Transatlantic cruise booked for October of next year. The Rotterdam is a lovely ship! We have booked 8188 aft as the hubby and I are aft bums. We sit and wait on the pool deck for the call for entry to our rooms. This is something different as with Celebrity, (at least the last three cruises we were on) you go and put your items in your room and collect your keys. We just like being able to put our luggage somewhere before finding some place to dine. In this case, we just waited and surfed our net on the phone until the call, which came fairly fast. Once we were able to put our items down, our room stewards Edward and Suandi came in to greet us! Fantastic gentlemen and anything we needed (and we never need much!) is met with "I can take care of that". My planters fasciitis decided to act up while in Curacao and Edward got my husband ice so that I could ice my heal. They were fantastic the entire trip. Beds and linens are very comfortable. Halfway through the cruise, all the linens were changed. The safety drill is seamless. We watched the video and had our card scanned at our area. Even with it being easier than in past times, people still try to dodge this one. Makes really NO sense to me now. The captain makes several announcements about people checking in. Just do what you need to do. All the years of people complaining on this one and it's easier than ever. Better to be familiar with your area than not. We decided to try the Dive In for lunch. Right now in our eyes, the Dive In has a total edge over the Mast Grill on Celebrity! Love that you can preorder, love the concept of feeling like fast food on a ship (we really don't eat it often!), the burgers and hot dogs are amazing and the fries are better than anything we have on land....crunchy and LOVED the Dive In sauce!!! We really loved everything we had over the week from here. It's quick and easy. Once we have had lunch, we walk around the pool area some. Seating seems tough, and unfortunately this is something that does not change over the week. The dreaded chairhogs are a thing the entire week. It is at this point we decided to head back to the room to see if our suitcases have arrived. We don't see them outside of the room, so we figure we will just go sit on the balcony to kill the time. Turns out, our luggage is already inside the room. What a nice touch! So much better than walking down a hall overflowing with luggage! We only pack in carry ons now, so putting our items away is easy. Storage in the room is great. Lots of hangers and drawer space. Requests for a sharps container as I am diabetic and extra pillows are met quickly! Even though the room seems a smidge smaller than most of our staterooms on Celebrity, it's appointed with everything we need. We love having the small couch opposed to the one chair you get on Princess. It's very comfortable. The balcony furniture is comparable to Celebrity. Pretty much every sea day found my afternoon nap out there, so the furniture worked! We like the shower on HAL much better than Celebrity, even though the Celebrity bathroom seems a little larger. The water pressure from the showerhead is fantastic! The shower being along the wall rather than in a corner slot is just fantastic and I wouldn't mind the water flowing like that in my home from the shower!! I am not sure if this always happens or if it's the norm (maybe because of the 150th anniversary?), but the canvas beach bags (2 of them!) are fantastic and they are nice and durable! I saw Celebrity's bag on the way home and the cruiseline that's preaching *Modern Luxury* is giving out little more than a store grocery bag. This shocked me. The bags were very nice when we started cruising, but they have slowly been getting worse over time. This one really looks like my local grocery store....and I'd venture to say theirs might be a little better. It's the little things. Also, why did Celebrity feel the need to pull the clothesline out of their bath areas? So you never want to throw your wet bathing suit over a line to dry? It's like they are afraid that someone is going to do a full load of laundry and dry it....well, these days I just bring my own clothesline and yep, I did dry out our clothing when we were on a 23 day trip in 2022 in Europe Celebrity. I don't want some of my stuff in the washer, thank you! This was such a little thing on HAL, but SOOOOOOO appreciated! Their beach towels are fantastic and we loved the added robes in the room. First time we've ever used them.....maybe because they fit! So from here on out, I'm just going to give some highlights of our trip- The buffet-lots of great selections. We could be happy here without ever going to the MDR. I think my only complaint is the temperature of the food. Sausage gravy while good should be warm at least. I had it at least 3 times on the trip and it was never anything but lukewarm. Hubby enjoyed his salmon everyday. Really no complaints with food other than temperature of some things. We ate in the MDR on one formal night. Met some great people from Kentucky and Ohio! Had a lovely steak with shrimp and hubby had sea bass. Well presented and loved our one evening there. New York Deli & Pizza- on par with my pizza and most pizzarias we do go to, so I give them very high marks! Loved all the sandwiches we had, in particular for me was the meatball sub. REALLY enjoyed that one! Tamarind-at here twice and Nami Sushi once. FANTASTIC food! Enjoyed the shrimp, the sushi, the appetizers and the service. This is a not to miss if you love Asian! Amy our server the first night was fabulous and her suggestions were right on! I cannot remember the drink I had there that I loved, but it has a big leaf in it. I want to say Shosu Cocktail....doesn't matter, it was SPLENDID!! Canaletto-We liked our food here, but it wasn't a favorite. I love Italian, but if I wouldn't have dined here, I wouldn't miss it. The service was a bit uneven, but they were busy at the time we went. It wasn't a deal breaker, but I don't know if we will have dinner here again. Pinnacle Grill-I wasn't necessarily thrilled by this as much as I had heard about it. Hubby enjoyed it. Another venue that was swamped and not enough employees. I had scallops and my hubby the grilled seafood platter. He loved his....I personally had a scallop that tasted a little *off*. We did love the hanging bacon! We met two lovely couples though and we discussed some fun topics. We will try this again....I'm just going to chalk it up to my off tasting scallop. Rudi's Sel de Mer-THIS SHINED! Ivan was our waiter who is from Montenegro. What a credit he is to Holland America! Very personable, gave us opinions on the food and said all the right things (lol, 10 points for telling me I don't look like someone's grandmother! =P ). I had a lovely filet and hubby had <shocker!> the seafood platter. That was so beautifully presented, actually mine was as well. The desserts were fantastic! I would do this in the first few days. We did it at the end and we were already in food fatigue, even though we really didn't have anything this day except a little breakfast and about 12 nacho chips. I hear this is going away....I hope there is a change of heart because we really LOVED this! We loved whiskey smash at the Billboard bar area and Penecillin at the Ocean Bar. Both were amazing drinks! Ports Curacao-booked the sea turtle excursion with the ship. Really enjoyed our guide Aldridge. He was just fantastic and had a lot of info about his home. We were lucky enough to see two turtles. The beach we went to may have been nicer if we could have been in a better area-our chairs were on a slope. We saw a few flamingos which was happiness for me and went to a neat park. Lunch on the excursion wasn't the very best. The wrap was just uninspired, however the cookies and apple were ok. We just got a light bite when we returned to the ship at the NY Pizza and Deli. Bonaire-this is a favorite island for both of us. We rented a golf cart from Bonaire Cruisers. Well worth the $100! Did a tour of the south island, saw the salt mounts, crazy surf on beaches, donkeys, but best of all FLAMINGOS! Just loved that! I didn't have a good night before, perhaps due to drinking alcohol as it sometimes has an awakening affect on me. We returned the golf cart and went to the small market in the square. We bought our seasonings from the Flaming Flamingo company. Highly recommend their Pika Pika seasoning! I ordered it after a trip years ago. I have some more, hopefully until the next trip! Grand Turk-meh. This is a cruise port owned by Carnival. We sat at Margaritaville and spent some time....we could have just stayed on the ship and possibly found the elusive pool chaise....or not. Half Moon Cay-didn't even think about getting off. Our clamshell was canceled and my husband recently had facial surgery, so he's still healing. Just decided to hang out on the ship. Looked beautiful from our vantage point, but two ships in port, it didn't really work for me. A few negatives....chair hogs. More than I have ever seen on ANY ship! If you didn't have a chair by 7 AM, you weren't going to have one. We do our best to try and think of others even at lunch time. We know we aren't the only people onboard. I keep thinking of things that could be done....one thing is I believe people want a place to put their items and maybe some cubbies or lockers near by might alleviate this issue. We didn't even bother to try and get in the pool, which is sad because I would have loved to have used the hot tub. Keep tabs on your statement, ESPECIALLY if you have the lesser beverage plan. We were charged full price for drinks a few times. Sometimes the servers fixed it and apologized, but I did have to go to customer relations one time because we were given nothing to sign. What was really interesting is that in that instance, they added the $1 tip per drink on each just because my husband had been leaving that. That was a big wow to take that upon themselves to do, especially since the server gave us nothing to sign. Lastly, smoking. We had an aft portside room and the smoke came in our room somehow. I know it was nicotine I smelled. I also smelled the sausage cooking from the Lido Buffet, but the smoke unfortunately doesn't work for me as I have breathing issues from my parents smoking during my 19 years at home. It sets off sinus and asthma issues. We will not ever book the aft again, as much as we like it. We like going to the casino, but we had to go in the early AM before the smokers really showed, but it didn't help. The same smoke went into the musical venues. We did two nights of them and it just wasn't fun for me. Both my hubby and I came back home with issues of coughing because of this. We are on the 7th floor aft for the next cruise, starboard side balcony for the TA. He asked me if I would do the aft and I told him never again on HAL. I know people smoke and I respect that, it's just if you have issues with it, it's hard to have a good time. It's not a knock, it's an observation. Disembarkation was easy for us because we don't pack our life. Why in the WORLD would you wear a pair of ridiculous shoes and try to push two full size bags and one carry on. That was the gal in front of us. We don't even know how she got down the gangway ramp! This is the crap that holds things up. Lots of complaining about the movement of the line from people around us and many people wanting to *line butt*. This seems a little easier on Celebrity. We thought pretty much both Celebrity and HAL are comfortable. Food is a notch better on HAL, rooms are comparable, HAL wins on the bathroom, Celebrity for no real smoking. HAL for the moment is going to win on price and itinerary.....with the except of Grand Turk. Nope....it's like Falmouth in Jamaica with RCCL. Don't even need to get off. We haven't gotten our survey yet....Celebrity usually has this out before you leave FLL. I'd love to leave some input. Other than the smoking, we are pretty happy.

Btw, the Starlink speeds are impressive. My oldest son works for Cisco and he posted this to the group he belongs to. I FaceTimed family and friends and did a number of uploads. It’s pretty amazing!

I’m hoping the happy plane signal shows on this picture because we both are indeed in airplane mode. It just jumped off when I read this thread and I reengaged the Rotterdam Starlink. If you go to T-Mobile’s page, depending on your plan, you will get 5 gigs of data for travel and free text for a lot of locations, at least if you have Magenta plus. It happened in 2022 when we went to Europe. We bought a plan while we were there because of how long we were going to be there (23 days) and we knew we would be using navigation and Spotify. I will say that leaving Verizon for T-Mobile is one of the best things we ever did. Our bill is half what we paid with Verizon. I just went and checked all my usages and there is no rogue data.

We are in airplane mode. We have iPhones now but are familiar with both Android and iPhone. Can’t speak for Android on this issue, but both my hubby and I had the same thing happen. It disconnects us and we go to T-Mobile. You notice it because when you go to your home screen, it says in the left hand corner T-Mobile. I’m not worried about it because with our plan, we get 5GB of net to travel with. As soon as I see it, I reengage Starlink.

We are on T-Mobile on the Rotterdam presently. Even though we have the upgraded net, which is fantastic by the way as we have not only used it for WiFi calling but FaceTime as well, we are on the senior Magenta Plus and every time we get close to an island with service, T-Mobile takes over and kicks off Starlink. I was answering mail 5:30 in the morning on my balcony and noticed T-Mobile came across the top of my screen, so it seemed to work well. I had to go back in and reconnect to Starlink. I paid 5 dollars extra for a 24 hour pass to use my phone in Bonfire as well. No complaints.

No, it’s definitely cigarette smoke. I lived with it long enough to know the difference, not to mention this is the only ship we’ve smelled it and we’ve sailed others besides Celebrity. I saw and smelled the exhaust the other morning. Two totally different smells. We aren’t seeing it, but it’s nicotine. I had surgery years ago and my husband will tell you I have a highly sensitive sniffer after it. He calls me *Super Sniffer*…while it may be funny, it’s a true story! I’ve smelled our brand new Mazda CX-5 leaking antifreeze issues and oil burning issues at 25k on the clock….thank goodness covered under the warranty, but they were flaws when the car was built, so yeah, I know my smells. Now it’s possible that maybe our suite neighbors are coming up for air at 2:30 and smoking on the balcony (haven’t seen them the entire cruise) and possibly they are breaking the rules, but it’s definitely cigarette smoke. It’s the same smell in the casino/bar area.

I do. I’m onboard the Rotterdam now. The smoking is tough within the entire vicinity of the casino to include going into the music areas. Matter of fact, we booked an aft balcony, stateroom 8188 and the smoke from the pool deck above comes in through the ventilation. It woke me up at 2:30 this morning. I know ppl smoke as I grew up with two smoking parents, however because they did, I have many issues with it now. My husband, who rarely has an issue is coughing from it. We are taking this ship on a TA next October and I booked the 7th floor starboard and I’m hoping far enough away from it. It WILL keep me out of the casino next cruise. We normally sail Celebrity, but their prices have me looking elsewhere. We have really enjoyed this one other than the smoking.

We did Bonaire Cruisers. HIGHLY recommended!! You can ride around and just pick a beach. No stress (which is why we love Bonaire in the first place) and we had time to do the whole island, but selected just to do the south route. Bonaire Cruisers has a number of videos to watch on YouTube. We saw many flamingos and several donkeys in addition to the beautiful beaches. If you decide to do this, reserve your date at their site online. Chogogo will be on our list for the next cruise or Eden Resort. Some people from our group went there and it looked splendid! Think they paid 10 a piece for a chair and an umbrella.

We are leaving for Florida this Thursday and picking up our cruise on Friday...we booked Bonaire Cruisers and we still may go to Chogogo....not really sure yet. Looked at some videos of the tours around the island and thought both could be fun! For the price of the other beach we can do the golf cart AND the beach and still be ahead of the game as far as money. Some of the other cruisers in our group have done Bonaire Cruisers and it sounds nice. There is a GREAT video online of Chogogo and going there. The people are TA's and I know CC isn't wild about posting anything like that. It's a couple though and the title starts out with WOW!! Only a 25$ excursion! I found the video very informative and they show you the facilities. It looks fantastic.....I know years ago we went on a ship's tour of a place on St. Lucia and we were totally disappointed......this looks much better, especially for the price! 🙂