cruzinlisa

I have had Tom Yom soup on Carnival (the broth based one, not the coconut milk one) and it was decent. Not as good as the local thai restaurant but pretty good. I don't know if they still have it.

We have cruised 2 times in late April and 2 times in mid May, with our child and there were children every time. The late April cruises had kids but definitely not overrun. May cruises had a lot more kids, as some of them were out of school by then- mine included.

How about reaching out to John Heald on Facebook. He likes helping people.

Ha. The point of my earlier post was supposed to be to suggest John Heald. And I forgot to mention it. Glad you did. LOL

In MoBay we never really felt unsafe. Jumped in a taxi out front of the port and went to Doctor's Cave Beach.

Hello fellow Missourian. :):):):)Mo Bay is actually the only port where I have ever felt unsafe. Some of it was probably that we had DD with us and she was pretty young then (2 or 3). We did Carnival hop on/hop off bus so we never were really in danger, but when we were outside of Doctors Cave Beach there was a guy very aggressively trying to sell drugs to the middle aged ladies in front of us (and they did not appear like they were actively searching). Then at the craft market place, they were super pushy. In one area, the guide was telling us don't go over there- literally across the street, because it was not safe and we might get murdered. Very sketchy. All that said, if we went back to Mobay, I would still get off the ship. Not sure if I would take DD with me or not. Maybe.

The only other time I ever felt even mildly uncomfortable at a cruise port was Ochos Rios because of the pushy vendors. It was not really scary, just that one moment. Ironically, I still say that I LOVE Jamaica and would still go back.

Back to OP- GC is a tender port. Mo Bay- no.

Ok, your plan sounds awesome. One idea if you want it less public but public is to pick a specialty restaurant you know she will like, book it for everyone, then on the way there or afterward, stop by one of the many photographers taking pictures (perhaps on a formal night). Figure out a way to get them in on this and have them start asking questions. Where are you from (to you and your soon to be fiancé)? Are you married? No, boyfriend and girlfriend? And so on. Then they can say something like "Ok, one more pose, get down on one knee and act like you are proposing," and that's when the ring comes out when you are down on one knee. BONUS: You have great pictures of the proposal and her reaction too - for purchase of course.

 

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Love this idea, very clever.

How about designing your own proposal wine label? It is flat and easy to slip in your suitcase. Once onboard, you could probably make arrangements at the steakhouse to peel and stick it on the front of your favorite wine or champagne. Go to dinner there, order a bottle of wine, the waiter/waitress can bring it out and show it to you first for your approval. You inspect the label then show it to your girlfriend to see if she approves. Proposal made and the steakhouse is public but not as overwhelmingly public as the main dining room. Every year, for your anniversary you can make up a new wine label to celebrate. Good luck-however you propose!

This one is good too.

OP- you know your gf better than us, so you know what she would like But being a girl myself, I can speculate that no matter whether she wants something memorable that is kind of a big deal. I am a low key private person myself. Not a fan of having my picture taken or being the center of attention. I like to blend in. But I still wish I had something BIGGER for my proposal. Mine consisted of my DH going to the store to pick something up- I knew it was the ring because he had it on layaway. He came back and the food we ordered had just been delivered, so I was putting some salad on my plate. He wanted me to come in the other room and I was like "hang on, let me get some salad" so he proposed to me right there, as I was getting salad. Not super romantic. I married him anyway and we are still (mostly) happily married, but I do remember the lack of proposal.

My experience is it does vary by port. In Galveston we did the same as you and took our bags into the luggage room. One time there was a porter there and another time there was not. I honestly don’t remember if we tipped him because I’m dont think he ever touched our bags. Just pointed where to go. Other ports they meet us at the car and help unload the bags. We always tip then.

Its funny because Galveston was my most recent cruise (less than a year ago) and I remember less about embarkation than I do any other cruise. It just must not have been memorable to me. The only reason I remember debarkation was we had to pay stupid tax on our alcohol, even though we were driving home to another state and not consuming any of it in Texas.

We have always brought on sunscreen with no issue.

I don't know this for sure, but I would bet at least some of the stuff near the port will stay open if the ship is still there. In the port area particularly, the ship is their clientle. They are going to cash in, especially for the people impulse buying after an excursion.

As far as downtown, as others said, Cozumel is a destination with resorts- not just a cruise port. So it will be going for a lot longer.

We usually cruise out of NOLA, but I have also cruised out of Ft Lauderdale, Port Canaveral, Miami and Galveston. We never park at the port, so it is always Taxi or hotel shuttle taking us to the ship. They always drop us off at the curb and there is a guy there taking luggage. Not much other option except to take everything with you.

We have found porters more useful at Debarkation. Our suitcases are heavy. And we usually cruise with our daughter who just turned 7, so not only is she not much of a resource for carrying stuff, one of us had to push the stroller (when she was younger) or hold onto her hand- meaning that person (me, always me) also was not much of a resource. Porters have carts so we can load up our suitcases and carry on bags so we don't have to manage them through line. Plus, a couple of times, the porters have been able to get us into shorter lines at customs. We noticed that in Miami especially. To me, not having to push a suitcase, hold onto my kids hand and manage a heavy carryon bag which hurts my shoulders is worth the few dollars in tips I give.

I would pick Ecstasy or Conquest because: both are 5 days and the itineraries are better. I am not a fan of Key West for a cruise destination. It smelled like trash and vomit to me and all they talked about is the billion bars that were there, but we were there in the morning, so it was less appealing. And its still Florida. Cozumel is my fav port of all, but so many cruises go there, you will get there eventually.

Based upon Itinerary alone I would say Ecstasy because it has Grand Turk and HMC. Have not been to either of them but people rave about them. As far as ship goes, I would slightly prefer Conquest, because it is Conquest class vs. Fantasy class, but it looks like they have done some upgrades to Ecstasy. A lot of fantasy class ships don't have much in the way of balcony so if you are set on a balcony, you might pick Conquest.

Did you look at 7 day cruises? Sometimes they are not that much more and there are more options.

I always book outside. I have no idea if cell phone would have been covered because I did not need it, but you should be able to find one without the exclusion. I know I have found policies that covered various different things that I did not know would be covered- just shop around.

I have done a guarantee twice. Once with carnival and did a guarantee inside- got a midship ocean view. Second time was with Disney. I had a very nice deluxe ocean view room and a balcony guarantee rate came up for the same price. I decided to roll the dice and ended up with a really great balcony that was one of the higher category balconies. Both times happy. First cruise was before most of this stuff was online. I have no idea if our room assignment was on the paperwork mailed or not. But I do know I was surprised to find out that I had a window. Disney was more recent and we found out about a month out I think.

I probably would do a guarantee again if it was a good price or I thought I would a shot at a better room. But most of the time it is only a couple dollars more to pick the room. And I don't want to get stuck with a room in the front. Been there, done that. Not again.

Do you have travel insurance? If so, you might look to see whether it includes prepaid excursions. Some of them do. I discovered this once because I had a land trip booked to go to a football game. Trip cancelled due to weather and we missed the game. I was able to claim the football tickets (which were very pricey) as an "excursion."

I don't know if this possible cancellation will mean cancelling your cruise also. If so, you might look into insurance- to see if there is anything that would cover your circumstances. You can usually buy a private policy for a relatively reasonable cost if you shop around online.

Unless it's to put in a Male Revue which performs Magic Mike Live all day so I can find use for my useless dollar bills on board.

This is a fabulous idea. Please send this idea to Carnival. (Many times). :halo:

Its been a while since my last Carnival cruise, so I don't know if they have some of these things:

Brunch- Steak and Eggs, tomato soup

Appetizers- Baked stuffed white mushrooms, Spring rolls, cream of mushroom soup, strawberry bisque

Main- Chateaubriand, Lobster (but they are tiny), prime rib, petite filet and short rib

Desserts- Black Forest gateau, amaretto cake

Buffet- Guys burgers, pizza

Drinks: kiss on the lips, Fun ship special, Miami Vice. There was also this blue drink in the comedy club (not frozen) that was really good. It had something like pineapple juice and/or sweet and sour in it.

Edited to add: I just looked up a menu for the comedy club and found the name of the drink. Punch liner- named after the punch line comedy club (imagine that). I only ever saw it available in the comedy club.

Again, not all people that don’t want to share a pool with kids are looking for a kid free cruise. There are those of us that have kids that enjoy doing certain things without them. Pool time can be one of them. So people that keep saying to choose a different line to stay away from kids are totally missing the point. From what I understand even Disney has adult only areas. Is there even a more family friendly cruise line in existence than that?

 

As far as an adult only pool going unused, well I haven’t seen that yet except for maybe close to pool closing time. But even then there have been a couple people swimming.

 

I’m glad Carnival listened and put them back to adult only.

Truth. Even traveling with my DD, I like to send her off to camp or to the water park with her dad and go to the adult only area. Disney is excellent at the separate adult only areas. On fantasy they had an entire floor with an assortment of bars and lounges.

I have only used the adult only pool on my last cruise which was Liberty of the Seas. My experience was that the pool always used. Usually at capacity (or above- rarely enforced). Except when they closed it in the middle of the afternoon on the last day of the cruise (sea day) to give a dive lesson (bad move Royal). Even then, there were plenty of people watching that dive lesson and waiting for it to get over.

Technically on a different cruise line but you can get to the same place from Carnival, so I will say West Bay Beach in Roatan (at Bananarama). Its my current screen saver.

Valor is a nice ship. I have cruised mostly Carnival and most recently on RCCL (Liberty). I found the food to be similar. I liked the buffet slightly better on Carnival ships that had Guys Burger/Blue Iguana (2.0 upgrades) and I think Valor has that. Dining room was about the same- except Carnival had the sea day brunch which I liked a lot. I did like ATD much better on Carnival than my time dining on RCCL liberty though. Carnival we never made reservations and never waited. RCCL you had to make reservations and even then would sometimes wait. that really defeated the purpose of ATD to me.

Pax are pretty much the same usually. I never felt like Carnival was a frat house or anything (but I have not done a 3 night weekend cruise or spring break- which can get rowdy. I actually thought it got a little crazier on Liberty of the Seas actually- with the parade in the promenade.

I liked the décor on valor a lot and I like the layout of that type of ship. But I like the promenade on Liberty so much better than Carnival.

I predict you will have a good time.

So I thought I could break even with Cheers. And I probably did on my 4 day cruise, but the truth is that by day 4, I really didn't want to drink anymore. I am going on an 8 day and no way am I getting Cheers. I probably drink like you guys. I occasionally enjoy drinking 7 drinks a day and pretending I am still young and hip, but the reality is that I can't pull that off 7 days in a row and still enjoy the ports, entertainment and food that a cruise is all about.

This, exactly this. We had a drink package on our last RCCL cruise. Both DH and I had one. I may have broke even all things considered, but not on a daily basis. There were some days where I barely drank alcohol at all. And I had probably 1 soda, 1 chai tea and 1 hot chocolate all cruise and although we got plenty of water, I probably drank 1 a day most days (that I did share with my kiddo- the water- nothing else). There were days that I drank a lot of drinks- sea days and one day where we went to the Italian restaurant and DH and I had several glasses of this wine I like. But the last 2 days I drank very little. Just did not feel like it.

Some depends on number of people in your party and the ship. We always have 2 or 3 (depends on whether we have DD) and never had to wait more than a couple of minutes on Carnival, no matter what time we showed up- except one time on Formal night. Generally we went sometime between 6:30-7:30.

I have done all of those ports with my daughter who was between 2-6 during those cruises.

Roatan- 1st trip- did a tour with Victor Bodden's tours. It was an Island tour and then went to see the monkeys and some other kind of zoo thing, and butterflies.

Second time- Beach day at Bananarama. It was beautiful and relaxing

Grand Cayman- I think we did an Island tour. It was okay.

I have heard the stingrays are fun, as well as 7 mile beach.

Cozumel- have been there lots of times. We like Paradise Beach, because its nice and they don't charge much- a couple of dollars per person for use of the facilities and they ask you to spend so much per person on food and drinks. They have a huge pool. We really liked that because the beach is pretty but the pool is easier, especially with a small kiddo.

Chankanaab is also good- they have lots of activities

We have also walked around the port area and shopped- went to Margaritaville (they have free wifi).

Someday I will try Playa Mia or Mr. Sanchos.

Belize- we did this excursion through the ship that was beach break. It was okay. At least it tendered directly to the beach.

Usually by sail date or a few days before they will sell out. I have heard that they try to upsell the more expensive rooms and then sell the insides cheap. So if the price looks good, I would move now.

You can ask. Don't get upset if it does not come through for some reason, but you don't sound like the type that would. congrats on the accomplishments.

I was just on the Magic and noticed too that they were just handing everyone a plain Jane unless someone asked for something else. Looked like people new to guys really didn't know they could order off the menu.

 

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Same experience I had on Conquest a few years ago. Normally I am not that big of a burger person. If we go to a fast food restaurant that is mainly a burger place, then I will order one, but we don't go that all that often. At home I rarely make burgers (unless I am on a low carb kick then I made them a lot) and its not something I usually order in a sit down restaurant. But I really enjoyed them on the cruise. They were juicy and had lots of toppings. I am all about the toppings. I have gone there and just did the toppings. :) I do wish they had other cheese options though. Bleu cheese would be awesome. And now I am craving a burger...

Cruising is a little harder for us now that our daughter is in school so we have a more limited schedule. This year, for child care reasons, we decided to take our vacation in July. Cruising in July is far too expensive so we are planning on going to Gulf Shores or Pensacola and renting a condo. Maybe I will take a cruise in 2019, but secretly hoping to be able to go to Disney World. That's getting so pricey now though, so cruise might be the way to go.