mystifyny

I just got off an Eastern Caribbean sailing on Oasis and had the exact same concerns as you - show reservations and late dining time. We spoke with a head waiter in the main dining room a few hours before dinner (thinking they may make an exception and let us use MTD for just the one night) but were assured that we would make the show time with our current dinner time.

Still a little nervous, we went to dinner and informed or waiter of our show time and you could tell that they get this concern a lot. He offered to speed up the service in order to make everything work and it did - dinner didn't feel too rushed and we had no problem finding a seat for the aqua show with several minutes to spare. And this was even formal night!

Thank you for replying with your experience. I am probably over thinking this. When we were on the Oasis before we had 6pm set dining and it was fine. But now with the time change to 5:30 and 8 it put things in a tizzy. I am leaning more towards MTD now. We have someone in our party in a wheelchair and does not want to be rushed. And getting from the back of the ship to the front of the ship for a show quickly with a wheelchair may be challenging. Ill have to think about this one some more. Or just stop thinking about it and just go with the flow.....lol

I doubt they have it at 9:30pm when dining starts at 8 pm!

I looked at a Cruise Compass from April same eastern itinerary and the show was at 9:30 and the dinner times were 5:30 and 8. That is what got me thinking in the first place as to what others did.

We are currently booked for an August 2018 sailing, We are a party of 6 with 2 13 year olds.

Currently we are booked for the 8pm dinner. 5:30 Seemed so early. My traveling companions like the set time dining because they like to get the same servers every night.

Looking at past cruise compasses it looks like the aqua show times are either 7:30 or 9:30 on the nights they have it.

What did others do to make it to the aqua show who have late dining? The early show would cut into the 8pm dinner and the 9:30 show seems like it is too early to finish dinner and get down to the aqua show to get a seat.

Do others just show up to dinner a bit late or eat fast to get to the 9:30 show? We like the traditional dining and are not fans of a buffet. Just wondering what others did.

If I switched to MTD is it easy to pre book the times you wanted or were times not available when you went to book? I heard of people doing a standing reservation and they get the same table each night with the same servers. How often does that happen?

The Aqua show just seems like it has strange times. All of the other shows have times after 10pm on other nights. This is the only show that seems to conflict with dining.

Yes, the hotel in question is in Fll sorry I should have mentioned that .

 

The package is the following.....they're 2 transfers...

 

 

1st pickup is..fll airport to hotel for the 3 of us

 

2nd pick up..morning .of our cruise from the hotel

To POM.

 

The cost difference is only $32.00 . The price we are paying in total is $248.00. Again, embassy has a full cook to order breakfast included and a 2 hr cocktail hour ( we would take this or leave this).

 

Has anyone had not good reviews of this package??

I would double check the quote. I was looking at doing the same but in the "Details" of the rate it says the transfers are for 2 people only. Not how many are booked on the room reservation.

An additional adult or Child is $28.

I would look into private transfers then because adding the extra $28 would bump the cost up and an Uber would be cheaper.

I sent Los Gauchitos and instant message asking for a breakfast menu since it wasn't on their website. And they sent me a picture of it.

 

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Great Idea! Thanks for the picture!

For those that have stayed here, where did you go for Breakfast? I see the hotel does not offer breakfast. Just wondering how much more I should budget for, and what others recommend.

Wow that is the first time I head that. We were on the Oasis last March and we could get as many tails as we wanted. Is this something new? I have not been following the boards lately.

Thank you for the info. I will call Dial 7 and Carmel for both sides of the transportation.

We are sailing Disney. Seeing they are not in the manhattan cruise port much there is limited information out there about embarking and departure. So it is hard to tell when we will actually be getting on the ship. We usually head right to lunch so maybe just getting something quick at JFK may hold us over.

Thanks for the information on LGA. It looks like we will just head there after we get off the ship and any time we have left we will just relax. We are flying Delta. So it looks to be in terminal c or d.

Thanks!

I just saw that the Empire state building opened at 8 and that was one of the places we wanted to go to when we were original planning on spending a few days pre cruise before our plans had to change.

If the porters don't take our bags at 8am what is the worst that could happen? We have to wait outside for the terminal to open?

As far a post cruise. Seeing it is a Friday and with the construction around LGA it could take 3 hours to get there? I have read some nightmare situations going on at LGA I just was not sure how much truth there was. I did notice Friday's seem to be the busiest day of the week for the airports.

We will be disembarking in Manhattan on Friday 10/7, we found a very cheap flight leaves at 3:20pm from LGA.

Will we have any time to get in any sight seeing? I know there is a lot of construction going on at LGA so I really don't know how long it could take us to get there. We are all Tsa pre check so that should help somewhat.

I know Schwartz will store our luggage but I did not know if we would be worth the hassle.

And if we did this what time would we have to get to LGA so we don't miss out flight?

What would be the best way to get to LGA with luggage? I know it is not a flat rate like JFK so I don't want to pay to sit in traffic.

Any suggestions thoughts appreciated

Also we fly in to JFK day of cruise (Sunday 10/2) we get in at 7am. Our Port arrival time is 11. Being a Sunday how long does it take to get to Manhattan cruise port? Should we just kill a few hours and hang out in the airport until 9am or so? Or are their any transportation options that would drive us around the city for a while. I doubt much would be open that early on a Sunday anyway. Just looking for options. This is for one of the Disney cruises.

I fine all the freestyle machines to be a little off from the fountain. Even at our AMC they are off. I usually get regular sprite and there is a difference. If I add a flavor that seems to mask the off flavor but sometimes makes it too sweet.

We always got regular sprite from any of the bars. IMO it was much better. They even fill the freestyle cups. Plus there was almost never a wait at the bars. :-)

Yes we always got our soda at the bar. I actually prefer the bar soda. The freestyle machines had a strange flavor....unless you got a flavored soda. Those were fine. The regular sprite just tasted off to me.

Thank god nothing changed. I really liked the itinerary and the timing fit for us. Looking forward to these islands!

March 30, 2018 9 Night Navigator

I am also Booked on this Cruise. I too have been waiting to see what is going to happen. I liked the ABC islands and the time worked for our School Schedule. If they change the ports to the same old western or eastern route we will cancel.

I like the Idea of going to the southern islands without having to leave from San Juan.

There is another thread suggesting it is an IT issue and folks have been successful booking via telephone. I still see it in my cruise compass. I would think they would make more money not charting over a holiday but who knows. I see the cruise be for and after available to book.

I have the 9 night March 30th booked as well and I am seeing it as "Sold Out" I find that very odd.

Lol. I just cancelled an Allure 7 night for a Navigator 9 night. We have done 2 Voyager class and gust got off the Oasis. For us it came down to $$ and sea days.

You may want to check back on the pricing of VOOM as your cruise get closer. I was on the Oasis in March and I had planned on getting VOOM on board. I just happened to look at my cruise planner about 5 or so days before I left and VOOM was B1G1 so for 2 devices it was $105. When I got on board it was the standard B1G1 1/2 off

So I would check back frequently for a better deal :-)

We also rented one in March and loved it. However I would say there is a mesh fabric at the top for some shade. Well even though you are in the shade you will still get burnt. We were a family of 3 and used heavy sun screen but we used the spray. All 3 of us got burnt. My son go the worst.

Just an fyi just because you are shaded really pour on the sunscreen :-)

We really liked the Bed, We had one of the first few, but I noticed the ones at the end had the better entrance to the beach. We had a ton of rocks. Further past the life guard it was just sand.

I would highly recommend water shoes!

We just did it on the Oasis 3/26 sailing.

We had Shrek, Fiona, and Puss in Boots. Each breakfast has different characters so unfortunately you never know who you will get.

It was fun but I don't think I'll book it again.

We did it once and I don't want to spend $30 for the 3 of us and not know which characters we will get. We lucked out with the ones we got the first time.

Just off the Oasis last week. The beds were great. But the pillows not so much they were really thin and we had one that had some fluff. I tried One pillow, 2 and 3. I tried folding them stacking them, rolling them and nothing helped.

I have a "My Pillow" at home and I find that pillow to be OK but not great either. I over heard others at the airport talking about how they hated the pillows too.

I joked with my Husband how next time I will bring mine from home. lol

We were on the Oasis last week as well 3/26-4/2 and it took us about 2.5 hours to get off the ship.

We went to get breakfast at 7 and were ready to get off the ship at 7:45 we did valet luggage so we thought it would be easier and we could leave the ship at any time. Nope boy were we wrong. When we got to deck 5 to get off there were lines wrapped all over the ship. That was the express line to get off. It took 1.75 hours just to get to the door of the ship to get off. Then once off we had to wait about 40 minutes to get to the area where the luggage was, not we did not have to collect our luggage so that saved some time but there were 100's of people snaking through those lines too and that took another 40 minutes or so. They only had 5 custom agents on. When we finally got out of the building it was 10:15.

They did not start calling numbers to get off the ship until way after we got off. That was around 9:30 and I never heard them call any numbers.

Our Global Entry cards did not make it in time for this cruise but I did ask the agent how it worked. He said once we get off the ship and get our luggage we tell an agent we have global entry and we would go to the head of the line in customs. So in reality it would take about 45 minutes off of our wait time.

Global Entry would not help in actually getting off the boat. In my case this caused most of the delay.

Getting off the ship was one of the most unorganized things I have ever been in. 1000's of people all over the place no one directing traffic. People getting off elevators to cut the lines of people already waiting to get off. It was a mob scene.

Granted this was Easter week. They said there were between 6300 and 6800 people on the ship.

Knowing what I know now I would have skipped breakfast or just got room service and got off the ship at 7. We had an 11:39 flight and we got to the gate at 11:15. Our flight was delayed to 2 so we were thankful for that.

I guess my suggestion is knowing how many people are on the ship. And then plan your attack to get off.

That's a great idea! You can post the name.

 

I just wanted to start a discussion of how to sightsee in NYC from Ridgefield Park NJ to get folks thinking about their options. That area is outside of the areas that we normally discuss and as far as I'm aware, bus is the only public transit option.

They are called newyorktoursnyc.com. They got good reviews on Tripadvisor and it looked like what I wanted for a first time visit to NYC.

I booked this package with the HGI because it seems like a good deal, I can leave my car at the Hotel and also use this group for a site seeing day in NYC without having to worry about driving in NYC and trying to maneuver the ins and outs.

I hope it works out :-)

Thanks for the feedback.

 

How are you planning to do your sightseeing in NYC from the Hilton Garden in Ridgefield Park?

Hi Carol, I cannot speak to the previous poster, but we are planing on using a tour company that will pick us up from the Hotel and take us around to the Major sites, Statue of Liberty, Times Square, 9/11 memorial...etc. I don't think I can post their name here but if you google NYC tours from NJ Hotels they come up

They got good reviews and seem like a nice fit for someone who like me who has never been to NYC even though I live in NY :-)