KillaFee

Fun thread!

I would definitely sail the more upscale, smaller lines that can get into more unique ports that aren't visited by the mass market cruise lines. Seaborn, Silversea, & Crystal Cruises. Yup! I'd make sure to do the "around the world" cruises on these ships.

I'd ALSO charter a yacht for a week or so in the Mediterranean every now and then. Thanks for asking!

Laura

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Don't tell your wife. Everything is okay in the end and no harm, no foul. As one husband to another, if you tell her what happened you are 99% of the idiot that you would have been if it hadn't worked out!!!!! Plus, she will have you call your agent multiple times per day to verify everything is still okay.

 

If you MUST tell her, wait till you are on-board and sipping some cocktails at a bar one night. "Honey, do I have a story for you . . . . . . . "

ABSOLUTELY!!!! You are very wise. :D

I prefer no tan lines....too bad they got rid of this deck!!!

Laura

Thanks for the quick replies!! :D:D

Hi,

I know this has been asked a million times before, yet when I used the search function....nothing came up. :(

How many cans of seltzer / soda / bottles of water / whatever are we allowed to bring on board per person?

Thanks!

Laura

Hi,

I'll be on the Splendor next week (YAY!!!!). Do they offer day passes to the spa? If so, any idea how much?

Thanks!

Laura

Thanks for your review! We'll be hopping on the Splendor next Monday and we can't wait!!!!!!!!! Where did you get your rental car? Was it near the port? I really like the idea of driving to the airboat place instead of booking through Carnival. :D

Laura

Someone gave me a bottle of Chocovine as a gift, so we took it onboard the Pride last year. The taste reminded me of Yoohoo.

Haha, you beat me to it!! I was just going to post that it tastes like mildly alcoholic Yoohoo. We had a bottle of it last year and sat in our fridge for 6 months after opening it....we finally threw it out. Not worth the calories. :p

Laura

I'm 32 and I chose the "dine with the person / persons you're with" option. I used to ALWAYS request a large table on my past cruises....then when I met my husband, I realized I enjoy yapping with him way too much to make small talk with everyone else for 2 hours.

I'm a banker and chat with people 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. I love being able to "give it a rest" over a nice, romantic dinner with my husband!! :D

But I do see why people enjoy dining w/others, as I used to enjoy it immensely as well.

Laura

I just bought two crystal light squeezy bottles at Stop & Shop - 1 strawberry lemonade and 1 mango passion fruit! These are my two favorite Crystal Light flavors and the fact that they are liquid makes life SO much easier than the powder. I drink vodka, seltzer, and a squeeze of Crystal Light. Sugar free and deeeeelicious! :D

Laura

Our experience was similar on the Splendor. Our carrier is Sprint (YMMV by carrier) and we had service at least through early dinner seating and a little after. I believe we were about off Cape May, NJ when the signal got spotty so we turned our phones to airplane mode. Coming back we had spotty service even off the coast of VA - we saw personal watercraft close by there, so we thought there might be a signal. It wasn't strong enough to trust to not switch over to cellular at sea mid-task, so we left it off until morning. I woke up about 4am approaching NY Harbor and the signal was perfect.

Very interesting! I'll definitely keep that in mind! Suffice to say I should be fine for posting a thing or two on FB and texting my mom when the horn blows, haha. :D

Laura

I REALLY wish that Carnival would follow suit!!! I would be 100% ok with just having beer and wine for $40. I hate that Carnival doesn't have any options....just the one package. We don't all want EVERYTHING. :p

Laura

Wow, thanks everyone for the very detailed advice! This was exactly what I was looking for! Airplane mode after pulling out of the harbor it is!!!:D

Thanks again,

Laura

Hellloooooo everyone! We'll be on the Splendor out of NYC for the Thanksgiving cruise and we're STOKED! We plan on throwing our smartphones, tablet, etc....in the safe and being "unplugged" for most of the week. Both of us are on our phones 24/7 (like most people these days) so we're really looking forward to being in the moment and putting them away for a while.

HOWEVER, when we're on the ship and in the NYC harbor and heading out to sea, will our phones tap into the ships service and will we be charged for use? Or will it use regular towers for a bit? Basically, when do I need to turn off my data so I don't get charged for texts, posting on FB, etc? I just don't want to be taking photos and posting them while leaving the NY harbor and find out I'm getting charges. I really have no idea how this works, obviously. :D I know years and years ago when the ships didn't have towers, you basically just didn't have an option (which was fine with me!!) but now that you can tap into the ship, I basically need to know how to avoid getting any charges.

Thanks!

Laura

Do they ever have tofu as a protein? It would certainly make sense since it's Asian inspired and they eat a ton of it. I'm thinking they don't because it might not appeal to the masses, but being authentic wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing!

Anyone?

Laura

Actually the first lido pool (by the pizza and big screen) had lots of open seating and wasn't jammed packed surprisingly. The buffet lines inside were so long at times as well as the deli which is all the way aft across from the tandoori. We didn't try the tandoori so I can't comment on offerings, but that and the rotisserie upstairs on deck 10 were the least crowded. The serenity area and walking decks on 11 and 12 were fairly empty. Deck 5 promenade at night was really cramped unfortunately. The times when I felt people were glued to either my front or back were in elevators (boggles my mind how people squeeze in like it's the last elevator) and food lines or entering the dining room or getting on/off ship. People would just cut between families like it was soooo important to be that one step ahead. Noticed it more on this cruise than others. We still loved our cruise, that by no means impacted it overall. Hope you have a wonderful time on your Thanksgiving cruise!

Great, thanks for the input! The crowded elevators blow my mind...all the more reason for me to take the stairs and burn off all (err...some) of the food, I suppose! I once heard someone say that if you start a line anywhere on a cruise, people are bound to jump in because there surely must be food, an elevator, or something free at the end. :p:p Thanks again, I can't wait!

Laura

Take a look at this youtube video. It might answer your question. :D

OOOOOOMG thank you SO much for posting! That's INSANE! That would be so rad!!!!! Wow. :D

Laura

Soooooo.....while we're on this subject, we have an OV on deck 2 for our upcoming Splendor cruise. How close is it to the water?! Will we feel like we're in an aquarium?! LOL. Seriously though, does the water ever come close to the windows on deck 2? We have a square window, not porthole, but we are very close to the bow so I'm wondering what type of spray or views we'll be seeing. :D

Thanks!

Laura

Thanks for the review! We'll be sailing on her on the 25th for the Thanksgiving cruise and are very excited!! Were there any spots that you noticed were less crowded than others? We are not big on crowds and the siamese twin thing comment just made me shudder, lol!! We are thinking that maybe the aft pool area might be less crowded. Did you happen to notice that it was less bonkers over by the Tandoori? Also, did you happen to notice if they had vegetarian options at Tandoori? THANKS!!! :D

Laura

Thanks for your honest review! We'll be on the Splendor on the 25th and over Thanksgiving week. It was a bonus vacation for the two of us - we couldn't beat the price - under $1000 total for an outside room for the two of us so we figure that even if it's not the most amazing ship and itinerary ever (which we know it's not), it's probably better than working, cooking, and cleaning at home all week, haha.

Hopefully we'll have decent weather, but if not....did you happen to check out the spa or gym at all? We're thinking we might get the spa package so that if it IS inclement weather, at least we'll have something relaxing to do. Were they selling day passes, by any chance?

Thanks!

Laura

I remember one very similar! Little Johnny had just earned the highest level in the boy scouts, being inducted into Mensa and all by the age of 14- John could you please arrange for him to be recognized on stage (to a ship full of people who don't care) as well as arrange for him AND Myself to have dinner with the captain (well we know what Johnny did to deserve dinner with the captain, but other than pompous wind baggery what did you do?) because I'm sure it would provide the captain with a night he would never forget... (yeah because in all the years captaining a tourist vessel he's never met anyone more interesting than a 14 year old boy scout with a high IQ) :rolleyes:

 

That guy made me want a drink and I'm not even in JH's position.

 

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We just read this on his blog a few minutes ago and were DYING with laughter. What really got me was that the father of the mensa child couldn't even spell definitely correctly, although I suppose that could be Johns interpretation of the word when he retyped it. Anyhow, I cannot believe the sense of entitlement that some people have. HILARIOUS.

Ok. Dumb question. What do you use the power strip for? Been on 3 cruises and never needed one. We put our cell phones in the safe, so those are off. We do charge them once we are at home port. My hair straightner gets used daily but i use the regular outlet. Periodically my boys will charge their DS games. They only play while I am getting ready for dinner or we are napping/resting. What am I missing? I feel like I should "need" a power strip since so many people use them lol.

My thoughts exactly. I like being "unplugged" while on vacation. :D

I agree that the lemonade is a little bit too strong straight out of the machine. I like to mix mine 50/50 with vodka. :D

Bahahaha! My thoughts exactly!:D:p

Laura

Saweeeeet!!! Leaving in 23 days!! Thanks for posting!

I am an old lady (61) and I did not drink at all until I was about 50. I have been on cruises where I have consumed 15 drinks in one day and I was no where near drunk. I'm always awake for at least 18 hours and that is less than one drink an hour.

 

I'm not a professional drinker in fact except when I am on vacation I rarely drink at all and I don't take a lot of vacations. I think sometimes people get judgemental based on their own experience.

Agreed!!!