mac66

Actually it's really no problem if everyone in your party brings some. They don't really connect the passengers to one another.

small bag

We were fans of X and did 3 X cruises in 2022 which were makeups from the covid years. One was 7 nighter, two were 12 nights. Service and food on all three were noticeable worse than in the pre covid years i.e, 2019. In addition had we not booked those cruises in 2019 we probably would not been able to go due to the price increase. So, food, service and price are factors. We did book a cheap 8 night RCI cruise for in late Nov early Dec '22 and the food and service was much better than X. Looking at 2023 X prices are very high. We've already booked at least one RCI cruise this year. I don't see us going back to X any time soon.

To answer the original question I don't think X has lowered food quality to push people toward specialty restaurants. I think the quality has gone down however and will continue to go down due to Inflation, supply chain issues, recession, whatever. Note>We were on the RCI Explorer in early Dec '22 and the food and service was ,much better than the 3 X cruises we took in 2022 and pretty much par with 2019 BC (Before Covid).

Excellent review. I'm curious that at 27 you chose Celebrity instead of something like Royal Caribbean? We tend to like X better but our 30 something year old kids like RC, particularly the Oasis class ships.

FYI, The last three X cruises we did this year we were surprised that we could bring back bottles of booze from our shore excursions to our rooms. We assumed they would be held until departure but they were allowed through. No attempt was made to conceal them or sneak them through. Two cruises we had drink packages, the other we didn't so that didn't seem to be an issue. Don't know if X changed their policy, we didn't ask. BTW, the booze we bought was stuff we can't get back home which is why we bought it, not to drink it. Though we did open one bottle to taste since we'd never had it before,

Some might call that virtue signaling. i.e, I'm going to ask a question I already know the answer to say "look at me I don't drink the swill you guys drink, and not only that, I'm going to squeeze my own orange juice so I don't have to wait for it to be served."..or maybe not.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

I've never dived in the Pacific but given the chance to dive on a cruise why wouldn't you regardless of where it is?

I don't know about you guys but I bought shares last summer when they were pretty much at their lowest (July '22) just to get OBC. So for the price of one cruise I get an OBC rebate for every future cruise I take. I don't cruise to get the OBC but since I cruise anyway I may as well take it as a dividend. Although the stock price is up $18/share (as of today) since I bought it. I also bought Carnival shares at the same time @ $7/share. Probably won't cruise on Carnival but HAL and Princess do the OBC thing as well and we might sail those in the future. And who knows, if Carnival doesn't go bankrupt their shares might be worth something someday.

But are you going to spend that much on drinks, every day for a week? Our last cruise we didn't use all our diamond vouchers some days nor did we even open the two bottles of wine we brought.

Seriously? You can't go a few days without your own fresh squeezed orange juice?

I think I paid $40 on sale for my Coco Cay dive. It was pretty murky and rough the day I dived. Not a very good dive. I went back to Coco Cay about 9 months later. there was no sale and based on the previous dive I didn't go. I did talk to some guys that did and they said visibility was good and they saw rays, sharks, squid, eels, etc. They thought it was a good dive. If/when I ever go back and can get it on sale again I would probably try it again. I didn't like the jet ski ride. It took forever to get everyone out and back.

Another update: the family is booked at Mr. Sancho's. Blue Reef Divers contacted me and said they could probably get me in on a dive or 2 as a single in that they usually have more than one diver each day. So I booked a dive with them. So if someone else shows up that day, we'll go, if not, we won't.

Royal owns Coco Cay, they have their own dive shop on the island and you should be able to book your dive (1 tank only) through the ship's excursion planner.

CoCo Cay is owned by Royal so any diving you do is through Royal. You should be able to book it online through the excursions. I dived there last year Dec 21 it wasn't very good after a storm. Went back last Feb but didn't dive but I talked to some divers getting out of the water who said it was very good that day. I'll probably try it again if/when we go back. The water was chilly in Feb, I do recommend a wetsuit.

We don't drink soft drinks but my wife likes La Croix flavored water so we usually bring a 12 pack on board if we drive and not fly into Florida.

I think if this is your first cruise then the 7 nighter on the Adventure to St. Croix and Coco Cay would be your best choice. I too like the ABCs (just got back from there for the third time) but I think a young family is better off doing Coco Cay. And no, you don't have to spend any money on Coco Cay to enjoy a relaxing day. Regarding Carnival or RC... Did Carnival years ago a couple times, it was a lot of fun both times. Pretty much do RC now. RC has a lot of kids stuff, I assume that Carnival still does as well.

Just for the fact that the dive sites are on the other side of the island I don't think I would risk trying to dive outside the cruise ship. In fact I called around and no dive shop would take my reservation because of that. All said "book through the ship". Most of the dive boats go out in the morning before you could get there off a cruise ship. Would never make it there and back for an afternoon dive. As it was, we got back 15 mins after the gang plank was closed.

Different clientele on an older, smaller RC ship doing a TA. The OP will do fine.

Stewart's Cove is the dive op the cruise lines use. They wouldn't take outside reservations when I was there so I booked through the ship. The diving was good, the seas were rough which took a long time to get to the dive sites and traffic was bad going back to the ship. It is a cattle boat operation. They put the 6 of us on a boat with 20 others. But the diving was pretty good. They had to hold the ship for us because we were late getting back. Book through the ship if offered. I wouldn't go otherwise.

Ditto Eden Rock.

One of the guys I dived with in Aruba just sent me videos of the Antilla dive. Saw an octopus which I had forgotten about. That was kinda cool.

Scubacao on Curacao will let your wife come along and snorkel for a small extra fee. Or there are public beaches with reefs within walking distance of the ship pier (where they took us to dive, snorkel) if you have your own gear and don't mind going alone. We were picked up by Scubacao outside the pier, driven to the other side of town to get our gear and then driven back to a beach/reef half a mile behind where the ship was docked. It would have been difficult to carry all your gear, tanks etc to the public dive locations but there were people dropped off and picked up by cab so that's a possibility.

Our Feb 2023 cruise to Coz, Costa Maya, Roatan and Belize has one dive excursion in Coz. Our Dec 2019 cruise to the same places had ship dives in Coz, CM and Roatan.