momof3cruisers

I remember when my parents got their first set of wheeled luggage and we thought we were just something else and FANCY! Four wheels that went either straight or tipped over. 😂 My mom would be SO impressed if she could see my wheeled luggage now that I can roll along with barely a push even sideways. Wildra’s prayers are one of my favorite things!

Oh please don’t start this debate! 😉😂

Are you talking about Half Moon Cay? If so, it is fairly small. It’s one beach in a long strip. If you head down the beach, a ways past the pirate ship, it will get quieter.

So glad you had a good time. It’s always nice when something new turns out well! It has always baffled me that NCL doesn’t include specialty coffees in the drink package.

Same here. In October last year, I could iMessage my sisters and a couple of friends and receive responses while out at sea. Phone in airplane mode, all data roaming turned off, no additional charges. We were on the Spirit for 14 days and it worked the entire time. This past Feb, I was on Paradise for five days and it mainly worked but sometimes went in and out. Sometime in between there, I was on Breeze and it didn’t work. Wonder if it’s more frequent on smaller ships.

The other cruise lines may not help. I’m going on a Royal cruise the week after a Carnival cruise next Feb and we go to the exact same places. There just arent enough ports that can be reached. This is us. I don’t drink much so it n our last cruise, we did a challenge. He drank whatever he wanted and so did I. For me, most of that was the Cokes that I brought on board and specialty coffee. It definitely saved us a lot of money. We used to love Cheers but I also used to drink more. Now it just makes me not feel great.

I would schedule some speakers about the locations being visited. I don’t want to hear just about shopping or them trying to sell excursions. Cultural information, heritage, colonization, industry etc. Do more contests outside like corn hole or pickle ball etc. One could even do old school party games like the limbo or hot potato. Get people up and involved. I think a passenger talent show sounds fun too.

Those same three Holland ships are the ones listed on the 7th. If they are just staying there, sign me up! 😉 In reality I’m pretty sure that schedule will change.

Love all of your reviews Wildra! Thanks for taking us all along and entertaining us. We went to Aruba and Bonaire last fall and would LOVE to go back to both places.

Thank you! I had no idea that even existed!

I am also annoyed by the cheaters. Simply because it isn’t good sportsmanship. The worst example for us was also HP trivia. My daughter and I had 18 correct until a little girl near us claimed she had gotten all of them right. The thing is, she and her dad had arrived four questions in and didn’t ask for repeats of questions. The Fun Squad person had noticed and asked how they got the first ones right when they hadn’t been there. 🙄 They didn’t know what to say so he had a tie breaker which my daughter won with the ease. This little girl was like 7 whereas my daughter who was 14 had grown up in the time period when you had to wait for the next book to come out. We saw this same father daughter duo cheat at several games over the week. Way to teach your kid a lesson in dishonesty. I enjoy trying to do my best and have fun with the questions. I never expect to win but it would be nice if it were more fair.

We are looking at an aft wrap balcony and then the next door balcony, also an L shaped on deck 6. I have exhausted my resources in internet searching to figure out if the door between those two balconies can be opened. I know the cabins are not connected so am hoping the balconies can be.

This next Feb I am sailing Breeze out of Galveston and two days after I get back from that cruise, heading out on Voyager of the Seas. I’m looking forward to checking out the differences. I’m Platinum on Carnival and this will be my third Royal cruise. The itineraries are exactly the same. OV on Breeze (but I’ve sailed on both a cove and reg balcony on her before) balcony on Voyager. Navigator? Whichever one is in Galveston. Lol our last cruise on Royal, we stopped sailing with them very intentionally. There was a series of “unfortunate events.” The biggest problem was that at the time, they were tooting their own horn quite loudly about some Autism friendly award they had just won. We were on Allure and nothing could have been further from the truth. I spoke with their special needs dept beforehand and I was told to go to customer service on boarding day and speak with them about accommodations for the muster drill. I was not even allowed to get into the regular line. They had someone basically vetting every question and she just kept telling me that everyone had to do muster. I knew that. I tried rephrasing the issue several times and she would not let me in the line. Super. So we did the regular muster and the anxiety from the crowds, the closeness etc, made our son throw up most of the rest of the day. Our head waiter was also a huge jerk. He kept touching our son and even gave him a hard time about not looking him in the eye. I had talked to him after dinner the first day and explained that our son didn’t want to be touched and would not be making eye contact but that didn’t help. If we’d been sailing alone, we would have moved but we were sailing in a family group of 17 and that wasn’t an option. He also took the kids menu away from him on formal night and told him he was too old for that and he needed to order from the main menu. He was only 12 but was tall. I told him he could order whatever he wanted but one of his autism quirks was extreme rule following so he wouldn’t order or eat from the kids menu and was so stressed he didn’t eat. There were other things that came up during the week but those were the worst. Contrast that to how Carnival had worked with us on two previous cruises and it was night and day. When Royal gave our 17 year old a bottle of sparkling wine when she won the karaoke tournament even after she told them she was only 17, that really sealed the deal. She gave it to us but we weren’t even there when the results came out. She could have chosen to go out to the deck with all the other teens who were trying to convince her to do just that. We decided that when sailing with our kids Royal was not for us. However, since these are grown up trips, I’m really looking forward to see how they each go.

That’s actually quite an easy question. If someone is a no show, their port fees and taxes get refunded to the form of payment used to pay them in the first place. Happy sailing!

Oddly, we had two very different experiences on the same ship. We changed rooms while doing a back to back. The first fridge was great. Didn’t even need the door open. The second one no matter what we tried, sodas left in the fridge were no cooler than those on the counter.

That sounds amazing. What is it? 😎

we always did this as well. For the older two, it worked really well. For the younger one, it had mixed results. (As witnessed by his fairly dismal savings account at the age of 21.) It’s important for kids to realize is that money is a finite commodity. It also inspires more consideration when spending your own money vs mom and dad’s money. If you want a fun idea, we challenged our kids even at the age of four to do extra jobs to earn money for their special trips or vacations. For every dollar they earned, we would put two into their vacation envelope. These were beyond their normal household contribution jobs. Cleaning out the car, finding all the lids and containers that matched in the cupboard, “making dinner” etc.

I am allergic to walnuts and I rarely indicate that on any type of form, like you, I just figure out what to avoid. The only problem I have run into is desserts at dinner time on Lido. There was a chocolate peanut butter bar that had chopped nuts on the top. I asked the girl serving what the nuts were and she said peanuts. Which made sense considering the name of the bar. Nope. First bite and I knew— those were walnuts. 🤨 So now, I just don’t eat anything with nuts that are not clearly identifiable.

I’m hoping Cookie gets moved to Jubilee. I know he likes sailing out of TX since he is from there and so do I since I love Galveston.

Thanks so much for all of this Megan. I’ve decided that I AM convincing my husband to do a med cruise.

Well, my very first cruise was on a line that no longer exists. For our senior spring break, my roommate and I decided to go on a cruise. Neither of us had ever done anything for spring break. That got me hooked. For Carnival, one of my favorite memories it was the first cruise we took our kids on and was an experiment to see how the middle one handled it. He was what we called a “quirky” kid and had some sensory struggles amongst other things. He was also highly anxious. I had contacted the special needs department but we got side tracked on my health needs as I needed a sharps container at the time etc. And I felt unsettled about if I was clear in what he needed. At the time, John Heald still had a blog and you were able to email him, so I did that. I asked about check in and if there was a quieter place we could wait as crowds made DS anxious as well as if we had any options for muster that would be less stressful for him. He told me to go to the priority line when we checked in and tell them my name and that he said to go in that line. They were SO unbelievably kind! Whisked us right through everything and directly on to the ship to guest services. They had a letter from John with instructions. They helped us with perfect accommodations for DS. It was incredible. And part way through the cruise, we received a ship on a stick for each kid, two plates of chocolate covered strawberries and a commemorative picture of the ship with a note from the cruise director thanking us for sailing Carnival. They won my loyalty that cruise! A few cruises later, we had my time dining but had found a team we loved so we requested them every night. They were great and always flagged us down on lido etc. That was an 8 night cruise and the second formal night, only our daughter and I wanted to get dressed up and go to the dining room. When we got there, the wait team was dismayed that we were the only ones and asked about that “not even the little guy” wanted to join us. It was not until the next day when the three kids and I were getting Guy’s burgers and the assistant asked “where’s the little guy?” That we realized he was referring to my husband. 😂😂😂 At the time, our boys while only 13 and 14, were both just over six feet tall and my husband is maybe 5’10” on a good day. We still laugh about that to this day. The boys are now 21 and 23 and are both around 6’5”.

Sleep well!

When we cruised with our kids when they were younger, we always drove to FL from MN in the winter. That’s an extra five or six days. So, I had a pop up hamper in their cabin for their dirty clothes because on the last sea day I always did a load of laundry for socks, underwear, jammies and tshirts and the one load of the warm clothes we would need on the way home. So, two packets of laundry detergent used to also be on my list.

That is really smart. One of those things that once you hear it, you go—why didn’t I think of that? Thanks!

I’ve been reading, reading, reading to get caught up but had to reply to this. I live in MN, but was at this restaurant two months ago. I thought the menu looked familiar. It’s really close to my sister’s house.