S.A.M.J.R.

Trying to plan out our first day on Freedom. We need to:

Check in & board (obviously)

Eat Lunch

Put carry ons in room

Muster Drill

Helicopter deck for sailaway

Dinner (scheduled for 5:45)

We'd like to:

Tour & Register kids for AO

Tour the spa

Welcome Aboard Show

Teen 411 (9pm)

Let kids swim/flowrider

Our MTD is set for 5:45 right now. I'm wondering if this schedule works:

10:30 Arrive @ Pier

11:00 Check in

11:30 Board

11:45 Lunch at Cafe Promonade/Sorrentos

12:30 Either drop bags in room/change into swim suits or have kids change in a pool deck bathroom

1p-3p Swim/flowrider (maybe let teen DD watch 8&10yo while DW & I tour spa?)

3p Head to room & Change for dinner

4p Muster Drill

4:30p Sail a way

5p Tour & Register for AO

5:45p MTD

7:15/7:30 watch end of Welcome Aboard Show

8p: ????

Another option is to tour AO on the way to the pool deck, but that doesn't open until 1:30p.

It's different when you add kids into the mix. :p

We are also flying into Melbourne for our upcoming cruise, so I did price checks also. What PP has is what I came up with. We've decided to do two one way car rentals. I have one car for $50 and one for $70... so round trip with the cars matches a one-way shuttle. No brainer to me.

Haha! Fletch1027, I hope you don't mind that I shared the link to your review on my June 22 roll call board. It looks like a few are following along. We are all anxious for our own cruise!!

 

Thanks for posting the teen activities. I'll share it with my niece. Did you daughter have trouble meeting people? My niece is very shy and is actually considering backing out because she is afraid of not making friends, which I don't think is even possible.

I'll have a 16yo DD on the cruise also. She has NO problems making friends that I've found. :D Maybe we should have them trade emails now. :p

Looking forward to reading this! We are traveling in June on this itinerary with our three girls ages 9, 9, & 11, plus my 16 year old niece. I am interested to hear what your daughter enjoyed. Do you happen to have a printout of the "Teen Club" activities that you can scan? Thanks for scanning the compasses!!

I'm ready to see more pictures of the cruise! Even though I went on this exact same itinerary in June 2011, I will be boarding with a few of the members above in June for my anniversary!

Wow, it's turning into a Roll Call sub forum. :D

Has anybody reciently done the dolphin swim at Chankanaab not thru the ship? I did in 2010 but then heard they were making you go thru the ship. I would rather thru DD because its way cheaper.

I believe the only cruise line requiring you to book through the ship is Carnival. Of course you can tell dolphin discovery you're staying in a hotel. ;)

We have one booked with Captain Marvin's based on recommendations on the board. It's two tours that are combined. We don't sail until June, so I hope things work out well. The combined cost for five (two adults, one teen, two kids) is $320.

thanks. :)I'm not worried about it -- I was a willing buyer. But, somehow I must have missed this: what is IIRC?

 

Anyway, we paid $312 for the three of us for the royal dolphin swim ($104 each -- I think there was some book-in-advance discount we got) plus $177 for the manatee encounter ($59 each). The buffet was part of the dolphin swim price, and admission to the park was included as part of either one (we bought a separate admission for our fourth person who did not want to do the encounters and used the $2 off coupon). And then the $230 for photos.

 

There are probably well over 150 pics on the DVD, so when one breaks that down it is pretty good. They do "shock" you when you first go to them and they say "$425!" I would just rather they have a way to buy the 3 or 4 we really liked (yes, for the most part, they were all good), but hey, the cruise ships do this, too, -- $25 per picture here, another $20 or $25 there...

 

we're happy; no complaints... they do a nice job there, but there seems to be little consistency in the photo prices... but, hey, it's Mexico and bartering is the way to shop!:)

IIRC = "If I Remember Correctly".

I agree the price is a little shocking when you first hear it. Fortunately(?) we had gone to an AI (All Inclusive) resort the year before. Through the day, they'd bring various animals (monkeys, parrots, lion cub) around the pool and take pictures with you. They wouldn't let you take your own pictures.

Our three kids got pictures with all the animals. The night before checkout we go to the photo booth and look at the pictures. They really turned out well. How much to put them on a CD? $20 per picture! We went from wanting each child with each animal to each child picking one. :D For a family used to Disney and Photopass, THAT was a shock. Chakannaab's picture price is nothing compared to that.

I don't get it. Why the "in case you need to cancel" reason to wait until final payment? I thought you could cancel for any reason and get your money back until final payment. So how is waiting any help?

Also, how much interest are you really earning by not paying off early? Yes, I get the principal of the thing, but is it really worth it?

If I could, I would pay off early. Maybe not a year+ early, but I'd love to have a cruise (or any vacation) paid 6 months in advance. lol

If you look at the PDF, the line that says "Package prices already include gratuity" is only on the first page. Everything on the second page has gratuity added.

I apologize. I misread your post. I thought you were saying the Replenish, Select, Premium, and Ultimate packages didn't INCLUDE gratuity, not that you're not charged gratuity at the time you get your drink.

Sorry.

the manatee encounter we did was a separate "encounter" that we paid additionally for. It was worth it as we've never been with manatees before!

 

It was also an hour long -- we got to swim with them, feed them lettuce, get pics of handshaking, hugs, kisses. Then we went to our royal dolphin swim and got pics of the foot push, hugs, kisses, turns, dorsal pull -- the experiences were all well worth the prices for the encounters, and similar in price to what we've paid for dolphin encounters in Hawaii and Clearwater (but no one has manatees to swim with!).

 

We did get pics of three of us individually doing each of the "behaviors" mentioned above, so at least 7 pictures of each of us at the dolphin encounter and at least 4 each at the manatee so it's roughly $7 a picture -- far better than $35! But, I would have rather picked the three of each of us we liked and gotten something less than $230, but oh well. And that they originally wanted $425! I hope no one falls for that! Still seems like they keep raising their prices (or haggling standards) by the week!

 

AFter the royal dolphin swim they took us by the manatees to hop in with them for a bit, but it was just to quickly touch and feed a bite of lettuce. To get the longer time as we did, I imagine you have to buy the manatee encounter.

 

They do seem to take good care of their animals and their place. I didn't care for the buffet food, but it was included with the encounter. Otherwise we would have bought some of the menu food. I also liked that the lockers were included in the admission price and you just took the key with you so you could access it at any time.

Just trying to make you feel better about the cost... IIRC, the buffet meal (if you paid separately) is $15pp... so subtract $45 off the package price. And IIRC, we had multiple shots of each activity (yes, you only "need" one to remember it by, but I like more shots), so I bet you're looking at 40 pictures (11 activities * 4 shots each) for each person. That would be 120 images. So, subtract the $45, that gets you to $195, divide by the number of images, and you ended up paying $1.63 for each picture. Feel better? :D

The Replenish, Select, Premium, and Ultimate packages have no added gratuity.

 

The Refresh (soda) package has a 15% gratuity added.

Huh? From the online PDF comparing the packages...

Package prices already include gratuity

You should check and see if and when (or if) Mexico starts their DST, because when we cruised there last March it was after DST so we were 2 hours ahead of Coz...

 

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Thanks for the tip. Coz starts DST on April 6, so they will hopefully be 1 hour behind ship time for us (end of June). If they're two hours behind us, even better.

Our Dolphin Encounter at Chakanaab is scheduled for 10am. Ship is scheduled to dock at 10am. So if Coz is an hour behind, we have an hour to get off the ship and to Chakanaab. That's easy. If they're on the same time, we can't do it and have to reschedule, which adds other complications. :p

Maybe the difference in what we paid (about $230 for 3 of us...haven't counted the pictures) and the other posts is that we did two encounters? Are the prices on the last posts for one encounter (dolphin?). I hope so or I will fume and feel more ripped off than I already do even though the pictures are cute and the experience worth it (so I might huff instead of fume).

I hope so. I will say last June we had the manatee encounter also, but it was only 5-10 minutes and no one took pictures.

Our manatee encounter was just the manatee swimming beside us and we got to feel his "skin". That happened twice and then we were out of the water. We did not get hugs, kisses, or get to feed them.

I do suggest taking a look at the number of pictures you got. I'm guessing (hoping) it's over 100 assuming they took pictures at both encounters.

We were there last week (pre DST), so Jamaica and GC were the same as ship time, and Coz was 1 hour behind). I know the Capt determines ship time, but both times we were on FOS, ship time was EST.

 

In Coz, we did a private tour that included riding the boat to Playa del Carmen, so we had to be aware of both Coz (CST) and ship time.

 

 

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Great! It sounds like my plans will work (10am Coz excursion). Thank you!

Always stay on ship time! The captain made announcements to this! You will arrive in Coz at 9 am their time, but 10 am ship time. Keep a watch with you because the ship will leave without you!

I *KNOW* that. But when planning 3rd party excursions, you need to know if there's a difference in time. If we arrive in Coz at 9am (local), I'm good. If we arrive in Coz at 10am (local), I need to reschedule. I can't wait until I'm on the ship to do that.

Really looking forward to your review. We're bringing the family on Freedom in 117 days. One BIG question for you... the cruise compass lists arrival in Cozumel at 10am. Obviously, that's "ship time". But did ship time match "island" time?

Thanks

They made us take our water shoes off before getting in the water. This was when we were there on our cruise last week. We got the picture disk for $161 for the 3 of us with 86 pictures.

 

 

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See, that price seems reasonable to me.... $1.87/picture.

As far as water shoes, we had to take ours off also.

Great information. Looks like I'm going to change to the starboard side. Funny enough, that's where I was originally until my dad told me port side was better sailing out of Port Lauderdale. But I like the idea of going to one of the secret decks for sail away and enjoying the view of the ports from my own deck.

 

BTW, I know everyone says middle of the ship is best for cabins, but I "downgraded" to a D3 cabin from a D5 when the price dropped so I could save $700. So the only options are the way front or way back of the ship. Does it matter which end of the ship we are on? Right now I'm on deck 12. Is there a better deck than I should look into?

 

Thanks again for all the ideas!

 

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I'm pretty sure moving from a D5 to a D3 would be considered an "upgrade". :p

We were on deck 7 for our cruise and I really like it... one flight down was the Boardwalk, two flights down was the Promonade, one flight up was Central Park. So to get to any of those locations, no elevator was needed.

Wow! Those prices have gone up a LOT since June. We paid $120 for all the pictures of two of us (54 pictures). I remember the cost for four people at that time was $180.

We have checked a factory sealed case of spring water in a cheap duffel bag, with a luggage tag on Serenade, Freedom, Explorer and others, with no problem.

 

Eric

We did the same on Oasis. Granted, we got called to the "Naughty room" to claim the bag, but did it after sail a way, there was no line, and the duffel bag had wheels so no problem getting it back to our room.

Regarding port or starboard...

1) When leaving Ft. Lauderdale, I also suggest going to one of the "secret" balconies (14 forward, 11, 12, 14 aft), and go to the port side. At that point of the cruise, the forward balcony isn't crowded because not many have found it yet.

2) We had a starboard balcony for our W. Caribbean cruise on Oasis last year. I also enjoyed watching the docking activity at each port. However, there's no guarantee starboard will always be the "docking" side.

You will only have amenities for 6 people....but you can invite as many as you like to join you...Nellies Beach is not restricted, so anyone who wants can come onto the beach and into your cabana. You simply won't have enough of the "included" goodies for everyone, if that's an issue. For most people, they just want a place to put their "stuff".

If this is the case, why distribute wrist bands?:confused:

Book them soon, I found out the hard way last year. I did book one for my next trip. I think the higher rated Crown & Anchor members get the better cabanas. Regardless, I have people with me that can sunburn too easily so I booked the cabana months in advance. They go fast and if you miss it I hope you get to the beach first as they ran out of beach umbrellas on my last trip.

DW &I were first time cruisers last year and got cabana 5. Pictures in the link in my signature. I think cabanas are assigned first come first served off the ship.

OP, do you mind providing a link to what you posted in the Celebrity board? I'd like to see the pictures and we currently can't search for your name.

Thank you.

I haven't thought about booking connecting rooms... i guess my husband and i could each be an adult with one of the kids listed on each room.

 

As I was typing this i went and did a mock booking and it looks like it would be about $600 cheaper to do connecting promenade staterooms.... how in the world??? I did a courtesy hold. However, we have my time dining, so we have already prepaid gratuities; how would that work with this now or would it change at all?

Our upcoming Freedom sailing had a price drop. We moved from a D3 (DW & I) and an interior (3 kids) to two connecting D1's and paid an extra $150 TOTAL. I saw the price drop, emailed my TA and they took care of everything. We kept the same reservation numbers, so everything we've booked stays with us.

I suggest contacting your TA (or RCI if you booked directly with them) and let them know what you'd like.