LibrarianBecky

We had to visit medical for a sudden illness on Fantasy. My son (4 years old at the time) had a sudden respiratory infection that made him have difficulty breathing in the middle of the night. They had a nebulizer machine, breathing treatments, and steroid shots readily available. On a side note, he received very good care from the ship's doctor. I was impressed and thankful.

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We have MTD on our March Anthem cruise. If it was still DD, I would make reservations....but since that is going away soon, I have not made any. After DD is gone, there won't be any restaurant choice, so reservations seem less useful. Would you make them anyway for the MDR?

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I have snorkeling gear, but no life vest. Are vests required for snorkeling? If not required, are they recommended? Can I rent just vests there? Thank you!

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I was making reservations of my upcoming Anthem cruise. I didn't realize this, but I guess there is a weight limit for the North Star? My husband doesn't make the cut. I feel bad because he was really looking forward to it. Not really a question, just wanted to share this info in case it would help anyone else. I reserved a spot for my son and I still....but I'm sad we won't be able to do it as a family.

Chankanaab would be a good choice in Cozumel. We did the manatee encounter there when my son was 7, and he loved it. We did the stingrays in Grand Cayman the same trip. He was a little apprehensive at first, but then ended up loving the stingray excursion too.

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We will be in NYC on a Saturday.

Is it reasonable to expect to be able to do SOL and MET in the same day? Or should we choose between these two destinations? I have only been to the MET once, but I LOVED it and would adore the opportunity to share it with my son. I've never been to the SOL.

The park/sleep/cruise options that we recommend at EWR are the Ramada through Trinityreservations.com, Country Inns, and Embassy Suites. Trinity is $207 tax included for your date. The other two are more expensive.

 

What route are you coming in on from Ohio? Staying about an hour out on Fri night is a good strategy.

 

On Sat I would consider driving to Journal Square Transportation Center or Grove St on PATH to take advantage of PATH to either midtown or downtown for $2.75/pp each way. Parking should be less than $15. If you're going to be just in midtown NY, you should park at Secaucus Junction and taking the NJ transit train to NY Penn Station. Parking for under 12 hours on a Sat should be $10. Train fare is $4.25/pp each way.

 

IMO it's not a good strategy to drive to the hotel to park because you will spend a lot of time and pay $26/pp for a round trip to NYC. From the hotel you would have to take the hotel shuttle to the P4 Airtrain station, ride the Airtrain to Newark Airport Station, and take NJ Transit to New York Penn Station. This could take an hour+ if you don't make good connections.

 

For an out-of-towner the Secaucus Junction option is the easiest because it is right at exit 15X on the NJ Turnpike. All you have to do is be sure you get on the eastern spur of the NJ Turnpike by following the Lincoln Tunnel signs. Journal Square and Grove St are a bit more complicated to find and involve driving local streets in Jersey City.

Thank you for the advice! We will be driving over on Rt 78. Looking at a map, it seems that getting to exit 15X (NJ Turnpike is Rt 95, yes?) would be easy enough. I'm not 100% sure of our plans for NYC yet. Too much to do for one day! The things on our short list are: Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'm hoping we can pick two of these three items--I'm leaning toward Statue of Liberty and the MET at the moment.

Do you have a recommendation for an area to stay in that is about an hour away? Maybe a suburb of Newark?

I appreciate the information!

Hi there,

I was hoping someone could give me some advice on where we should stay in this situation. My family and I are taking a cruise on Anthem in March of 2017. We plan on driving to the port. Cruise leaves on Sunday. We would like to drive in on Friday (8+ hour drive, so we would arrive fairly late) and stay somewhere, so we could spend Saturday being tourists in NYC. For Saturday night, we would like to stay somewhere that does free parking for the length of our cruise (7 days), and then take a shuttle of some sort to the port.

What is our best course of action for this? I was thinking staying somewhere perhaps an hour from the port for Friday night, then getting up on Saturday and driving to the park and cruise hotel. I know we probably wouldn't be able to check in that early, but perhaps we could leave our car there and take some kind of public transit to NYC to spend the day, then return to the park and cruise hotel that night.

Forgive me if this question has been answered a million times. I've read about 30 pages of this thread, but did not read it all.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing! Love the one at night.

Excellent! Thanks so much for the quick replies! I appreciate it!

Hi all!

I booked an inside guarantee cabin on Anthem for next year. I am several months before final payment date. RC assigned me a room almost immediately after booking. It isn't a terrible room--I could certainly live with it, but there are better options within the room category assigned. In this case, it is a room on Deck 10, nearly all the way aft. There are rooms available on Deck 11 in the same room category (K) that are more mid-ship, which is what I would prefer.

If I understand correctly, I can call up RC and ask them to switch me to another available room in the same room category as they have assigned me without any penalty and without changing the price of my cruise. Is that correct?

While I am asking questions, I wanted to ask about possibly upgrading to a different room category as well. Is it correct that is prices drop on Oceanview or Balcony rooms, I can upgrade to one of those categories by paying the difference between my inside guarantee price and the current price on those room categories? Is this something that I can only do before final payment or can I do it after final payment as well?

Thank you!

I hate to be negative, but for me, the value of a Universal day with this schedule is just not there. It will certainly be very busy in the Wizarding World by the time you arrive. My family visited Universal during a 'slow' time of year last year (first week of November), and WWoHP was always busy. The other thing that happened quite a bit was ride breakdowns. Of our three Universal Days, we had one day with no problems, one day with Gringotts being down all morning, but up the rest of the day, and one day with Gringotts and the train being down most of the day. It would be incredibly disappointing to plan and pay for all of that, just to not be able to do the couple of things you wanted to do.

Explorer is rocking and rolling today in 15 foot seas and 30+knot winds. Trust me, I would much rather be home on my couch.

Ugh! Sorry to hear that! I hope your weather improves!

I appreciate all the feedback. Because it was so mixed, and because I was on the fence about many factors on the ship, I decided to do some more research. I found a cruise on Anthem for better dates (end of March/beginning of April) for only $200 more. Husband and I agreed that it is $200 well spent. Anthem will be, by far, the newest ship we have ever sailed on. I'm beyond excited! Plus, we can still drive to the port (albeit 2 more hours of driving, but who is counting?).

Thank you, thank you to everyone who gave me their honest opinion. It is much appreciated.

I appreciate the replies, everyone! I should clarify--my husband does love to cruise and was actually excited at the thought of being in the Caribbean when it isn't 100 degrees. 75 degrees suites him just fine. I'm still not sure if we are going to book it or not. I'm going to take some more time to think about it. It really is dirt cheap (ie: about $50 pp per day).

Tell your husband to get a grip and do what he's told. :eek: It a good deal and in my opinion Carnival is for partiers. Do what you think is right. :cool:

Lol...my husband is the sweetest, and if I want to go, he will go. He is a good husband. We are not partiers, which may be why we are never completely satisfied with Carnival.

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Yes, we would be able to drive to the port (6 hours). That would be awesome if kids were allowed to swim in the covered pool for a couple hours each day.

I wasn't expecting to book a RC cruise anytime soon....but I found one that would be a great deal for my family. It's a great deal because it is a 9 day cruise out of Baltimore in February with kind of a cruddy itinerary (Charleston, Port Canaveral, Miami, Grand Bahama Island, and Coco Key). I realize that it will be COLD at the beginning/end of the cruise, there is potential for rough seas, and that Grandeur is an older ship without many bells and whistles....however, I'm still thinking about booking this cruise.

I have been on five cruises total, only one on RC (Rhapsody in 2003--which we loved and was the best cruise). We loved Royal, but have sailed on Carnival more often, simply because of cost. I"m thinking this could be a great opportunity for us to get back on Royal again, even with the negatives listed above. I would be cruising with my husband and ten year old son. My son has cruised before and generally likes the kids club activities, as well as music/shows. I'm a little concerned that there would not be enough for him to do, especially since swimming would probably be out of the question for at least half of our trip. However, after looking at some Compasses, I think he would enjoy it.

My husband isn't 100% sold on the idea, partially because we have a cruise booked on Carnival for next fall (we would lose some $$ if we cancelled). He's not sure he wants to use 2/3 of his vacation time cruising (yeah, I don't know what is wrong with him either....)

I guess I"m just looking for some other opinions. Thanks in advance!

Just wanted to say thank you for posting the Adventure Ocean sheets! It looks like they do their best to keep kids busy, even if Grandeur is a smaller ship. I"m considering booking her for an upcoming cruise, so I really appreciate the information!

I think Sunshine might be a good option for you to look at as well. It has waterworks and the ropes course as well. I'll second the recommendation of Camp Carnival. My son has always enjoyed his time spent there.

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We did the your time dining on Liberty three years ago. It worked out perfectly for us. Never had to wait for a table. Our wait staff was great. Food was also very good. They ere very kind to my son, who was 7 at the time, always making sure he had everything he could possibly want (including warm chocolate melting cake each night!).

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Im excited for you and your upgrade! We decided to book a balcony for the first time on our cruise next year, and I'm completely looking forward to it!

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One of the things I think about is that at ten years old, my son has already missed the 'sweet spot' for DCL. He doesn't care much about meeting characters anymore. Our last trip to Disney, we waited to meet Jack Skellington, but did not meet any other characters.

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I wish the prices were lower too. I've never sailed on DCL, but have been on cruises on Royal, Carnival, and Celebrity. I LOVE the parks--we went for nine days last November and I'm already itching to go again. I love to cruise, and would love to cruise with Disney, but some of the cruises I've priced out with them were more for one person than it costs my family of three on another line. [emoji17]

I will be on board someday....but my next cruise is booked on Carnival.

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Okay, maybe some of you seasoned cruisers can help. As I stated me and the significant other are booked for Feb. He has never cruised and my last was in 99. We are going to Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan. Thoughts are America Cup excursion in Cozumel. Snorkel in Belize through non-Carnival, Coral Reef and sharks. And monkies in Roatan. Since the monkies are a short excursion. I was just wondering if I needed to pick an excursion to just get some more snorkel time for me (he is not much of a swimming type.) or if I could just walk to Mahagony Bay and snorkel.

Thanks

When we went to Roatan, we did a day tour through Victor Bodden, so I can't speak to snorkeling at Mahogony Bay. However, we did the monkeys---which were really neat, but one of them bit my son. He was holding seeds in his hand, and the monkeys wanted them. It was not a bad bite, but did break the skin. He was fine (and the monkeys have their shots, according to our guide), but I think it is good for people to have a heads up.

We did snorkel on the other side of the island, and it was great.