lolavix

I just called and talked to a supervisor.  She told me that ship time = local time, and I did mention that in the summer, Grand Cayman and Tampa are not the same time zone. 

I hope she's right.

45 minutes ago, Triton240 said:

Ship time will be eastern time zone. Grand cayman is different than ship time.

I have read that, but again, I have also seen that on two different sites that list which cruise ships are in the different ports, the times listed for both Grand Cayman and Cozumel match what Carnival is saying.  

My family is  booked on the Carnival Paradise in August.  I am trying to reserve a tour in Grand Cayman.  I've tried to call Carnival tonight but gave up after being on hold for 20 minutes.

Can anyone who has done this cruise during Daylight Savings Time (e.g. spring/summer/early fall) tell me if the times posted for arrival and departure (and last tender) are local times or set to Tampa (port of departure)?  I found the same times listed for the cruise on Carnival's website on one of the sites which lists the ships at each port on a given day...but I also found information elsewhere to the contrary that Carnival's ship time is one hour later (but nothing on Carnival's site).  

Thank you!

I want to thank you for your very detailed blog posts. I read these boards even though our Alaska trip is completely land-based, because the trip reports often contain reviews of Seward, Anchorage and Denali, which we will visit--I followed your directions in your beginning post and wound up at your blog. I have to say that your 2014 Alaska blog posts were so entertaining and captivating--so thank you! I will read along with your more recent trip report as well.

And your photos are awesome!

My 8 year, 3 month old son was allowed to move up to the 9-11 year old group to be with my 10 year old. We didn't even ask--they offered. Just mentioning our experience, but as others have said, it probably varies. This was the Fascination in August. Not a huge ship, but there were plenty of kids around.

Go! The ports are amazing. We had fun on the ship as well.

There is a review in my signature if you would like more detail.

Have fun!

My family of five sailed the Fascination last August. We've only done two cruises, and only one was on Carnival. We picked her for the ports, which were fabulous, but we did have fun while on the ship as well.

I have a lengthy review in my signature with many photos, if you want to look.

I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Have fun!

We sailed on Fascination last summer and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. I wanted to mention that at least on the Fascination, the kids' club for ages 9-11 wasn't so great. There were several nights where my boys were in a conference room, away from any of the toys and games in the regular kids' club area. There was one night that they contacted us and asked to be picked up because they weren't having fun, which hadn't happened on our NCL cruise. I am not sure if this is true of all Carnival ships or just some. I don't think it was true for the other age groups on the Fascination.

My boys still met other kids, but we all sort of thought it was odd to not be in the actual kids club at time.

If you have a fourth grader this year, you can get a pass for him or her and that will allow the adults entry. The fourth grade pass is free.

See here for more details. If a fourth grader signs up now, the pass will be good through the end of August. You'd need to bring the paper with you when you get to Denali and they will give you the actual' Every Kid in a Park pass, which I think you could then use to refund the $10 park entry fees charged to adults if you book the Denali shuttle.

My family of five is going on a land-only trip to Alaska this year, and we are going to Fairbanks as part of it. The free or inexpensive things which look interesting to us include: Large Animal Research Facility, Creamer's Field, Museum of the North, the Pipeline Visitor's Center and Pioneer Park. We are probably going to do the Riverboat Discovery as well, which isn't as inexpensive as the other things I've listed. We'll also stop by North Pole on our way south.

When you do the mock booking, be sure to include your state of residence. We saved $700 (which was about 20% of the cruise cost) on our two cabins when there was a resident sale. You had to live in certain states, but if I had ignored that drop down menu when doing the price check, I would not have known. As it was, I still had to call since the automatic system rejected my price drop request, but when I called it was honored.

We were on the Fascination in August. We also had a 11:40 flight home--it was bumped from 11:45 AM, so not too different from what we had purchased, and thankfully, they didn't keep moving it any more beyond that five minutes. We (family of five) did self-embark and were at the airport by around 8:15. We knew to do the agricultural check first and those lines were non-existent. The regular security line wasn't too bad, either...we were probably at the gate by 8:45 or so.

My family of five (kids ranging in age from 8-12) was in St. Kitts last summer and went to Shipwreck Beach. We didn't have a lot of time as we were on a tour where we did other things. It is true that the beach is very narrow. We ate lunch and were told we could use the chairs for free. We essentially used them as a place to put out things so they didn't get wet. The sand was black and brown and different from what we had seen elsewhere.

As far as the monkeys, no one bothered us at the port. No one bothered us at Timothy Hill. I had also read about the folks who would just walk up to you and put the monkeys on you, but we were happy that didn't happen to us. Only one of my three kids really would have enjoyed it anyway.

I have a trip report in my signature, with a few photos from Shipwreck, if you want to look. :) Those photos are on page 11.

We used her for our August visit with my family of 5 (three kids). She was terrific. We had some ideas and she added places she thought my kids would like to see en route.

I have a lengthy review in my signature. St. Maarten begins on page 11.

I don't think you'll be disappointed with Joyce.

TravelingaPor--Thank you for your kind words.

Perfect Match--You are very welcome. I plan on loving Alaska, from all that I have read.

On the Web--It sounds like you enjoyed your cruise, as did we. It also sounds like you have some great plans for next summer; we've only done two cruises now so our doing a land vacation next summer is what is usual for us, although the locale will be new. :) You are welcome.

Pgh Steeler Fan--Such sweet words from you. I had read about that reversal and kept thinking it would have been far less relaxing to try to contact vendors to see we could still have our tours. You are very welcome. I hope you get to cruise again soon, as I enjoyed reading your reviews as well.

George One--Thanks for reading. :)

Ginjer2911--Thank you. I would highly recommend this cruise. So many terrific things to see.

Awtorrey--Thank you! I hope you have a fabulous time in January. I would love to do this itinerary again. Now that we've seen some of each island, I think we'd probably spend more time just hanging on the beach and exploring some of the shops a little more.

Easyboy--Thank you.

Oceans of Travels--We loved those islands as well, including Puerto Rico. I would love to get back there someday. We really did have a lot of fun, yes.

My moms favorite part of the trip was the Kenai Fjords NP boat trip. We used Major Marine and they were great. There was a NP Ranger on board who did many hands on activities with the kids. We did the 7.5 hour trip. My mom was not looking forward to getting off the boat and onto another boat for that long. She now tells everyone to do it.

So your kids were OK with the 7.5 hour cruise? I'm looking at the Kenai Fjords 6 hour, the Major Marine 6 hour, or the Major Marine 7.5 hour. The ranger is definitely a draw for Major Marine. My kids like wildlife, but just don't know if it'll be too long for them.

I know that this thread is over a year old. I wanted to say thank you to the OP for posting such a terrific review, if she is still around.

Next year my family is doing a 2 week land only Alaska vacation. We decided to postpone a cruise for now and just use the two weeks to focus on south central AK. Reading this, I am glad that we did, because when it's time to consider cruises to Alaska, an uncruise will be at the top of our list.

Thank you again...gorgeous photos!

We used Joyce on our visit in August. There is a lot of detail in my trip report in my signature, including photos. The first part of the day, she showed us some great views. We stopped at the iguana farm by the side of the road and my kids loved feeding the iguanas. Around lunch time, we went to Sarafina's and then the market. We went to the beach for about an hour, and then we went to Maho to watch the planes.

Joyce was a great guide and you won't be disappointed.

If I've done this correctly, the link here will take you to the page where the St. Maarten review begins. It's page 11, post 213.

We just did this cruise in August (plus three days pre-cruise in Puerto Rico) and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The ports are all lovely. My kids are 8, 10 and 12 and they enjoyed it as well, with no complaints.

As others have said, if you don't want to visit all the ports, create your own second sea day. Honestly, I wouldn't want to miss any of them, but we cruise for the ports.

St. Kitts - Thenford Grey tour

St. Maarten - Joyce Prince tour

Yes for both of these.

I had to cancel our very first cruise, 17 days before sailing.

This was on NCL, but we did get our port charges and I think it was 25% of the fare back.

We did have insurance, so we got the rest back from the insurance company.

Usually the sooner you call to cancel, the better off you are with any sort of refund.

I checked TA today, and I think I found your thread! I agree. I'd like to take the cost savings and apply it elsewhere on our 2 week trip. It all adds up quickly!

:)

But yes on the adding up quickly. I went into planning thinking there were certain things we wouldn't do but the more I read, the more it all seems so good...and wouldn't you know, I now have some of the things we weren't going to do booked. :rolleyes: I have to wonder how much this will change before July rolls around.

For my family of 5, it's an extra $373 at 2016 prices if we opted for TWT versus the shuttle. I'm guessing the differential will be even greater next year. That's just about a rafting trip in Denali's worth of difference for my family.

A few months back, I did ask on Trip Advisor about the concern with getting seats on the shuttle if we got off and was told that it was usually not an issue, but there are no guarantees. Someone who had traveled with a group of 8 or so replied with this information. I figure, we might not even depart from our original shuttle, and even if we think about doing it, we will probably do it early enough in the day that it won't be an issue. Worse case scenario, we split up into a pair and a triple. I'm willing to chance it to save almost $400.

My 6 year old son got separated from us on debarkation day on NCL. We were using the stairs to go down and he missed the part where all of us stopped using the stairs to visit the buffet one more time. When we got inside the Garden Cafe, we realized he wasn't with us. We thought he'd be coming right along, but he didn't.

We had all of our carryons with us, so we stationed our older two kids to wait near the stairs in case he came back. My husband and I went and combed the two sides of the Garden Cafe. He wasn't there.

The panic was starting to rise. My son had already stated that he didn't want to leave, and I kept thinking what would stop him from trying to hide in any of the cabins whose doors were open with the room stewards cleaning for the new passengers? My other, more horrifying thought was, "What if he just walked off the ship?" I wasn't sure how carefully they'd be 'dinging' people off the ship, and wondered if maybe he'd just blend in with the hundreds of other people trying to get off.

Thankfully, when I returned to my other kids to see if he had shown up, they told me that I had been paged on the overhead speaker, and I was to go to guest services. My husband had heard it too, so he was already there with our son. When my son realized he was lost, he started to cry and someone brought him to guest services. Happy ending, but not without some tears from more than one of us. :p

For a younger child, I would probably instruct them that if they can't find us, to look for a crew member (e.g. someone with a badge) to help them. If she knows your names, that should be enough. I don't think I would have panicked quite as much if the ship hadn't actively been debarking at the time.

We awoke around 6 AM, because we were doing self-debarkation. I had read lots of information about the SJU airport, ranging from "no problem" to "long lines". When I booked our return tickets, I didn't have many choices. We needed to get home on Sunday, if at all possible, because the kids were starting school on Monday. My flight choices were either times that we were still on the ship (5 AM?? :eek:), flights which would have returned us to our home airport at 10 PM (and then we'd still need to get home) or the one I selected, at 11:45 AM. I figured, it was close enough to the earliest recommended time by Carnival (noon). At one point, Jet Blue bumped the time up to 11:40, but they left it there so I figured, we'd be good.

We went to the Lido one last time to have breakfast and then went back to the cabin to retrieve our bags. We went down to the fourth floor, as that was the furthest they were letting us go on the elevators, and we waited with the growing crowd of other self-debarkers.

We didn't have to wait all that long. I don't have any photos, but I would say we were through the customs line by 8. We had no trouble getting a cab, and we were quickly on our way to the airport. :(

When we arrived, we checked in and got our boarding passes. Then we went to the agricultural inspection, where there was no line. I would say it was probably 8:30 or 8:45 by now. Still plenty of time. With our agricultural approval tags, we went through regular security and set off to the gate. I would say we were at the gate no later than 9 AM.

I felt good. I'd rather be waiting at the gate (or the food court, where we had more room to spread out) than waiting in lines getting nervous. We killed some time playing with some of the games DH had won at the Hasbro Game Show and also checked email.

Around 11, we got in line to get on the plane. No issues here.

We took off pretty much on time.

The only photo I have from this day is this:

DD's stuffed friend saying goodbye to Puerto Rico.

We arrived about 30 minutes early. My dad came to the airport to get us, and we were home by about 5 PM.

_______________________________________________________

This was a fabulous vacation. We had a very quick re-entry into regular life, but so be it.

For a few days, I thought about our going back to see additional islands next year. However, right after we decided on this trip in January, I started researching Alaska, because I'm having a milestone birthday next year and that is what I want to do for that birthday year (and DH agrees). I mentioned here that we booked plane tickets about 2 weeks after we returned, and since our dates were now solidified, I've been busy booking lodging, rental car and excursions that book up quickly. (Yes, September is not too soon to do this, as you can sometimes get early bird/this year's rates if you commit right now).

So, maybe I'll be back here on CC with a review of our land-based Alaska trip next summer. :)

For sure, though, whenever we do our next cruise, I'll be back to do another review.

Thank you for reading along. If you have any questions, please ask!

DH decided that he didn't want to see the magician, so I took the boys.

Felipe introducing RJ Cantu, the evening's entertainment.

And here he is:

The show was OK. There was a lot of lights and flashing.

His fiance was his assistant, and the last trick involved her floating.

RJ is in the lower left corner.

At the end, they posed for photos with anyone who wanted a photo. The boys did, so I obliged.

I brought the boys to the kids' club for a bit, and then I went to see Thea Vidale in Punchliner's.

I saw all four comedians that had shows. It was a nice way to spend 30 minutes, and for me, very convenient as the boys were in a conference room near to the club.

I picked them up at 9:45 and brought them back to the cabin. They got ready for bed.

I wasn't ready to sleep myself, so I went up to Pixels, and spent about an hour going through all the stacks of photos in an attempt to see if I wanted to buy any. I think I found the bulk of them, although there were at least a few which I had seen at various times throughout the week but could not locate. I settled on the three that I have already shared (embarkation, the one of DH with the pirate at dinner, and the one of DS1 with the bird in Barbados). I was disappointed that we couldn't buy a package like we did on NCL, but at least I had a few of things that I knew I hadn't gotten photos of myself.

By then it was around 11:30, and time to go to bed.

The end was fast approaching.