Vacationdreamer<><

Thank you!!

Wow! I had no idea! Thank you! Do I have to do anything to link my cruise planner to my visa?

So - I applied for and received the BOA RCI Visa shortly after we booked our trip. We paid for the trip with the Visa which resulted in about 33,000 rewards points. I had hoped to use that toward my excursions costs, but it looks like the best I can do is to have OBC. Is my only option to use the rewards putting the points on as OBC and then booking an excursion on the ship? If so - boo. My desired excursions could be sold out, and they won't have any pre-cruise discount. I may have learned a stupid lesson here, I think... 😛

yes - it seems like I probably need to do that for MSC.... I didn't think so, but I will revisit that. Thank you.

I am hoping to reach out to an MSC agent today, but so often the CC community is far better informed than the agents! I want to book two staterooms for my family of 7 for next May out of Port Canaveral. One stateroom is usually me, my DH, and our two youngest kids. The other stateroom is usually our older kids. At this point, my older "kids" will be 21, 19, and 18 at that time. When I did the mock booking, the stateroom for the three of them was markedly more than the stateroom for the four of us, and I believe it was because I was looking under the "free drinks and wifi" option and they are likely counting my adult kids as if they are over 21. Is this just a quirkly and unfortunate situation? Is this just how MSC will peg them, despite the two of them being under drinking age? Also - no matter how I was looking, I could NOT find connecting staterooms. I will try again from a different computer, and with more sleep under my belt, but in the event I can't find them, does anyone have any experience with getting additional key cards on MSC. TBH, I don't really need to check up on that age group. But it has always been so nice having everyone have access to everything - it's not like, "Oh, the sunscreen got left in that cabin," "I need the hair straightener," etc. We just left the connecting doors unlocked and everyone could get what they needed from anywhere. It's not a deal breaker... but I am all about making things easy. Any suggestions welcome! Thank you.

Forgive my ignorance regarding cruise lines’ private islands. my original experience was DCL Castaway Cay, where most of the food and beach activities were free and excursions were add on. I'm looking at a handful of cruises that stop by “Private Islands” (Half Moon Cay, Princess Cays, Coco Cay.) And I haven’t even started to look at NCL and MSC offerings. It seems like close to nothing is free on any of these? No food anyway. Are the beaches at least no charge? is Mahogany Bay a Carnival owned beach in Honduras? Is there a primer anywhere? Thank you.

Not sure about that, but we have found cruising to provide a great vacation across the family. So much to enjoy. I only wish we’d realized earlier how well it suited our crew.

I prepay. I like to have as much behind me as possible.

We aren’t drinkers, so I think Refresher will be fine for us. Elation was just my husband and I for our first ever parent only trip. Voyager will be with five of the kids. I’m disappointed to learn no freestyle machines on VOTS and that the ice show is the Occult, and that RCCL doesn’t partner with my one preferred Coz excursion. I did NOT do my homework. but we will make the most of it. All days on the sea are better than doing school work!!!!😃😃😃

hope this is 💯spot on! 🚢🌟🌊

I think we all do best when we have a little sense of adventure. I strongly suspect a good attitude will make for a great trip!!! Bon Voyage!

Just got off Carnival Elation yesterday. Alchemy Bar was delightful. Guy's Burgers and Blue Iguana Cantina for the win. The shows were missable. The staff was mature and dedicated. We have our first RCCL cruise booked for May and I am a little nervous after reading around this board today. I haven't had a bad cruise yet on DCL, NCL, CCL, or Princess.

We will be doing our first VOTS in May out of Galveston. Any info you share will be delightfully read!

I am glad you asked. I was planning to come back and mention it. The pros were it was inexpensive and close. The cons was it was extraordinarily loud and we managed to only stay about 2.5 hours. We were off the ship fairly early. There were four ships in port and streets were crowded. In order to get to the Fins Up entrance, you overshoot the British Colonial a bit, but it wasn't that much further. We checked in and were given outrageous instructions to walk all the way through Margaritaville, only to be redirected back out and past where we'd come in to begin with. It didn't kill us, but it was a lot of unnecessary walking. There was plenty of seating. Bathrooms were clean and immediately adjacent to the beach. Beach was clean when we were there. Waitstaff came around regularly, but not annoyingly. The major con was about 30 minutes after we got there they started playing music VERY loudly on a speaker system. It was so loud that it was distorted. Not only was it impossible to hear the waitstaff, it was impossible to hear the person sitting next to you. At one point the music stopped, and then we only heard gentle music floating over from Senor Frogs. That was the most pleasant 30 minutes. But then our staff fired up the music again and we lasted about 45 more minutes. We did buy some Cokes for $5 at the bar. Now, maybe if we'd asked them to turn it down they would have. It may have been worth it, but we did want to hang out on the ship some that day anyway. Just before we left, they started inviting the guests to partake in some games. All in all, it was not the least bit Serene. But it was less than $50 and I've wasted more money than that on other things. I will add photos from my phone; they aren't on the computer yet.

I’ve been a pier runner and to the day I have palpitations when I remember the fear. I thought I was being smart keeping my phone on home time to communicate with my family, but when I used WiFi in a port it must have changed to local time. I was still doing the mental math of adjusting for the difference between home and ship and caused us to get back to Roatan port with seconds to spare. it was horrible. I hadn’t been off drinking, nor had fallen asleep somewhere. My iPhone messed me up. It was so awful. It took 12 hours to mentally stop shaking and I didn’t even enjoy the rest of the cruise. Total fun-sucker event 😜

My entry level was DCL. My love of Disney vacations spilled over to the cruise line (2001) and I even believed the lie that once you’d done DCL everything else would be less-then. So we went 13 years (2014) until I could afford to get my much enlarged family on a ship again. After our second DCL cruise we decided we’d be willing to try another line bc the cruise bug bit hard. Took me a while to get to CCL and now I’m loyal to none. All about dates and deals!

I just reserved this for 3/4. I'll report back after our return home. GETTING THERE: Serenity Beach day pass guests check in at the entrance of Margaritaville Fin's UP waterpark. Transportation is NOT INCLUDED, taxi service is readily available at the cruise pier or you can walk from the port and be there within 15 minutes. Walking: When you exit the cruise dock you would make a right hand turn and just follow the roadway to its end where you would see Senor Frogs Restaurant. Continue walking past Senor Frogs and follow the sidewalk past the British Colonial and the Pointe where you will see the Margaritaville Fin's Up waterpark entrance on your right. This is the check-in location for your beach day. Access to the waterpark is NOT included. Taxi: If you take a taxi, we recommend confirming the total taxi rate with the driver before you accept the ride. Taxi drivers accept US cash, be sure to have smaller currency for payment. Serenity Beach day pass guests check in at the entrance of Margaritaville Fin's Up waterpark. We recommend leaving the resort 2 hours before your cruise ship scheduled departure time. Check-in ADDRESS: 2 Bay St, Nassau, The Bahamas HOURS and CHECK-IN: Beach Access: 8AM - 6 PM. Be aware if your ships time is different from local time. Present this PRINTED pass and pay your BALANCE DUE with a credit card for each adult and child pass in your order (cash is not accepted). This is the check-in location for your beach day. Access to the waterpark is NOT included. WHAT'S INCLUDED: Your Serenity Beach day pass include beach lounge chair and towel. Food and beverage is not included, beachside service is available for the purchase of food and beverage. What to Know Before you go:This day pass is beach access only, the British Colonial resort remains closed and access to the resort is not available. However, there are restrooms available by the beach for beach pass guests. The resort is cashless, a credit card is required to make on site purchases, including food and beverage. Thank you for booking your excursion with us! We appreciate your business!

@Jenny in TX or others - what did you think of walking to the beach. DH and I will be in Nassau in two weeks and we are thinking of just walking to Junkanoo. We did so with our kids many years ago and it was very walkable, but wondering about the safety and if the beach had vendors at this time.

I didn't even catch that we switched ports - thank you for contributing to my planning. I appreciated it.

Does anyone know about a Dyson Airwrap? I’m going to be on Elation. Thank you.

Thank you @mz-s @asalligo

Thank you!! Is the atrium bar on the main deck?

Thank you bummer. is there any area that’s quieter than others? Thank you.

We have Cheer’s - It was part of the package. Will the specialty coffee shop be open during embarkation? will the MDR be open for embarkation lunch? Thank you so much.