WiddyTwo

 

This trip, some of the crew are staying at Mahogany Bay Beach, some are going to the Sloth Sanctuary!

OMG I had no idea there was a sloth sanctuary at this port! I'm now very upset that my next cruise does not go to this port... the one after that will tho!

Just so I'm somewhat helpful, I just did cavetubing in Belize back in February. I booked with cavetubing.bz. It was so fun! Our guide was great. The guide was showing us the tarantula holes and him and my boyfriend were trying to get them to come out. Luckily they failed because I would've died. We also saw a 6ish foot boa hanging out in a tree. He also told us a lot about the plants and island history. I really recommend them.

Does anyone know how much the initial deposit is? Thanks!

I have done this but on our own - not through the cruise line. You may want to see if you can book direct with Coral World. Then you would on your own schedule, not someone else's. We hired a driver for the day and did Coral World, several scenic stops, downtown shopping and back to the boat. Great day. We loved the sea lions BTW! Have fun

I believe there is a disclaimer on the website that states that if the excursion is available through the cruise line then you must book through them. I'll be in St Thomas in October and plan on doing the sea lion swim, checking out the rest of the aquarium, and then wandering over to Coki Beach for some snorkeling.

I cannot speak for the OP but I use Carnival's fare viewer tool (link below). It's not automated, you just have to remember to use it and check prices occasionally (or religiously if you're really keen on nailing a price drop). I think there is a web site that will notify you of cruise price drops but the name of it escapes me at the moment.

 

https://www.carnival.com/bookingengine/fareviewer

I didn't know about the fareviewer website so I was just doing mock bookings. The price protection page took all of 5 minutes to submit and I had an email confirming the price drop within about two hours. I only saved $20 but minimal effort was involved, so worth it to me. I think if I had to call it would not have been worth it. Thanks for the link btw!

When does everyone consider it to be worth it to call Carnival when a price drops on a cruise? Is it worth it to call for a $20 price drop, or do you only call when there's a considerable drop?

My boyfriend and I, also in our 30s, were deciding between these two cruises also. Your casino rate gave you a much better deal than we got but we stil decided that saving the money was worth it and we booked Carnival. There's only one sea day so we figured we wouldn't have to much free time. We stay out at the ports as late as possible. By the time you get onboard, shower, and dinner, there's not very much time left in the evening either. If I were you I'd try to find some reviews and Fun Times to see if there's enough offered to keep you guys entertained. We decided saving the money was worth it, especially when we found out flight costs to PR.

My boyfriend and I did this back in February. So fun!! We were on RCI so it wasn't offered thru the ship. It's very easy to book on your own, you just have to get yourself to the starting point instead of being picked up. I think we were able to walk but we were not an the Main port. Our boat docked down at the port near Senor Frogs. It is stated on their website that if it's offered thru the ship you must book that way.

The excursion is really fun. My boyfriend and I didn't team up with anyone and did it on our own. I have slight mobility issues and was unable to run on the uneven sidewalks and we still had a blast. We were very quick with the clues so even without running we were 5th out of 11 teams. It was all adults when we did it but I could see kids having fun too. We had plenty of time to hop in a cab and go to the beach after.

Yes! This! I am NOT an Allstate customer but it still works. Go download the Allstate Drivewise App and create a free account. It keeps track of your safe driving and awards you points. I just installed the app yesterday and have earned 14,000 points already with minimal driving. For 1,000 points you can purchase a $100 Carnival GC for $90. You can purchase up to 5 per day. I rec'd the ecards almost immediately in my email.This is pretty cool because they have tons of GCs for all kinds of stores, hotels, restaurants, etc...

Thanks for the info! Ive tried to get the cards from Verizon previously but never seem to catch them. I read a lot of threads about the gift cards before my last Carnival cruise in February 2015 and just want to confirm nothing has changed and I can still use these cards to pay for shore excursions as well as paying for the cruise itself? Thanks!

Thanks for the review - she's up next for me. I never paid much attention to the previous reviews, but, now that I'm going on her, can't find all the ones I missed!!

 

The tiny size is perfect for mom, but the rocking...not so much.

 

 

I just thought of a question - overall, did you happen to see overcrowding in the elevators? I'm hoping, due to the size, it's not a problem (I actualy don't recall ever having an issue on other ships, but will be taking them all the time this cruise vs occasional stairs.)

I get motion sickness pretty easily and I was fine just taking one Bonine pill a day. The only crowded elevators I saw were when people were coming back onto the ship from port or when leaving the Royal Theater after a show. Other than that they weren't crowded at all.

Hey everyone! I'm mostly a lurker but I just got off of the Empress Yucatán Penninsula cruise 2/10-2/17. There doesn't seem to be as much info out about this ship, especially for a 7day trip (was this the first?), so I figured I would type up a review. This was my first trip on RCI but I have done three previous cruises on Carnival so that is all I have to compare to. I can't decide if I want to write this review based on day/activity/etc so hopefully this review is easy to follow.

My boyfriend and I flew from D.C. to FLL and took a quick-ish uber down to the Miami port. We were going through rush hour traffic so the trip took about an hour and cost around $45. We still arrived at the terminal before they were letting people in so we waited in a short line for about half an hour. They let us into the terminal around 10:30am. *Super* quick check-in and then they directed us to a specific row of seats. At 11am they started letting us onto the ship.

We wandered around the boat for a little while... okay, like 15 minutes because this boat is tiny!... then we got some food from the WJ. Lunch was just hamburgers and hot dogs but we actually ate ALL of our meals at the WJ. I thought the food was good. They had a theme every night. I remember there being American, English, Latin, Mongolian/Asian, and Mexican but I think I'm missing some. We enjoyed the food in the WJ and honestly, my boyfriend didn't want to put on pants to go into the MDR so we just skipped it.

We got into our rooms at 1pm. An interior on deck 9 aft. Holy crap it was small! I've done interior rooms on Carnival and you get a lot more space with them. The bed was literally touching the little desk under the tv and the bathrooms are much smaller. Luckily I'd looked at pics and videos before we left so I knew the room would be pretty small. The only really annoying thing about the rooms was the bathroom light took forever to turn on. I'd hit the light switch, go in and be back out before the light turned on. We just ended up leaving it on 24/7. Our room attendant was great but we are also super easy to please and didn't ask for anything extra. On our last sea day we came back to our room in between activities to get our stuff packed up before the attendant had gotten to clean our room. He was really apologetic but we told him to just skip us for the morning. We swung by around 6pm that night after trivia so I could change and he was in our room cleaning. We jokingly gave him a hard time about our room still not being done. We got into a short convo about how much time he gets off of work and when he gets to go home again. He also showed me how to make a towel koala. Really nice guy.

The entire staff was really nice and very energetic. Carlos the cruise director was funny. The activities on the boat seemed a little more low key than on Carnival but we had fun. We did lots of trivia and a couple scavenger hunts. We also came in first on the Quest game show! I was actually surprised because it was a little more "daring" on RCI than it was on Carnival. My boyfriend and I joined in with two older couples to form a team. He was the lucky one that ended up in boxers, my bra, heels, and some lovely make-up. Such great pictures! The entire cruise directors staff was great. Herrel was really funny and Isaac was just crazy. The other two staff members were a little more low key but were great.

There were three original production shows and the rest were comics. I didn't enjoy the concepts of the two original shows with the RCI singers and dancers. The shows were called Bailamos and Three. The people in the show were great but it literally seemed like whoever came up with the show concepts just picked a bunch of songs they wanted to perform and then gave the show a name to kind of tie it together. The shows were just very disjointed. The third original show was a big band night style show starring Rue, one of the singers. Not my style of music but Rue was fantastic. The other shows were comedians. The first was Al Something. Not very funny and relied mostly on his voices for his jokes. The second show was the guy that does the balloon animals and stuff. Unfortunately the theater was packed so we didn't get to go. The third act was Steve "Mudflap" McGrew. He was hysterical. The last act was El Gaucho. He was funny but a little gimmicky. Back to the Royal Theater topic: there are poles in the most inconvenient places ever so be careful where you sit.

I read a lot of reviews about the issues on the boat during its first couple sailings. I was excited to make it through the trip with no issues... and then we got stuck in an elevator with 10 other people. We were in the glass elevators in the Centrum. We pushed all of the call buttons with no response. We were waving to try and get peoples attention up on deck 6. It was pretty funny. The girl in front of the red phone finally realized it was behind her and she called 0. Ended up talking to someone that barely spoke English. It took about 15 minutes total but we finally got out. Luckily we were only about 2-3 inches from being completely on the 6th floor so the maintenance guy just muscled open the doors and we got out. We then went on our happy little way to bingo. I didn't hear of any other issues.

We didn't travel with any kids but we met a couple with two kids ages 7 and 3. They said their kids asked to go to the kids club every night. We saw very few kids/teens around the boat usually. We just thought there weren't that many on board but one night we passed the kids club as it was ending and quite a few kids and teens were coming out so I assume it was fun.

The only other thing I can think of to include is that this boat seemed to have a lot more movement than other boats I've been on. Probably due to its size. I've been off the boat for 24 hours and I still feel like I'm rocking while I'm laying on the couch. Overall we enjoyed this cruise. It was much more low key than a Carnival cruise, mostly due to the older crowd I think. Feel free to ask questions. I'll respond if I know the answer :)

I got off Empress this morning at 7:30am and had a copy of my bill in my inbox within 2-3hours. It was only one page for my boyfriend and I. It had the info for both of our Sea Pass Cards. No random charges so far!

Hey everyone! I'm going on my first cruise with Royal next Friday. I've previously cruised with Carnival. I was looking in my cruise planner for the internet prices and it is only showing me prices for "surf and stream" packages and not just "surf". Does that mean the lower priced option is not available or am I looking in the wrong place? I wasn't going to do an internet package but if the sale prices are good, I might do it. I'm doing a 7 night on the Empress. Thanks!

The cards aren't available right now. Does anyone know how long it usually takes them to pop back onto the website? I'm heading down to miami Friday and my cruise leaves Saturday, so hopefully they're available soon!

Has anyone had problems getting registered for the rewards program? My husband has verizon so I tried to register for the program. I got a message for "restricted account access" saying that he's not the account manager. We've called to confirm that he is indeed the account manager. Any ideas before he calls verizon again?

My husband bought my engagement ring in San Juan. When he got it appraised back at home, we found out the stone was not as large as it was supposed to be. It luckily still appraised for what he paid for it. When he purchased the ring they made all sorts of promises about being based out of Ca and how we could get upgrades and all sorts of stuff. My husband called them about the sizing and we were basically told we were SOL. I'm not much of a jewelry girl so I don't care about the size, but I definitely wouldn't purchase any jewelry while outside of the US anymore.

I guess this doesn't really help with suggestions, but just a word of caution.

Hey everyone! First post to CC! I've been reading for quite a while but decided I should finally join/start posting.

I booked a trip on the Glory during the Halloween sale. I'm booked for a guarantee interior cabin on the January 31st sailing and haven't received my room assignment yet. I just went to do a mock booking and the only choice for interior rooms is to do a free upgrade to an OV room. This leads me to believe that all interior rooms are booked, correct?

Now for my question. Do they hold back enough interior rooms so that everyone that booked a guarantee room will get one or do they just sell the interior rooms to people that pick their own cabins and then upgrade the guarantee people? I know I won't get my room assignment for quite a while but I have 0 patience and am so excited to find out where I'll be! I'll be happy with anything because before the sale we were going to book an interior on the lowest deck to save money. Just wondering what my chances of an upgrade are! Thanks!