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Regarding 4, if you wait and purchase Cheers onboard at guest services they can look up and see he has Drinks On Us and waive the requirement that both of you have to purchase. You won't get the discounted price by purchasing ahead of time but will only have to get it for yourself. Although if he only gets free drinks in the casino he may rather have Cheers so he can use it all over the ship. As far as the 15 drinks in a day goes, he (or you) can buy buckets of beer like you are buying a round of drinks for you and friends where only 1 beer will count towards your 15 on Cheers and the rest are billed at menu price. Just make sure you do this earlier in the day before you get close to 15 drinks and remember they can cut you off after any number of drinks under 15 or not if too intoxicated.

So underwear outside your pants?😆🤣

It would be rare to find me waiting for something on a cruise without a drink in my hand, I agree 100%🤣

Dark n Stormy, most any kind of Mule, none of those are sickly sweet. Mai Tais aren't too sweet if made right. Malibu and pineapple juice tastes just like a pina colada without the thick, sugary sweetness of the frozen variety, still sweet though. If you like whiskey hard to go wrong with Manhattans or Old fashioneds. Martinis that don't have sweet flavored ingredients as the base. Gin, rum, or whiskey with ginger ale. Rum or whiskey with cola, you can always go for diet if you want it even less sweet. A proper margarita not made from the premade mix also won't be too sweet and much more tasty lol. Also tell them at the Alchemy Bar what kind of flavors you are looking for and they will almost certainly make something you will like. If you are really looking to try a lot of new drinks it might be worth it to get Cheers, it helps you feel more adventurous ordering something new when your bar tab is already paid and no pressure to finish something you don't like and order something else instead.

Some other factors to consider for driving: Depending on your vehicle you may not need to worry as much or at all about luggage capacity like you would if flying (also no risk of the airline losing someone's bag). It's also helpful for everyone to pack a small bag with the necessities for any overnight stays on the road so you aren't having to dig through the rest of the packed luggage or load/unload everything multiple times. It definitely streamlines checking in and out of hotels and the less you have to wrestle with luggage in the Southeast in July the happier you will be, or at least I am LOL. If you want to minimize the amount of time stopped you can pack a cooler or bag with drinks/snacks that are easy and filling to eat while on the road. Buying this stuff at home will save you some money and time vs getting everything on the road from vending machines or gas stations or making a dedicated food stop. Save your money and time for a leisurely meal after you've stopped traveling for the day. How many in the vehicle could help with the driving/are comfortable doing so? Also, how comfortable will all passengers be and is it feasible for anyone sharing the driving to take a decent nap? This will be important if you are wanting to drive through the night any or for longer stretches at a time taking shifts. Another thing I like about parking at the port is once you get off the ship you can take your luggage straight to your car and get on the road without having to wait on a shuttle, deal with all your luggage on said shuttle, and then have however long a ride before you have to grab everything and load your vehicle. You would probably be looking at a bare minimum of 30 extra minutes to get to your car if you don't park at the port, most likely longer. Again, it will be July and the less I have to stand around in the heat or handle luggage the better.🤣 I would also recommend not staying more than a couple hours from the port the night before if you can to make sure everyone feels as fresh as possible for the first day onboard without feeling rushed or stressed to get there on time. As for the return leg, you will get off the ship Sunday morning and have until Wednesday evening to get back so you have plenty of time to make that drive. Everyone will probably be more tired than on the way down and lacking the energy from the pre-cruise excitement so I would plan to be flexible about how far you drive before stopping. It may be worth considering only going 3-4 hours from the port and then finding a place to stay, maybe with some touristy things you want to do. You wouldn't be too far from Orlando or Cape Canaveral at that point.

I know there's a lot of food waste but maybe that number also includes crew meals as well?

Years ago wife and I did an 8 day cruise for our anniversary out of Miami over July 4th and drove down from NC. Cruise sailed on a Saturday and we decided to leave around 8-9 pm Thursday and drive through the night to avoid traffic, especially because there were races at Daytona Friday and Saturday. We booked a hotel room in Port St. Lucie for Thursday night and Friday night even though we wouldn't be getting there until 5-6 am just to ensure we had a room ready for us to crash in whenever we got there. Just let the hotel know you will be checking in very late so they don't think you're a no show and cancel your booking. We took turns driving and napping and overall it wasn't a bad drive. Got to the hotel a bit after 6 am checked in and slept until about noon, then got up and went to grab some food, a couple things from the store we forgot to pack and caught a movie later that afternoon. Had a pizza delivered for dinner and went to bed early around 9 pm. Got up the next morning about 7 and checked out, on the road before 8 for the ~2 hour drive to Miami. Traffic was heavy but not bad until getting close to Miami but we didn't hit any major snags and were at the port before our check in time which I think was 11 am. We just parked at the port, yes, it's more expensive than some of the offsite lots but for we felt the security was worth it. I've seen enough accounts of people using cheap parking to save $50-60 only to come back and find that savings erased from having their car broken into. If I were to drive to a cruise from Miami I would seriously consider doing it this way again. Coming home for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to make it all the way to around Savannah before stopping at a hotel, I think we thought we might do some things there on the way home. After doing it, I would NOT plan to drive that far after getting off the ship again, we were tired and traffic was not fun. Of course it might have been better had we not stayed up until 2 am the last night and gotten 5 hours of sleep LOL. Depending on how tired you think you will be getting off the ship you may not want to drive for more than 2-3 hours tops. Now with internet working better on phones while on the road I probably wouldn't even book a hotel on the way home ahead of time, just start driving and find one when we start getting tired of driving. Our drive was roughly 780 miles and 11 hours total for reference so not quite as long as what you would have. Anyway this was our experience driving to and from Miami, it was definitely cheaper than flying and overall not bad. The drive down was definitely better and easier than the return with how we did it. If we were to do this drive again I would be fine doing the same thing going down but would definitely change how we do the return portion.

A foam pool noodle from Walmart or the dollar store tucked under the sheet makes a great bumper too. If you're flying in you could probably pick one up near the port so you don't have to pack it. It's also cheap enough that if you don't want the hassle of bringing it home you can ditch it.

We loved the oceanview aft cabins on the Fantasy class, the way the hull is sloped made that shelf probably be about 2 ft deep. Nowadays our daughter would love playing in there, especially since the curtains make it like a little stage. Honestly it would probably be a struggle to keep her from using blankets and pillows to make a nest and SLEEP in there🤣! You also get some noise during docking from the thrusters and vibration at times but not enough to be a problem in my opinion. You will feel movement being at the extreme end of the ship but to us it's much more like a slow, gentle rocking motion that is predictable, similar to a rocking chair or seesaw and is quite soothing. Midship the movements always felt choppier and less predictable to us. The best part on Fantasy (RIP) if you stayed on deck 7 was a "secret" staircase right across from the aft cabins that you could use to go up past the crew only deck area on 8 to another staircase and quickly get to Serenity and the Lido bar without having to go forward at all! We've never done an aft-facing balcony, only a regular side balcony very far aft, but from the sound of things is the soot level does seem to vary between ship classes with some being much worse than others. Not much way around the privacy thing though!

Those covers would be great if you decided you want interior levels of darkness😂. The shelf is neat, all the aft facing cabins on Fantasy class used to have really big ones before they added the balconies. Big enough that I (6'3" 230 lbs) could tuck sideways and recline fairly comfortably and watch the wake for a bit. My wife being a foot shorter could almost use it like a chaise lounge😆. Also makes a great place to keep your towel animals!

Exactly, I want to feel the ship moving, hear the wake, feel and hear the hum of the engines. Otherwise might as well be on land!

I cruise because I enjoy the sensations of being at sea, I'm one of those that wouldn't care if we pulled into port for days or not. That said, I don't mind having an even mix of port and sea days. Almost all the cruises I've been on had an equal number of port and sea days which I think is ideal, whether it was a 5 day, 7 day, or an 8 day. I look at the ports as something that has the potential to add to my vacation but not detract from it. I rank departure port/dates/price/ship above destinations when looking at cruises, if a cruise happens to have favorite ports or new ones that's just a bonus. I'm not going to let making it to a particular port or not make or break my vacation.

Governor's Beach had great snorkeling you can get to right off the beach, if you have your own snorkeling equipment it makes for a budget friendly and chill day, plus way less crowded than the beach right at the port and Margaritaville.

Absolutely get it now, it's not going to get any cheaper and if you end up not wanting it later you can cancel and get your money back up until a day or so before you cruise.

Not that I want them removed but the menu still has several Fantasy class ships that are sadly no more.

The general consensus being that tipping an extra dollar makes you stand out enough to get better service seems to indicate it is not all that common, otherwise you would be blending in with the majority and not notice a difference.

If you really want to play it safe you could always show up in disguise!😁

According to one of the drink package calculators, beer prices average about $8. That can give you a rough idea until someone else can provide concrete numbers.

Or it was a cliff overlooking the port and was just a shortcut!

My prepaid gratuity from buying Cheers being split among the staff, I'm technically tipping some bartenders that may never actually make me a drink. I'd say the Cheers prepaid gratuities even out fairly well and isn't something to worry about.

I will almost always tip extra on a drink that requires more time/effort to prepare than say just a neat pour of whiskey or a rum and coke or being handed a bottle of beer. I don't feel bad about not always tipping extra on something that takes less than 10 seconds to prepare.

Check each port on tripadvisor, it should have a fairly comprehensive list of things to do along with ratings and reviews. Some ports also have official websites that would also have activities listed and hopefully those would all be reputable operators. Otherwise I don't know of any one site that would list available excursions similar to how the cruise lines do.

Yes, he said the play he saw was "mindblowing!"

I believe he said this in response to a yelp review that a visit to Ford's Theatre was a must not miss experience.

Indeed, that's definitely a win for the cruise line if someone is going to drink that much and not take advantage of Cheers lol. Carnival isn't the morality police looking to decree how much booze you can or cannot consume as long as you aren't endangering yourself or others, but they are most definitely interested in making money hence why it makes sense to put a limit on Cheers and doesn't make sense to limit pay as you go customers.