LuCruise

Thank you for the feedback. Next year (his first year), we 'should' be ok as the cruise is Dec 31 to Jan 6. So as long as we can fly home on the 6th and get him back to residence at school on the 7th, he should be good. This is where it is a risk with weather. We will definitely keep the following year in mind as that cruise is the the Saturday just where it sounds like exams could go right to the Friday. From the suggestion above, it does sound like Air2Sea is a very good idea. We would plan on flying the Friday but might have to move it to Sat, or a late evening flight in he has an exam right to the end. Appreciate the direct feedback from a professor.

Thanks for the head's up. Am sorry that it happened to you. Glad it worked out though and AA could help you.

Thank you. This will be the last March break where we all go, so booking Dec holidays going forward (as long as he wants to still go). Good to hear the dates should line up, and even longer time for them is good.

On a different note...I know that you have a kid (or two) in university. Do you find that the dates between end of exams and start up in January line up high school vacation?

Awesome. Thanks!

Thanks firefly. Am guessing this is one of the main reasons people book Air to Sea - at least in terms of getting to your ship if any issues. But good to know they help out in the return too. Definitely a plus (as long as they are available 24/7 to contact them)

Thanks for the quick reply. So basically anything that is available can be booked by Air2Sea? If so, that's great.

We always book airline either directly or through a travel site (as we have points). However, we are considering using Air2Sea next December due to things a bit up in the air. Our son will be in university but at this point, we don't know exactly where, and won't know until the Spring. Since airline prices only sky rocket after release date, especially for the busiest holiday time, I am worried of waiting until things are confirmed. Someone suggested Air2Sea as they are refundable, etc which seems like a great option for us. Flights won't be released for our date for another month or so, but I picked another date to compare Air2Sea booking and regular booking method. The price seems comparable (even though Air2Sea is refundable fare up to final payment, and booking regular method is non-refundable...so great!). However, I did notice one issue as there were definitely less flights shown. For example, on return, they only had a couple direct flights which were very late vs many options shown when booking directly. Does Air2Sea typically only offer a few flight options? Even the ones they offered weren't ideal times (but I didn't do extensive checking). Also, when I do a check, it shows in USD, but my understanding is, if our cruise is booked in CAD, then flight will also be in CAD? Thanks.

Sorry my question wasn't clear. I meant more in terms of the price. It sounds like a refundable fare when booking with Air2Sea, so wondering if the prices were what you would pay for refundable (which is $$$) vs the regular basic fare of non-refundable.

Thank you for an idea of this year. My son would be the exam scenario. Yeah, so next December, the risk would be on the return if any bad weather (as happened this year)

Sorry, one other question. Are these actually refundable fares (which tend to cost a lot more)? Or are the flights like booking non-refundable through airline or something like Expedia?

Yeah, we flew Air Transat once on our first family cruise. At the time of booking we didn't realize they only ran one flight a day and just on certain days. We had no issues and all was good, but too nervous to book them again in case any issue, especially when cruising is to time sensitive.

That's great. Thanks so much for all the info. Even with the uncertainly, when we book flights, we are locked in (unless we pay refundable, which costs so much more so only did this when things started up post covid ). So sounds like a great idea to book Air2Sea in general.

Thank you. I didn't realize Air2Sea was available to Canadians and that you don't pay until final payment. Our cruise is Royal so that sounds like it may be a great option. Three questions 1. If your cruise is in CAD, the flight is also in CAD? 2. If we cancel our (refundable) cruise and before final payment, then the flight is also 100% refundable? 3. I am guessing the flight dates are locked in?

Thanks. The thing is he's at the point where he is applying for first year so we don't know yet where he will be , and won't until the Spring . So I guess 6-8 months out we will have a better idea. Since it's main holiday time, flight costs only go up once released....but we may jut have to wait until then at the earliest.

Yes and that's why we will cruise as a family while we can. The booked cruises were discussed with him. The flight for 2024 won't be for awhile so can always cancel/modify the cruise booking if he changes how he feels.

My son will be going to university next year in Ontario. We typically cruise March break and summer but will be switching to December holiday time going forward so he can cruise with us. So far we have booked - New Years cruise Dec 2023 - Xmas cruise Dec 2024 I have tried to look up the calendars online for some of them for this year and it seems like the break between end of exams and start of next session in January lines up with Ontario school board December holidays. Is this typically the case? The cruises themselves are refundable but my worry is waiting on airline until we can confirm (1) where he'll be (as it's his first year so don't know what university yet), (2) his Dec exam schedule, (3) his Jan start date for next term What do others do with kids in university with respect to airline and booking? If they always line up then we should be ok. The new years one is Sun - Sat, with school most likely starting on the Monday (as long as no weather issues to get home). The Xmas one is Sat to Sat, so at worst case would need to get him home from university and go.

Thanks for the comments. Glad you still had a great time. Our kids may go on the flowrider once or twice but not a huge deal for us having 1 vs 2. But I can see it having long lines if just one with so many people on board so those that wanting to go more often, that it would be a negative. Interesting the kids area was so empty.

Thanks for the link to your comments.

Yep have noticed the same. We booked Wonder cruise for March 2024 when it was released last December. It's a year later and it has already gone up by $1000. This is a single balcony room. We booked New Year's cruise on Odyssey cruise for Dec 2024. Two interior virtual rooms. These have gone up by $3500. At one point, I noticed that our Oasis cruise had gone up by $4500. (Not fair to note now as it's past final payment and it's coming up and so comparing non-ref with refundable fare). We have also recently booked Dec cruise on Icon. Price is just ridiculous (and that's for an interior category room). We never would have paid that but really want to take both kids on this ship while we can as older one will be in university and this may be only opportunity. Wasn't expecting cheap though as it's holiday cruise + newest ship. Considering these factors along with general cruise pricing these days, I expect this one as well to only go up in price. In the past, I'd be calling in often for price drops. That seems to rarely happens these days and prices just go up. Definitely book early if you can. It seems to pay off, no pun intended. For us, we are still booking as family vacation is just so important and I treasure the moments and we love cruising. But definitely our room selection has changed and we will book what works so we can cruise. Also, we had a couple of past cruises where we purchased the drink package. That too has gone way up so we just make do and pay a la cart until we are Diamond. We just adjust but still book and enjoy.

Sailing on Wonder in 2024. Surprised at all the negative reviews. Any positive comments? It's still a Royal Oasis class so thinking we'll still be very happy. My saddest thing is Royal not doing Broadway known shows anymore, plus having the same show as on Odyssey, but not a make or break thing. (Staying in a regular balcony room so no suite benefits for us)

Thanks for reading. Enjoy Liberty! My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed.

Conclusion In conclusion, Liberty is a great ship and I would be very happy to sail her again....not too big, not too small , just right. And it's one that we would be happy to bring our kids on unlike a radiance or vision class ship. My favorite ship is still probably Symphony, so Oasis class and then Quantum class, but Liberty and other Freedom class ships are close behind and up there too. Honestly, I never met a ship that I didn't like. A lot say that the short cruises aren't worth it, especially when you need to fly to get to the departure port. But it was this or no cruise and you can still have a very full 4 days (or more like 3.75 days) with amazing food and entertainment, and also just relax from the hustle and bustle of life. Not having to do laundry or cook for 4 days or work, was a bonus. It was fun too to get away with DH, but I did miss our kids a lot. In terms of the 4 day, I would say one negative is that you are barely moving. One of my favorite things is to just walk laps around the ship as the ship moves (esp. cool at the back with the wake). However, even on the sea day, the ship goes super slow as it travels from CoCo Cay to Fort Lauderdale, which it can also do in just 1 day. Guess it's good if you are prone to sea sickness. Now the countdown is on to our next one on Oasis.

Our Return Our departure from the ship was very easy. The concierge at the Suite Lounge told us to meet her at Boleros between x an x, and she would walk us off the ship, and that is what she did. It was great! We took an uber to the airport. From the half sentences of our notifications, we could tell that we might have issues getting back home to Toronto. And yep....when we got there, we found out that our flight was cancelled. There was an automatic rebook for the next morning so we quickly booked a hotel for a night and then ubered there. However, when we got there, the airline (WestJet) notified us that the rebook was also cancelled, and no rebook at this point. Ugh! We wanted to get back to our kids so DH checked out alternative options. Spent a lot to just get us on a flight on a different airline, which got us home safe and sound by midnight. Happy to see our kids but not happy to return to -13 degree weather.

No Internet but Interesting with Wifi When going on a cruise, we don't purchase internet so we can disconnect and spend time together as a family. In the past, we would lock our phones in the safe, and I would always have a paper cruise compass on me as well as an (old fashioned but small) camera. However, paper cruise compasses seem a thing of the past (I managed to grab one when we boarded at guest services but didn't see any others going forward). Thus, you need your phone for the compass, which now doubles as a camera for me. You connect with the ship's Wifi. On Liberty, you don't (and can't) book any shows but you can add items to your calendar, which is a nice feature so you can add things you'd like to attend and then go to "My Calendar" to see things that you marked. Notifications It was funny as even without internet, I would get notifications on my phone. I could only see what is shown on my home screen (so about half a sentence), but it lets you get certain news items. For example, we were informed that our kids schools were cancelled the last day of our cruise due to the weather. I guess these came through as some (limited) Wifi seeped through? Chat Feature I haven't seen anyone comment on this yet but the chat feature seemed to be working on the app. I heard it was coming next year but didn't realize it was there already. You access it by the 3 dots in the top right corner. It was funny too as DD was home but has the app installed under my email. She told us when we returned that she saw us talking to each other (but of course, couldn't chat with us from back home). This feature will be very handy when we cruise next year with our kids as they sometimes go off on their own and then we just set a meeting time back in our stateroom. So this will give more flexibility.