HangryGrl

How is the water here?

I suppose it depends on what you are looking for? We were there in January and while it was warm/hot on the beach the water was too cold for me but my husband snorkeled for a bit. Kind of a reversal for us since I am usually braver with cold water being a swimmer. This was our second time in Labadee, we were at Adrenaline Beach this time and Columbus Cove the time before. Both places the water was cloudy due to the sand being churned up by people so snorkeling was not great. There were some fish at both locations and jelly fish at Columbus Cove. Let me know if you are looking for something more specific?

Another vote for Sushi Go and Phase 10! We also love Farkle and the travel size fits in a pocket so super easy to pack!

Did your TA contact you or Carnival directly?

 

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Our TA contacted us directly.

We recieved an upsell offer for our upcoming December cruise. We always book through a TA. We are in a room that connects to the one next door so I am wondering if someone wanted connecting rooms and they were seeing if anyone who didn't need one wanted to move. The offer was not good enough for us to take it unfortunately.

I cannot comment on the gluten free selection but we are vegan and have cruised both Royal and Carnival. If you search the boards here for Carnival vegan you will come up with some helpful threads.

As far as personal experience we have had mixed results on both lines. Neither offer any kind of vegan cheese (ok for us as we don't like it anyway) and you will most likely have to request almond or soy milk as it is not regularly put out as an option. We have not found a dairy free butter alternative on either line (generally use peanut butter at breakfast instead).

We have eaten in the buffet and also in the main dining room. The head chefs in the buffet are the most helpful with pointing you towards vegan options. If you ask one of the line servers you may just receive a blank stare. ;)

We have had some issues with the main dining room. The food itself is always very good and they will go out of their way to make sure you have plenty to eat! That said, they generally come around near the end of dinner with the next nights menu. They will give you options of things that can be adjusted or sometimes they will offer to make you something off menu (95% of the time that will be an Indian food selection). This means you will need to be able to decide what you want to eat the day before and makes it difficult/rude just to skip dinner in the dining room and go to the buffet. If you do let them know you will not be at dinner the next night you will need to make arrangements to meet with the maitre d during the next day (lunch generally) to pick your dinner for the following night. We have also always done Any Time or My Time dining and that does seem to confuse the wait staff. We have had lost dinner requests and on our last cruise they would take our order each night but not replace the old one so by the 3rd night we actually ended up with all 3 dinner orders placed! I didn't want to be rude so we ate as much as we could and felt enormously sick for the rest of the evening. :p We are trying Carnival again in December and have opted for a set dining time to hopefully avoid some of the confusion.

Most of the sepcialty restaurants don't have enough options to make them worth the cost for us. We have had good luck with some of the free extra venues. Blue Iguana, Guys Burgers (not on the menu but they do have a veggie burger if you ask), Johnny Rockets on Royal (not free but cheap), Pizza Pirate's crust is vegan and they can do a pizza for you with no cheese and veggies. We will be on the Breeze in December and have read that Cucina Del Capitano (free at lunch) has a build your own pasta bar with options and the indian restaurant Tandoor also has some options.

We are also planning to take a bottle of vegan ranch with us this time as the only real option for salad dressing is vinegar based (fine for me but not so much for DH. :) )

We are planning to try Barrachina in December. They have a few vegan options including mofongo. We have been to San Juan before but didn't end up eating. [emoji4] We walked to both forts last time and that took up most of our time.

http://www.barrachina.com/index.

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Thanks Pyrate!

Google is your friend:

 

https://www.walgreens.com/search/results.jsp?Ntt=wine&pillFilters=true

Kinda, all that link tells me is that Walgreens does sell liquor but not if it is legal to sell in stores across Florida. I actually did try googling when the comment was first posted but all I found were older articles from 2016 (like the below) where they were trying to change the law to allow them to carry liquor. I was just wondering if someone who actually lives in Florida or had been in this area knew for sure. Thanks for the link though.

https://therealdeal.com/miami/2016/01/03/national-retailers-renew-effort-to-repeal-liquor-law/

Does anyone know if all Walgreens in Florida sell Wine/Liquor? Sorry, Colorado girl. We have weird liquor laws here. ;)

We are staying in the Gateway Village/TG Lee area in Orlando the night before our December cruise. It looks like there are a lot of restaurants in the area but I am not seeing a grocery or liquor store. Does anyone know if there is a place to buy wine within walking distance of this area? We are ok with a bit of a hike but don't want to walk 5 miles each way. ;) Worse case we would be fine taking an UBER to the nearest Publix but thought I would check here first to see if anyone knew of somewhere within walking distance.

The buffet was pretty close by, easily walking distance. We walked from the pier to Adrenaline Beach but it is probably the furthest point from the pier you can go. If you have diffculty walking there are plenty of trams running and there are also people in golf carts driving around that will give you a lift.

You only need to book it for 1 person. They will allow up to 4 people to use the bed and will give them wristbands so no one tries to kick them out. Just make sure everyone goes down to the bed together the first time. I received an "excursion ticket" in my room the day before we docked at Labadee and the attendant asked to see my Sea Pass card to verify.

My husband actually tipped them so I am not sure exactly how much. If I had to guess probably $20.

I didn't swim as the water was pretty chilly the day we were there (for me anyway! ;) ) My husband snorkeled some and didn't mention that it was rough at all. There is a rocky break to the right of beach which may help reduce some of the surf. The beach area near the shore was a little rough with broken coral but I have definitely seen worse.

The swim up bar was a floating platform anchored a little ways out in the water. There is a small bar in the center, a few bar stools and a couple of ladders to climb up to the platform. It is not huge and I don't know how their selection was as we didn't go out there.

The curtains on the beach bed cover 2 sides and the top. They are adjustable to open and close on the sides. If it is windy when you are there they may blow around and need to be readjusted occasionally. We were at the bed from maybe 10am until 2:30 ish and didn't have any issue with needing sun protection on the sides without the curtains.

They did have 70's night when we were on in January. I don't remember if they had a white night or not? If they did it definitely didn't stand out as much as 70's night! Cuddy is the cruise director and loves his 70's night!

I guess it depends on what you are looking for. We were on the starboard side in January and if I remember correctly we were looking out towards the ocean (not at the city where docked) at each port aside from Ladabee.

Sorry for all the questions. How long is the bus ride and how often does it run? I always am afraid of missing the ship. LOL

We did the bus just a few weeks ago from the terminal in town to Arashi beach (last stop) and it probably took 20-25 minutes. The driver told us as we were getting off where the bus picks up for the return, how often it runs and what time to look for it (ie. quarter past each hour). The buses both ways were very clean and the drivers very friendly. Make sure you have small bills becuase they will give you change in the local currency (florins I think?).

The 10 drink card on our 1/19 cruise was $75 + 18% gratuity ($89).

I was on the 1/19 ABC cruise on Navigator and they didn't offer the 10 drink cards until day 6. We asked one of the bartenders on the evening of day 5 and they said they would be available starting the next morning. There was a small blurb in the Cruise Compass the next morning also but easily overlooked if you weren't looking for it.

I was worried about the lack of shade also but the bed provided a good amount of shade the entire day. It was a little breezy and maybe mid 80's the day we were in Labadee so not extremely hot (at least not for me! :) ) and I was comfortable temperature wise all day. When the breeze really kicked up the curtains would blow around a bit and you might get a few sun gaps or have to readjust them once the wind died down but otherwise the majority of the bed was shaded.

The swim out bar was not too far and seemed popular. That was the only actual "bar" I saw but I wasn't really looking either I guess. I'm sure the attendants or servers that come around frequently would be more than willing to get you whatever they can as long as it is available. I had a Labadoozie which I would describe it as a slightly more fruity pina colada (it definitely had pineapple, coconut and rum!). They carry these around on trays like at a baseball game.

I didn't start looking into the beach bed until maybe 3-4 weeks before our cruise so I am not sure when they were first offered. There were only about 6 occupied the day we were there and they were available through the "Shore Excursions" desk on the cruise for the same price. The bungalows were on Columbus Cove and the beach beds on Adrenaline beach. I will post pictures of both below for comparison.

Beach Bed:

Beach Bungalow:

I would say the closest ones are maybe 50ft from the water.

We were able to pick any one we wanted that was open. Since there were not very many people we were able to get one of the ones closest to the water.

I didn’t snorkel but my husband did. He said there was a lot of sand kicked up in the water and he really didn’t see much. He snorkeled 2 years ago at Columbus Cove and saw more there but Labadee in general is not great for snorkeling.

The water we had actually came with the beach bed so we didn't have to do anything for those. We did however carry on a 12 pack of soda and a 12 pack of red bull. We placed 1 - 12 pack in each of our carry ons and went through security in different lines. Both of us were asked if we were carrying soda and to open the case and show them. Once we both started to open the cases however they said that was fine and waived us on. This was Port of Miami to note.

I had some difficulty finding any reviews on the Labadee beach beds when I was doing research before my cruise so I thought I would add one. Feel free to ask any questions you might have! Of the 15-20 (estimate as I didn't count) beds available only about 6 were actually occupied on the day we were in Labadee (Navigator was the only ship in port). We paid $175 for the use of the bed the entire day and it came with 2 towels, a cooler with ice and 6 large bottles of Evian, 2 floating mats, 2 lounge chairs, and an attendant. There was a bathroom and buffet lunch facility not to far from where we were. The beds are located on Adrenaline beach which seemed to be the farthest beach from the pier but there were numerous shuttles and golf carts running all day ferrying people around the area. The zipline runs directly over the beach beds so there is some screaming roughly every 20 minutes as a new set of zipliners passes over you but it only lasts a few seconds and was somewhat entertaining. :) That area of Adrenaline beach was not extremely crowded possibly due to the distance from the pier and lack of other lounge chairs in the area. The attendants were great, coming around roughly every 30 minutes to make sure we were happy and didn't need anything. They also came around to let us know that lunch was ready and kicked out a few people who tried to use the beach beds without paying (you get a wrist band when you first arrive and show them your excursion ticket). We enjoyed having a nice place to relax/stretch out with some shade and would probably get the beach bed again if we are in Labadee.