crzycick

That would be Café Punta del Cielo. On your left just before the exit to the taxis. It's somewhat high end chain of wifi cafes in Mexico. Think Mexican Starbucks. But it will serve the OP's latte joneses.:D

I totally thought it was a Starbucks when I first saw it :')

On our Breeze cruise a couple of weeks ago our families booked the cabins behind the forward elevators. The thought was that there are two ways to exit the elevator area, forward and aft. In most cases people would head forward if their room was forward and they’d head aft if their room was aft. Rarely did people have to walk past our rooms. And there were no rooms across from us so it ended up being relatively quiet in this area.

This happened to my father in law last week on Carnival, a chip of porcelain in his side dish. He discreetly let the waiter know who shared with the woman at the host desk. My FIL wasn’t hurt and just wanted to give a heads up but they were really impressed with how everyone handled it. Guest services called a couple of times to be sure he didn’t need medical attention and they even sent a plate of chocolate covered strawberries as an apology. He never considered asking for anything or taking legal action. It was an accident and handled appropriately.

I didn’t catch the name, prices, or know if it’s good, but we were there a week ago and saw a coffee shop that looked great. It smelled really good. It was in a building in the center, maybe closer to the taxi area.

Our room crew last week was adequate. Forgot things like some initial cleaning from previous passengers and we didn’t get the ice we requested until I asked again on the 5th day. But we had a few incredibly disgusting diapers that the bags we brought couldn’t contain the smell and on a rough sea night I vomited in 2 trash cans—I found out the hard way that the bathroom trash can leaks and would be a pain to clean. They got an extra tip for that! Our wait staff in the dining room was pretty good but they were especially excellent and understanding of our autistic son. Their attempts to interact with him often didn’t turn out as they planned but they didn’t give up trying connect with him and eventually they did. It can be stressful taking him in public especially for such a long dinner and we appreciated their efforts. They also got an extra tip.

We were zone 12 (of 26ish?) and expedited with passports and we didn't get to our car until 3:30 this afternoon.

Cabins do have great storage but I love the grab and go organization from shoe holders too. I even use one in my own bathroom for things like my hair brush, hair dryer, flat iron, sprays, deodorant, etc. I find one is enough for a cruise for us and I haven’t been on the Magic but I think there’s like 3 or 4 closets. Plus the 2 bathrooms in the deluxe room. We board the Breeze today and we brought magnet hooks, I’m *hoping* they’re strong enough to put the organizer on the wall

None. No cash is accepted on board.

Not entirely true ;) We don’t have credit cards so we’ll be depositing cash with guest services to fund our ship account.

A little off topic, but using a CC's as far as cruising makes things a bit easier. No need to post cash at check-in.

A word from someone who went through that nightmare. Get ONE (1) credit card, linked to your bank so that it's free. Use it twice a year and pay off in full. Comes in very handy in case of emergency and helps credit score

Using cash does make it more difficult, but that’s part of the point ;)

The porters are very easy to find as soon as you get off the ship. Using a porter will also help you by pass a long line before you get into the lines for customs.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

That sounds like the answer to both of our issues, not enough hands for the luggage if my husband has to carry our son off and for him to not have to hold our nearly 70 lb kid for a long time waiting in line.

There are porters with carts in the luggage claim area. Because my DH needs wheelchair assistance I always use a porter and happily tip them for the pleasure:D They will take ya'll and your luggage thru customs and out to the curb

Are porters typically easy to come by or hard to get? We also have some other travelers in our group who would greatly benefit from the assistance.

I agree to talk to them once on the ship.

We have an autistic child too, though we are not cruising with him until Oct 2019. But, we did just sail out of Galveston on the Valor in Nov. We were deck 2 midship. I don't know if they keep it the same, but for self assist we were the last or second to last group to get called for disembark.

They may be able to let you get off the ship first. I would talk to guest services onboard. Or even try talking to the special needs department if you have time before you board.

It can be a long wait with little to do before you'e called. Especially if you have an incident like we did...delay due to people getting arrested.

If they won't let you get off first, I would not do the self assist, that way you have your hands free.

Best of luck and have fun!

You took your own luggage off and were one of the last zones? I haven’t cruised in 6+ years so that’s new to me. When we cruised we were always one of the first ones off. One year we already took a taxi back to our hotel, got loaded in our car, and we were on the highway before our friends got off the ship :')

Information on Carnival’s website says to book this tour once on the ship. I just read a review from the Breeze where a man tried to to do that when boarding and he was told it was sold out because you’re supposed to book it online. Someone in our group is very excited for this tour so I’m trying to find out what he needs to do.

We’re in the middle of building a house and closing should be soon after we return. We don’t want anything to mess with our bank account for the loan and we don’t do credit cards so we’ll be doing a cash deposit.

We leave Sunday and I just realized that special needs didn’t mention disembarkation and neither did the packet of information they sent me. Because we’ll have to wake our son up earlier than he’s used to disembark plus the general being upset above leaving the ship, we suspect my husband will have to carry him off with possible meltdowns. I won’t be able to handle the luggage alone so self disembarkation with our luggage is out, plus the more sleep he can get the better for everyone’s sanity, us and everyone around us. We’re midship on deck 2 and I don’t know what that means for zones. To reduce the likelihood of standing in line for an hour+ with a tantruming 4 year old should we go with our zone or try to go at the end? Is there a key to making this run smoother? Are any of the lines for customs better for passports? We’ve never cruised with our child and in the past we took our luggage off ourselves bright and early and had no lines. Can we get a porter or a cart to assist with luggage if my son is busy with our son?

I’ve personally had bad luck with Amazon for myself but I’ll have her check out City Chic. Thanks for the recommendations

Have her bring what she wore last summer. Not a big deal.

She's finding that problematic because she doesn’t own anything nice for the dining room. She also typically stays in her house alone in 65 degree AC so she doesn’t have much need for shorts and similar clothing. I believe there’s also been some weight fluctuations as well. She’s finding the few items she thought she had won’t work.

We will be parking at the port parking with the free parking for disabled veterans. I’m wondering if there are any special tips on getting there? I seem to vaguely recall people talking about special directions to various parking locations. Tips for leaving would be great too.

Did they take off the veggie plate? We used to love to come back from port and order the veggie plate and munch on it while getting ready for dinner. We often went without lunch so that held us over until dinner.

Anyone know of any stores with quick shipping for plus sized clothing for summer wear? My MIL leaves Saturday early morning and isn’t having any luck finding clothing to order.

I also can't imagine not having a credit card. If I did not, though, I would prepay the onboard gratuities and shore excursions and prepurchase on-board credit so that I did not need as much cash to pay on my account.

We follow Dave Ramsey which is why we don’t do credit cards. We’ve been married 11 years and we’ve never had one. In fact the only one I ever had in my life was a small student $500 limit student one from my credit union when I was 18.

We do prepay gratuities and our shore excursions will be paid in cash to the vendors when we arrive. We hardly spend any money on the ship so buying onboard credit would be silly. We put the money we plan to spend in each port in an envelope with that port name and an envelope for travel expenses, one for ship expenses, extra tips, and and then an extra funds to spend wherever we decide to splurge. This trip we’ll add an envelope for our almost 5 year old son to spend some money, half of it is money he saved from Christmas and half we will match. We only take the envelope that pertains to that day’s needs. This keeps us on track and in budget.

Make sure that your birth certificate is an official one with a raised seal.

They don’t all have raised seals. It just needs an official seal. Kansas’ seal is not raised.

My son is autistic with a limited diet. We’re bringing foods we know he’ll eat like individual cups of mandarin oranges and applesauce, goldfish crackers, and nuts.

We prepay gratuities and I don’t think we’ve ever spent over around $150 onboard

2 adults and a child. Our 3 excursions will come out to less than $350 total. Our gas around $150. Our hotel we already paid for. We don’t own credit cards and will bring cash to pay for those excursions and everything else. We budgeted $1500 total so $1000 for extra tips, souvenirs, alcohol, fun stuff for our kid, thrill theater, food on the way down and back, etc. I expect to use less than $500 of it. Maybe $300?