ADBark

Thank you ABQ! Very helpful.

19 hours ago, RSS from SF said:

Almond Croissant when available in the mornings from the International Cafe.

I agree 100% with this. DH and I talk about those croissants and compare them to other cruise lines' version, and Princess wins every time. Yum!

Hi - DH and I will be in Belize City with Princess in Nov'20. There is a 2-tank ship excursion offered, but it costs significantly more than going directly with Sea Sports Belize. Has anyone done the excursion? I'm wondering if perhaps the dive boat picks up cruise passengers at the ship rather than at the pier? If I could avoid the tender process that might have an impact on my choice. I'm also not sure what dive operator Princess uses in Belize, but I see Sea Sports is fairly well rated, and they claim to be only a 10 min. walk from the tender pier. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks, -A.

14 hours ago, fandash said:

... just wondering if I can use the Dyson Air wrap on board Royal Caribbean Ships ?

Hi there - I just got off the Rhapsody just over a week ago, and had my Dyson Air Wrap with me. It went in my bag which I dropped off with the porters, and showed up in my cabin later that afternoon. I was a bit worried my bag might end up in the naughty room, but there was no problem!

I have the US version so I just plugged it right in. By the way, I LOVE it! Hope this helps.

Thank you MN'sMom. With 2 teenagers at 6' and 6'4", it is unlikely they would fit together (without resulting grouchiness) in a double bed. Although I must note that almost every one of the hotel pics I look at in Copenhagen has 2 separate duvets neatly folded on each bed. I remember being an exchange student in Germany during my high school years and my host family did the same thing. Much different than most US hotels & homes which tend to use just 1 big duvet per bed. Anyway, I think I will continue my search. Thank you!

On 8/25/2019 at 9:03 AM, MN'smom said:

We just returned from a Baltic Cruise. Pre-cruise we stayed at the Wakeup Copenhagen Borgergrade. It had A/C. We are a family of 4 so were able to get a family room (2 standard rooms with a connecting door), which is hard to get for a decent price in Europe. The location was great, room was clean and the location was perfect for us. F 

Hi MNsmom: I am considering the Wakeup Borgergade family room for our 3 night pre-cruise visit to Copenhagen next August. I was looking at the pictures and was wondering about our 2 boys (19 and 17) and the bed arrangement. Are the beds in one of the 2 room separated, or would the boys be in the same bed? Am also wondering how it worked out with the bathroom and the frosted glass - how much privacy is there?  Thanks!

Hello - what an amazing thread this is! Thank you!

We will be taking a few days before our cruise to explore Copenhagen. Our cruise ends on a Sunday morning, docking at 7am. We are considering a SAS Airlines 12:20pm flight home (a direct flight to the US) that same day but I wanted to know if this is realistic. I don't know how long it would take to disembark (we are able to carry our own luggage), go through customs, and get to the airport. Any thoughts? Thanks again.

16 hours ago, Deb and Jack said:

....Saw nice sealife from window....

This caught my attention. Can you tell us what you saw? 

Hi there, we will be in St. Kitts, St. Thomas and Grand Turk next week and will be diving twice each day. Any thoughts on the choice between a 3mm shorty versus a 3mm full wetsuit? I know it is an individual choice but would be interested to hear other divers' experiences. I did read the previous post on what to wear snorkeling but it's always a bit colder below the waves. Thanks for any input, -ADB.

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Just wondering how much of the day it takes up and if we start at 6 a.m. if we'll be done for the day by 11. Thanks for any insight!

Hi there - I'm glad you found this helpful. He was definitely done by 11am on the first pool day (which was also a sea day).

After the second day of the pool session, the students trooped back up from the Aqua Theater pool to the 5* dive center area to prepare for their imminent departure for the first 2 open water dives in Jamaica. I will say that it was a long day for him, to be in the pool for a couple of hours and then go for 2 open waters. Seems like breathing all that compressed air tends to make one scuba-sleepy afterward.

I believe that the other time they were all together but not diving was after their 3rd and 4th open water dives in Cozumel. I think about 4pm (recall that their dives were over by noon) they all met outside the 5* center and sat on deck chairs as the PADI instructors on the ship went over the dive logs, showing them how to fill them out and sharing depth, time, temperature, etc. The students did not dive with computers as part of their regulator set so they did not necessarily have this info, unless they had their own dive computers on their wrist.

Hope this helps. Am happy to answer any/all other questions. I know I searched myself for info before we left, but there was very little. I will say that if you have any ship-specific questions you can always email the dive staff on board your ship ahead of time. We had several email exchanges when we were trying to figure out if we could do a family dive along with the students.

I have finally dove at Coco Cay! video to follow soon!

Am really looking forward to seeing your video! Have been keeping up with this thread, rooting for you!

Thank you Harris. Sounds like it might be a beach day or a island tour for us instead... :loudcry:

Hello - we will be on a Princess cruise in December 2017, and will be docking in Antigua from 7am-6pm on a Tuesday. Princess is not offering a certified diving excursion for this port .

Has anyone gone diving in St. John's while on a cruise, and do you have any dive operator suggestions? Thanks, -ADB.

Liberty offered a PADI refresher course and open water certification in May 2017. It doesn't have a deep pool, however, so I'm not sure how they did their official confined water dives before the open water dives. Oasis also offered courses in August 2017 and the confined water dives were in the aft Aqua Theater pool, which has an adjustable floor but goes as deep as 18 feet I believe.

Our son was recently certified on Oasis, if you'd like to read the details they are on this post...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2535524

Our family of 4 was recently on Oasis of the Seas. Three of us are already PADI certified (Advanced Open Water) and our 16-year-old son was registered to be PADI open water certified while on the ship. It cost approximately $600. He completed all the course work online before the cruise –it was a fair bit of knowledge review and testing, likely 6-8 hours to go through everything.

Once on the ship, we had to check in with the PADI 5-star scuba shop immediately after muster drill. He was fitted for all the equipment he needed (the only thing he was required to have himself ahead of time was a mask and snorkel). The next morning was a sea-day, and the 9 students and 2 instructors all met at 6am at the aft Aqua Theater pool. Their first pool session lasted 3-4 hours and they practiced various skills, first at a depth of about 5 feet and then in the deeper part of the pool. (Recall that the floor of the Aqua Theater pool is adjustable and goes up and down. I believe it can go as deep as 18 feet.)

The next day was a beach day in Labadee and our son had no diving activities. The following day we were scheduled to be in Falmouth, Jamaica at about 10am. The students (there were only 8 on the second day as 1 had dropped out) and 2 instructors met at the Aqua Theater pool again at 6 am for another 3-4 hours. This completed their confined pool work, and their first open water dives were scheduled for that same afternoon in Jamaica.

We had already confirmed with the ship that the scuba students were slated to be on the same dive boat as the Royal Caribbean certified scuba dive excursion, so the remaining 3 members of our party were all able to take part in the excursion. Otherwise, at least one of us would have stayed with our minor son as he took part in his instructor-led open water dives.

We all met at the end of the pier security-zone and some of the ship’s excursion crew members put everyone (students, instructors, and excursion participants) on a taxi-bus to take us to the dive boat operator, which was Dressel Divers. Once we arrived, we had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and collect our weights/belts before everyone trooped onto the boat.

There were six excursion participants (all already certified, including the 3 of us) who went on 2 dives led by Dressel Diver’s Christina, who was an excellent dive-leader. Meanwhile, the scuba students went in with their 2 instructors in the exact same area we were in. The students did their first 2 of 4 required open water dives in Jamaica. Once everyone was back on the boat,we were taxi-bused back to the ship’s pier.

Two days later, in Cozumel, the students had their 3rd and 4th open water certification dives first thing in the morning.The operator was Sand Dollar Sports, and my husband stayed with our son and the students as they were taxi-bused to a nearby beach. Their 3rd and 4th dives were from the beach in Cozumel, which my son preferred to the super-wavy dive boat in Jamaica. Meanwhile, my other son and I were met on the Cozumel pier by the excursion staff and had to walk about 50 meters where the dive boat picked us up (our dive boat operator was also Sand Dollar Sports, but we were not with the students on that day). We had 2 boat dives which were fantastic.

That afternoon, my husband was going to take our newly-certified 16-year old on the Royal Caribbean excursion that was scheduled for the afternoon. Unfortunately, the dive boat broke down (luckily before any participants had boarded it) and Royal Caribbean therefore cancelled the dive excursion that afternoon.

Overall, the scuba certification on the Oasis was great, but it did require two very early mornings for our son (and for us, who accompanied him to the Aqua Theater pool and watched). We would have preferred to have him already certified before the cruise, but it just didn’t work out with the timing so this was a good solution. We were particularly impressed by the onboard PADI scuba staff – Amy and Andre were super helpful for our son but also with helping the rest of our family coordinate our own dive excursions.

We struggled with this issue too, but I ended up using an around-the-neck waterproof pouch on a lanyard. Since it was clear plastic (soft plastic), I wore it under my swim shirt so the cash/IDs were not visible to anyone walking past me. We were scuba diving and it worked well down to 70 feet and I'm sure it would have been fine for much deeper. I am also sure it would have been fine if I had left it in my bag on the boat, but this way I didn't have to even think about it.

Hi everyone - I am the OP and even though this post was from almost a year ago I am happy to see the renewed interest because it means people are getting ready for UK cruising! I will say that we were very pleased with the service from Simply Airports. When we arrived at LHR and exited the secure area into the arrivals hall it was quite crowded. Initially we couldn't find our driver so we made a call to the dispatch number and it turned out the driver was already there, we just hadn't seen him. He took us to his vehicle and we got going straightaway to our hotel near Charing Cross. We would use this company again. -ADB:)

This is a old thread !!!

 

But good news presently....

Getme

Uber air to galveston only

 

Hello - we are considering Uber from our Houston Hobby airport hotel to the cruise port, but are you saying that we can only use Uber from the airport to the cruise port? (and not from the hotel?) We have other arrangements for our return trip from the cruise port to the airport on the back end of our cruise. thanks, -ADB.

Hi - we recently took the Disney cruise bus from Orlando airport to Port Canaveral. When we pulled in to the terminal area, I observed huge lines of people circling each floor of the adjacent parking garage - I mean people in a queue, not cars in a queue. A Disney/Port Canaveral frequent cruiser on our bus warned me never to drive and park at the port because if you get there too early (it was approximately 10am on a Friday morning) the port officials won't let you enter the terminal, and everyone lines up in the garage. It looked terrible. However, in my searches on this forum I didn't find anything discussing this issue.

We cruise again in August 2017 on the Oasis out of PC - terminal 1. This time we will be driving to Florida, arriving the Saturday before our Sunday cruise. I know there are many convenient, cheaper options for off-site parking near the port, but for our family-specific reasons we would prefer to park right at the port. I don't want to join an endless queue in the parking garage in the Florida summer heat - but we also like to arrive early since from our perspective our vacation starts as soon as we enter the terminal (don't mind waiting in the A/C environment). If we wait till 11 or 12 noon to board, is it possible the parking garage could fill up at terminal 1? What are your experiences parking at the port and entering the terminal - what time did you arrive? Many thanks, -ADB.

Thank you Carol!

Hello all - I've been searching the forums but couldn't find anything specific to my situation. We will be on Princess, departing Sat 10/7/17 from Brooklyn. We are considering Amtrak from DC to NY Penn on Friday 10/6/17, arriving around 7:30pm. We can get a hotel in that area (Marriott Fairfield) on points and I've priced out Carmel Limo to the Red Hook terminal at about $45 the next morning (plus perhaps some tolls and also tip). Hopefully this plan is sound - I'm open to other suggestions...

But once we arrive back from our cruise on 10/14/17, what is the best way to get back to the AmTrak station? Should I prebook a private car service - if so, do I need to have a definitive time that I'll be off the ship? Am wondering if Princess has a post-cruise bus to NYC Penn Station? Finally, what would be a "safe" train time? Princess tells me the ship will dock at 6am. Thanks for any words of advice, -ADB.

Hi everyone - am doing a little early Christmas shopping... for myself. I've been on the Caribbean Princess twice and the Star once, and each time the Lotus Spa had these great robes. They were two-layered with terry on the inside and smooth microfiber (?) on the outside. They were quite heavy and substantial and also quite long. I tried to buy one on the ship each time but was told they weren't sold at the onboard shop. I even tried to buy one directly from the spa manager but she said that was not possible.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to buy one elsewhere? I'm not talking about the robes provided in the room (with the waffle weave). I did a search on the forums but couldn't find any additional info...

Thanks in advance, -ADB.:)

What brand products?

 

 

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I bought a bunch of skin care and eye cream products at the Lotus Spa and they were made by Elemis. I later looked and found they are also available on amazon, qvc, etc. I was very happy with the products and results....:o

Wow - thank you Twickenham. Based on your feedback I emailed Blackberry, asking if they really meant it when they quoted me GBP91. They emailed back and re-quoted me at 42.

I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they made a typo in their original quote email. Just goes to show that it pays to pay attention and question things that look a little strange, even if it is in a foreign country. I wonder how often things like this happen? :eek:

Thanks again.

We are arriving on Sunday night, around 22:00, at LHR. To get a saloon car for 2 adults to Charing Cross we were quoted GBP91 by Blackberry, and GBP37 by Simply Airports.

Am I missing something? Is the Simply Airports quote simply too good to be true? Or is the Blackberry quote simply telling me that they don't want the business? I looked at Taxi-Fare Estimator and it said GBP76, so I don't know what to think.

Any feedback from those in-the-know? Thanks, ADB.