pacruise804

On 12/25/2023 at 7:38 AM, kimbalips said:

 

We are driving and staying in New Jersey at Fairfield Inn North Bergen. They have a stay and cruise package.

We ended up booking that one too.

Has anyone booked hotels yet? Any suggestions?  I'm leaning toward something in New Jersey (cheaper rates) that includes parking, then doing an uber or taxi to the port (assuming no hotel shuttle).

On 10/31/2022 at 3:22 PM, MsTabbyKats said:

I've done all the types too.......

For Canada, we did a Deluxe OV on the Magic.  The room was huge and it's too chilly to sit outside anyway.

The only time I prefer a balcony is if the majority of the cruise will be in warm weather.

I do like lots of interior room....so the insides don't work well for me.

If you sail Spirit Class (Pride, Legend, etc) you might want to try a 4K "interior."  We just got back from the Legend cabin 4112 and it was the same foot print as a balcony, but had floor to ceiling windows with a view of the life boat (and a little ocean) instead of an actual balcony.  No fresh air, but lots of room at a better than balcony price.

On 10/7/2022 at 12:11 PM, BarbieGee said:

"Please sir, can I have some MORE?" You can't ask for seconds? 😉

Probably can't ask for seconds if it is like other ships.  The dishes are prepared a la minute and likely no extras.

On 10/7/2022 at 12:36 PM, YourWorldWithBill said:

Just an FYI: if you're a male and has bph - and there's good chance you do, if you're a certain age - all the seasickness medicines discussed here are antihistamines. Not good for bph.

 

On a recent cruise, the last day we hit some rough seas, so I talked to the ship's doctor. This issue was new to him, but he looked it up and gave me Ondansetron. He said I was the first person to ask about the bph issue.

Thanks for this info.  My husband takes multiple antihistamines daily for allergies and never heard of this contraindication (no bph yet though).

How does Ondansetron work?

On 10/10/2022 at 6:13 PM, detroitavant said:

Please tell me you were able to get a donair when you were in Halifax.  It's the only food I've never been able to find anywhere else than Nova Scoita.

I've heard of people getting donair in Saint John too.

@Jamman54if you need another "husband day care" in Saint John, we really enjoy O'Leary's.

I'm surprised we never heard of the Mont-Blanc explosion before visiting Halifax.

On 10/8/2022 at 8:21 AM, Laszlo said:

You can always drive or take a cruise out of NYC

We most often cruise from Baltimore & NY/NJ, but this is a group cruise so the departure port wasn't our choice.  Love New Orleans though 🙂 

On 10/5/2022 at 12:20 PM, SimplyAlbert said:

 We didn't make it to the port city.  We were scheduled to fly in the day before the cruise and flights were canceled all up and down the East Coast due to weather.  There were 10 of us traveling.

 

2 made it ok (flying from Nashville and Atlanta).

 

6 were on the same flight that was canceled and the other 2 on a later flight.

 

4 of the 6 were rebooked on a later flight with the same carrier, but 2 ended having to rebook on a different carrier and different airport.  The 4 got off the ground, but then were delayed in a connecting city (no non-stops).  The 2 made it to the other airport, 1st flight canceled, rebooked on 2nd flight and were on the runway and that flight got canceled.

 

I was one of the 2 going out later so I was able to rebook them on our flight.  In the meantime the 4 that were in their connecting city finally took off.  The 4 on our flight took off, but almost 4 hours late.

 

By the time the last four of us got into the port city it was around 2:00 a.m. the day of the cruise.

 

Also, we were supposed to do a western Caribbean cruise and I had spent months planning, booking excursions, etc.  When we got to the port we found out that we'd been changed to Eastern as there was a hurricane in the western area.

 

We all still had a great time!  Now we just fly in two days ahead...

I'm honestly slightly nervous that flying 2 days early from BWI to MSY might not be enough in January, but we only have so much time available.

My sympathies on change of itinerary.  I appreciate your attitude of having a great time despite the circumstances!

I understand being frustrated/disappointed when our vacations don't go as planned.  I also am aware that most cruise contracts give very little recourse to the passenger for changes to the itinerary.  They weren't even obligated to offer OBC.

Did you purchase Cancel For Any Reason insurance? While that usually doesn't cover everything, it would help you recoup some of the costs if you want to cancel.

At least you have advanced notice and can choose to cancel (and lose the money paid but at least not more money) or maybe change what you are doing at the remaining ports with the extra OBC.  Perhaps there are things on the ship you didn't have time to do before that you could enjoy now with the extra sea days.

We took my husband's parents on a Mississippi River cruise and had one complete port change and several time changes with no explanation and no compensation.  It is what it is when you choose to cruise.

I hope you can make peace with whatever decision you make.

On 10/4/2022 at 12:43 PM, Theosprey247 said:

I usually drink beer to Malibu and pineapple. On my last Carnival Cruise I had an Anita (local beer from Louisiana) that was really good.  For FuFu drinks I like the Funship.

I'm guessing this is probably supposed to be Abita . They have several good beers and also a good root beer.

Do you know if Deli sandwiches are made to order (ex: no horseradish sauce on steak & cheese) or are they all pre-made (and warmed if a hot item)?

Was the food at Mija Cantina as good as it looked?  Sorry to hear Cheers closed.

On 10/3/2022 at 9:55 AM, cruiseny4life said:

Sounds like a beautiful blessing to me! I know some enjoy port after port after port. I much prefer sea day after sea day after sea day...ahhh, so blissful, relaxing, and just plain perfect. Last cruise I took was a nine day cruise. Bermuda was canceled. I spent the day in Miami in the thermal suite, rather than exploring. We had two scheduled days in Port Canaveral. Those days were also spent relaxing my muscles! Ahhh, yes please!

My husband and I are booked on a 14 Night this month with 4 ports and 1 day of partial Panama Canal Transit.  I'm looking forward to the relaxing sea days.

We have another booked for next year 7 nights with 3 ports and will probably only get off at one.

Thanks @nferr

Based on the videos I saw it is more appetizer type food, but I would be happy with it for a light breakfast or lunch (still a ways from Diamond).

4 drinks per day would be plenty for us too.

On 10/2/2022 at 11:03 AM, BirdTravels said:

What you get is still free. I'll take free on NCL versus... well... nothing on Royal (where we are Diamond members). 

 

snip

Not exactly in context, and you probably know this, but Royal does have a Diamond lounge with food for Diamond members at no cost.

(I'm truly just trying to help in case you weren't aware.  I saw it on a YouTube review and wasn't aware - but also not Diamond yet).

I'm sure there will be some not dressing up.  My husband and I will be on the Legend at the end of the month and won't be in costume.

On 10/3/2022 at 6:26 AM, jimbo5544 said:

After walking this morning we heard some disturbing news.  I would not pass it along if it had not been confirmed by the Captain in his noon talk.  Apparently, sometime around 10 pm the night before, a young boy drown i the pool, was pulled out CPR for a good while and brought back.  The ship spun around and headed back to Rome and was met by some faster ship where he (and family I assume) were taken off and brought to a Hospital.  Have not heard further on his status.

How heartbreaking!  Prayers for the child and his family 💔 

Praying for you and your neighbors too.  Hoping you were able to get some peace from your trip.

My mom suffered from MS for ~35 years 😞 

I'm sorry your scooter caused you issues, but I'm glad you had an otherwise good cruise and stayed healthy.

We area about 3 hours from the port and love cruising from Baltimore.  Sailing this month for our first Journey's and first Legend.

It's an extra step, but I've seen many suggest brewing hot tea and pouring it over ice to get decent ice tea.

23 hours ago, prov2727 said:

I've only been on Holland and NCL. I liked Holland well enough to book a cruise immediately upon my return. It just happened to be an NCL cruise. But I really liked NC and have booked the rest of my cruises with them. As a single person, I enjoyed the freestyle dining rather than sitting awkwardly at a table of stranger couples. I want to relax and enjoy myself not try to steer conversations away from religion and politics.

 

And then there's the fact that I am a Mountain Dew drinker. Oh, well. That perk is gone. 😭 I can't decide if that is enough of a reason to check out Carnival.

I think that Carnival is switching back to Coke also.

9 minutes ago, Crusin Karen said:

This interests me.  I love CCL.  But my homeport is NY and I prefer to cruise in Feb, March or April and they don't start sailing from here until June.  I have questions about drink package but that's for another thread.  I just have 2 questions:  This is for GEM.    I'd book an OV.  The OV rooms on CCL are big.  Anyone have comparison to NCL?  Also, I guess I'm in the minority but I LOVE to dress up for dinner!!!  I have all my cruise clothes.  Just black pants worn with some sparkly blouses and jewelry.  Will I look out of place?

I don't think you will look out of place.  I've only done one NCL cruise, but I suspect like Carnival you will find some who dress for dinner and some who don't.  My memory of NCL was I was comfortable dressing up or down as much as I wanted (and I usually dress up a little since cruises are our "date" nights).

1 hour ago, MrsK said:

But haven't you ever thought that for someone experiencing some health issues,  that having a microwave available somewhere to heat up a "bean bag" warming device would be a huge benefit on a ship? Even if the use of this microwave required a crew member to do the actual button pushing on the microwave?

 

It's really easy to get ice if it is cold that you want/need.

 

While on the surface this sounds like a good idea (especially as one with chronic pain issues), I can see a lot of reasons why it would be an issue. 

OP - are there any ready-to-eat/shelf stable foods you could bring?  There are also likely other cruisers with food sensitivities that require assistance beyond just getting from the buffet, so the crew would consider it part of their job to help.

On 9/13/2022 at 4:54 PM, Top_of_the_Cube said:

When we book inside cabins, we find that we spend less time in the room and more time out and about enjoying the ship.  We LOVE inside cabins.

 

When we book balcony cabins, we find that we spend more time in the room enjoying the ocean.  We LOVE balcony cabins.

 

When we book an Ocean View cabin, well, you can probably guess that we LOVE OV cabins.

 

In truth, I lean more towards balcony, and my wife towards inside.  But, totally understand those who have a strong preference one way or the other.  For a while, my wife could not sleep with ANY light.  Even with an inside stateroom, I had to stuff a rolled up towel under the cabin door at nights.

 

One suggestion that we use in any cabin, but is especially useful on inside rooms:  We set up an electronic tablet with the screen propped up on the worksurface facing the bed, and a few downloaded apps - a low-light screensaver that has a large display of the time, a variety of white noise audio files, and a sunrise simulator "alarm".

 

Ah, let the good times roll!

Thanks for this suggestion!  We had our first interior last month and like you love all the types of cabins we have had.  We took our sunrise alarm clock, but were thinking about buying a different one for cruises since ours doesn't pack compactly.  I didn't realize there are apps - and we have an ipad that isn't used for much and would work well for this.

18 hours ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

If X would only come back to sailing out of Baltimore, I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat, and probably sail them exclusively (when not taking the kids) for even twice that price!

I would love for X to sail from Baltimore!  Bayonne isn't too bad, but Baltimore is our favorite port too.

@sparks1093 You made some excellent points.  Thanks for bringing me back to an attitude of gratitude for being able to cruise.  

1 hour ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

Thank you.  I thought I had gotten that idea of "expanded" or "added" options from somewhere early on in this discussion.  Even though I said I was going to stop, I keep looking back at the new menu and noticing more things my family has enjoyed many times (including grilled cheese, one of my favourite comfort foods) missing from Room Service.😢  The new menu is just so much smaller!  I'm really working on my feeling of gratitude overcoming my feeling of disappointment, right now.  Working hard at it.😐

After glancing at the old and new menus, I think the "added" is things that were free (coffee, juice) not are added a la carte options.  While technically Carnival didn't lie, it sure feels dishonest.

The charge for otherwise complementary drinks is annoying to me, but otherwise on a quick glance it doesn't seem too bad. (Like @ShakyBeef I'm not going to look extra closely)

ETA: I looked a little closer 😞 It's pretty disappointing.