navybankerteacher

Ordinarily, a cruise ship is dry docked every five years. I would be surprised if a line would sell spaces on a cruise and then cancel because of scheduled drydocking. In your case, it would seem that some unanticipated major maintenance was required. The line’s management should know well in advance when routine maintenance would be required - and would have no way of anticipating unexpected problems.

Expect hot weather - but very little different from rest of the year in the Caribbean. You will be in peak hurricane season, but the fact is that the odds are that you will not be impacted - and if you are, it will generally mean a change of one or more ports of call. You go on a cruise: you take your chances; if you cruise during hurricane season you add the chance of a hurricane impacting your itinerary. Enjoy.

I am inclined to agree: the whole point of taking a cruise (likely costing thousands of dollars) is to spoil yourself with a good time. Does messing with luggage up and down stairs and on and off subway trains to save yourself about $50 fit in with that intention? While I am glad to suggest ways of using public transportation to people who ask about it, I am not a committed advocate of penny pinching. That said, for an out-of-towner who wants to spend a night in New York before sailing from Brooklyn, I will recommend a Wall Street area hotel and the passenger ferry across to BCT.

IRT #2 train to Wall Street station - which is about 4 short blocks (straight east on Wall Street) from Pier 11.

I have never seen any attempt to adhere to scheduled check in times - in several NY sailings.

I am sure there are folks living in uptown Manhattan who also would like to be able to contribute to the air pollution and heavy traffic which now comes close to strangling midtown and down town - while ignoring the abundance of public transportation. If people were more adept at arithmetic they would also be less likely to insist upon being able to drive into the area.

I’m surprised that you have not been advised. I do know that Princess regularly sails from Brooklyn - you might want to look at hotels in lower Manhattan: more interesting, safer neighborhood, with good restaurants, very convenient to the passenger ferry which takes you to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

If your port is Brooklyn you might want to stay in lower Manhattan - inexpensive hotels, Wall Street area. Interesting part of town, lots of good restaurants and very easy passenger ferry across to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

I find it hard to understand why NJ folks think they have a right to clog NY streets and pollute NY air - without paying the same fees anyone from anywhere else is charged.

Unless it happens to be Pier 90 - they are both used by MCT - and neither are dedicated to any particular line.

The pier number doesn’t really disclose its location. Go to 711 Twelfth Avenue, New York, NY; at 54th Street - taxi drivers know how to get there. Lots of luck in avoiding long lines - that size of ship, boarding thousands of passengers (many of whom have little regard for assigned boarding times) means an almost unavoidably long boarding process.

How slow were those grandchildren? You’d think that by the second, certainly the third, time she tried it they would get suspicious.

Pacific islands generally - but close to home, Dawn Beach on the east side of St. Maarten, facing St. Barth’s, was the best I saw in the Caribbean.

The only way to make it palatable was to hide rhubarb in a mess of thawed frozen strawberries.

Isn’t it one of the basic cruise traditions - to come home with authentic “souvenirs” of places which were made thousands of miles away?

Who do you imagine would provide it (cruise line, port authority, someone else), and why would they do so?

Lots of LIRR trains from Penn Station to Jamaica, Queens - where there is a fairly easy change to the JFK AirTrain which goes to all terminals - workable, but the large bags you mention could be a bit of a hassle.

You might consider Windsor - about 10 miles west of Heathrow - a fair amount to see there.

I have never seen a “full size” pool on a cruise ship (about 30+ cruises, 25 ships) - and 20 people would make any of them pretty crowded. No one cruises to swim on the ship.

“Westchester” covers a large area, Pelham is a lot closer to BCT than, say Mount Kisco. A Westchester-based car service would likely be anywhere from $175 to $450, have never had a luggage problem with a specified Uber - not familiar with Dial7 or Carmel.

From the comments on this thread it might appear that the notion of door decorations itself is controversial.

Of course the person wanting the tour does not want to risk paying in advance - and perhaps not getting what he wanted. Similarly, a really good tour operator would not want to wait for the last minute to see if someone shows up at the pier. Why should he take a risk you’d not accept. So: you either take your chances on finding a worthwhile tour when you get off the ship - or you do your research and pay a reasonable deposit and have something ready to go.

I am able to ignore most graffiti on buildings (usually in run-down neighborhoods) - it doesn’t hurt me, although I am inclined to think that it rarely improves the ambience of an area. Of course, in New York, for example, you very rarely see it on Fifth or Park Avenues - or in up-scale neighborhoods generally. I wonder if door decorations on cruise ships are as common on the upper decks (where pricier suites are located) as on the lower deck, inside corridors.

I had the opportunity to ice skate on Mariner of the Seas - but passed: no skates my size=no bragging rights. Since I was only on that strange ship (I think one of my Navy ships, a DE, would have fit inside that Royal Promenade) in the first place to get from Rome to my step daughter’s in Houston that fall in time for Thanksgiving, I wasn’t that upset.

I would suggest you try to locate others on your cruise and share a van from CV to Rome - try talking it up on your cruise’s roll call - and then line up the appropriate size van with Romeinlimo or Romecabs. We have done this several times when boarding ship in CV after several days in Rome. Otherwise, you can take your own taxi or, to save money, take the train.