mac1_131

I think the max is 200 per person

Wow nice you're doing the fully Monty!

I'll be watching we are doing similar in 2020, the first southbound of the year so please also report weather conditions.

Have fun!

Hmm that might just stick and be the beginning of the end.

What a mess.

I only ran in to one and he was in the dang cathedral. I told him to go away that was the end of it. Didn't see any outside, my guess is they don't tolerate it.

Try pineapple beach. The road ends at a cul-de-sac and the beach is only ten feet away.

Except you can't use people to people anymore

This doesn't go on your Visa. That you just pay for and fill out for the Cubans.

You fill out the us state Dept form and keep one copy in case they audit you and the cruise line keeps one copy in case they get audited

If you are doing an approved excursion not from the cruise line pick the first one you quoted.

If you want to go for the support for the Cuban people then pick that one.

Nobody is checking. This is all in case the us wants to audit your visit so you have to be prepared to justify your choice IF they ask. Chances are good they won't.

  Put the item in your shopping cart and check-out.  You will see the total price and can cancel the order if you like.  

 

Don't mess up like I did and add another guest to the order. I added DW thinking she needed access to it also and ended up with two sets of two devices per day. Had to wait in the voom line on boarding to get it credited, which they did.   

And remember you can log out of one or both devices if you need to use another device - just go to logoff.com and then sign on with a third device if you need to.

 

Two devices means two logged in simultaneously.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey there! I am also going May 2020 but booked RC cruise tour 3B. I originally wanted 1B however didn't see it listed the day Alaska was released so I went with 3B which is very similar but has an additional night. Now it's not worth it to change as the prices have gone up and pretty much is the same price for me to drop 1 night in the cruise tour! Are you on the Radiance leaving 5/22/20?

Yes I noticed same thing but then it appeared. Their web page is a little messed up for that first southbound 2020 cruise in the cruisetour section. I tried to tell them but so far it fell on deaf ears.

I'm watching for a roll call but so far nothing. Probably see you on the bus ride to Seward if not sooner.

So far only thing I've booked is whale watching with Jayleen in Juneau at 1pm.

This can be done without a shore excursion? Royal told me when I booked that I had to take one of their excursions. (Booked cruise today, not booked an excursion)

What they told us is you need to take an excursion that meets the requirements of the category you select on your state department form that you fill out, and that all their excursions meet those requirements. We were just there couple weeks ago and they never told us we had to take their excursions. Actually they were very accommodating to those that were taking private excursions.

 

Once you get there, nobody is checking anything and you can do whatever you want.

 

To fully comply you need to do a full time itinerary consisting of activities that meet the requirements. (Whatever full time means, apparently it does not mean every minute you are there.)

 

For us, we took one of their excursions each day and did what we wanted to do the rest of the time.

 

We were happy with that, and I assume it met the requirements.

 

 

 

 

 

390 agonizing days then NORTH to Alaska... [emoji41]

Is it really worth the $99 pp that I see for my oasis cruise?

Yes - it includes wine pairings with each course

Nice list!

Being an old fart, only thing I see missing are pain pills LOL

Going to try get this stickied for this year's reports.

From the previous years instructions:

Hopefully lots of you will be returning soon, wanting to share information about your cruise experience, excursions, activities, vendors, land travel, etc.
A report can be one paragraph outlining each port you visited and your activity at each port, OR, it can be a 20 pg report with photos of your cabin, public areas, meals, dailys, activities of each port, and every sight along the way. Or it can be something in between! Whatever you have time for.
Please CREATE YOUR OWN THREAD to post your trip report, then paste a link to THIS thread. That way, if people have questions they will post directly to your report. Best to keep this list as an informational tool, not gunked up with questions and comments.
It would be helpful if the first line included the SHIP, ITINERARY, DATE, EXCURSIONS, and who travelled ( family with children, a multigenerational trip, active 30 somethings, etc).

Hey some of the best part of that Cruise is cruising down the Chesapeake especially when going under the bay bridge. You must be topside for that.

 

I think you'll still find the cabin nice. Yeah no balcony so you have to do topside but the rooms are fine.

 

Bermuda is a blast. Make sure you go to the crystal caves.

The way I handle this is the first thing I book and pay for our excursions that I think might sell out

Then I take care of dining reservations and premium dining

And lastly I book and pay for the rest of the excursions I want to go on a little closer to the sailing date

I still prefer to use Cruise planner that way all your shore excursion tickets are waiting for you in your stateroom and you don't have to mess around waiting in line at the excursions desk

I have the same problem it seems to be an erratictic amount of ime before you have to log off and log back on for it to work again

 

Sometimes it's a matter of hours sometimes I get a day or two out of it

 

 

 

 

I have back issues and love the firm mattresses.  Always sleep like a baby on cruises.
 

Me too, better than at home

Their pictures have gotten pricey imho. We only bought a couple. I bring my small DSLR and take a lot of pictures and print them out later at CVS.

You could check email via Cellular at Sea if your carrier allows it but I would advise against it. Data usage via cellular can be very expensive, like $6/mb. You could run up huge charges just checking mail.

Getting internet for the entire TA would be less than messing with cellular at Sea imho. I got burned by that once, learned to get the internet and make wifi phone calls.

There is a new obc promotion that just popped up a couple days ago along with the spring bogo50. Any chance they add that to existing bookings?

She's now heading Southeast along the Spanish coast? This has to be the strangest itinerary ever. 

Parts run to Freeport.

In Antigua you dock right in the middle of downtown St John's so a lot of things in walking distance.

 

Problem is it is all the usual touristy stuff. Vendors malls, duty free shops.

 

The best things Antigua has to offer is a ways away from downtown, stunning beaches, rain forest, English harbor (Nelson's dockyard), Shirley heights, devil's bridge.

 

You can grab a cab and DIY if you don't want to do the ship's excursions but there is some travel and time involved.

 

There is an old cathedral in walking distance.

 

 

 

 

It's the same spiel from any tour guide on any island of the cruise line circuit.I still don't know how you are helping the people when you can only use a currency that the government issued just for visitors.doesnt that money have to go thru the govt to get exchanged for their national currency?

They told us the stores with what they consider luxury items (tv, refrigerators, cell phones) only take CUCs.

They seem to live in a dual world the socialist part uses CUPs and the capitalist part uses CUCs.

I know I am going to be flamed, but I am going to say this anyway.  We as Americans go into a foreign country and disregard or flaunt laws that we think are wrong, and then are surprised and outraged when we are subjected to those laws and what that country considers justice.  We do not get to make the rules for everyone else.  I hope it goes well also.

Not flaming but we are likely dealing with two different things happening.

1. I suspect the private tour guides not being officially permitted businesses are not paying the hefty taxes like the classic car people pay. They told us the car people still make money even with the huge taxes (payoffs, whatever you want to call them). If the private tour guides aren't plugged into that system that may explain the crackdown.

2. Trump adminstration announcing unspecified travel restrictions. Until they put some specifics behind this, it just may be rhetoric.

I am still optimistic for all of your that things will be ok, although I'm glad we did ours a few weeks ago before all this came up.

The individual ship's cruise directors manage this cruise to cruise, things change down there and they learn each cruise and do a great job adapting. We had a pretty normal experience on our cruise, left us with the feeling hey Cuba's not so bad, then all this happened [emoji41]