AUDirt

Also my travel agent always sends people to the Radisson at the Port.

One thing to consider is proximity of your rental car company to the hotel. Most of the companies offer shuttles but they run slowly, so avoiding a shuttle ride or two could make for a big time savings.

Hello! My family and I will be taking first cruise ever on the Disney Dream n June. We are coming in a day early and will be renting a car. Can anyone recommend a good and clean hotel in the Cocoa Beach / Cape Canaveral area? The hotel doesn't need to be fancy, but cleanliness is a must. Thanks in advance!

I found the DoubleTree to be satisfactory, but it's showing its age a bit.

My DD16 and I just returned from our Western Caribbean Fantasy cruise. We scuba dove in GC and planed on diving both Costa Maya and Cozumel.

 

Unfortunately, we were not able to dive CM or Cozumel. Disney used RedSail Sports in GC and they were great. We heard from other divers on the ship that they were not happy with the dive operator in Cozumel. When I discovered that DCL was using Sand Dollar Sports, I admit I was less than thrilled as I have read many poor reviews concerning them.

 

Because I did not dive them myself, I am not in position to complain to DCL about them. But, if any others have used them and were not happy with the experience, please make DCL aware of it. Disney runs too good of an operation to have their vendors not do a great job and they need to be aware of them.

 

Also if anyone has had a good experience with Sand Dollar please let me know. Maybe the reviews have been biased.

 

Thanks for listening to me.

 

Tim

This is an excellent report. We're scheduled to dive in Costa Maya -- did you hear who they used in that port?

I have two boys, so I can't really advise on the availability or princesses. However, I will offer the following opinions:

* I've always had good service on RCI, but Disney is next-level. Our head waiter brought a customized (PBJ) lunch for our son ashore at Castaway Cay (nuff said).

* We thought Castaway Cay was the bomb, but I can see where it might not be for everyone.

* The ship (Fantasy) was amazing, though I'll admit I haven't been on RCI's latest.

* It is expensive. $$$

Thanks for the info. I have to say that the possibility of taking the shuttle only to have to wait in the terminal for hours is kind of disappointing. I doubt it will work out that way, but even the theoretical potential makes me a bit nervous (just a bit).

OK, I was just asking because, if it was DCL transfers, the answer I gave you would be different.

Okay, now you've got my attention :)

We're on our second DCL cruise at the end of the month. We've done online check-in and were assigned port arrival times of 2:00pm.

BUT... most of our party is using DCL transfers. I just sort of figured everything would be okay -- it seemed unlikely the cruiseline would get us to the pier at 11:00 but refuse to let us board for three hours.

So what will happen? To further complicate matters, there are two members of our party (sharing a cabin) who are driving their own vehicle.

Thanks in advance :)

Which ship are you looking at? There was a report somewhere else on here that, among the older ships, there was a big price difference between the Magic and the Wonder (one of them has been refurbished recently).

With Disney, there seems to be a big discount for booking early. My Dad is going on a 7-night Fantasy voyage in April; his fare was $3k for a balcony cabin. Of course, he booked close to a year in advance.

Happy to report that after a frantic second, third and fourth search, my mom found the passport. Still taking deep breaths. Thank you all! #exhale

Did you check the expiration date?

If price isn't an issue, it's hard for me to imagine a ship better than the Disney Fantasy.

We went last year when our son was 4 and we had an impossible time keeping him -out- of the oceaneer club. We'd try to ask him questions about it, but getting an answer out of him was next to impossible. ("We played a game and there was lights... and then Captain Hook came and Peter Pan had a battle with him and...")

I finally asked my wife, "what do you think goes on in there?" Her answer was classic: "I guess it's the 4-year old version of 's*x, drugs, and rock & roll.'"

That's one distinction I'm sure they don't want....those numbers are staggering to me.

 

I wonder why so many were infected and ill...makes me wonder if it was food that caused it and not just a handful of people who may have had the virus and boarded the ship.

 

It seems like too many for it to have been caused just from infected guests or crew. Hopefully they'll be able to pinpoint the cause.

 

Wishing everyone on that ship a safe trip home...they've been through a lot, especially those who were/are ill.

This is total speculation here, but I wonder if this norovirus is the same one that swept through the US southeast like wildfire last year. I know lots of physicians were suspicious that last year's virus could be trasmitted through the air because it moved -so- fast.

On the Fantasy, the only ones I remember seeing were in the Small World Nursery. I'm guessing that's not going to cut it.

I honestly have no idea what is on ESPN or when...but figured that OP knew that piece. My point was that ESPN was available on the cruise IF the sports event one wished to see was broadcast by them. And it isn't just one channel of ESPN--I think it was 4. Sorry for any confusion.

Sorry -- I wasn't trying to insinuate that you should know who carries what. I was tossing that out there for the benefit of the OP.

Castaway Cay is not :D

Since Disney owns ESPN' date=' there are 3 or 4 ESPN stations on the stateroom TVs. You can ASK that they put on whatever you want in the sports bar on board--but majority rules there.[/quote']

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think ESPN has a contract to televise NHL games, do they? (I thought NBC had it...).

 

Regardless, DCL will -only- have ABC-related networks on its TVs, plus the CNN stuff. Maybe they have exceptions (e.g. March Madness, Super Bowl, etc.) but my hunch is that, if what you want ain't on ESPN, they ain't got it.

Obviously this is not Happy Limo's first rodeo. They know that people don't have total control over when they get off the ship; they also know that cell phones aren't always allowed (e.g. customs).

All of this, plus the fact that the OP had pre-paid makes it all a little sketchy. I don't think 30 minutes late when dealing with debarkation day is an unreasonable delay. It's not like the OP got off at noon and wondered why his/her ride was gone.

Not sure what you mean by "unlikely". If you mean because the ship was "dead in the water", then I agree as far as the 6 main generators as they were near the hull failure. But emergency generators kicked minimal lights on in the ship as well as the bridge.

 

Other Maritime authorities on the other thread (the one that is now locked) commented some 3-4 weeks ago, since the forward thruster had its own generators and plotting the movement of the ship, that Schettino may have used the thrusters to turn the bow of the ship around.They had a minute by minute breakdown of the movement of the CONCORDIA on a chart just like the Discovery Channel with an "authority" commenting on every movement of the ship.

 

At any rate, I'm sure in the TRIAL, either the captain and one of the officers will testify whether or not the bow thruster was used at this time. The black box recording will also probably indicate whether or not the thruster was used.

 

Presumably the people on the TV special are experts within their field. They're instructors at what is (I presume) a noteworthy maritime academy. Certainly they would have been aware of any generators for the bow thrusters that were independent of the main generators.

But even if he did turn the ship around, what good did that action do? He did a 180 degree turn. The only thing that changed was the side of the ship that went in the water.

I thought the Discovery Channel documentary was excellent. Informative and interesting. Well done, Discovery Channel.

IF those forensic analysts are correct, then Schettino looks soooo much worse than he did before. I had previously given him credit for pointing the ship towards shore and attempting to beach it close to land. But last night's show made that look implausible.

When you factor in the other things he did like going to dinner after the collision and abandoning ship an hour before all the passengers got off, it's safe to say that those that survived did so in spite of Schettino, not because of him.

The generators for the bow thrusters are usually more locally placed. So the captain may have had power for it. The captain MAYBE[operative word] used the bow thrusters to keep the ship's port side directly to the wind to allow her to be pushed more efficiently to shore and the relative safety of shallow water.

 

Those maritime instructors on the Discovery Channel special seemed to think that was unlikely.