Fred&Lily

There really is NO advantage in booking a year out, but you should budget for a trip regardless - you owe it to yourself - especially if like my DW Lily you work in an office cubicle with no outside window light and vacation time has to be requested months in advance. Lily actually now has seniority and gets five weeks... but the point is this: Go for the last-minute deals and make sure you always keep adding about $200/month to your "Cruise Fund".

Between San Juan and the Florida ports there are about a dozen Carnival ships leaving every weekend in the Caribbean. I guarantee one of them won't be sold out!

Final point: It's too stressful counting down for a trip months away while seeing deals come up for other cruises you'd like to be on.

Of the 14 or so cruises we've taken only two were booked more than 30 days out. For example last year we did an Alaska last-minute for $299 and this past February a 10 day southern Caribbean for $499. I believe cruises are like mattress sales and the key is to not go crazy yearning for the next vacation getaway by booking so far in advance.

If you're happy with an inside cabin and if you're okay with flying to the departure port a few days ahead using a cheap air carrier (Spirit, JetBlue) from US border cities (Yep, we're cheapo Canadians who drive over to DTW for low cost flights) - be patient and wait for the deals!

Also, if you go last-minute you really don't need any travel insurance or medical insurance which is totally unnecessary if you're fit and healthy. If the price is right who cares which cruise line you're going on.

Do the research and planning yourself on-line and book on-line and pay in full with your credit card. No TA required!

cbscanada: If your wife doesn't drink four or five glasses of wine and a couple of Irish Cream and a cocktail plus lots of bottled water each day, then stay away from the All Inclusive Beverages. There are wine and water packages and quite honestly I didn't pay attention to those details but do know others in our group purchased them on the ship. I'm hunting through the Today - daily programme for all 10 days which I brought home and can't find any mention of those deals or the cost.

For the kids you may just encourage them to drink tea, water, iced tea, and orange juice plus one or two other juices that seemed to be at the coffee stations on the Lido Deck 9.

I always take a Tim Horton's travel mug on trips and did so on this Luminosa cruise. Fill it at the coffee station with juice or tea or whatever.

The Roatan port was the west side of the island and we had to tender to the pier which had a few shops and a hoard of van drivers waiting to fill their cabs with passengers for the $15 return trip to West Bay. It's a nice beach but then when you get there the public access security people demand $10 per person for access, chairs and umbrella are extra. Lily and I paid, but my sister went with a load of Italians who were very hard bargainers and beat the cost down by half. West Bay was a lovely beach but it's a real racket they run there!

Lilystar, I applaud you for being willing to get out of the comfort zone of Florida and venturing out to Europe as a solo woman traveler.

The advice in all these posts has been really spot on!

I've done both land tours and cruises and would suggest if this is to be your one and only lifetime trip across the pond then you'll have to give yourself time to combine both - you really must visit Paris and Rome!

But if you have constraints such as time, budget, safety fears and first-time jitters, then I suggest go ahead and do a Costa cruise from Savona or Genoa or Rome. It may be nothing more than a "sampler" of the Mediterranean ports but that's exactly what the ancient Roman and Greek civilizations were built around - those ports.

And you lucky lady, you won't be rowing a three-banked trireme.

Go Lilystar, go!

They have both types of outlets located in your cabin just below the mirror on the dresser table.

cbscanada : I have been anxiously checking each day for your review. I wonder why it takes so long?

I`ve been wondering the same thing as I posted my review about a week ago now. It was quite positive and a little too long until Lily made me edit out several paragraphs on booking costs, hotels and airfares etc..

Used to be in IT and Financial Systems, so I tend to get carried away with details.

Our group of 10 arranged to be seated together on the Feb 5 Luminosa Cruise out of Miami and Costa also told me on the phone about the All Inclusive Beverage Package rule.

But first rule of Italian Style Cruising is ignore what Costa says. I bought the Beverage package for our cabin and it turns out all our second seating requests to be at a 10 seat table were ignored by Costa so on first evening we spoke to the Maitre D' who moved us all to table 275 on Deck 3 together.

Two couples had the full Beverage Package, four people had the 6 bottle wine and water package and one couple had no package and ordered wine by the bottle on some evenings. The waiters had no problem figuring out which of us had which package - even when we moved seats around the table each night.

We often sat together in the bars and lounges and when ordering cocktails the bar people simply looked at each card and took them back to the bar and when drinks came everybody signed the bills - just some of us had $0.00 on the bottom of our bar receipts.

I kept every one of our receipts - it was 202 drinks for the two of us over 10 days. Did we cheat? Not at all. Lily works for government in Canada and wouldn't allow me to hand out drinks.

Wrote long review in which I try to counter all the negative reviews.

I rate the ship and itinerary at 5 stars.

A first-cruise newbie couple who came with us loved it. Lily rated it as one of the best ever - and she's cruised on 12 different ships.

Almost nobody wears a tuxedo on a cruise formal night anymore and for those of you "in the know".... formal is dinner jacket which is usually white or off-white and semi-formal is tuxedo.

Our flight was 3 pm so being in the brown tag section wasn't an issue. We left around noon and got to the airport just after 12:20 pm then stood in TSA line for about 40 minutes - no panic there. But friends who had earlier flights at 1 p.m. said that getting off the ship in the early green tag - 9:30 am group was half an hour delayed.

Times are:

Pink and Red luggage tags - 7:15 am - 8:15 am

White Luggage Label - 8:30 am

Yellow Luggage Label - 9:00 am

Green Luggage Label - 9:30 am

Purple Luggage Label - 10:00 am

Orange Luggage Label - 10:30 am

Blue Luggage Label - 11:00 am

Brown Labels - 11:30 am

Most of the Italians returning to Rome on Alitalia flight 631 which leaves MIA at 9 pm in the evening were crowding to get off early - likely for Evergaldes tours.

I wrote a review and submitted it yesterday, so it will take a day or two before it's posted in the Member Reviews.

I rated the ship and itinerary as exceptionally good. Five Stars!

Here are the nights:

Night 1 - Casual - boat drills, Michael Buble musical video and Sea Musicians

Night 2 - Casual - The Grand Variety Show

Night 3 - Dress Code Formal - Ladies Night and "Life is Beautiful" show

Night 4 - Casual - Tropical Party night

Night 5 - Casual - Production show "The Magic of Time", election of Miss Luminosa and 80's Rhythms

Night 6 - Casual - election of Ideal Couple, Italian Tenor in Phoenix Theatre and Glamour Night

Night 7 - White Night / Casual - Crew Show and Party Under the Stars. Yes, everybody really does wear all-white if they can and it looked like a lot of women were wearing modified wedding dresses and many men wore Pat Boone white pants and shoes.

Night 8 - Dress Code Formal - theme is Retro and 50's Night

Night 9 - Casual / Green, White and Red - Italian Night

Night 10 - Casual - It's the Last Night with Talent Show and Bye Bye Music etc...

We just got back from the Luminosa and the process of getting through US Customs was pretty slow - not because of anything the Costa staff could do but because the US Customs agents were under-manned and it was slow dealing with all the in-transit aliens from Europe plus the Canadians are in the alien line as well. Blue and Brown tags were still trying to get off after 11:30 a.m but the taxi ride to MIA is only 15 minutes... here is the next catch.... TSA lines at the Delta terminal were a further 30 to 40 minutes...

But there were five big cruise ships being turned around on Saturday morning!

Just back from the Feb 5-15 Luminosa cruise where the All Inclusive Beverages Package at $519 was used. Our bar receipts totalled 202 drinks, which included mineral and bottled water, wine by the glass, cocktails and lattes etc.. so it came out to $2.57 per drink for us.

I spoke to Max the CD (who is a fellow Canadian from Montreal) who said there were approx. 500 Germans and Scandanavians on board, about 500 Americans and Canadians, most of whom seemed to be of Italian descent, and the rest were Spanish, French and quite a few Brazilians and Portugese.

We're just back from the 10 day Luminosa cruise and I used the laundry service twice. The cost was $22 for a bag of shirts and underwear etc.. and my second load was just shirts for washing and ironing which came to $12.

They wash and press shirts nicely and have them back to your cabin by next evening.

Price list: Shirts $3, socks $1.30, T-shirt $1.80, Lingerie $1.80

Well worth the price!

We're on the same Feb 5 - 15 Luminosa trip. Having been to all the ports before, and to some several times before, we now simply walk or take a public bus to the nearest good beach... sometimes we take a taxi and ask for a short taxi tour, but generally now we never book ship's excursions. Here's why:

1- I like to talk to the drivers and find one who I understand. I particularly like to find a driver who has visited Canada or has been to Toronto's Caribana Festival. That makes us instant pals!

2- Way too many ship's excursions seem to get cancelled last minute.

3- Sometimes it's overcast or raining and you don't want to be locked into a pre-paid excursion.

4- Follow the crew members - they always know where the cheap spots are or the closest beaches.

5- Nice to take long hikes away from the normal touristy areas.

Now to explain the pool noodles: We always stop in at a Walgreens or Wal Mart pre-cruise and buy some pool noodles to take on-board. It helps us find each other on the beach and we like to simply bob around in the sea. When the cruise is over, we just give the noodles to some kid on the final beach! So, if you have no idea what to do or where to go in any port on this iteinerary....

6- Follow Fred and Lily and the pool noodle gang!

I bought the "all-inclusive" package today for our cruise on Luminosa February 5th.... it came to $519 US. The Costa rep. that I called and ordered it from said it includes everything except the 40 year old Scotch!

After cruising on six different cruise lines - at least 2 times on each line and all areas - Mediterranean, Caribbean - southern, eastern and western plus Alaska - plus travelling on various Greek, Spanish, Italian and Canadian overnight ferries etc... I've never found a ship that had bad food. Well maybe a couple of CCCP ships back in the 1970's. But certainly not had a bad meal on any modern era cruise line.

In fact, over the past 15 years or so cruise ships have increasingly been relying on International Catering and Hospitality Trade Shows for most of their dining menu ideas, suppliers and kitchen services. Hotels and many restaurant chains use the same facilities. Metro handles much of the European market and Costco does a huge amount of catering business in the US. There are dozens of these kitchen and catering companies working in the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale area doing everything from chopping and bagging salads to baking breads and dessert preparation. Well, breads and pastries are actually half baked then flash frozen and re-heated on board.

In my opinion, the issue is "sameness" among the cruise lines not "differences".

Finally there are two Luminosa reviews for the Eastern Caribbean itinerary just posted, and they aren't good - a one star and a two star. Fortunately they both give the ship, the entertainment and the itinerary good marks but neither of the reviews say anything about dancing, music, stage shows or the bands on the Luminosa.... which is the stuff I want to hear about.

We cruise for the entertainment and dancing and really don't care about food portions, bottled water or how long the life boat drills are!

BlueHerons says: You need to be very worried about a hotel that is only charging $74 per night when everything else, even the druggie/prostitution hotels are going for $200 per night.

I agree, but that hotel is charging $259 for December bookings. I have no idea why it popped up on Hotels.com - Feb 4 at $74 - but I jumped on it quick as old St. Nick!

I just got four rooms at the Haddon Hall Hotel on Collins Ave. South Beach for $74 Canadian each! That was on Hotels dot ... and it has parking. One night. We're all going on Costa's Luminosa on the 5th.

I didn't write anywhere in that last post I was bothered by smoke.

Only stated I'm hoping to see some entertainment reviews for the dance bands and shows.....

Luminosa should have completed two Caribbean cruises now and I haven't yet seen any reviews. The TA crossing is the most recent member review (Smoking, smoking!) here in Cruise Critic. I'm still looking for dancing and entertainment details before our Feb 5 cruise.

Now that Luminosa has started the Caribbean winter season out of Miami, I hope some posters will report on the dance bands / combos / DJ's etc. that are available in each of the lounges.

Any good Argentine Tango music?

Fouremco - You're right for calling me out on a couple of points - but I wrote that posting quickly and didn't want to get into a long technical post about GPS enabled cells and routing IP's etc...

But my point about NOT notifying newspaper carriers, police, insurance and all other delivery and service providers stands because they are not as reliable as a good neighbour who has the keys to your house.

One more item I forgot: When the airport limo comes to fetch us we call and leave from a slightly different location... the neigbours place!