DukeASUGirl

We've rented through Cloud of Goods for our cruises. They work with smaller local scooter rental places and let you know if your bid is accepted. It's always come in less than Special Needs at Sea or Scootaround, and have been happy with the service.

Actually you're paying for both. When they seat a party of 4 at a 4-top, it means they can't sit a different party of 4 there. If the party seated only is charged for 2, it means that they're making less than they would for the party of 4 who would otherwise actually pay for 4. They only have a set number of tables.

Option 2 wouldn't work for my family, because school starts July 19 thus making an August sailing out of the question. But Option 3 gives you the flexibility to pick a new date not limited to June or August. We would definitely take Option 3.

My very first cruise was Alaska when I was 9. I desperately want to take my kids (11 and 13) on an Alaska cruise, but my husband hates flying, so that limits us to ports we can drive to, but I honestly think Alaska is an awesome cruise for kids.

Wrong! It might not apply to your school district's breaks, but it most definitely applies during Fall Break and the start of summer break for us, but then again we start back to school in July and get out mid-May. Our cruise we had to cancel back in October was during our Fall Break and was a KSF cruise, as is the one we replaced it with sailing May 19, which leaves the day after school lets out for us. There are plenty of kids whose schools have breaks during weeks when KSF applies, albeit not as many as during other weeks.

"Kids sail free" doesn't apply to teenagers. Ages 13+ are considered adults per Royal's pricing. (I know this for a fact bc we had to cancel a cruise due to a hurricane when my daughter was still 12, and rebooked for a later date after she'd turned 13, so we lost our KSF promo.)

Cowardly Lion, for sure.

Daughter's coach was in the skating show on Harmony, and she says it's always a weird experience when taking off because you never know what level the ice will be when you land. Maybe the ice will be closer than expected; maybe further. But almost never in the same spot as when you took off.

Yes, March 6 is prime Spring Break time, both for colleges and public schools. Of course it's going to be crowded!

Is there any place to snorkel on your own in PV without taking an excursion? I'm not anti-excursion, but we're doing a horseback excursion in the morning, so there really isn't time to do a second one. We have roughly 4 1/2 hours for a trip to the beach, so I was hoping maybe we could take a taxi to a beach where there might be okay snorkeling (I know the best spots are only accessible by boat). Looking for somewhere close we can do on our own right off the beach, if this exists. Alternatively, is there any decent snorkeling off-the-beach in Mazatlan? We were planning to do a DIY walking tour of Old Town in the morning, then head to the beach in the afternoon.

My daughter's long-term figure skating coach was a member of the ice show on Harmony, but she says Navigator's Reach for the Stars is her very favorite show (and if she ever does another cruise contract, that's the one she wants to do).

Eat before the crowds, explore the ship before the crowds, pool, waterslides, rock climbing/surf/etc, sign up for kids club/teen club...generally we eat, then go to pool deck. Yes, we have our carry-ons, but it's really not that big of a deal. Dragging a carry-on around on a cruise ship is infinitely more interesting to me than hanging out in a hotel room waiting to head to the port. And usually you don't even have to drag it much - plop it down while eating lunch, then head to the pool deck where you plop it down again. By that point, it's usually time to head to cabin.

Looking at my photos from when I did my Alaska cruise, I appear to have been bare-legged in my dresses at night for dinner, just like I would be anywhere else. I don't think I've worn either tights or nylons in years. I didn't hang out up on deck in my dress - it was just for dinner/shows inside where it felt fine to me. If we decided to go up on deck after dinner, I changed into sweats.

We were looking at a 1:30 tour (with a 12:30 arrival in Cabo) and asked the private tour operator, who suggested we do their 3 pm tour instead. They said that an hour is too short a turnaround if you don't have priority for the first tenders.

I made a final payment for my parents and have done stuff in my cruise planner. No problems.

Our "all aboards" for our 3 ports are 8 pm, 6 pm, and 6 pm, so Early Dining at 5 just won't work for us. It's unfortunate. 😞

I didn't end up getting to go on my October cruise due to the hurricane, but when I booked dining times for it back in April, the MTD didn't start until 6:30. So it's been at least several months now.

And I don't understand this obsession some seem to have to with caring what others are wearing. How does it effect your cruise or your dinner to see someone being comfortable and dressing the way they wish to on their vacation?

Teen, but can't use the text feature on app (because that's 13 and up), so it's a bit annoying if your 12 yr old makes new friends in the Teens club and then can't contact them.

To Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco), yes. We have never used passports. They don't check at all going into Mexico, and they do check on the drive home to Phoenix, but a birth certificate and driver's license has always been sufficient to reenter the US. Confirmed by call to border control station literally every time we go (which admittedly has not been many times, but when we do go, it's a relatively spur of the moment thing, so no time to get a passport for a trip for which a birth certificate is totally fine).

This. Between my kids' activities and school schedules, and my husband and my careers, we don't get much vacation time. The longest we can squeeze away at a time is a week, and most of the time that's REALLY pushing it and my husband would prefer 4-5 days max. So grand overseas vacations requiring passports just aren't in our plans for the time being, even though I do love to travel. Most of our "vacation time" is actually allotted to travel for our kids' sports - figure skating competitions, hockey tournaments, much of which is out of state but not out of the country, so doesn't require a passport. The last "big vacations" we've taken have been a drive over the border to Rocky Point in Mexico or a cruise to Mexico, both of which can be done with a birth certificate and ID. Is it cheap enough to new a passport for me and my husband (both our passports have expired before the kids were born) or get passports for the kids? Sure, in the great scheme of things. But that $520 for the 4 of us can be spent on other things. That's airfare to synchronized skating Sectionals. Or 10 3-on-3 tournament entry fees, or 10 half-hour ice dance lessons. It's just another $500, but if it isn't actually needed for our trip... I would prefer to wait on getting passports until it's actually needed. I know that "it lasts 10 years" (5 for kids) but if we aren't going to use it again during those 10 years, why not wait until we actually do need it? We do plenty of travel in the US. I do miss international travel (had extensively traveled in Europe in my 20s) but that will have to wait until the kids are out of the house.

This past October, but admittedly people were canceling cruises left and right due to the hurricane. (We actually ended up canceling as well once Delta canceled our flight and couldn't get us there on time) So it could have been a completely unusual situation since they wanted to salvage the cruise as much as possible. But there was a Suite Royal Up offer on the website for me when we checked it in mid-September (and I bid on it), about 2 weeks before the cruise. We didn't end up cancelling until Sept 30 (Oct 2 cruise), although I do understand that many Floridians began canceling around Sept 25/26 or so. But even so, the cancelations began about 10 days after we put in our unsuccessful bids.

It says on the description of Johnny Rockets for Navigator: "Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner" but I can't tell if that's just a generic description that Royal puts on all their listings, regardless of the actual ship or not. That's why I'm asking if anyone can confirm that Johnny Rockets actually has breakfast on Navigator..

It allowed us to make a bid for a suite even though we had an Inside. We just weren't successful, and the minimum bid was WAY higher than the minimum bids for Outside or Balcony.

Navigator is Voyager class, and it has Johnny Rockets. It is listed as "breakfast, lunch, dinner." Would breakfast be free on Navigator as well?