princeton123211

Agree with this-- tropical/Hawaiian themed but not really a proper tiki bar in the ilk of Trader Vics or the Tonga Room.

Yes-- you will lose land based cell service. The ship will travel several miles off the coast but cell service will disappear not long after leaving FLL and switch over to the stronger signal of the ship's cell network (which can be very expensive and slow). You could roll the dice on the ship's wifi to see if you can stream it (most likely wont work well), but the Infinity has satellite television and you should be able to have them put it on in a bar if it is being broadcast on a major network.

They can sell out. We've never called on the island on a cruise-- just numerous overnight stays at hotels on Catalina over the years. But I do remember on two occasions, when a smaller/older Carnival ship was anchored there, that they were sold out in the morning. We were able to rent later on in the afternoon when folks were headed back to the ship.

It's small. Most of the island is uninhabited and the town where you are dropped off at, Avalon, is a small fairly upscale place thats easy to walk around with a bunch of restaurants and some historic features. It was essentially developed by the Wrigley family of chewing gum fame and owned to this day by a descendent organization the Wrigley's founded to be stewards of the island. Worth headed over to the Casino for a tour (which isn't actually a casino) and its adjoining art deco theater. There are your typical diving/snorkling opportunities and rides in glass bottom boats and semi submersibles. You can also rent golf carts to do some exploring on your own or take a guided jeep tour if you want to get further inland to explore some of the more rugged parts of the island. But yeah, most people on a cruise stop eat, drink, and get some sun and you'll be mixing with local Angelinos who are over one mainly 1-2 night getaways to the island from the mainland.

It looks like this is a limo aggregator and not an actual brick and mortar limo company-- they also curiously will match you to a NYC real estate agent from their website but have no actual real estate listings. You will most likely end up with a third party car/driver that they take a cut from. If you want a high end black car I would book direct with actual car companies like Carey, EmpireCLS, or Savoya. If you want to go through a higher end aggregator you can use the BlackLane app-- have used it many times both in NYC and internationally works very well. If you are looking for something a little lower priced (with slightly older cars) either Dial7 or Carmel are reputable and work well in NYC. Personally I would just Uber or take Lyft, especially for the super short trip from your Manhattan hotel to the MCT which you will inevitably overpay for using a black car.

Yes and no. While NCL isn't requiring vaccines after Sept 3rd, there are several countries like Antiqua, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands, Greece, and Spain that all still do and you will not be able to board a cruise that goes to any of those countries, even if its just a stopover, without the full vaccination course. Uber or Lyft are your best bet. UberX is about $40 and Lyft is similar.

What is your "go to" hotel? I think that would help us tremendously offer you an alternative. Without knowing your budget, preferences, etc its pretty difficult. Even without the General Assembly prices are 3-4x what they were before at a lot of top end places in Manhattan. My assumption is that they are not running at 100% capacity and charging the difference to make up for it although no one would admit to that. I used to live in Tudor City, which is adjacent to the UN, and it not a super fun time to be in that area of town. Most of the major delegations all used to stay at the Waldorf Astoria and Waldorf Towers which consolidated things a little but but with the Waldorf closed for conversion to condos they scattered all over to area hotels and the traffic issues have actually gotten worse. Since you are on a luxury ship and you mention 5 star a couple times in your request I am going to generalize and assume you are looking for a top property. If you wanted to stay near Midtown you could go over to the west side with the Mandarin Oriental in Columbus Circle. The Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards a but further south would also work. I haven't stayed here, as its fairly new, but they also recently opened The Pendry Manhattan West near Hudson Yards. The Pendry property in Baltimore is top notch so I would bet this one would be too. If you still wanted some old school New York vibes you could go further up on the East side to The Carlyle which, on 76th Street, should be just outside of the commotion of the GA. Ritz Carlton just opened a new property in Nomad. There is a risk that some of the GA shenanigans could spill over here due to proximity and the fact its brand new. Downtown my pick would be the Four Seasons near the WTC site. As a former New Yorker downtown wouldn't be my first pick but this is a very nice property.

Also worth mentioning that Bermuda has its own taxi app called Hitch that works a lot like Uber. You can call a taxi and pay for it via a credit card in the app. Also an estimated time is given and you can track the approaching car much like you do with Uber. There are some that will point out that there is a modest fee associated per ride but I think most people would agree that it would be worth it if faced with a 2 mile walk. We use it quite a bit on the island and its helpful when we are in out of the way places. It also helps because you don't have to carry as much cash.

As the previous poster mentioned, you will most likely have to carry your own bags off to make this work. You are not docking in Manhattan. What are the cross streets for the hotel? 5th Ave doesn't go through Times Square-- its two long blocks to the East of it. The reason I ask is that you will most likely have a good 10 min walk once you drop bags to 770 7th which is 7th between 50th and 51st Streets so keep that in mind.

It's about a 20 minute ride from where you'll be docked. Uber will be about $25-30 each way and is fairly reliable, especially in the area by the airport where you'll be. I usually build in a little bit of time when I Uber in Maui-- 10-15 minute waits for cars isn't unheard of but they do always show up. Since you'll already be halfway there could be fun to jump over to Lahaina for lunch or dinner before or after. The aquarium is not very large and won't take you a ton of time to see. Frankly I find it a little underwhelming but we have friends and family that enjoyed themselves. But I wouldn't budget a ton of time for it-- 1-2 hours at the most.

The short answer is no, I don't believe any hotel currently offers a shuttle service to Cape Liberty. That being said, an Uber from the Newark Airport Marriott to Cape Liberty Cruise Port is about $28 total. A massively better value than Celebrity's transfer and you will save a ton of time not having to go to the airport and waiting for a large bus to fill up.

Was just up in Montreal two weeks ago-- US currency was accepted at tourist heavy areas at a limited number of establishments-- generally ones that only accepted cash. Usually it was accepted at 1:1 even exchange with a 10% processing fee. This is a terrible deal for someone paying with US currency. Even at 1:1 you are out .28 cents per dollar spent and then the additional 10% on top. To be honest cash isn't as important as it once was. Even small kiosks in most larger Canadian cities accept credit cards. Make sure you have a credit card without a foreign transaction fee and you should be able to save a ton.

Why would you? $1 US is currently $1.28 Canadian. You would be leaving a bunch of money on the table. Use a credit card without a foreign transaction fee or use your US debit card to get cash at a brick and mortar bank's ATM in Canada.

No shuttle. Uber/Lyft is the fastest way to get there. Not nearly enough cabs come to the somewhat out of the way cruise terminal so the ride share apps are a big help. There are other public transport options as noted above. Technically you could walk it but there are far more interesting places to walk in Boston and it will take some time to do so.

Most ships tender at Newport. You'll come ashore at Perrotti Park which is walking distance to most things on the harborfront.

This isn't particularly helpful. Baltimore Camden station is a regional rail station that no one except those utilizing the local MARC system would use. Penn Station is by far the easier station for anyone coming from DC or further south (or North) to utilize via Amtrak.

Keep in mind that these responses are the most "efficient" way to get back. Some of the fun of Bermuda is wandering around and finding things that are fun to experience. For example you could take a taxi from St George/Tobacco Bay for a stop at the Swizzle Inn and then another taxi into Hamilton (or stop somewhere else nice on the way like a drink at the Rosewood). These are a few of our favorite things but the point is the quickest might not be the most fun-- find some things in between that look like fun to you and take your time getting back if you don't have a ship to catch that night.

You would want to go into Baltimore Penn Station which is the one in the city-- its the closest to the cruise port. BWI is a bit further away and you will spend more in ground transportation not to mention time. There is not a great reason to go to BWI in this case unless you intend on flying one of the legs. This will obviously depend on where you stay but personally I would stay at a hotel in downtown Baltimore in one of the tourist areas for the night (the Inner Harbor or Fells Point are good options with some fun dining options within walking distance). Fare for an UberXL (an SUV option that will seat 4 people and luggage) from Penn Station to a hotel downtown is right around $12 total-- incredibly reasonable. The same UberXL suv from a downtown hotel to the cruise port is about $20 and again, will accommodate all of your party. I would not stay near Penn Station-- its not an area with a ton of things within walking distance to eat and frankly it borders some more dangerous neighborhoods that are in a moment of transition. Both the Inner Harbor and Fells Point offer a number of options from five star to budget hotels. There are a significant amount of Marriott properties of all sorts so it could also be a good reason to use points to save money.

It used to be more common than it is today. The QE2 used to carry border agents on transatlantic trips and you would go collect your passports from them the last couple days of the trip by ordered appointment. Was very civilized and the ship would then dock as a domestic arrival-- sort of how you can preclear Immigration in Shannon Airport before flying to the US. Also keep in mind that agencies like CBP are stretched thin like a lot of things so I wouldn't necessarily expect this to happen. They would need to embark at one of your last Canadian ports. Boston is a regular terminus for international cruises so the systems are in place at least to hopefully make it a quick process.

And that I agree with-- what was originally said was on board credit, not one specifically that needed to be used on a shore excursion. For a general OBC I would much rather spend the $7 cash and then spend the $32 I didn't spend on a bottle of wine or apply it to a spa treatment instead of burn it on the excursion.

And even then there are much better values to use it on than this particular one.

I'm just sort of curious why someone with about 5-6 usable hours on a port stop in Newport would want to spend 3 hours of it taking a public bus round trip to Providence?

Correct-- active duty or retired service members only can stay/utilize Hale Koa. There are some other limited exceptions for DoD employees etc. Official list here: https://www.halekoa.com/about-hale-koa-hotel/eligibility

I'd walk around, grab breakfast, go for a stroll on the Cliff Walk, and take a tour or two of the mansions on Bellevue. You could do The Breakers and Marble House in a couple hours if you kept moving.

If you love sea days the West Coast/Vancouver departures have them in spades. Frankly I think Princess/RC and certainly Celebrity are of a higher quality overall than POA. The POA product is slightly different from even the standard issues NCL product and frankly I'm really not a huge fan of the ship-- its decor is pretty garish in places. It's also reportedly been having staffing shortages that are even greater than most other cruise ships because its flagging requires it to carry an American crew. It's resulted in areas and features of the ship being closed. Having said all that, if you haven't been to Hawaii since you were a child and your child and husband haven't been at all, consider a land based vacation there. You'll spend a ton more time on the islands and be able to do a lot more than if you cruise. Like I said, if the purpose is to get a bunch of sea days then go for it, but it will come at the expense of a lot of additional time you could be spending in Hawaii itself.