jlawrence01

I have tried to book flights on Flight Ease and the rates I have been quoted have been higher than I have been able to get via Southwest Airlines. On my next set of cruises which is a 7 day cruise on Celebrity followed by a 14 day on HAL, I booked the flights on the Celebrity website which was 15% cheaper than HAL. We would have flown into Bellingham on Southwest but the transfers to Vancouver were cumbersome.

I was looking at Icon of the Seas for early December 2024 and their inside cabins for a 7 Day Caribbean was $2700 pp out of Miami. A 7 day Caribbean cruise in a suite on Windstar Star Pride would be $2200 pp for the same week. Give Royal Caribbean credit for their marketing ability and all the the cruise influencers that they are compensating.

I was at a travel show on Sunday March 3rd and I was talking to one of the Cunard reps. He told me that what I was wearing that day - dockers and a collared golf shirts would be fine in the dining room on any night except for the two formal nights. On those nights, you would wear a sports coat or a regular suit as opposed to a tuxedo. I want to take a transpacific to Japan and continue on to the Philippines and Singapore but I am not going to carry an extra bag all through SE Asia with all sorts of formal clothing.

To be honest with you, for Americans, cruising on Costa Cruises was a lot like purchasing a Fiat 500. It sounds great in principle but in practice ... My first cruise was on the old Costa Riviera around 1991. The cruise was built fro Mediterranean cruises but we were on an Alaskan cruise. Big Mistake. There was so little to do and "Cruising Italian Style" was very weird. There was so many goofy things on that cruise. Pizza was an extra charge. They sent you a pre-cruise survey. We noted that we did not drink and we were seated at the Mormon table. A bunch of us would play basketball everyday and a little Italian guy would walk through the game every single morning. The only thing that 90% of Americans cruise know about Costa is the Costa Concordia disaster. Carnival has been converting several of the Costa ships under the Carnival brand but it seems like those cruises are more heavily discounted than most other Carnival cruises.

We took a private tour with Roatan Travel and Tours in Honduras. They sent us a young driver in a Hyundai Elantra for $25 pp for four hours. He took us around to a variety of small food shacks around the island as well as a Circle K that everyone on the island frequented due to their great food selection. We bought food for the three of us at every stand. The driver told us that on the next trip he wanted to treat us to the best food on the island - he would have his mother cook for us. We had taken a bus tour with that company two months before and the young people were excellent and very proud to show off their island.

The problem that I have with some of the prices of "non included" food on cruise ships is that the cost of the food is full retail despite the fact that you will not be eating the "included" meal that you paid for. I have no problem paying $15 for a lobster with my meal or paying $25 extra for a meal that is significantly better than the MDR selections. Those prices are very expensive. For example, on a recent cruise, Norwegian was charging $72 for their Brazilian steakhouse on a cruise out of San Juan. I could go out less than a mile away at Texas de Brazil and get the same meal for $56. Why would I pay that much more? Yes, I am a budget cruiser but when you travel 10-13 weeks a year ... =================== The Dive-In is quite excellent and I have never had a bad bite there. Celebrity's version involved precooked hamburgers and cheeseburgers and the staff on board could not properly cook a french fry on three separate occasions. ==================== The worst part of the HAL entertainment is the replacement of enrichment talks by outside people with the entertainment director reading off a teleprompter a pre-done presentation. It is like a college professor using a powerpoint and reading off of it. The best enrichment I have seen was on the Regal Princess where the guest presenter told us everything there was to do at each port INCLUDING INDEPENDENT tours and INDEPENDENT shops that were "must sees."

Yesterday, I was at a travel show and sat through NINE cruise line presentations. I am starting to notice that the inside cabins on new ships like the Icon of the Seas and the Celebrity Edge class ships on a 7 day Caribbean cruise are often higher than the lowest cost cabins on some of the Windstar yachts where you get James Beard Foundation quality menu and ALL the dining venues are included. You get itineraries with FEW sea days and you are able to get beyond the "same old" crowded ports that the large ships cannot reach. Imagine a 10 day cruise with nine port days. And a lot more things are included. While I am a budget traveler, there is a lot of value in some of the luxury lines.

I was on the Celebrity Millennium, their oldest ship, a month after being on the Konigsdam and recently on the Eurodam. I found the food to be better on the Millennium overall and the service in the MDR and buffet was excellent. They recovered from the pandemic a lot faster than the Konigsdam. There were three things that were unsatisfactory on the Millennium. First, the main theater had one of the worst sound and lighting system that I have seen. Honestly, my high school had better equipment. Second, if you encountered any bad weather, the outside decks closed and there was limited space. Third the entertainment did NOT match what was available on Konigsdam. Having said that, I don't have a strong preference between HAL, Celebrity or Princess. Excluding the new ships, they are all pretty similar and it really depends on pricing and itineraries. Personally, I would NOT pay the price that the new Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships are commanding. If I was going to spend megabucks, I would probably do a Windstar cruise where I can get excellent food and impeccable service for a similar amount of money.

We will be staying at the LaQuinta Inn and Suites in Richmond that is close to the Lansdowne Station. We are thinking of leaving the hotel around 9 am, head over to T&T Supermarket for lunch and then head over to Lansdowne station for the trip. Since we are leaving so early, getting to the ship should not be that much of a problem. Our original plan was to fly PHX - Bellingham, stay in Bellingham and take a shuttle to Vancouver. However, I could not get the shuttle options from Bellingham to Vancouver to work that well. Thanks for the information. That was a big help.

I am staying in Richmond, BC about a block from the SkyTrain. How feasible will it be to use it to Canada Place. Is there a place to hold on to the luggage for the 35 minute ride on a Sunday morning?? I have used rapid transit to get to airports and it is hard to carry luggage on some of them.

Calamansi is produced in the Philippines and is similar to a lime. It is NOT imported into the US but calamansi juice is available at some Asian markets and Seafood City.

A lot of people minimize the importance of the ship on the overall experience of your Alaskan cruise. We took an Inside passage cruise on the old Costa Riviera in 1989. It was a cruise that we paid for using my DW's Diners Club points and the cost was a major benefit. It was a terrible ship for a Alaskan cruise. It was a ship that was more geared to the Caribbean with outside pools and the like. There was just little to do other than watching the scenery. We swore off cruising until 2019 as a result of the trip. The best part of the cruise is that in June, we could experience the midnight sun. We will be returning to Alaska with two cruises in September. The first week will be a RT Inside passage tour on Celebrity Solstice. Then we will do a 14 day cruise on HAL Nieuw Amsterdam from Vancouver to Seward and back. Our choice was dictated by the lines that we prefer to travel with. We like the level of service and the food on these lines and this is really important to us. Some of my recommendations: 1) Plan your port visits very carefully and make them in advance. Do realize that the weather at ANY time of the year can turn bad and keep you from doing a dream excursion. 2) Pack layers of clothing. What worked in MOST other cruises will NOT work in Alaska and prices in the port are VERY expensive if you need to make a purchase. 3) You will probably not see everything you want to see. However, you will see things that you did NOT expect to see. 4) Get ready for sticker shock. Helicopter and flightseeing are available BUT can exceed the cost of the cruise fare! Make sure that you have it in the budget.

They are literally running out of ports to use. That is why you have seven or eight ships at Cozumel nearly everyday.

When I was working in the housing projects in Detroit, my vacations were spent hiking to the ghost towns of Ontario all throughout the province guided by a book that I picked up. On one particular hike, a guy appeared with a rifle pointed at me and my wife telling us to get lost. While we were on public property, I did not fell like pushing the point in a remote rural area where our bodies may not be found. We went back to the car and moved on to the next town.

It certainly exists: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/united-states FWIW, with all the years I have lived in the US, the ONLY time that I have had a weapon pointed at me was in Northern Ontario.

That makes a lot of sense.

You are on cruise #5 back to back. Do you ever get tired of being on the same ship, eating the same menu and even having a LOT of repeats on the entertainment. Have you ever been tempted to head out on a different cruise line to break up the similarity? Or take a week off at one of the ports? Great pictures, by the way.

Two comments based on recent trips: 1) In the Falmouth area, the cruise port area is pretty much closed off from the rest of the town and has the usual type of shops that are everywhere. I would consider that area to be pretty safe. We did walk out of the port into the area adjacent to the cruise port. I am not going to say that it was a rough area but I probably would not do it again. When crew members leave the port area, they are instructed to travel in groups. 2) In February 2023, we did take a cruise sponsored excursion on a 25 passenger bus with a guide and a driver that involved about a 45 minute drive each way. I will say that in my life, I have never had as many near "head on" collisions as I had on that drive. Jamaican drivers will pass on narrow and windy two lane roads. I think that one of the issues with cruise lines these days, is what ports can all of these ships visit on an itinerary? Places like Cozumel have 7-8 ships in one days. This almost requires them to travel to less palatable destinations that they would probably like to avoid. Personally, we do not like the private islands and try to avoid certain ports like those in Jamaica and Belize City where there are security concerns.

Was this menu offered every week because I do not remember if during the first week? Also, when you head to one of the specialty restaurants like Tamarind, what do you get? If it an appetizer, entree and dessert or can you have multiple entrees and apps like in the MDR? In eight cruises, we have never tried specialty dining. Yes, seriously.😊

I am jealous of all the time you had in Bonaire. It is a great island to walk around. Unfortunately on our last visit, we were only there from 7 am to 2 pm. So many of the restaurants and businesses opened at noon. We found a Dutch grocery called Van der Groots that was quite excellent.

Heading to a US based fast food chain in the Caribbean is a strong guarantee that you will find decent WIFI.

I was really expecting that I would hate the chile relleno as that is a difficult dish to execute. However, it is one of the best that I have ever had. The pork belly was also excellent.

Seabourn is a super luxury line. Princess and Celebrity have Indian options at nearly every meal in their buffet.

The best menu of the cruise.. I hope that they continue this until the end of the calendar year.

I have been at a decent number of cruise ports recently so I might be confused. I thought that when you are at the port in Cozumel, you get in line to catch a taxi to town. The dispatcher asks you the number of people in the party and they get you a taxi for that many of people. I believe that there was also a sign telling you how much is the fare to different zones. A strategy that I have used along the US - Mexico border and at various Mexican airports is to shout out that I need a cab in earshot of five to ten drivers and generally one will shout out a lower price or they will all be the same. There are not many of them left but avoid the old Nissan Tsurus sedans that used to be the mainstay of Mexican taxi fleets. They are basically the equivalent of a 1980's era Nissan Sentra and has one of the worst crash ratings of any vehicle on Mexican roads.