CruisingWalter

Itinerary changes are all a part of cruising. No itinerary is guaranteed even after the ship leaves port. Especially on repositioning cruises. Every cruise line has been making minor and major itinerary adjustments over the past 6 months especially. Mostly to save fuel by altering their speeds but there are a number of factors on why changes can be made. We've been cruising almost 20 years, changes are just a part of the industry.

I've heard the same. Disney is apparently another really good one as well. I was talking to one TA on a cruise and they said "if I could only sell VV and Disney Cruises I would be all set." 🙂

Your TA should have addressed this issue with the First Mates or whatever it is they call their support team. The app can be wonky but it usually sorts itself out after a few days or the TA can usually get someone to look into the issue quickly. In terms of paying VV, your TA can do that as well on your behalf.

Absolute truth in that statement. If you're driving to Ft. Lauderdale, no reason to stop there, just keep going to Miami. 🙂

Read the entire post. The OP lives in the Orlando area and is asking fellow Floridians how best to get into Miami without driving all the way into the city. The clue is in the last paragraph.

The OP lives in Orlando, like we do. The post is asking about the best way to get from Orlando to Miami without actually driving into the city of Miami. The clue was "For those who live in Florida, can you please help with suggestions."

I thought that was odd that they specifically mention 'copy' and not 'original' with the birth certificate. We'll have to see how that plays out in practice. We've cruised almost 20 years, never without a passport. And kudos for 'xerox.' Haven't heard anyone use that word for copies in a long time. 🙂

That is definitely VERY recent. We sailed Scarlet in April and had to wait in the long line as Customs went through our Passports. We were commenting how odd it was for a brand new terminal to not have facial scanning when Royal and others in Miami have it.

Gotcha, I was just curious because you're so close at that point. When I drive down, going through Ft. Lauderdale is usually much worse than Miami. Especially if you drive in on cruise morning, it's usually pretty easy if you're coming in early. It gets nutty later in the day if there are more than 4 ships in port. 🙂

As others have noted, Virgin doesn't officially have the ship yet so you'll most likely start to see the ship and available offers show up when they get her. I'd agree with others who are suggesting late July, maybe August.

Curious, if you're going to drive to Ft. Lauderdale, why not go the last 25 minutes to Miami from your hotel and just park next to Terminal V in parking garage G? You're already most of the way there at that point. Just curious why you'd want to do the train, thanks!

Got a notice from my TA that VV has updated their travel document policy for Miami Closed-Loop cruises to basically match the other cruise lines. Passport recommended but you can now sail with a birth certificate and Driver's License along with other options. This is what they sent at the new policy that dropped yesterday. I still don't see it on the website in the FAQ but this is what they said is now the policy: HERE IS THE UPDATE: Passports are HIGHLY recommended. If we change ports for some reason or there is an emergency that keeps the sailor in another country-they will need passports. We can honor exceptions for closed-loop voyages departing from Miami only, however, the Sailor must make sure they bring both of the following: Or one of the below combinations of documents : Original or copy of your state-issued birth certificate AND a physical Government-issued photo ID Puerto Rico birth certificates issued prior to July 1, 2010, are not acceptable Hospital-issued birth certificates are not acceptable Original Consular Report of Birth Abroad issued by the Department of State AND a physical Government-issued photo ID Original Certificate of Naturalization issued by US Citizenship and Immigration Services AND a physical Government-issued photo ID

Good morning! We live in the Orlando area as well and I'm strongly considering the Brightline for our Thanksgiving cruise on Valiant. They are getting some pretty good reviews of late and it certainly beats that 3 1/2 hour drive. I just priced it out at $318 round trip for our cruise for the 'Smart Fare.' They have a Premium Fare as well at $149 each way per traveler. When Ben and David tried out the train for their recent cruise, there was an extra fee for luggage, but I can't find any mention of that on their website. Now if you're planning to stay in Ft. Lauderdale for a few days before the cruise there are shuttle services that will take you from your FLL hotel directly to Port Miami. I would probably do that vs. hotel to lyft to train to lyft to port. You can find hotels that partner with a third party shuttle so you can book the shuttle directly via the hotel or simply book one yourself. You can also book a Lyft, it's only about 25 minutes or less from most Ft. Lauderdale hotels to Port Miami. With 3 people, 3 suitcases be sure to get an SUV if you go with a Lyft/Uber. On the way home you could just take the Brightline all the way back to Orlando.

Google Chrome is recommended by most every cruise line site for browser choice. Apple seems to put a LOT of security 'safeguards' in place that end up disrupting your workflow in some sites.

Same here, we booked our Valiant Lady Thanksgiving cruise a while ago around $2500 for a Sea Terrace, now over $5000 for the same cabin category. That cruise must be selling well. 🙂

I was talking to the Future Cruise Desk folks on our last Scarlet sailing asking how the Cheeky Corner Suites seem to disappear in minutes every time they release their new bookings. We loved ours on the original Scarlet Lady cruise, but it can be near impossible to book them sometimes. He said some TAs are putting together Circles (Groups) to hold blocks of cabins as soon as the sailings come up. They can do that for 30 days. When those 30 days are up, if 10 cabins have not been sold in the Circle, the unsold cabins get released back into the inventory. This can include the Rockstar Suites so it's possible that's why that suite popped up for you.

Not necessarily. I don't know if VV's doing it but some cruise lines are now purposely holding back some suites and cabins specifically for the bidding process. It's getting to be nuts. I miss the old days when you might be surprised at the Terminal with "We have a suite available, would you like us to move you into that cabin?" and that's all there was to it. 🙂

Business economics is not about 'being fair.' Ships are really expensive to build as we all know since they tout how much these ships cost. Smaller ship means higher fares to cover the lower occupancy. Oceania, Azamara, Seabourn, Viking and even Regent has quite a few smaller ships out there already. Unless Princess builds an 'explorer' type ship specifically to do longer and varied itineraries, I really don't see that happening as much as I would love to see that too. Sun Princess is 4300 passengers, Sky Princess is 3660 passengers so I really don't see them building anything smaller than 3500 passengers moving forward. A nice 2500 passenger ship would be lovely, but I just don't see it happening with their brand. Virgin Voyages has pretty much nailed the smaller 2700 passenger mid sized ship, though even there they probably could have been one deck smaller and been fine. If you've not tried the VV experience, it's a lot of fun. The Gamer on our first VV sailing described it as "Summer Camp for Adults" and I think that's a perfect description of what it is. And absolutely no kids or roller gliders anywhere to be seen, not even a water slide. 😅

Excellent post and well stated throughout.

Mostly because of the amount of families who live and travel to Europe is my guess. Especially for Europeans who might like the idea of a shiny new family friendly ship that does not require a flight across the pond. It's a nice alternative to the big Royal and NCL ships and the older Carnival ships if you're looking for an American-based brand. The ship may also entice some Princess loyal families to hop across the pond for European journey. As for the ship itself, the amount of hate towards what looks like less than 5% of the deck space on the ship is amusing. Princess has long had a fantastic reputation for their kids clubs and being family friendly. Park 19 is a natural evolution of that and giving the kids something new and fresh to do onboard while the adults enjoy the other 95% of the ship. And the evolution of the kids/teen areas is fantastic. We had our very first cruise on Princess almost 20 years ago. Since then we've sailed Princess 5 times and on a total of 9 different cruise lines. We just sailed Sky Princess for the first time a few months ago and loved her. I absolutely love what Princess is doing with the Sun Princess and soon to be Star. The new Piazza, the dome, the public spaces, the theater, the dining all looks like Princess 3.0 and it's quite exciting. The addition of Park 19 is somewhat of a surprise for a Princess ship but it won't affect our decision to sail on her. It's an area we won't use that much, but then there are areas of every ship we don't use much. Fortunately for the haters there are 15 other ships in the fleet that don't have a Park 19. 🙂

Also note that if you bring a laptop and plan to plug it in anywhere on the ship, the MSC Seaside only had European outlets in all the public spaces. I would bring at least two converters with you and another one if you plan to set up somewhere for a while with a device that requires power. In the cabin I bring a 10 port USB powered hub so I can charge all my devices with just one power outlet that negates the need for a power strip. Phones, GoPro batteries, Camera, Camera Battery Kindle, etc.. I used one of the EU Converters for that.

Celebrity Cruises has non-smoking casinos as well. Another reason we love that cruise line so much. 🙂 As others have noted the main smoking area is outside Richard's Rooftop and in the smoking room at the Casino. VV probably has the smallest smoking areas of any cruise ship we've sailed. On the flip side, MSC is the most smoker friendly line we've ever sailed. They even sell cigars in the Yacht Club. 🙂

Glad y'all had a good time. Looking forward to your report. And I'm sure the lack of mint in your mojitos ruined your entire cruise. RUINED! 😅 Ah, the drama we get to read sometimes on these forums....

No, we purposely went 'standard' for our first cruise with MSC. We knew we'd have a better experience in the YC but if a cruise line can't provide a good experience throughout the entire ship, we're not going to continue to sail them. The entertainment, shopping, specialty dining and such are from the rest of the ship. We'll sail YC next time on the Seashore or Seascape. We had friends in the YC and while they did have a great time and enjoyed their stay, we compared notes and they said they might just sail 'standard' next time. The biggest difference beyond the private YC area was the higher quality dining room in the YC vs. the MDR. But for them, with the 'standard' being so ridiculously cheap, they said the YC would be a 'special occasion thing' but they would sail standard if they sail MSC again. Celebrity is amazing, we've sailed with them four times. At least comparing our Caribbean experiences, Celebrity is a major step up from MSC in terms of pools, crew, food, drinks and sometimes entertainment. They are near the top of our list for sailing the Caribbean. We've not sailed MSC or Celebrity in the Med.

You very well may have seen the officers and the Captain throughout the ship but didn't realize it. They don't wear maritime uniforms, just slacks or short with a polo shirt. No stripes on the shoulders. I only know what the Captains look like from their social media feeds. At the end of the day you are on a ship with your life literally in the hands of those running the Bridge. While VV downplays the who 'cruise ship thing' it would be nice for them to acknowledge who is running the ship and allow us to meet them, or at least hear from them.