kctwinmommy

I used to be in the "waste of $60 crowd" but you know what, I think for this cruise I just want to wait in as few lines as possible.

Amanda

I agree! I can't remember if it was a thing when we were sailing 10 years ago. I just know we had to wait in long lines. So when we sailed this past fall, I didn't think to get it. We sailed with our friends, who are much higher VIFP level, and they were on for like 2 hours and much less hassle. They were able to get to their rooms, have their stuff there and ready, etc... We, once again, stood in a line for almost an hour, in the heat. So, I figure there's no reason to speed things up if it's possible. And after the other stuff I spend money on for a cruise, $60 is no big deal... :)

I appreciate FTTF is a 'love it or hate it' kind of thing so my post was aimed to help out the 'love it' crowd. For me, it is worth it for the early boarding alone. I would probably spend near $60 on all the paraphernalia needed to occupy & distract my excited children while we wait to board.

Exactly! Why are there some people who feel it necessary to share their opinion on this topic every time?!! I get it, there are some people who don't want to do it, that's fine. Nobody is asking or forcing them to do it.

But, people who book other excursions or make different choices, it doesn't seem to happen as often with the criticism. I mean, I wouldn't see someone talk about booking some kayaking excursion and post "Waste of money..." and that's it. Yes, I realize you would if there were problems with the excursion, but not just because I don't like your choice. The FTTF is different than that.

As someone once said, it's a little insurance policy for some people. I don't want to stand around in the long lines that we always have. I'd rather get through checking in and onto the ship. I realize that things happen and I may not be guaranteed this. But I also have paid thousands of dollars over the many years of owning a house and never used my insurance for anything, and I paid way more than $60! ;)

Thank you all for your reviews.

 

I can understand if it's merely a meeting point for some and that the activities probably vary around which kids show participate and their interests.

 

I won't give my daughter unlimited freedom of course, but I am fine with allowing her to do various activities with friends she meets as long as I know where she is and she checks in and obeys any rules I set, which she always does.

 

I am glad it can at least be a place to meet kids her age, and hopefully they will have some activities for them as well.

Exactly! That's how we were with our son. He knew the rules and he doesn't get in trouble. So he was allowed to go and do things with the different kids, and they would check in once in awhile. Even the kids got to know who the parents were so they would tell us "He was over there, etc..."

I think daytime activities were harder to schedule than night. Usually all the kids went there at night, after dinner. Of course, it doesn't mean they did what was on the schedule! LOL! But they did play some games, went to the basketball court, etc...

I purchased $500 and didn't get this. But I see someone else said they did, for a larger purchase. Not sure what amount they bought. But maybe they do at a certain point.

I just did a dummy booking and there definitely are two suites with balconies available in July of 2018. For example the July 1st sailing has four Xpedition Suites available (all can hold three and have a balcony) as well as the Penthouse Suite. Same situation for the July 15th sailing.

Yes, now it's there! It was not there earlier today... I kept getting a message that it was sold out. Oh well, I think we'll just wait now anyway!

I do not consider these small and they are probably less expensive than either Celebrity or Silverseas. They are also less expensive than either Celebrity or Silverseas. We are paying $6480 for our 8 day 7 night cruise on La Pinta. You may need to do a bit of research but there are a lot of good cruise lines out there besides the big 5 or 6 that Americans always flock to.

 

 

Silver Galapagos 100 passengers

La Pinta 48 passengers

Eclipse 48 passengers

Galapagos Legend 100 passengers

 

DON

Thanks, but 2 of those are smaller and not what I want. And I know the Silver Galapagos is much more expensive, we already had their quote. And a quick look at the La Pinta looks like it's more expensive than Celebrity as well.

I'm just more comfortable sticking with what we're looking at. This is a very different trip for us, and we're traveling with our son, so we're looking for things that would be right for us. Thanks for the info though.

Have you considered 3 rooms of 2? We are a family of 4, and our last cruise we put our middle school aged kids right next door to us. They loved having regular beds and it was nice having the extra bathroom. You could do balcony rooms for adults and an inside accross for the 2 kids

There are no inside rooms on this ship. It's not a big deal though, we'll wait to get the rooms we want. The balcony suites are sold out too on most of the sailings. This ship only has room for 100 people, so they can only put so many people in the room. We had considered doing 3 rooms though, but then decided it would be better to wait and get the rooms we want.

What am I missing?

 

I find availability for 3 pax for virtually every sailing in the summer of 2018.

And I didn't mention it before, but we need 2 rooms with 3 passengers in each. Plus, once we thought about it, we'd want a balcony and there are very few of them. So while there may be 1 room that holds three people, there aren't 2.

Have you tried wait listing? Average cruise ship cabin is sold, resold 6 times before sail.You might try X directly.Put up a deposit and you go to top of list.

Considering it's going to be 2 families sailing, we're just going to wait now. It'll be better to do it right when they open the 2019 sailings instead. Trying to squeeze something in, if it's not what we want, is just asking for problems! LOL!

We'll wait and get suites for the cruise we want.

I know that this is a Celebrity board but there are other luxury level ships that do the Galapagos other than Celebrity. Most of them are a lot less expensive than Celebrity. Go on some of the Galapagos sites and check them out.

 

DON

Actually the only other one I've looked at is Silversea and they're more expensive. I don't want one of the really small ships either.

What am I missing?

 

I find availability for 3 pax for virtually every sailing in the summer of 2018.

My travel agent looked, and I've looked, for the entire month of July, which is when we need to go, there are none. As soon as I pick one, and then change it from 2 adults, to 2 adults/1 child it says...

Unfortunately we ran out of Suite/Deluxe staterooms for this sailing. Let's try again by choosing another class or call our certified vacation planners at 1-800-647-2251 for assistance.

So I'm not sure what you're looking at then...

Something to look forward to.

Yeah... just a little further out than I'm used to planning! :eek:

FYI the only staterooms with balconies on Xpedition are suites - there are only two categories of rooms, oceanview and suites (no insides and no non-suite balconies). Keep in mind it is a much smaller vessel than Celebrity's other ships and likewise the staterooms are significantly smaller than those on M-Class and S-Class ships. It is a wonderful experience though despite the small rooms.

Yeah, we knew that too... I've never been on Celebrity, but I have been researching this one for a little while now, so I understand the much smaller size. I'm just hoping that if we wait for the 2019 season to be released that we can get in right away to book one of the suites then.

We were planning on doing the Galapagos in 2018 on Celebrity Xpedition, but it appears everything is booked already. It's us, with our son, and another couple with their son (both would be teenagers by then). And there were no triple rooms left! And no balconies of course. So I think, as excited as we were to do it, we'll have to wait an extra year. As the travel agent said, it might be better to wait that year to get rooms we really want. Plus, our summer would be shorter in 2018 since our son would be graduating 8th grade late in June with the public school, then starting Catholic high school in mid-August, leaving only 2 months to really do it, and be ready to start a new school. So it seems that waiting an extra year might be the best in many ways.

We went on a cruise in Nov., not the Magic though. Our son was 12 at the time, along with our friend's son who was 13, they hung out there. Now, when we went, there were probably only about 15-20 kids at Circle C. It's not a big kid cruising time.

Anyway, our son had a blast! Yes, he had someone to go with, our friend's son, but they had just met on that cruise and they didn't even always hang together. He would hang with a few different kids at different times. Yes, we allowed him to go around the ship on his own (well, with the other kids, or with the Circle C staff) because we trusted him. They sometimes did the activities listed on their schedule, and other times, they changed it. Since it was such a small group, there was no reason to force 10 kids to play something if they all wanted to do something else. He would check in with us, we only hung in a few places so he knew where to find us. This was mostly on the sea days too. When it's a port day, they're only open after we leave port. So he would go back there after dinner every night. Quite often, we'd be back in our room and be waiting up for him to come back. Circle C is open until midnight or later, so he'd be there playing with games. They weren't running around the ship at this time of the night, unless with the staff. It was usually playing games in the Circle C.

I was worried about giving him that option to have this freedom, but he's been showing he's responsible. This was new for him too. He's not in a position at home where he walks to/from school or anything like that (we have to drive 25 minutes to school). But we talked about everything before we went.

I think if it had been a LOT of kids, much more confusing, then we may have done things differently. But being such a small group, knowing the kids he was hanging out with, it worked for us.

I just saw this timely thread. My 5yo has several of those Kohl's jumping beans brand skorts (they are skirts with built in shorts underneath). Are those appropriate for non-formal nights with a nice top?

 

Are sneakers or sandals (keen type)okay for kids or do I need to buy dressy shoes for them for the evenings?

 

I don't really want to spend a lot of money for shoes my kids will wear once or twice.

You'll be fine! My 12 year old son wore nicer shorts and plain tops (so no neon, satin, workout clothes! LOL!). And he wore gym shoes all the time. He's been growing so fast, it's a waste to buy dress shoes he'll wear two times. You may want to get a nicer or fancier dress for formal nights, it'd be a nice time to get a family portrait too. But again, don't stress about the shoes.

I don't know the answer to your question. We will be on the same cruise as you. Just stopped by to say Hi. :) We are SOOO looking forward to it. :D

Have you joined the roll call?!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2189278&page=5

I assume what ever hotel you stay at they will drop you off at in Coco Beach

Do you recall how much it is from airport to hotel and from port to airport? I assume it's a per person charge???

 

Thanks for your help??

 

Dan

Yes, we stay at the Radisson and they have a shuttle that takes us to the port. I think it's like $5-6 per person for that, or maybe some is included with our room, can't remember on that. I don't recall the exact amount for the airport shuttle, we do round trip. I think it was like $120 for the 3 of us. And yes, it's per person, but there are 3 of us (2 adults and 1 teenager).

I have no desire to rent a car a go anywhere else once we're there. LOL! We get to the airport (usually late afternoon or early evening), shuttle to our Coca Beach hotel, grab some dinner then head to bed. We don't feel any reason or need to explore around the area.

Thanks for all the replies! I'm one of those who is happy to just be on a ship, so I don't really care if our itinerary changes. It's kind of exciting that we could maybe go to a surprise port! Just hope we'll get some sunshine

I'm with you! We haven't ever really planned on one BIG thing that would be disappointing if we didn't get there. At least when it comes to Caribbean ones. Now, our Alsasa one, that's different. There are certainly some excursions that we can't get anywhere else. ;)

So what happens if you have excursions that aren't through carnival? That you pay for, at least partially.

No idea! You could be out of the money you paid. You would have to read the contract you probably agree to when you purchase the excursion. We have always purchased through Carnival when we do an actual excursion. Otherwise, we just explore the city we're in. I just like the little extra piece of mind knowing that they have a guarantee.

Yes.......... last summer, out of Miami on the Glory. We were suposed to do Eastern Carib and ended up doing the Western Carib due to a hurricane headed for St Thomas with another right behind it.

Lots of people on the ship were b*** the whole trip, but we just were glad to be on vacation even though we had already done all those ports. It is what it is, roll with it. I would NOT want to have been hit with that hurricane, even though it did fizzle out.... it would have rained the whole trip regardless, and that is no fun. We, instead, had one of our best cruises ever, every port fantastic weather and fun.

I don't get why people act like that! As if the ships have any control over the weather! They need to make sure everyone is as safe as possible.

Yep! We were on a 7 day out of Port Canaveral last November. We were supposed to go to St. Thomas after the Bahamas, but there was a tropical depression and we were diverted to Amber Cove, Dominican Republic. It didn't bother us much, only 1 in our group had been to DR before, and a different area. We just spent the day at a resort nearby. It was nice. There was a little bit more movement on the ship that night, but nothing that bothered any of us.

Although there was a group on the ship who were not happy... They were supposed to be in St. Thomas for a wedding. I don't think they were getting married, I think the bride and groom were already there, this group was just meeting them there. Either way, no matter what, their trip was definitely screwed up, but that's what happens. I would never leave such an important even to such chance like that. Ships get diverted and changed pretty often it seems.

We are looking at cruising during the Memorial Day holiday next year and were wondering if they do anything special for this holiday?

I can't speak for Memorial Day, but we've sailed during Veteran's Day and they do. Considering Memorial Day is honoring service members who have died, there isn't much they might do, possibly a small ceremony in remembrance for those who wish to attend.

This past cruise, I kicked myself for not going to the Veteran's Day event they had. They took a photo on the staircase of all the Veteran's who showed up! Both of the husbands we sailed with, as well as my husband and myself are all Veteran's, but we just didn't plan and missed it. I'm not sure what else they did, but they had something going in one of the lounges I believe. I just saw the photo.

I don't know about that one. I've bought the most expensive internet package my last two cruises and I haven't been able to stream video yet.

Yeah, I don't even buy the internet packages, I don't need it. This isn't something that important to buy it either. It was more of a "IF I can watch a bit, I'd love to. If not, it's not the end of the world either."

My parents have a horrible PVP that promises everything and delivers nothing. In my dealings with trying to get them FTTF, I never found an actual waiting list. Pie in the sky b.s. with PVP calling with deals that have to be booked NOW! They fall for it every time! Then, want me to clean up their mess. "Course Dad is pushing 90. PVP tells him he will be met at the car with a wheelchair. NOT! Anyway, I book our cruises (husband and mine), and check BEFORE I book to make sure FTTF is available. Would not cruise without it! We can only cruise once a year, and doubt we will live long enough to get past gold, where we are now.:p I have checked multiple times a day for parents, and was never able to get it for them. Hopefully you will have better luck.:)

That's awful! I wonder if you can get their name off that PVP's list! :( It sounds like he's starting to take advantage of them. I just feel bad when people are taken advantage of like that.