beckyjohns

I have not been on the Magic, but have been on many, many Carnival cruises (including Dream which would be very similar). Also been on both RCCL Allure and Oasis, and NCL Getaway. All times with my kids, who were between ages 3-8 on all those cruises.

I love the service on Carnival and I've always felt like the crew bends over backwards to make kids happy (in the dining rooms, etc). The kids love the waterslides and could spend all day there! They also love the kids camps. Beg to go there daily. Another nice thing about Carnival is that they are open over dinner time and will take the kids to dinner if you want to have a night to yourselves.

My kids HATED the kids camps on RCCL.

We went on Getaway last year, first trip on NCL. Loved the waterslides, ropes course, etc. My kids did enjoy the kids camp there, too. Downside is that they can't eat dinner with camp. Most nights, we all go to the dining room together, but it's nice to have 1 night alone and be able to drop the kids at camp for dinner, which you can't do on NCL. Other thing I didn't love about NCL was that, with freestyle dining, you never have the same waiter. Not the end of the world, but I always found it nice on Carnival because they would always be ready for the kids each night (highchair if you need it, crayons, glass of milk, kids menu). With NCL, you get a new waiter each night, which means waiting for a highchair, waiting for kids menus, etc. For adults, not such a big deal, but when it takes 30 minutes to get a cup of milk, it gets a little old.

Kfamilycruise, we were discussing this on our roll call and I think I'm even more confused now :confused:

 

That last link given does indeed say; Mahogany Bay Cruise Center - ship will DOCK at this port. I always assumed for our June Getaway cruise we would dock at Coxen Hole. I thought Mahogany Bay was just for Carnival?!

 

The other link for Roatan port shows Getaway at Coxen Hole in June but it show it arriving at 8am, our itinerary says 10am. As I said, more confused than ever now :eek:

I know when I booked our June Getaway cruise originally, we were to be in Roatan 8AM-5PM, then 8AM-5PM the following day in Harvest Cay. When they made the itinerary switch to Belize City, they also changed the Roatan time to 10AM-6PM. I'm not sure if the 2 changes are related or not.

Either way, it doesn't answer the conflict between Coxen Hole listed on some sites and Mahogany Bay listed on others.

Is Coxen Hole not able to handle a ship as big as Getaway?

We just returned from a stop in Roatan and we booked the South Shore Zipline adventure. My 8-year old daughter went with the guide down each line. My older son is 15 and he went down alone. There were families where children went down with adults too. I never felt unsafe.

Do the kids HAVE to go down with a guide/adult? Is there a minimum age/weight in order for them to go alone?

The child would automatically get the soda package if you picked UBP as your freebie.

So here is the real deal. Tabyana is not an actual place. "Tabyana" is just a property behind the tree line in one area of West Bay Beach. West Bay Beach is our famous beach, long white sand beach, beautiful crystal waters, it's what you see the pictures of. ALL BEACHES in Honduras are public.

 

Where it gets tricky is with ACCESS to those beaches and beach chairs owned by individual resorts or excursions. So, as long as you can legitimately get to a beach without trespassing, that beach is public. So, what happens on West Bay Beach is the resorts all have their own beach chairs which they put a little ways back from the walking area and those belong to them so you have to pay or being staying there to use them. The same goes for some restaurants along the beach. Tabyana is an area of that same beach. The beach is West Bay Beach regardless of whether you are standing in front of Infinity Bay Resort (just down from Tabyana) or standing in front of Grand Roatan Resort, Bananarama, etc. Just like it is West Bay Beach at Tabyana. They do not own the beach, it is public, they own the property behind it. So you go in from the road, not the beach, and the property behind the tree line is owned by them- they have facilities you can use if you are paying for the excursion, and of course you can use their chairs if you are buying the excursion.

 

That being said- no one owns West Bay Beach and you can do whatever you want on west bay beach. If you are doing a tour and you are going to be in West Bay anyway, you can simply have your driver take you somewhere that has access that you can walk out to the beach. Several resorts do day passes if you want to pay, but other places allow you to simply use their chairs if you are buying food/drinks. But if you walk out to the beach you can walk it, swim from it, sit in the sand, do whatever you want ON the beach, you do not have to pay anyone to be on the beach.

Interesting. Several years ago, we came on to the beach near Bananarama, walked all the way down to 'Tabyana' and plunked down in the sand. We were shooed away, telling us we couldn't sit there because we didn't have the colored bracelets like those who purchased the trip to Tabyana.

The better bet is to swim through the channel in front of Infinity Bay. This thread has heaps of info about snorkeling West Bay including maps and pics. The space near the wall is a bit to shallow to be able to get out of the water there.

We've been here a few times and agree that this is the best shore snorkeling we've ever seen. The last 2 times we were there, we followed these directions and went out to edge of the "wall" where the water drops off to who-know-how-deep. However, we agreed we probably wouldn't do it again. The guys on the kayaks literally yelled at us the entire time we were swimming out. They wanted us to stay closer to shore. I'm sure that they are trying to keep people from damaging the reef, since it gets VERY shallow and you have to find a path to get you out to the deep water, but we were being extremely careful and not kicking anything. It was incredibly frustrating (and nerve-wracking) to have people following you on kayaks telling you you can't be out here, you have to go back.

We've been to Cozumel many, many times with our kids.

Generally speaking, you won't see much sealife close to shore. You need to get farther out to the reefs to see much.

When they were 6, we took them out on a boat snorkeling trip (can't remember now which company we used, but we met them at the marina). My kids are strong swimmers and they had no trouble with the snorkeling, but there was a middle-aged man on our boat who did. The divemaster ended up having to go tow him back to the boat. There was a bit of a current on the surface and as long as you stayed calm and did what the divemasters said to do.....float with the current, we'll bring the boat to pick you up.....everything was fine. This man didn't stay calm and ended up panicking, etc. Once he was back on the boat, he was fine, but he didn't want to go back in again. So, if you aren't completely comfortable in open water, a snorkeling trip in Cozumel may or may not be your best bet.

We've also taken our kids to Mr Sanchos many, many times and we all love it there. The kids LOVE the water toys. Usually my husband and I are out there with them, but it's inevitable that they want to be out there all day and we get tired. Our rule was just that if we're not out there with you, you have to wear a life jacket. They have free life jackets to use there if you want them. I've never felt uncomfortable with the kids at Mr Sanchos. Yes, people are drinking, but to me, it doesn't feel like a party atmosphere. There are usually lots of kids there, as well as adults. The food is good - mostly mexican, with a few american things thrown on the menu for those who won't eat the local stuff.

We've never been to Paradise Beach and I was considering that for our next trip, but the food menu is putting me off. It's almost all american food, with a handful of mexican things. When in Mexico, I want mexican food, not burgers!!!!

Our family of 4 has the 4-night SDP (free). I booked the Illusionarium for all of us. As expected, I was charged the $15 upcharge (plus 18%) for each of us to use one night of our SDP there.

What's odd, though, is that if I were to book the Illusionarium outside of the SDP, the cost is $29.99 per adult and $15 per child (plus 18%). So, basically, the kids might as well not use one of their SDP meals there because they pay the same price regardless and lose one of the SDP meals.

Weird.

In Roatan, book the Tabyana Beach Break if you love snorkeling. Tabyana Beach is located at West Bay on the other side of the island from Mahogany Bay. Crystal clear water, and the coral reef is located just 25-30 yards from shore. Here are a couple photos from our February cruise :

 

 

The beach even has "guides" that will tow you out to the far side of the reef and back (for a tip). Highly recommended. If you don't want to purchase the Carnival excursion, several resorts on West Bay, for instance Bananrama, have day passes you may purchase.

We've been to West Bay beach for snorkeling many times and it is awesome. However, the last couple times we were there, they had guys out on kayaks telling people that couldn't go out past a certain spot. We ignored them once and did get out to the wall and the great snorkeling. However, I'd prefer not to be yelled at constantly and would love to be able to hire a boat driver to just take us out past the kayak guys so we could snorkel the wall. Where can we hire someone to do that? If we just go to the little dock on West Bay beach, could we give somebody some $$ to do that?

I have not been on the Breeze, but have been on many, many Carnival cruises (including Dream which would be very similar). Also been on both Allure and Oasis. All times with my kids, who were between ages 3-8 on all those cruises.

I agree, there is a WOW factor with the RCCL ships. Everything seems very high class and there is a ton of variety. They do a really great job at spreading people out throughout the ship. For instance, the various food places are spread out on different decks so not everyone is bombarding the buffet at lunch on sea days, etc. The shows are, hands down, the best out there. Any my kids enjoyed all the shows they saw on the RCCL ships. The activities are great FOR ADULTS! My kids were too small for the flowrider and zipline. They were allowed to ice skate and I believe the minimum age on the rockwalls was 6 (but check). So, while there was lots to do, much of it was off limits for the smaller kids. My kids HATED the kids clubs on RCCL. They said there were so many kids there all the time that all they did was play games that required everyone to sit in a large circle and wait for their turn at the game.

Weeklong Carnival ships I find to be very family-friendly. Some partying, yes, but I don't find it obnoxious. I love the service on Carnival and I've always felt like the crew bends over backwards to make kids happy (in the dining rooms, etc). The kids love the waterslides and could spend all day there! They also love the kids camps. Beg to go there daily. Another nice thing about Carnival is that they are open over dinner time and will take the kids to dinner if you want to have a night to yourselves. The shows aren't really appealing to the kids, so you lose that aspect.

If my kids were 4 and 7, I'd go the Breeze route. Lots of stuff to do for them (waterslides, ropes course, I think a small climbing wall?), can't beat the kids camp, service is excellent and it's probably cheaper!

Cozumel is on EST year round now, so they are the same.

Not in June. They don't observe Daylight Savings Time, so after this weekend until next fall, Cozumel will be 1 hour behind Miami.

I do agree with the service on the Getaway. We were on in November and the service in the Tropicana Room was awful. It was terribly slow, there seemed to be some communication troubles because every night that we asked for a regular menu for our kids, we never seemed to get them. When they tried to place their order off the regular menu (not the kids menu), that really seemed to throw the waiters for a loop. We all agreed that the food was great, but the service was just lacking.

That said, did it ruin our vacation? Absolutely not! We just accepted that as one of the very few things that we didn't like about NCL, but there were way more things that we did love about NCL. Accepted it and made the best of it.

Were there lines for the activities on sea day? Yep, but that's expected! Have you seen the lines for the flow riders on RCCL? You just have to plan around it. Get in line early before it opens. Work around it. You're on a cruise ship with thousands of people: THERE WILL BE LINES!!!

We've cruise many lines and every single one of them has its' positives and its' negatives. I've yet to find any cruiseline that is absolutely perfect in every way for me. You just have to weight the pros and cons and decide for yourself which you prefer.

We've gone diving on many cruises, many ports and ALMOST always book on our own. However, we've always found that the convenience of booking with the ship in Belize is worth it because the dive boat picks you right up at the ship and you don't have to tender.

Every ship we've ever been on in Belize has used Hugh Parkey's. On recent trips, we've also taken the kids along and went snorkeling instead of diving. Again, ship uses Hugh Parkey's.

This trip, we're on NCL Getaway and they have no snorkeling or diving trips listed for our particular trip. I suspect that's because our original port was Harvest Cay and they haven't updated. Does anyone know if NCL also uses Hugh Parkey?

On NCL's general shore excursion site, they list a minimum age of 12 to go on the reef snorkeling excursion in Belize. On Carnival, the minimum age was either 5 or 6. Has anyone recently been on NCL and booked a reef snorkeling trip thru the ship with their kids?

We've gone diving on many cruises, many ports and ALMOST always book on our own. However, we've always found that the convenience of booking with the ship in Belize is worth it because the dive boat picks you right up at the ship and you don't have to tender.

Every ship we've ever been on in Belize has used Hugh Parkey's. On recent trips, we've also taken the kids along and went snorkeling instead of diving. Again, ship uses Hugh Parkey's.

This trip, we're on NCL Getaway and they have no snorkeling or diving trips listed for our particular trip. I suspect that's because our original port was Harvest Cay and they haven't updated. Does anyone know if NCL also uses Hugh Parkey?

On NCL's general shore excursion site, they list a minimum age of 12 to go on the reef snorkeling excursion in Belize. On Carnival, the minimum age was either 5 or 6. Has anyone recently been on NCL and booked a reef snorkeling trip thru the ship with their kids?

Thx for everyone who asked about kid ages. They are 7, 11 and 13 at time of cruising. We did the Getaway last year, but we moved since then and I can't find my dailies:mad:

I have my dailies from November, but I'm not sure they'll help since the itinerary is changing. Do you have any specific questions?

How old are the kids? We were on Getaway in November with our kids, so I may be able to answer some questions. We'll be back on in June with the new itinerary.

If we are a group of 4 in 2 cabins, do we each need to make a reservation for 2 or can 1 cabin book for all 4 people?

I assume that we will need to pay up front for this. 2 people will be using one of their SDP meals (so $15 upcharge) and 2 people have SDP but will not be using this as one of their meals (so $30). Is all this going to cause an issue when I try to book this online ahead of time?

How big of a group can I make dining reservations for at the main dining rooms? We are traveling with a family group (12 people). With freestyle dining, how hard is it going to be to eat together every night? I would like to be able to make reservations ahead of time, but how many can I book for? And what if everyone doesn't show up at the same time? Will they seat us if there are stragglers?

Anyone know about the extra upcharges?

We have OBC to use and I would prefer to use it for the SDP once onboard. Can I purchase it onboard or do I have to buy it online ahead of time?

I'm still a bit confused. We will be on the Getaway this month and want to eat at Cagney's, Le Bistro and La Cucina. It's my understanding that each of those restaurants has a few items on the menu that are upcharges (above the restaurant upcharge itself). I'm assuming those particular items are NOT included in the SDP? Are they included in the UDP (which my kids have)?

I thought the a-la-carte menus weren't coming until Jan 2016?

My kids weren't old enough for the flowrider, but they loved the rock walls, the splash area at the pool and the ice skating. They loved the water show, watched it either 2 or 3 times, can't remember which, even though it was the same show repeated! The loved the ice skating show. There were also some midday water and ice skating shows that were for the kids/family.

I've never done what you're asking about, but I'll give you my 2 cents.

I have twin boys who are 8. We've been on many, many Carnival ships with them. Last year, we were lucky enough to take them on both the Allure and the Oasis, about 6 months apart. They were 7, so close to your kids' ages. They LOVED the big RCCL ships! There really was a lot for them to do on those ships and they loved all the shows. Compared to Carnival, the shows were much better on RCCL mega ships.

We are taking our first NCL cruise in November with them, on the Getaway, which we're looking forward to. Having not been on any NCL ships, I get the sense that the Escape and the Getaway will be more similar than different in terms of entertainment and activities, etc.

If you're worried that they kids might be bored doing 2 weeks on ships, you might be better off to do a different line for the 2nd cruise so that there's more variety? I would highly recommend either the Oasis or the Allure for kids around that age. I think there would be enough difference between that and the Escape that they wouldn't get bored.

As mentioned above, I would try for another ship that leaves the same day you arrive back, then you don't have to deal with a hotel.