nothriver

Costa Maya, Mexico

This was the only port on our trip we had firm plans. We'd booked with The Native Choice for a private Mayan Experience Tour which included a Chacchoben Ruins tour and lunch at a Mayan village. This is a highly reputable, very highly rated, tour company. Their office is about a mile from the port, and while it is an easy flat walk, it is further than my mother can handle so we grabbed a cab just outside the port and were charged $2/person. I quickly paid the balance of the tour inside the office and were immediately escorted into a van with a driver and our guide Maria, both were excellent. I will say that though the van was newer and very nice, the seatbelts were lap belt only, no shoulder harnesses, which is a bit scary. Parents of young children should note booster seats require lap/shoulder belt combination so would not have worked in this van, though harnessed car seats presumably could have been installed safely. We were given ice water at the office and there was water in the van for us throughout the tour. Our guide Maria was very informative on the drive to the ruins and told us a lot about the local area and history. At the ruins, there was an area with restrooms and of course, shopping. There was some interesting merchandise here but we had a short port day, and our focus was the ruins themselves. The ruins were simply amazing, this was truly a highlight of our trip. My father had wanted to see the Mayan ruins and never got the chance, so we very much enjoyed this day in his honor with my mother and most of the grandkids.

After our tour of the ruins, we went to a local village. We toured the gardens where an amazing arrary of produce is grown. Then, we were taught to make our own tortillas. This sounded a bit cheesy beforehand, but honestly, it was a ton of fun for all of us. Our guide had taught us a few Mayan words while in transit to thank the cooks, but I'm afraid we didnt pull that off very well. They had a special salsa to eat with the tortillas we'd made ourselves that was especially good, I know included a powder made of ground pumpkin seeds but I can't remember what else was in it. Then we were served a wonderful luncheon. The food was excellent but it seemed fairly standard and mildly spiced, rice, beans, tamales, empanadas. My son ate all the habenero salsa that was on our table. Desert was fresh fruit and some type of delicous custard. I just can't tell you how much we enjoyed this tour, highly recommended, I would actually do this exact same tour over again. After the drive back to the port, we were dropped off directly at the entrance to the port. The port had lots of vendor stalls, and a large salt water pool. Most of the merchandise here seemed over priced and largely mass produced. There were several large jewelry stores here as well. At one of the stalls, my daughter wanted a small turtle and when the vendor said he wanted $25 we both rolled our eyes and walked out but he chased after us and sold it to us for $10. Our guide had mentioned that this port is owned by one individual and the rent for these stalls is very high which I'm sure is reflected in the high priced merchandise, and we noted that many of the stalls were vacant. Half an hour before "all aboard" port staff were helpfully rounding up the guests from our ship. It looked like quite a lot of people had been at the bar in the middle of the salt water pool all day and could use the reminder to board the ship!

Costa Maya, Mexico

This was the only port on our trip we had firm plans. We'd booked ahead with The Native choice for a private Mayan Experience Tour which included a Chacchoben Ruins tour and lunch at a Mayan village. The office is about a mile from the port, and while it is an easy flat walk, it is further than my mother can handle so we grabbed a cab just outside the port and were charged $2/person. I'd we paid the balance of the tour and were immediately escorted into a van with a driver and our guide Maria, both were excellent. We were given ice water at the office and there was water in the van for us throughout the tour. Our guide Maria was very informative on the drive to the ruins and told us a lot about the local area and history. The ruins were simply amazing, this was truly a highlight of our trip. This was on my fathers bucketlist, so it was bittersweet that we finally made it to the ruins 6 years after he passed away unexpectedly, but I'm glad at least that we got to enjoy this day in his honor with my mother and most of the grandkids.

After our tour of the ruins, we went to a local village where first we were taught to make our own tortillas. This sounded a bit cheesy but honestly, it was a ton of fun for all of us. They had a salsa to eat with the tortillas that was excellent. Then we were served a wonderful luncheon. I just can't tell you how much we enjoyed this tour, highly recommended. Mayan ruins was something

Santo Tomas de Castilla, Gutemala

We had no pre-arranged plans for this port, but I knew that tours could be booked at the dock. My mother had been suffering from a bad cold and decided to stay on the ship, so it was late morning before the rest of us ventured out. Eventually we split up, my nephew and his girlfriend took at waterfall/rainforest tour, and myself and my two children booked a boat tour. We booked right beside the boat, it appeard others had booked inside the tourism building. I don't know how much they paid, put I paid $49/adult, $45/child. I do know that those that booked inside got a free drink in the town we visited. Our boat was the last to leave at 11am. We were told it was a 3 hour tour, and yes I had the Gilligans Island theme song in my head the whole day. We in fact returned to the dock 4.5 hours later, one hour before all aboard time.

My nephew and his friend, both 30, met some interesting "tour operators" on the dock. They were intermediaries, arranging for the taxi drivers for cruise ship passangers. My nephew described one as a "snake", he wanted to make it clear that the drivers could take them to find "whatever they were looking for"... very shady, and a little scary, afterword, I was sorry I had left them on their own, but they did enjoy their visit the rainforest.

On our boat tour, our guide was Sandra. I don't know the name of the tour operator, if there was one, or if they just had random guides and random boats. I believer there were 16 passangers on our boat, there was a canopy on the boat, making the very hot day quite plesant in the shade. We crossed the Amatique Bay, past the town of Livingston and up the stunningly beautiful Rio Dulce. This is an area of fishing villages. The buildings here are all traditional stilted with thached roofs, very quaint, lots of waterfoul, very peaceful. We encircled a beautiful area of lily pads, where some very young children in dug out canoes came up to our boat selling trinkets. My daughter bought a bracelet from them for $2, it was absolutely beautiful, made of tiny shells. We then stopped at a riverside resturant where there were caves to tour for $2/person and "hot springs", though the springs fed into the river itself so there weren't hot springs on the hillside as I had imagined, just an area of hot water between the boat dock and the river bank. It smelled very strongly of sulfur. On the return trip, we stopped in Livingston for a walking tour. This town was settled by escaped slaves. Though we were warned not to purchase food off the ship, my kids and I bought baked goods at the bakery there which were absolutely delicous. No one here spoke any english so I offered them $10 for three pastries and a bottle of water and they seemed pleased. There wasn't much to see in the town itself, it is definitely a glimpse into a very different culture. We then sped back to the port, a 25 minute ride from Livingston without slowing for commentary from the guide. The area between the port and Livingston is a resort community but primarily used by professionals from Guatamela City, our guide told us they use their vacation homes there primarily over Easter and Christmas, and everyone in the community was getting ready for the very busy easter week ahead.

The port itself is a very large, busy commercial port. This area has very good roads inland because goods from all over the country are shipped to this port for export. There was a large building on the dock for the cruise ship guests with a large number of individual vendor booths. We were tired after a long day and though I would have loved to have shopped, I wasn't in the mood to haggle with the vendors. They all seem so desperate for our dollars, while I'm sympathetic, it just makes for such an unpleasant shopping experience. I was looking for a couple particular items and I wasn't able to just browse, every single vendor was begging me to buy. Also, at this point in our trip we were short on cash, unfortunately because they had some really great stuff at good prices there. So we just looked around quickly, and headed back to the ship. We had a very pleasant day on the water. I would love to visit this port again to see the local communities and the nature preserve.

Thanks for the review, nothriver. We were on the same March 13-20 cruise.

I was also very surpirsed that there were so few children on our sailing. Our school district always has spring break the third week in March, and frankly, we simply don't travel over spring break when ours coincides with Easter, it is just insanely busy. We actually met a large group of travelers from our hometown on this cruise. I imagine the combination of a reasonably priced cruise with reasonably direct flights on Allegiant that alligned with the sail dates was as appealing to others as it was to us. We have a small airport and almost always connect through Chicago or elsewhere, direct flights to anywhere are a bit of a novelty for us!

I'd actually forgotten that our toilet did clog once, but we were on our way out of the cabin at that time, placed a call to let them know and by the time we got back an hour or two later it had been taken care of, so it was a non-issue for us. Though it would have been inconvenient, we were near the stairs, and just one deck up from public bathrooms, had we had ongoing problems.

Regarding the Veranda staterooms on Veendam, I wanted to mention a couple things.

There were, sadly, only two outlets in the cabin, both on the desk, one a US style outlet and the other a mainland Euro outlet. The outlet was close to the desk, so my travel surge protector which extends vertically below the outlet did not fit. However, I'd packed several Euro adapters and a couple multi USB port blocks, so we were all able to charge all of our devices.

There was a tremendous amount of storage space in the cabin. 9 drawers in the desk area and an additional two drawers in each of the night stands. There were four closets. We travel with carry on only, used two of the closets and only the drawers in the night stand. If you travel with a lot of stuff, these are the staterooms for you. We've been on a couple ships with no drawer space at all, so it was funny to have 9 empty drawers.

Also, this is the first ship we've been on with public laundry rooms. There was one forward on Deck 9, and I believe there were at least one if not two others on the ship. It was $2 to wash and $1 to dry. Stuff came our of the washing machine pretty wet, so expect two cycles of the dryer. The laundry room was locked promptly at 10pm and unlocked at 8am. Public laundry was very convenient and saved a ton of money.

Hi , May I ask who was your cruise director? Thanks,Kendra

The cruise director was Jude, which I probably would not have remembered except for her frequent requests for "Hey, Jude" from the audience!

Banana Coast: Trujillo, Honduras

I had very little information about this port before our cruise. From what I could tell, it was a completely undeveloped port. Indeed, while there were buildings at the port, the were completely vacant and unfinished, aside from the bathrooms, which were very nice, and a small store. Otherwise, there were booths set up outside the buildings. No information whatsoever about this port was provided on the ship, the booklet outlining the ports simply skipped this port entirely. No maps were provided either on board, while leaving the ship, or at the port. There was a small beach area inside the port itself, and we did spend a little time here before venturing outside the port on our own. There was a large secuirity presence inside the port area itself. We heard from those that took ship tours that they were accompanied by security, also. In retrospect, perhaps we should have been wandering around on our own, but we didn't venure more than a mile inland, and honestly we found the locals to be very friendly.

Immediately outside the secure port area, we found local youth offering "free guide service", which we declined. There were also a few taxis there that I assume could have taken adventurous travelers wherever they desired. An American expat who was there offering tours suggested we turn left, then right for a "nicer walk" to town, and suggested a resturant, so we followed his advice, climbing a substantial hill to the town square. The fort there wanted a few dollars per person to look around, which we also declined, and we did not check out the local church. We did do some shopping at some booths set up on the square, and we bought some nice handcrafted jewelry. We also bought and ate (against my better judgement but none of us got sick...) cotton candy and peanuts from local children. We wandered through the little grocery store and some other local market booths, where the locals seemed surprised to see us. The economy seemed to be very very poor in this area. We then wandered down a very steep hill to the restruant suggested by the man at the port, where we very much enjoyed an expensive lunch at $10-15 per meal. However, the food was excellent and the service top notch. My daughter ordered but did not eat a hamberger as she did not like the flavor of the meat, and everyone on staff was very concerned that we were satisfied with our meals, and we assured them that it was ok. The rest of us had seafood which was excellent, we ate inside in the shade but with a view of a beautiful white sand beach, and we all enjoyed the excellent wifi, but at $73 for our group of 5, steep prices, indeed, but we consider this a much needed contribution to the local economy. I'll try to edit with photos and the name of the resturant. The beach in this area seemed much nicer than the beach inside the port area, while I assume it was a public beach, we did not go out to the beach so I'm not certain. We then walked the road back to the port, less than half a mile where we passed numerous bars and resturants, and encountered some children that were begging, very sad. I don't know if this area is "shady" or if the man that sent us the other direction had some connection with the resturant he recommended and wanted us to by pass the others. Everyone we encountered expected us to pay in US dollars, no problem at all using our own currancy at this port.

It will be interesting to see how this port develops, it has a long way to go. We enjoyed our day, it was good to see how the locals actually live, I'm not a fan of "Disneyland ports" where tourists are totally shielded from the local culture. That said, do be cautious in this port, it seemed due to the level of security that they almost expected some trouble. I'd worn money belt with cash/passports inside my shorts and though I had worn a swimsuit, I only waded into the water instead of actually swimming with the others as I was not comfortable taking off my money belt. Again, the locals we met all seemed friendly. I wish now we'd used the young "guides" to find our more about their lives, given them an opportunity to practice their english and provide a tip for their services. I also wish I'd downloaded a map of this town to my phone ahead of time as I was nervous wandering outside the port with no map at all. I believe someone said there are 40 ship scheduled to dock here next year, vs only 10 that were here this year, so I hope significant improvements are made to the port itself very soon because it was clearly "under construction" and needed significant improvement in every way.

Day 2 post cruise, I've yet to purchase groceries. We are just home from work/school and my daughter stated she is was hungry and asked me to run down to Explorations cafe and grab her a Carmelo Creamice and a brownie. I'd say she misses the Veendam! I found an ice cream bar burried in our freezer for her, sorry kiddo, its the best I've got right now.

Key West: What isn't to love about Key West? We pre-purchased City View Trolly tickets. Key West is totally walkable, but my mother needs a lift and the Trolly works well for us. You save a couple dollars buying tickets ahead of time, plus you can get the Senior and Student discount for a couple more dollars off, if applicable. I believe they were selling the tickets for $20/person on the ship. We were surprised to find one of their Trollys parked right outside our cruise ship, very convenient, we'd expected to have to take the shuttle into town to grab the Trolly. On our last trip to Key West, we'd very much enjoyed Eco-Discovery Center and the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Ingham Maritime Museum which were both closed this time because it was Monday, as well as the Lighthouse museum. What a shame for these wonderful museums to be closed with several ships in port, it seems to me that given the number of tourists in town they should be open despite being a Monday. In any case, this trip, my 10 yr old daughter and I headed directly to Hemingways house, for the sole purpose of visiting the six toed cats, and we throughly enjoyed our visit which was mostly spent petting cats, what can I say, we like cats, and hopefully, this will lead to a literary interest in Hemingway in the future. We managed to again get the obligatory photos at the southermnost point and Mile 0, as well as eat some key lime pie before meeting back up with the rest of our group. My mother and my son, as I mentioned previously, went in search of khaki pants for my hard to fit son, and apparantly lots of other tall thin young men shop in Key West as they found plenty to choose from there, assuring an appropriate dining room attire for the rest of the trip. My nephew and his girlfriend enjoyed some of the bars and shipping. Our trip concidintally landed on "Pi Day", and an extra special one at that 3/14/16 = 3.1416, so we actually went to Kermits Key Lime Pie shop twice, visiting both locations as we met the rest of our group there. I don't even like key lime pie, but Kermit really knows his pie, and I personally love the chocolate covered version, and my daughter likes the key lime jelly beans sold there. We had to wait in quite a long line to get the shuttle back to the ship, the people operating the shuttle weren't very helpful, we asked them if we were in the right place for the shuttle and they said yes, but apparantly they'd already counted off people to fill the next shuttle and we were waiting but they didn't tell us we werent actually in the line until after one shuttle was filled, so we had to go to the end of the line and wait for two more shuttles to fill before we got seats, my mother was miserable standing there for so long. Our prior trip the ship was docked in town and it was very convenient, this time we were docked further out by the naval base which essentially cut our port time by almost an hour because of the shuttle process to get back to the ship. Nonetheless, Key West is a great town for families, there are still a couple museums for us to visit on future trips.

Is there more to come? I'm interested to hear more!

 

 

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Thanks Chefestelle, I'm working on it. Please pardon the typos syntax and spelling. I'll try to get done what I can tonight while the details are fresh. In the past I've done trip reports on Word and edited before posting, then added photos, but my life is crazy so just off the top of my head and out my finger tips is all I've got time for right now.

So, we loved the Veendam, absolutely loved it. The staff was exceptional, service was impeciable, the ship was beautiful. I just loved the layout of the ship, our cabin location was absolutely ideal.

We'd originally booked Lanai cabins, three cabins for our group of 6, and were offered an upgrade to Veranda cabins on deck 9, which I reluctantly accepted at an upcharge of $199 per person. I'm so glad we took the upgrade. OUr stateroom attendants Ivan & Agus were wonderful and very friendly. My daughter so loves the towel animals. Our cabins 183-185-187 were so conveniently situated near the aft elevator, perfect for my mother with limited mobility. One deck up from fixed dining, and so convenient for the library and explorations cafe which is my favorite part of the ship, and equally convenient for my daughter in Club Hal. The one singular weird thing with any of our staterooms was one night about 9-9:30pm, a maintenance worker woke my mother when he entered the room to "look at the wallpaper"; our ship was just a week before a drydock and I do understand they must have been assessing the ship for repairs, but our family generally goes to bed early, plus my mother was suffering from a bad cold, and I though it was inappropriate for staff to be entering the rooms at that time of night. We felt the Veendam to be in excellent condition and noticed no wear to the ship. The only thing I missed about sailing on an older ship vs the newer ships was the all glass railing on the veranda, and even more so, the veranda's that can be opened for shared veranda among adjacent staterooms as we've enjoyed on Eurodam and Silouhette. Also, Club Hal is not really handicap accessible because the aft elevator does not go up to Club Hal, my mother would have had to climb one flight of aft stairs, or, walk all the way to the forward elevator then walk back across the outside deck to get to Club Hal which is not practical in the dark with wind or rain, so she simply did not go up there. Minor inconvenieces for the otherwise convenient layout of the ship and the extra attentive service we felt we received on this cruise.

One of my personal favorite activities is the library and the communal puzzle tables, and as a person with motion sickness, I loved having this on a lower deck at the center of the ship. The library was truly a beautiful room, wonderful books for perusing, wonderful chairs for lounging, and a wonderful librarian on staff. This is the best library I've found on a cruise ship and I truly enjoyed this space every single day of the cruise.

While I did attend a couple shows, and catch some snipits of other live music, Im frankly not much of a "show" person so I can't add much commentary there. I did miss the Blues Club that I'd dearly loved every single night on our last cruise on Eurodam, now THAT was my kind of entertainment! I would love if they could encorporate the Blues Club fleetwide, but that is just my personal preference.

We had fixed early dining. We were assigned Table 30 and couldn't have possibly have had a better location or wait staff. Kadek and Tama were excellent, the dining room manager Freddy was also extremely attentive. We love the yum yum man calling us to diner with the chimes and offering after dinner mints, this is such a quaint tradition, I can't really express how much I love this, I hope it continues. The portions of the main courses perhaps seemed smaller, but I believe this is the highest quality food we've had on any ship. At times, members of our group asked for seconds of varoius items and they were delivered promptly without hesitation. I had beef most nights and found it excellent. We are from Iowa and have raised livestock so our standards are high and rarely met when traveling, so this is high praise. Aside from the meat, all of the sides were perfectly prepared. Many of our dishes were accompanied with various greens that were prefectly prepared, seasoned, and served at the perfect temperature, which is such a difficult to task to achieve. All of the deserts were wonderful. With a family history of cardiac failure, I do wish they could go a little lighter on the sodium, but I realize we are unusually sensitive to sodium levels. Overall, our experience in the main dining room far exceeded all possible expectations and we can't speak highly enough of the entire dining staff in this regard.

Room service breakfasts were delivered promptly on time and as ordered, though as with past cruises, we've found it best to stick with cold items and baked goods. Lido was as expected, with embarkation day the only time we felt it crowded. One disappointment was that we traditionally grab a snack after picking up the kids from Club Hal, which closes at 10, and on this cruise, nothing at all was available in the Lido until 10:30, so no before bed ice cream for the kids as is our tradition each night on all past cruises, and was a disappointment for them, especially when the sign by the ice cream station stated they would be open at that time, but they were not, so the kids insisted on checking every night until the sign was finally changed a few days into the cruise.

Club Hal was excellent, one of the reasons we choose HAL is for the always excellent Club HAL, frankly I have no idea what they do there, but my daughter loves it, she never enjoyed kids club on Celebrity.

We enjoyed the Lido pool every day. There was always lounge chairs to be found, always clean towels and attentive staff. One child on our cruise was always completely supervised and did not follow the rules, this one child managed to stir up a commotion every day, running, jumping, pushing others. Most every day I found myself the only parent in a pool with at least a dozen children. It was amazing how a dozen well behaved children become 13 crazy children with the addition of just one unsupervised misbehaving child. Just an observaion. The ping pong tables were beautiful. We tried to play basketball but why does every cruise single cruise ship have worn out basketballs that are always flat?! Considering the cost of building and maintaining a cruise ship, is a $20 baskball too much to ask for?! Seriously, ridiculous.

Port notes up next.

We returned home yesterday from a wonderful cruise and I wanted to take a few minutes to briefly ouline some of our experiences.

First I'd like to appologize to my fellow cruisers for not participating at all in the Roll Call, life is hectic, I did a mininum of planning for this trip and unfortunately did not have time to socialize with others. Aside from one single unsupervised child, our fellow cruisers seemed to be a fabulous bunch of people and I do regret not getting to know any of them before or during the cruise.

We flew Allegiant, direct flight to PIE from our hometown is great but otherwise Allegiant is what it is, I always pray they get me to my destination alive and don't expect much more of them. I needed to call because I missed one letter in one persons name, and was on hold for over 50 minutes to get assistance.

I emailed over a dozen limo companies in Tampa for airport - hotel transport hotel, less than half even responded, one with a completely blank email and one saying they charge $90/hr, with a 4 hour minimum on Fri & Sat (no thanks). We went with the lowest priced service, Crown Royal Limousine. They were prompt and professional in responding to emails before our trip. The driver called on arrival and told us he'd wait outside, so although he did not come in he picked us up directly outside the door of baggage pickup which was very convenient. I would use them again and recommend their services.

We stayed at Embassy Suites Tampa Downtown Convention Ctr. This was a fiasco, do not under any circumstances stay at this hotel. We arrived at 2:30pm, got one of our 3 rooms at 4pm, and the other 2 room at 6pm. We were given $50 off the rate for each room which I don't feel was adequate considering the lengthly delay. Front desk was professional considering they had an entire lobby full of guests without rooms. There is obviously an issue with managment, training or something. Once we did get our rooms, housekeeping was still at work on our floor, socializing, and had the hall blocked so I had to lift luggage over my head to get through the carts to get to my room. Rooms appeared reasonably clean but no coffee left in the rooms. The free breakfast was equally chaotic, we arried when breakfast opened, 7:30 I believe, there was no coffee until half an hour later, no spoons were available, but the food itself was good and the people making omlets were especially friendly. Unfortunately my son ironed his khaki pants the morning of our departure and then accidentally left them at the the hotel, we called Lost and Found within an hour of checking out, and again the next day, and again on our arrival back in Tampa, and they admitted they hadn't even looked for them and acted like they couldn't have cared less. Fortunately my son was able to buy khakis at our first port in Key West, so only one night in the main dining room in his jeans, oops.

While waiting for our rooms, some of us walked over and visited the Aquarium and had a nice visit there, they had some nice hands on activities for the kids. Seemed a little overpriced for the size of the facility, but it was a great way to kill a few hours since we didn't have rooms and couldn't use the hotel pool as planned. We at a nearby pizza place, I dont recall the name but it was pretty good.

The morning of embarkation, there were taxis waiting including a van that fit our group of 6, I think he charged $18 for just those few blocks. We arrived at the port about 9:30, a porter took our bags, and we had to wait outside until 10am when we were among the first inside and checked in. It was especially convenient that our table number was listed on our cards, so I was able to confirm we were all together and find a floor plan of the dining room while we waited to board, and decide that the location was satisfactory before even bording. Details are already escaping me, but it was maybe 11:30 before we were able to board. Sadly there was no embarkation luncheon as there was a group of travel agents dining in the main dining room. As we were among the first on board, we hightailed it for the Lido that was soon insanely crowded, no embarkation luncheon definately pushes the Lido beyond its capacity.

Thank you for sharing your review and beautiful photos; I especially love the photos of the falcon!

First off all, we are not beach people, we are from Iowa, and I've only spent a few days of my entire life on a beach.

I'll likely be alone with two girls, ages 9 & 11, both can barely swim. I obviously need to keep close watch on the girls, and in fact, prefer to stay within arms reach of them.

I have no idea what to take, where to go, or what to do.

I've read repeatedly not to leave belongings unattended. How do I manage this alone with children that need close supervision? Do I take nothing but towels and key cards on lanyards? Can I seriously not take a bag with clothes, sunscreen etc and reasonably expect it will remain where I leave it while we swim or walk the beach? Or eat lunch? I'd thought we'd rent clamshell and floaties but I'm just hung up on this "don't leave anything unattended" and I'm just not sure what we should do.

As far as the beach itself, where do we go when we get to the beach? Is the play area super crowded? What ages is this geared for? Should we instead go the far end of the beach where it is less crowded? Or do we need to stay near lockers to keep our sunscreen under lock and key? Again, I'm from Iowa so this notion that I can't leave a beach bag sitting somewhere is incrediably irritating. I like to trust my fellow cruise passangers not to steal sunscreen and kids swim cover ups, but I'm reading others say they go eat and swim in shifts, never leaving things unattended so I don't know what to think, except that this beach thing isn't sounding like very much fun to me, but it doesn't seem right to not let the kids go the beach, either.

What is "ginger candy" and where can it be purchased? Is it actually called ginger candy? (I know what it is used for.)

I buy the Ginger Chews from World Marketplace. They are "candy" but powerfully strong, I just nibble on the corner of one, I can't imagine eating them as candy but they do work wonders for us for immediate relief of motion sickness, I would never cruise, fly, or visit an amusement park without them in my bag.

http://www.worldmarket.com/product/ginger-chews.do

My first aid kit is in a snack size ziploc that I carry in purse, mostly blister care including blister bandiads some pre-cut mole skin and a few regular bandaids. Also a few tums, bonine, ginger candy (for immediate relief of motion sickness) cough drops, immodium, chewable pepto bismol, childrens and adults tylenol, and some of the kids thin strips for cold and cough, and for allergy. I take double the kids doseage. Traveling with kids, its better to have kid doses of OTC meds since they are hard to find out of the country or on a cruise ship. Plus those thin strip meds are just so handy to travel with.

In my luggage I also take prednisone in case of an ashma attack, but only used this once for a bad case of poison ivy, note to self, no more clearing brush before travel. I'm tossing in a general antibiotic next trip, because I have some on hand but I figure I can get those if I need them.

Random things I've forgotten over the years: nail clippers (important for happy feet!), good quality hand lotion for very dry skin. We travel carry on only so I tend to skimp on "liquids" but things like lotion, and aloe vera for sunburn, are worth cramming into the quart size ziploc when you find you need them but don't have them.

Another method to reduce the dosage of standard scopalomine patches is to place a small bandaid on the area you place the patch, and then place the patch half on the bandaid, and half off. The bandaid will inhibit that portion of the patch from passing the scop to the skin.

Thank you so much for this tip. While the Scop patch works great for my motionsickness, I have the dry mouth and eyes and side effect and always wish the patch came in a lower dose, which it does not. I'm going to try the band aid method of reducing the dose of the patch next trip.

Bonine also works well for me but makes me very drowsy, even though I do take this medicine before bed, not in the morning. I've use bonine on bumpy flights and at amusement parks as well, nice to have on hand.

Ginger candy works for me as well, for immediate reflief of sudden motion sickness.

I've discontinued use motion sickness meds part way through a cruise thinking I'd gotten my "sea legs", always with great regret, and will in the future continue using motion sickness meds for the course of the cruise!

I'm going to try MotionEaze for our upcoming trip as well, I'm still in search for the perfect motion sickness solution for me. Our last cruise was on a riverboat, which was wonderful, I din't really believe it before the trip, but it was true, no motion sickness for me whatsoever!

Our last cruise was on Celebrity Silhouette, prior to that we sailed on Eurodam. I'm not a fan of the art on Eurodam, I greatly preferred the art on Silhouette, but largely a matter of personal preference obviously. I found the service to be comperable between Celebrity and HAL. On Silouette, there were always tables available in the Lido, not so on Eurodam where it seemed we had to search for tables at nearly every meal and I felt at busy times there were not enough dining options available, causing the congestion in the Lido.

In all other aspects, I prefer the Eurodam and I'm really looking forward to being back on board in a couple months. We prefered the beds and food on Eurodam. I like HAL's unlimited laundry package. I love the promendade deck on HAL ships; I love our evening strolls. We enjoy the cabanas on Eurodam. I like having a third set of elevators on Eurodam, rarely ever a wait for an elevator on Eurodam. I really enjoy working on puzzels and playing board games in the Crow's Nest. I love the retractable roof on the Eurodam's "family" pool that allows swimming during all kinds of weather for the kids.

Sounds like you may be on our sailing, the Roll Call is here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1953923

Expect lots of families over the holidays. We are a 3 generation family that travels together on holidays and many others do the same. Our Kids are elementary through college age, and the only time we can get away is also over school breaks.

It has been a few years since our last trip on Eurodam so I'm looking for responses from others with more recent experience, but we found plenty of activities for our whole family when we were last on Eurodam, movies, dancing, shows, gaming and more. We found the food and service o be excellent and we are very much looking to our upcoming trip on the Eurodam!

I've used Travelex for the last few trips because my children receive free coverage, so it comes out to the best bang for the buck for us. I used the resources above to find the right plan for our family - thanks to those who sent me those links in years past.

Look to your credit card for coverage also, automatic or available for purchase. I have some trip cancellation/interruption/lost luggage automatically covered on my Visa, but no medical or med evac, so those coverages are especially important to me.

Thanks for your great report. You packed so much in, you must all have been exhausted :)

 

A couple of points on dining:

 

- Ping Pong is a dim sum restaurant, where traditionally food is shared in the manner you describe, not served individually

 

- I am astonished that the staff at your apart-hotel recommend Garfunkels for dinner. So many great places to eat in London and they sent you there!

The issue with sharing food at Ping Pong was that those that had carefully selected certain items wanted to at least try those. I believe there were four dumplings per order, so not enough to share for a group of 8. Also the fact that less than half of the dumplings were labeled and obviously you can't tell what they are without cutting into them made it very difficult to sort it all out. Finally, we chose Ping Pong because we were walked by on our way to the Eye, and it looked to be the most interesting of dining options in the immediate vicinity. In retrospect, we should have planned our dining out better. I also realize now that it is very important to make reservations for larger groups when dining in London. As I mentioned in my intro, I wasn't really all that well prepared for this trip and although considering, thigs fell together pretty well, dining is one thing I would absolutely focus on planning better for furture trips to London. With the excellent dining options in the city, some of our meals left a lot to be desired but that was really no one's fault buy my own for not planning better.

Also, in defence of our hotel for recommending Garfunkles, my mother was so tired from a long day of walking, and I requested something close, which Garfunkles delivered, being across the street from our hotel. We never really did find any dining options right near our hotel that sounded interesting. One thing I love about my family is that they are all adventurous eaters so dining is an adventure we enjoy together. I had read good reviews of Gordan's Wine Bar and that would been at the top of my list for a group of adults but I wasn't sure if there were tables for large groups, or if it would be appropriate for children, so we passed. For a group of active walkers, Soho and Covent Garden aren't too far from Citadines and offer a large number of dining options, but unfortunately it was just too far for grandma.

Day 8:

We'd arranged for our guide to collect us at the hotel at 9am. He noted that he'd be in the area by 8am and to call him if we were ready for him sooner, I should have made it clear he didn't nead to bother. We did manage to make it to the lobby a few minutes after 9, but there wasn't really any chance we'd have been earlier! We'd enjoyed the Citadines and were sad to leave.

We'd decided at the last minute to visit Windsor Castle. Half of our group had done a three castle tour in the north of England in 2012, but the others hadn't yet had a chance to see any castles, or palaces, so this seemed like a good option. Our young men at the least, always enjoy looking at displays of weaponry. Our guide David showed us around the rounds and took us on a tour of the cathedral, but was unable to show us through the state rooms. Windsor is very impressive. We also did get to see some guards marching past up close which was a fortunate coincidence, since we'd not managed to see them in London. After our tour of London, on David's suggestion, we ate at a pub called The King and Castle, where we found the food quite good.

We spent our drive to Stonehenge visiting with our guide, it was a pleasant trip. When we got to Stonehenge, it was raining and we toured the brand new interpetative center which was very well done. Outside, they are constructing a village as well but it was not yet complete. The rain finally let up and we took the shuttle up to the stones. We though it was funny that they had Range Rovers pulling the trams, here in Iowa, they'd absolutely have used tractors for this job, at a fraction of the cost. Stonehenge was not too crowded so there was no wait for the tram, but I hope the trams will be well enough organized to accomodate the summer crowds. Just as we ended our walk to the stones themselves, the skies opened up with a torrential hail storm. Because we all had waterproof rain jackets, we were able to huddle together under some umbrellas to block the stinging hail stones until the storm passed. It was quite a memorable experience! When the hail stopped, we continued our walk around the stones, the sun came out, and we got some lovely photos. We returned to the gift shop, some of us shopped, some used the restrooms and by the time we headed to the van, another band of rain and hail. David chided us for not waiting until the rain stopped before returning the van, but we made our way to the van in three seperate groups, and I guess we've had such an intolerable winter here at home, none of us even thought to "wait it out", a little rain didn't bother us at all after the snow, rain, and subarctic temeratures we've endured in recent months!

Sadly we then headed back to the Heathrow area, back to the same Premier Inn on Bath Road. We were sad to say goodbye to our guide. David Hamed, with London Private Tours, had taken very good care of us during the two days we spent with him and we very much appreciated his excellent service.

We'd booked the MealDeal at Premier Inn. While we'd been pleased with the appitizers the first night we stayed, dinner did not go over as well. Service was mediocore at best. The "Deal" limited you to less than half of the items on the menu, so most in our group weren't able to get what they wanted. The food was just "ok", about what I'd expect for this type of resturant. The next morning, two in our group overslept and didn't have time for the breakfast which had been pre-paid, so in retrospect, we should have just paid out of pocket instead of getting the "Meal Deal". The menu is posted online so make sure to review the options to make sure the "Deal" will work for your group before booking! Kids are free either way.

Day 9:

The next morning we took the Hotel Hoppa to Heathrow. £4.50 per adult, kids free. Premier Inn had a schedule for the shuttle but this is online at: http://www.heathrowairport.com/static/Heathrow/Downloads/PDF/hotel-hoppa-all-terminals.pdf I noted that the shuttle left one minute before scheduled time, so don't be late and plan on 30 minutes to get to the terminal as the shuttle stops and several hotels on the way.

Half of our group flew out of teminal 3, my children and I flew out of terminal 5, which we thought was beautiful, and sure made O'hare look like a dump when we got stateside again. In terminal 5, we had lunch at the Wagamama, overpriced but it was a very nice place to relax while we waited for our flight. We were booked through American but flew on British Airways for the transatlantic portion. It wasn't nealy as nice as our last transatlantic on Swiss, but it was much better than our recent transatlantic flights on United and Delta. We also had brand new American Eagle planes both outbound and inbound O'hare to Des Moines, usually we have little puddle jumper planes that are older than I am and it is a little scary sometimes. I've been concerned about the American/US Air merger and have been avoiding booking anything other than free flights with miles with them, but our experience on this trip with American was very good, and again, the price was very reasonable.

I felt spring break was a great time to go to London. One week was enough to hit all the highlights. The only thing I wanted to do that didn't get done was a cruise on the Thames, but I simply forgot and just never got to it. The weather was much better than I expected. I was really surprised that spring flowers and cherry blossoms were in bloom, many annual flowers had been planted, and the grass was so green! We had temperatures in the 50's and even into the 60's during our trip. Just a week before we left home, we'd had sub zero tems, so London felt tropical. We'd secured a good rate on flights, and rates for the hotel, while expensive, was much lower that it will be in the busy summer months. Finally, since England hadn't done the Daylight Savings, the time change was only 5 hours for us, and as an added bonus we had daytime flights both over and back, we didn't have any trouble with jet lag this trip.

I hope this review was helpful for you, my fellow cruisers. I imagine like many of you, we'll be back to London again soon pre or post-cruise. Now we won't feel like we have to try to "do" London in a day or two, but rather enjoy something new, or revisit favorites! If anyone has any questions, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks for hanging in there through my long winded review, typos and all!

Day 7:

We've left this day "free".

My son and I get up early and head to Churchill War Museum. We arrive about 10 muntues before the museum opens, and then wait for almost 15minutes to buy tickets because there are many large groups checking in, and only one cash register. Really!? I'm not as patient in the queue as the Brits. We us our 2 for 1 discount, which again, isn't really a 2 for 1 since my son would have had a discounted student rate. My son is a political science major and enjoys military history, while I'm a history buff, so the museum was something we both enjoyed. I enjoyed learning more about Churchill as a person. It was fun to see the War Rooms but I think the museum added in '05 is a fabulous addition to this attraction.

We meet up with the others at the hotel, and have lunch at the St. Martin in the Field church's Cafe in the Crypt. I think my family is sick of cafeteria food. I chose a hot meal item and thought it was very good. I also thought the crypt was cool. And it was nice to help support the church with our dining budget. I'd don't think my family was in agreement, however.

After lunch, we finally made it to the National Gallery. We walked in the door and saw a short line for the Sunflowers. Not really knowing what was going on, we got in line. We were handed plastic cards, and let upstairs where we gave the cards to the attendant at the entrance to the Sunflower exhibit. We'd all seen the Sunflowers recently at the VanGogh museum in Amsterdam, so it was very cool to see the Amsterdam and the London Sunflowers side by side, especially since we didn't even know this was going on until we walked into the exhibit itself, how fun! The exhibit exited into the Impressionist paintings we'd most wanted to explore here so it was perfect. From here we generally walked backwards in time. My sister left part way through to visit Fortnum & Mason. I'm not going to lie, by the time we saw all of the National Gallery, it felt like a forced march, mom and the kids were tired, but we did manage to see all the highlights. Rather than wandering through the whole museum, we should have followed Rick Steve's tour in his London book, we might have enjoyed the older art better if we'd just seen the highlights rather than trying to see it all!

My son and I headed off on a final shopping spree of our own, a friend of his back home wanted a certain kind of cider so we went in search of a larger grocery store. He didn't find what we were looking for, but I stocked up on snacks for the trip home and boxes of tea as souveniers. Later, my son headed out again on his own and finally found what he needed. Meanwhile, the rest of us spent the evening packing :(

In need of a close by dinner the hotel front desk suggested Garfunkles on Trafalgar Square. While it was "fine", it was the worst meal of our trip, very much like an Applebee's or some other generic chain in the US, but with some British menu items. Ick, not what we'd hoped for to end our week in London. Much better food to be found in the pubs, at much lower prices and with much better service.

Day 6:

We arrive at Victoria & Albert museum and are confused that we aren't allowed in. Somehow, weve managed to arrive a few minutes before opening. Vacation is almost over and we've finally nailed "arriving on time". The museum is pleasantly sparsely populated. It also exceeds my wildest dreams. It is HUGE but very well organized and the objects are very well presented. Not at all overwhelming. My children and I folled the tour in the Rick Steves London book. We met the others at noon at the museum cafe. I thought the cafe was good, fairly reasonably priced, but only one cash register was open which seemed ridiculous. After lunch, my kids and I continued to explore the museum while the rest headed out to Harrods. I think they enjoyed Harrods but they said it was very hot in the store and they were all uncomfortable so didn't stay long.

After V&A, my kids and I wandered into the Science Museum which we enjoyed very much and I had a hard time dragging them out of there. My kids are aged 8 & 20! We finally made our way to the Natural History Museum and briefly toured the museum. I mostly wanted to see the building itself, which is stunning. On our way from one museum to the other, we found a stuffed Dodo bird, which is one of the coolest things we stumbled on. By this time it was late afternoon and the Natural History was absoluetely mobbed with school children and was uncomfortably crowded.

By this point in the trip, we'd all mastered the tube. Hard to believe we were hesitant to use the public transit just a few days before, it really is so easy to get around London! We are from central Iowa and don't have public transit to speak of, so when we say "if we can do it you can do it", we really mean it.

We stopped for an early dinner at the Sherlock Holmes pub next to our hotel and had a very nice meal upstairs in the dining room. I posted a review with photos of our meals and the menu over on tripadvisor. The lower level was packed with the after work suit & tie crowd every week night, but the dining room was a relaxing atmosphere, good food and a good place for people watching as lots of Sherlock Holmes fans wander in!

We headed to the New London Theater for the 7:30 showing of War Horse. The theatre was smaller than I expected and had a very intimate feel. The show was excellent. It was a very late night for our girls, aged 8 & 10, but they were both enthralled with the show. Perhaps the subject matter was a little too mature, but we'd decided we didn't want to do a children's show, and War Horse was a good compromise for our family. We unanimously loved this show. We'd purchased tickets at home a couple months in advance with decent seats for our group of 8, and we felt it was a good investment. For a couple it might be worth trying to get discount tickets once in London but it would have been very stressful for me to have tried to have done so for a large group, and I was glad to have had our night at the theatre in advance.

I'd taken a dresser outfit for the theatre, but in the end wore jeans and a nice top mostly because we had so far to walk and I wanted to wear my walking shoes, and also because I had so much "stuff" I wanted pockets in jeans, not dress pants and a purse. Since it rained, I was glad to have my gore-tex hiking shoes on the trek home, and although there were others dressed better, we did not feel underdressed at all.

For the first time in the trip, it was raining hard when we left the theatre but all but one of us had rain coats so we didn't get too wet. It was kind of weird to be out with young children so late at night but the tube felt very safe to us at all times.

The only places we used cash in London was farmers markets, on hotel hoopa bus from our hotel to airport, and at museums for donations and purchasing £1 donation maps. Everywhere I went in London I was able to use my non-chip credit card, although they don't usually have a pen handy for me to sign with since most people don't need to sign.

So far the only two places I've not been able to use my non-chip credit card in four recent trips to Europe was at a small thrift store in a small town in Norway and at the auto pay ticket kiosk for the train at Schiphol Airport - there was no manned pay station so we would have had to take a cab if my mother hadn't had a card with a chip.

Thanks for sharing, Newport Dave, those are pretty sign posts! I do recall seeing a sign for the British Museum that may have been similar to those you posted just as we exited the tube station, but then no other sign in the blocks ahead, so we didn't know where to do. Near Westminster, everything was pretty obvious since you can generally see the sights. British Library and British Museum - we had no idea what those buildings looked like. Churchill War Museum might be hard to find but we'd passed it several times before we finally made it there on our last day, so no problem locating it when we needed it.

Day 4:

Ready? This was a very very busy day. I didn't realize how much we'd packed in until I was home reviewing photos!

Again we slit up this day with the young adults venturing out on their own. I don't know where they went, except that they left zone 1&2, which was costly as they had to pay to exit the tube station. It wouldn't have cost much more to get travel cards for additional zones, except when we purchased the travel cards, I had no idea anyone wanted to leave zone 1 & 2 so that was what we'd purchased.

The rest of us headed to the Globe. We arrived at 10:15, used our 2 fo 1 discount, wandered the exibits for a little while before our wonderful tour at 10:30. They put on an off season play this week every year for the local schools. The area in and around the Globe was mobbed with school groups, I was so glad we didn't arrive any later. We all enjoyed the tour very much, we had a good guide. After the tour, we visited the exhibits again for a closer look but by this time there were quite a lot of boisterous school kids here so we didn't stay long. Our girls really enjoyed all the interactive computer activities and I think they absorb a lot.

Next, we headed down the river walkway toward Borough Market for lunch and browsing. I didn't not go into Southwark cathedral but took some photos from the outside, it is a lovely building. I used to produce organic vegetables for sale at farmers markets, so I always enjoy visiting markets in Europe. I love that everything is organic, I love the fresh cheese, and love that they are allowed to sell raw milk. We ate at a permenant stall, Maria's cafe. While we didn't know what we were ordering, it was all very good and very affordable. The fish market across from the market was selling some kind of wrap that looked very good too but we chose Maria's since there was seating.

After strolling around the market and the surrounding neighborhood, we headed to Tate Modern. I thought it was relatively crowded. I can't imagine how crowded these attractions get in the high tourist season, I was very glad we chose March to visit London. My mother was tired and spent most of our time at Tate Modern just sitting. My son isnt a fan of modern art and spent most of his time playing games on his phone. My sister was sceptical of the art museum at first but eventually warmed up to the art. Her daughter is legally blind and LOVES abstract art. I imagine what we see in abstract art is how my niece sees the world. We visited the Museum Ludwig in Cologne over the Christmas holiday and my niece really enjoyed herself. She was glad to see many works by the same artists at Tate Modern. My daughter and I love modern art and could have spent all day there but reluctatantly did a quick sweep of the collection so the others could get on to doing things they enjoy. Personally, I like the way they'd organized the art. I wish I'd gone earlier in the day with lower crowd levels, and also wished we'd had more time.

There is something for everyone in London, and my son wanted to visit a military surplus store, so we headed over to The Cut. The store was tiny but the owner extremely friendly and helpful, and the merchandise exceptionally well marked. My son bought several items and it was a highlight of the trip for him to purchase "UK" pattern camo attire.

Meanwhile, our young adults had met up with us again, and we headed out for an early dinner. We wound up at a place called Ping Pong. It could have easily been the best meal of our trip but fell short on presentation. Half of us ordered individually, the other half of us ordered "fixed menu". You order on a small piece of paper for the entire table. Those of us with the fixed menu had no idea what we were supposed to be getting. They brought out food randomly and didn't really tell us what it was. Some items are marked but most were not. It was really frustrating. They did not do a good job clearing plates, and put incoming food whereever there was room, which was never by the person that ordered the item. We spent the whole meal trying to figure out what items were, and who they belonged to. I kind of felt like a hog eating from a trough, and felt it was a very uncivilized way to eat. The food itself was very good, the staff was friendly if unhelpful. We arrived just as the restaurant opened, when we left it was full, loud, and seemed like it should have been lots of fun. I'd recommend this place for smller groups, it was just chaotic for a group of 8 on a first time visit.

After dinner, we headed over to the Eye. It must have been shortly after 7 when we arrived, there was no one in line for tickets and when we loaded the Eye itself, there was no one in line so we got our own car for our group of 8. We used the 2 for 1 discount here as well. We really had a lovely time. I don't know what times are busy but I was glad we arrived at a time with no wait! We got some good photos from the Eye itself as well as some nice night photos on the walk back to the hotel, just across the bridge from the Eye and fortunately an easy walk afte our very long day with lots of walking!