Smyles

That's hard to say.

 

Solarium Bistro is at the front upper part of the ship. Depending on how the ship is docked (forward or backed in), you may or may not get some form of departure view. We did in one case, not so in another.

 

If you want the departure view...the best place is an upper deck.

Ok thanks! We are MTD and on one night couldn't get the time we wanted so had to book supper right at departure time. In the least booking the Solarium Bistro increases our odds of seeing anything! But I might move our Solarium reservation an hour later so we can roam the upper decks or try and catch a peek from our end Boardwalk room.

Is this a good location to book a supper that starts at departure time (Leaving Charlotte Amalie)? Will we see the ship leaving port while seated? Or should we make the reservation for later in the evening?

When we travel I load up on all sorts of over the counter meds. Meds we have never taken while home and have never used on a trip. My husband rolls his eyes at me but I bring the immodium, pepto, gravol, etc plus advil and tylenol...I even bring a carton of powdered gaterade. Just in case.

Does any of that actually help with something like norovirus? If we ever catch any stomach bug etc at home we just wait it out. But I feel like if we had it on vacation we'd want to be able to take something to feel better since we aren't in our own home.

For the 2 cruises we have recently booked for our family of 3 Royal Caribbean has been cheaper than Carnival. Both cruises were more or less "last minute" in that we decided and booked the cruise about 100 days before sailing (which I recognize is not actually last minute). Both times when we booked (and we started researching the cruises within a week of booking the cruises) they had the 50% of second passenger and kids sail free. Last October 2016 we did a 8 night western caribbean sailing on Allure out of Fort Lauderdale for approx $2700CAD (ocean balcony) and our current trip is this coming Feb, 7 night Eastern Caribbean out of Fort Lauderdale on Harmony for just under $2400CAD boardwalk balcony (was a guarantee). We just booked our current sailing approx 2 weeks ago and it has since climbed steadily to approx $6100CAD for the same room on the same sailing.

My point being...timing of booking your trip MIGHT be crucial. I have no idea how other factors like departure port, months of sail etc work. But for some reason for us Royal Caribbean cruises are less than Carnival (not by that much, but enough to sell us on Royal Caribbean!).

We did Carnival Dream for our honeymoon and it was a great ship, but I would book one of Royals Oasis ships before choosing Dream if price is right. I haven't been on a 'smaller' Royal ship but I would think Dream is comparable so I wouldn't avoid Carnival to be on a smaller Royal ship. We did NOT note a difference in service, food or function between Dream and Allure. I don't doubt there is a difference if you are booking the suites etc but we travel pretty frugal and low key and didn't note a difference. There was a notable difference in the ships themselves and what Allure offered far surpassed Dream. I do not drink at all and did not notice any major party/drinking going on on Dream that stood out as concerning for our cruise.

Thank you so much! Will keep watch for the PJ night listed in the compass and then check with the Aquanaut staff to confirm before we leave her but it sounds like she would be able to do something else while the movie plays :-)

I can't relate and haven't been any where near this situation but I wonder...if you DON'T go what will life look like for that week?

Who is cooking for you, who is cleaning up after you, who is making your bed etc. There will be people to help carry bags (bring tip money). It will be a hassle and stressful to get to the ship/your room. But, once there life should be pretty easy, no? If the doctor seems to think it is a good idea perhaps it is? You likely won't be doing any fancy moves on the ship but it could be the ultimate lazy, recovery week.

All that said, what are the odds of a complication and does medical coverage cover it after a surgery? I have no clue.

When they play a movie in aquanauts during the regular sessions of care (7-10pm) is the movie in the kids theatre and are they forced to watch the movie, or is it playing in the room and they can play with toys at the same time?

Trying to plan out our shows and I would prefer to leave my daughter in camp while we go to a few evening shows. But she is 4.5yrs and SUCKS at watching tv or movies. She has NEVER watched a movie more than once (refuses) and she has watched very few movies in full even when watching with friends who are glued to the screen. She just isn't a tv kid.

If the movies are forced I will likely just rearrange our schedule to have her stay in care on another night so she can be active and playing. If she can sit and colour off to the side she would be more than thrilled.

Soooo...how much medivac coverage should I have on our travel medical insurance?

We just did our first guarantee room. We chose the neighborhood guarantee, first time in a non-ocean view balcony but we had planned to get an interior so it is a good upgrade for us.

I went in knowing I could end up with the worst room. I had a few things I had really hoped for...not getting an adjoining room, being on a floor with rooms above and below and not being near a big storage area that might have extra noise at odd hours.

We were assigned our room a few days ago. Not quite 2 weeks after booking, and before we even made final payment.

I am thrilled with our assigned room. Our room met all my above hopes and we got boardwalk (as opposed to central park) and we got a room second from the end so have a decent view of the ocean and aqua theatre. We are on floor 10 which is my preferred floor.

There are still many other rooms that I feel are not a good as ours so we were not given the worst one they had to offer. But, no idea how they go about assigning a room and my list of hopes may have nothing to do with what they deem the "worst" on their list!

Our daughter just sleeps on the unfolded couch. She was 3.5yrs last fall when we cruised. We put the desk chair and a suitcase along the side of the couch so she didn't roll out (and to keep her bears on the couch). She will do the same on our upcoming cruise when she will be just under 5yrs old. It isn't worth the fuss of unfolding the couch into a bed when they are that small. Plus with her napping (she will on the cruise so she can be up late) it would mean leaving the bed unfolded all the time making the room very small.

If your room has a sofa you will be fine. You will want to increase your room attendants tip if you are putting an extra person in your room though as it is more work for them. Unless the room she is officially booked in is also in the same attendants area.

My access has been very spotty. I occasionally get in then it tells me it can't proceed because my account is being modified. Or I get random error codes. I can now for the most part access my main dashboard but still can't get into the cruise planner at all. I get error codes every time (that has been for days now).

When I did get into my dashboard earlier this evening I found my cruise fare had more than doubled. So I had to call and get that corrected so I could make my final payment.

Okay, Thanks again advocado. I used the 866-562-7625 number. Got through right away. Got a helpful person. He did say that while I was on the booking dashboard my promotions got wiped away. I've read on here enough not to take that personally. He put me on hold to have his supervisor put it back to normal. Took less than 5 minutes. They did seem to have my original numbers in their system so I didn't need my screenshot of it for proof.

He didn't seem to want my payment on the phone so I logged back in to pay it online and once again took a sceenshot of it paid in full!

Glad I'd read on here that this is somewhat "normal" lol. We seemed to have gotten a really really good price just a week ago and our room has gone up 2.5x what we paid.

Thank you, I had a different number than those listed so will give them a go. I used the number on their main website, it said for payment questions so I assumed it was a legit number!

Stupid question but...I need to make my final payment I went to do it online and see that today they randomly more than doubled our cruise fare. I have screen shots of original price (learned to do that by reading posts here).

So now I need to call and get it fixed and make payment but every time I call the number it rings then hangs up on me. Do I keep trying or do they have hours I don't know about?

Payment is due on the 12th but I'd prefer to straighten out the doubled fare asap.

$18/day x 4 (I assume it is 2 adults and 2 kids) is a LOT of money to spend on water. I would want some very legit proof that I was sick from the ship water before I paid that much for water. Plus...if the water was the true cause...isn't the majority of the ship food made with/or washed with that same water? So...you would need to also bring in your own food as well.

Thank you for the response. I did wonder if the roof was noticed on floor 12 balconies at the end. We will stick with floor 10 :-)

Luckily our daughter is a long distance stamina child. She has always despised being in a stroller and even at age 2 would opt to walk for 1.5 hrs over riding in what we called the 'very expensive diaper bag carrier" of a stroller we owned. She is happy to walk the ships length and sleeps well at night afterwards :-) But thank you for the head's up, I know many children that wouldn't do well with that long distance and carrying them would get old quick!

We always travel with a white noise machine which I hope will help drown out any noise coming in from the balcony door. But again. all that walking at least helps our daughter sleep through anything (not so much me, sadly).

Hi!

We just received our room number. We had planned on an interior but my husband decided to try out the balcony guarantee since it was close in price. We Just received our room 10327. I am quite happy about it. We don't plan to be on the balcony much aside from when one of us is in the room while our daughter naps. We had an ocean balcony on Allure and really didn't get that much use so didn't want to spend the extra this time around (better allowing us to make this cruise part of a larger 2.5week vacation).

I noticed that room 12729 is still open. I am curious if there is much of a difference between the second from end and end balcony. At first I thought there was but then a photo I found of 10329 showed it also had the divider wall between them and the end of the ship not a clear open end view.

I like floor 10. I am happy with the room, just debating if there is a big reason to attempt to switch the end balcony on the 12th floor.

Any thoughts? Pros or cons for either?

I am particularly excited for the added drink package. We don't drink much so don't get a drink package. We'll buy a few fancy drinks on the cruise but not enough to justify the daily package. But having the free sodas makes the soda a lot more enjoyable when we do have one :-)

Our 4 yr old will be thrilled to have a view of the carousel which she still talks about from last October on the Allure.

Thanks!

I would print off a note explaining the children's medical condition and the impact of smoking therefore forewarning them if they are smoking on the balcony you will be required to report them each and every time for the health of the children. I would write it in a VERY nice, very short, very factual manner. My hope would be if your neighbors are smokers and had hoped to sneak a few in on the balcony they would have the mindset to just go to the approved areas. If only because they know you will be reporting them (maybe make gentle note of the fine).

Perhaps you could also ask the room attendant to mention it to the neighbors as well?

I have no idea where this idea of the couches turning backwards came from but we planned to use it on the Allure last fall after reading it on here and the stateroom attendant and her boss tried and they just couldn't. The couch is too long the room is too narrow and roof too low to flip it around. It was not physically possible. I can't see it working on other ships unless in a suite with wider rooms, or unless maybe some rooms have love seats instead of actual couches.

We just kept the couch as is and lined the coffee table and suitcases along the side of the couch to keep our daughter from falling off. But, she was 3.5yrs old. I am not sure that would work quite the same with a 14month old. So, I would plan on using a pack and play.

We used my daughters car seat on the plane and just stored it at the bottom of the closet. It wasn't in the way at all. It was a large seat. If he is still small enough (height and weight) I would definitely aim to use the old baby carrier seat rather than the older kid seat as it is just easier to lug around.

I really wouldn't fuss with distilled water at 14months old but if it brings peace of mind you can likely get permission to bring a case of water on, there should be a department to email for that, would be something to do with 'special needs requests'.

One key tip I would recommend is to bring a white noise machine. We brought ours and it worked wonders for naps and even in the night to drown out hall noises etc. We will be cruising again in Feb with our then 5yr old and still plan to bring it. We don't use it at home but do still bring it for travel. It works to also drown my husband and I out while she naps in the room with us. Some people use their cell phones but That only works if you aren't planning to read on your phone while they nap (it is annoying to hold the phone when it's making the noise)!

When we were on Allure last fall our side of the ship was the side facing the ports for each stop. Which meant a really good view of the island and workings of the ropes etc to dock. We were starboard side. No idea how to know which side will have those better views for each sailing though!

Last fall our daughter (3.5yrs) got to colour a pirate pillow case (had the camps name on it I think) to bring home and she received a pirate bandanna to keep. Both were from pirate day. But no name tags or anything like that.

We LOVED allure last fall with our then 3.5yr old. A year later and she still talks about the cruise. It amazes me what she can remember on her own. We literally spent our days tracking down the Dreamworks Characters for photos. Our daughter rode the carousel with a few of the characters. We also spent our days riding the carousel! Our daughter had never seen any of the dreamworks movies but she still LOVED the characters.

The parades were awesome for her as well.

We didn't do off shore excursions we used that time to explore the near empty ship and swim. We did pop off the ship to see the port and the ship from the outside.

As great as disney is, the price difference doesn't make sense to us. Royal has the characters on it and plenty for children.

We did use the daycare program. We would drop her off for an hour here and there. She LOVED seeing the other kids. She LOVED when they did the little stage presentations for parents. We also made use of the dinner program where the kids get an expedited meal at 6pm while we have our appetizer then the daycare picks them up at 6:40 and we would finish our meal while she was off playing. While I totally understand not wanting to leave the kids in the hands of others, I was comfortable with the program they ran. They spoke english (when we tried our daughter in the daycare at our cuba resort they spoke next to NO english and it kind of freaked our young daughter out so now it is something I do look for). I think the kids really do enjoy a bit of social, kid time in the daycare as a break from busy days with adults.

I would definitely recommend the Allure for your trip, especially if you are not going with your own children. As there is a lot for all ages so it makes a good ship for your group.

We just booked another trip on Harmony with our daughter just before she turned 5. We first checked to ensure they have the dreamworks characters and carousel like Allure. Those 2 features definitely make the trip!

We had ours confiscated a couple weeks ago on Allure. We had it in our carry on (didn't want to have to go get our bag from the naughty room).

It was a 3 outlet bar on a short cord (6inches), no surge protector on it.

They made us go over to a side table and remove it from the bag. I mentioned it didn't have a surge protector and my understanding was that only the ones with the surge protector were forbidden. She said that they keep changing the rule and currently ALL power bars are banned.

We got a ticket to pick it up. But on our exit (with our 3yr old) we didn't bother to go find the place to get it.

We didn't actually need it. We kept one cell phone cord plugged in at bedside and just swapped out phones. Our camera and white noise machine plugged in at the desk (could only fit 2 plugs in that 3 plug spot as they were lined up too close for a third).

I chatted with one of them and he said all he could do was stand there.

I still laugh at the memory of the one standing guard at the ice show. Constant people badgering her. She kept telling them suite class only. Well she turned a man away from those seats with her usual speech and then not more than a microsecond after the man turned to walk away she opened it up to the public. hahaha. She was seriously following protocol that you don't allow regular guests in the seats until X:XX:XX time. Since he had turned to walk back up he didn't see that she was done guarding the seats and since we were sitting close by we managed to get front row seats (there were only like 8 suite guests in the 3 reserved rows).

I wouldn't bother with any packages for the kids. They can fill up on the free stuff and load up on sugar at the free ice cream station.

Our 3yr old doesn't drink pop. She was beyond thrilled to get to have lemonade (free). She drinks water at home so wasn't expecting more. Unless your kids drink a lot of pop they won't be missing anything by sticking with the free options.

I brought two of the little squirt bottles of water flavorings. I only used up 1. It gave me flavored water for my water bottle and I had lemonade and tea throughout the day. Maybe bring those for your older children if they want something more exciting. They are on a surprise cruise, one would hope they are busy exploring and not thinking about having pop all week!!

You can give your older children a beverage budget ($30 or so).