jules71
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Posts posted by jules71
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Thanks, Bob. that is a handy little tool!
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Looking forward to hearing about your cruise as we are considering booking this itinerary at about the same time next year. I realize weather can be different from year to year, but interested in hearing about your experience. Also what sights would you say to be sure and not miss? And what (port-wise) was just so-so? Again, knowing docking may not be the same, what side of the ship did you think had the best view?!!
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Hubby and I will be Diamond very soon and while I've never had a bad RCI cruise through the years, we'd eventually like to try something new. I've always been curious about Celebrity...what do you like about them? Are the itineraries much different from their "cousin" RCI?
After 15/16 Royal cruises, we recently sailed on Celebrity Reflection. What I liked best was the ship itself--particularly, the public spaces. The Sunset Bar on the back of the ship was one of our favorite spots to hang out. We also enjoyed being able to eat outside in the buffet area. Loved that the upper deck was shaded. Liked the bar outside the MDR in the Centrum area much better than the R bar on Royal. And a big bonus was no smoking in the casino and how it was much more open --had a nice bar area too.
I thought the entertainment was better too. They had a coffeehouse style entertainer (guy with a guitar) in the Cafe Bacio in the afternoon who was really terrific. And Blind Vinyl, the house band, was the best I have seen on a ship in a while.
Food and service was good; comparable to Royal. Plan to sail both again in the near future, but this thread is making me want to try others such as NCL or Holland America as well.
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Pretty much prefer oceanview. Balconies are nice in that you can get some fresh air, check out the port, etc. without going out of your cabin, but we really find we don't use it enough to make it worthwhile on most cruises. Not a fan of inside (done one twice -- 7 day and a 4 day), but wouldn't rule out booking one again on a short cruise. Wasn't that bad, but I do prefer having the daylight!
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Thanks for your review! The Nordic Empress was our very first cruise. Booked Cuba overnight for November and was a little dismayed by all the negative reviews. We had a similar experience with the Grandeur in that lots of negative reviews, but we ended up loving her and booked her a second time--the crew is fantastic and we didn't miss all the bells and whistles of the bigger ship. Glad to hear you had a great time on the Empress --look forward to hearing about your cruise to Cuba in July.
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Four days out from a cruise on the Reflection and everyone in our group got text messages and emails with warnings about Zika and an offer to change itineraries for anyone pregnant or planning pregnancy. Is this unusual? Is there a new warning? If not, why would they wait until 4 days out to offer to change itineraries? Really confused by this.
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DH told him he would be taking his phone out when we were on the balcony and we would get a picture of him smoking.
The guy got a little worked up and said we should not look into his balcony that that would be invasion of his privacy and not to confront him but to call and report.
Well, it's obvious nothing will be done about the smoking.
Really disappointing that Celebrity wouldn't do anything about this. And how rude of the people in the cabin next to you. I once (very nicely) asked the people in front of me at a John Mayer concert not to smoke (it was non smoking) and they threw a tray of nacho cheese on me. Next time I will get an usher!! SMH
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I am just a casual player but I did enjoy the casino on the Reflection.
I liked the non-smoking rule A LOT.
There were nightly promotions after the show that were fun.
They gave away free
play, free drinks and you could win a chance to gamble with the officers etc. There was usually a live poker game going.
I liked that you could get promo chips with your OBC to play at 21 and convert back to cash without any % charge.
We spent time in the casino almost daily but broke about even as we don't play slots.
All good things to hear. Thanks!
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I had a situation recently where they wouldn't let me move from a 1B to a 1C because they said I had paid less than the 1C was currently going for. They also said the same thing with a 1B to a 1B, but on a second try, I found someone who would do it. Go figure!
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We just got off an 11 day cruise to the Caribbean with the premier package. It's not just liquor that adds up. We averaged two specialty coffees a day each and a ton of Evian water. We were regulars in the martini bar and we easily saved money between that and wine and beer. If you honestly feel that you're not going to do any real drinking then the standard package should be fine. But if you insist on top shelf when you do drink then you should get the premium package. It will add up fast.
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Aren't coffees included with the classic package?
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I wanted to share the document I put together for our Pub Crawl/Poker Run, it might help others to run their Crawl. When they draw a card my husband or I will write the card down on the sheet and the card will go back into the stack. We will bring Red and Black Sharpies to help make it easier to read. Hope it helps.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B90MrPJsaBCVSGNQN3JyXzg1cW8/view?usp=sharing
This is awesome! Thank you for posting.
I am hoping to do a Pub Crawl/Poker Draw on our upcoming Reflection cruise and all of the comments have been really helpful
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Just what it sounds like. It is unique to the NCL Sky. No additional charges. Open Bar every day, all day. Not ALL of the selections as on other ships, but plenty sufficient.
Interesting! Thanks for letting me know.
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From Ohio?
Lol Snowbirds wintering in SC.
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$99 NCL Sky Sept 5 4 nighter. Includes Open Bar (no service charge on this ship). I was beginning to think this thread was good and dead
Awesome! Thank you for posting. We now live close enough to drive to Florida. Hope this thread gets going again!
One question--I have never heard of Open Bar on a cruise ship, does it mean what it sounds like?
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Thank you!
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Leaving out of PC in a few weeks and trying to decide between parking at the port and parking at Park n Cruise. We will be arriving around 1pm and are wondering for the port -- does the parking building fill up and you have to park outside (parking under cover is a plus for parking at the port). For Park n Cruise, is it really only a short wait for a shuttle, even in peak times?
Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer!
(And what happened to those $6.95 deals I see on here?!!Best I could find was $48.80 for a 4 night cruise.)
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Does anyone remember the cocktail hours in the Diamond Lounge? Thanks!
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Great review --thanks for posting. This itinerary is on my "bucket list" so I really appreciate your tips. A couple of questions: what was your cruise date? (I am thinking it was August, but wanted to be sure.) How were the crowds? I know you said you had great weather, but overall was this a good time to go? Thanks in advance!!
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I spend a lot of time researching places in advance of a trip and we especially enjoy exploring places on our own or in small groups. Our plans for Bar Harbor included hiking in Acadia National Park and walking on the ocean floor—both of these activities I was able to plan from information I found on CC. Thank you CC members for sharing your expertise. Bar Harbor was a very special day.
The ship anchored in the harbor around 8:00am and we were on one of first tenders over. Low tide was around 10:00 and we wanted to walk across to Bar Island while tide was out. It was a great walk—just kind of fun knowing we were walking on ground that would be covered with water in a few hours! (Thanks to GiantFan13 for suggesting this.)
After Bar Island, we walked back to town to find the Island Explorer bus to Acadia National Park. We had to stop a few times and ask for directions, but we found the National Park office fairly easily. The rangers told us where to wait for the bus.
The Island Explorer is a great service. It is free and there are multiple routes which are laid out in a guide map entitled Free Acadia Shuttles. The Guide details the various bus routes and timetables.
We took the Sand Beach #3 which like many of the other routes left from the Bar Harbor visitor center square . We got off at Sand Beach and hiked and explored along the spectacular Ocean Path toward Otter Cliff.
After hiking for a few hours, we caught the bus back, stopping at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center to look around a little and to change buses to get back to Bar Harbor. The ride back was interesting —nice views of the harbor and the ship—and by the College of the Atlantic campus. Back in town, we shopped a little —prices for souvenir tee shirts and sweatshirts seemed very reasonable to me—maybe end of season. We ate lobster at Geddys, met of up with some of our group and had a couple of beers before getting in a very long line to get on a tender. Not sure what the problem, my DH thinks the tender lost one of its engines, but we had a very hard time docking with the ship. After 3 attempts, they were finally able to get close enough that the crew could pull it in.
Although the weather started out a little rainy and foggy you can see from the above picture that by afternoon, we had a gorgeous day!
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My sister and I were on the same cruise but left on Oct 1st, and it sounds like we had a parallel experience! We also stayed at the Holiday Inn Express Stadium and found it to be perfect. Had a little bit of a problem getting to it because the GPS seemed a little confused (!) but finally made it. We were able to park under cover, too. The hotel shuttle took us to the Inner Harbor as we wanted to go to the Aquarium. We also had crab cakes at Mo's, which was suggested by the shuttle driver. And yes, they were huge! We also agreed we could have split one order. Then the restaurant shuttle took us back to the hotel. I would not hesitate to recommend the hotel to anyone cruising out of Baltimore. One more thing...the park & cruise package said free parking for one week and a small charge (I forget how much) for each additional day. We were parked for 10 days, but when I went to the front desk after the cruise to pay the balance of parking, the manager, who happened to be standing there, said to forget it as it was more of a problem to try to ring it up!:)
Glad you had a good experience too!
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Your shoes will get wet, but I couldn't walk over the stones in my water shoes. It was difficult in heavy tennis shoes. I would say you definitely need something sturdy.
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More pics from Portland Harbor
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It was my first time in Maine so I was very excited to get to Portland. I woke up around 7:30 and immediately looked out the window. To my dismay, the fog was so thick I couldn’t see a thing. We got dressed and went for coffee. We weren’t scheduled to dock until 11:30am, but I wanted to be up on deck to watch as we came into the harbor. Luckily as the morning wore on, the fog started to lift and we had good views of the city.
Getting off the ship was quick and there was a helpful information center right at the end of the dock where we picked up maps. Our plan was to explore the Old Port —there are tons of restaurants, bars, galleries, shops within in walking distance. We walked to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s house—the gardens were really pretty.
One of the locals we talked with told us to go to $3 Deweys — fun little bar. Had a beer, talked to some other tourists, then walked to Becky’s (a pretty long walk) for a lobster roll. Just a little diner type place, but the food was great.
We had been iffy about whether to take a tour or not, but stopped by the Discovery Portland kiosk to see what was still available and signed up to take the next Lighthouse Tour. So glad we did, the narration was great and we really enjoyed the boat ride. Was able to get some great lighthouse pictures.
Back onboard we went up on deck for sail away and for a last look at those awesome lighthouses! After dinner, we just relaxed on deck and watched part of a movie.
Non-Refundable Deposit
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
Yes, but was looking this morning at prices for a cruise I booked a couple of days ago. If I choose nonrefundable, the price goes down from what I booked, if I choose refundable, the price goes up about the same amount ( ~$300). Since I am a year out, I am glad I booked before the change. A lot can happen in a year's time!
One question I have is do you lose the whole deposit ($900 in this case) or just $100?