cruisin4dhr

We are booked on a cruise to port at Mahogany Bay, Roatan in early September, 2022.  Could folks please share reviews on excursions with Explore Roatan Tours or with Charlie's Island Tours?  Thank you in advance for your help.

The online Conquest deck plan shows "Ol' Fashioned BBQ" on the Panorama Deck.  But it doesn't appear on the website page listing the various dining options.  Has it been removed from Conquest and the deck plan hasn't been updated?  Thanks for any information you can share.

We're planning on waving the Green flag on our next Carnival cruise in a few weeks by bringing reusable stainless steel drinking straws.  Has anyone had any problems with these items at airport Security?  Did you pack them in your carry-on or checked bags?  TIA.  

We are scheduled for a port stop at Belize City on New Year's Day, 2020.  Does anyone have experience stopping their on January 1st?  If we don't want to do an organized excursion, will there be shops/restaurants/other sights that will be open around the tender pier?  TIA.

Guest 2000 and crewsweeper, thank you both for your comments.  🙂

We are hoping that folks in Cruisecritic land can share a comparison of their experience at the Mahogony Bay Beach area vs. time at Mayan Princess Resort booked as an excursion through the ship.  Did you feel like the Mahogony Bay beach area was over crowded?  How much of the excursion to Mayan Princess was taken up by the travel?  Was your experience at Mayan Princess any different than the resort guests?  Thank you in advance.

DW and I just returned from a 5 night cruise on Empress of the Seas. This was our 8th cruise, 2nd with Royal Caribbean. The previous RCCL cruise was 3 years ago on Independence. I thought we were approached with upselling for Chops and the Spa more times on this cruise than any other time we've cruised. Have others noticed this trend? Is it a trend throughout RCCL? Or just a unique initiative specific to Empress? Or were we "hit" more times because Empress is a smaller ship? We'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

We know it can vary, but would anyone care to share the time window for Self Debarkation on Empress of the Seas in Miami? We're arranging our own ride to the Miami airport so we would like to provide a pickup time to the shuttle service. Thanks for any info.

Doug

We are sailing on Empress in 23 DAYS (Woo hoo) and had not heard of this 10 drink special package. Thanks for the information. We are definitely planning to look into it.

Go Fly a Kite. Seriously. Take a trip out to the fort. Great for Kite flying. You can bring your own or buy one there.

 

You get to see and enjoy the town on your way out and back.

Would second this. On Sundays, the open space in front of El Moro becomes Kite World. Fantastic designs. And lots of picnic parties scattered all around the open space.

I believe Random wind averaged 100$ per.You also need cab back and forth to where they pick you up We've done it twice.liquer ,food all included.Great for all ages read website it has it all

We had a great time with Random Wind. We sailed close along Maho Beach and had those huge planes on approach passing right over the masthead. We'd do it again. But it tends to fill up fast.

I also agree about woodwind. Have used them twice.. Very professional and caring

Here's another vote for Woodwind. It's the only snorkeling tour I've been on where masks with corrective lens were offered for those of us that can use a little help enjoying the beautiful sights below the surface.

We loved our aft corner balcony on Independence of the Seas on our March, 2014 cruise, but it was two decks below what you're seeing. We were able to secure stateroom 7408 on the starboard side after getting tipped to it by Cruise Critic reviews. We would grab that cabin again in a heartbeat if we saw it available on a cruise that worked for us. I posted more about it in my review of that cruise. Good luck with your decision.

Thanks for reading!

 

As for the refrigerator, I do not recall one. I could be wrong however, we did not look for one. For parties, they have theme parties based on the decades nightly in the centrum, like 80s, 90s, etc. We enjoyed them and went every night! :D

These answers are helpful for our planning. We had heard of a "White-out" party. Did you see one of those on your cruise? Thanks again.

Thank you so much for your review with the pictures. We're booked in an Oceanview room on our first Empress cruise in March, 2017 to Labadee and Key West. Could you answer a couple questions? Was there a refrigerator in your room? And were there any theme party nights we could prepare for? Thanks again for your information.

Thanks everyone for the information. The overnight in PV was a big attraction to this itinerary. We're glad that we'll have the opportunity to enjoy the nightlife scene. :)

We've seen conflicting answers to this question so I'm hoping for some current clarification. We are cruising on Carnival Miracle in March with an overnight stop in Puerto Vallarta. How late at night will we be able to get back onboard Miracle on that night of our stop? Thanks for your answer.

I know questions about transportation from LAX are frequent threads on this forum but here's another one. We will be flying into and out of LAX with the Carnival Terminal in Long Beach as our embarkation and return site. There will be just two of us. We are undecided between the Carnival transfer, a shuttle service or a private car. Would anyone care to share experiences/reviews of options other than SuperShuttle and Primetime? We'd appreciate comments about 24-7 Ride, ONTime1, A1 Express, Zippy and Karmel. Thanks for your help.

We only had the plate of nachos and if our memory isn't too hazy they were $8USD. We thought the food quality and cost was reasonable. We had already planned to have a late lunch at a restaurant in town before going back onboard our ship so we didn't eat or drink much and did a la carte. As far as locker availability -- we didn't see any lockers, but we didn't ask about them so we may have overlooked them.

We did the ShoreExcursioneer tour S1728 to Papitos on January 1. Before I dissect our experience I want to say that we would definitely take this excursion again at this price with these options. As far as the transportation goes, we docked at Punta Langosta pier for our stop at Cozumel. Our pickup point was about a 10 minute walk from there down to directly in front of the Puerta Maya pier. We were given our Punta Sur Park admission bands before getting into our transportation. Our party of 4 had one regular commercial cab to ourselves for the approximate 30 minute trip to Papitos. We got to Papitos at about 10:00am. At that time there was plenty of room in lounge chairs under the umbrellas, but there always seemed to be plenty of space available. We thought the service at our chairs was excellent. The servers were readily available without being annoying. We felt that $16.00 for a bucket of 5 beers was certainly reasonable. Pictures on the website show dark patches in the water out from the shore. These are areas of a low growing sea "grass" that can seem to limit the area for walking and splashing. There's a large inflatable float platform anchored in about 3 feet of water. A school of fish was hanging out around the anchor rope that would make it a fun place for children to view some fish. We brought our own snorkel gear so did not use the vendor's equipment. We did not see any organized guided snorkeling tour during our 4 hours at Papitos, but possibly no one was interested during that time. The buoy marking the viewing at the reef area is about 250 yards off the beach. Bathrooms were adequate if not plush. We weren't aware of specific changing rooms and just changed in the bathrooms. We ran a tab at Papitos for our food and drink and paid for that and our excursion balance when we left. We made our arrangements with our taxi driver for our pickup time. We would suggest that you are clear whether that is the time you would like to be picked up or is the time you would like to be back at the pier. We didn't stop at the lighthouse or at the crocodile viewing area which aren't listed in the excursion, but arrangements with your driver might be made to do that for some extra compensation. Our comments might sound rather critical, but we had a great day at the beach at Papitos.

We are also booked through Shore Excursioneer for the tour on Jan. 1 with the transportation but without the AI or Open Bar. We will review it as soon as we get back. :)

These questions are exactly the same ones we have. Any opinion on whether the AI is worth it? Can anyone comment about the package with transportation option? And how much is the current taxi fare? Is that amount per person or for the cab? Thanks for any info.

Those look amazing! However, they were booked. We went ahead and booked a couple of rooms in the center of the hump.

We were able to upgrade to 7408 on IOS 3 weeks after our final payment date and just 8 weeks before our departure in two weeks. IMHO don't give up on moving to a cabin you'll enjoy more than the one you originally booked. Cabins open up all the time. I'd just check in regularly with your TA or RCI for any vacancies in other cabins you're interested in. Enjoy your cruise!

We stayed at Da House in Old San Juan the night before embarkation. It's small and can be a bit on the noisy side. Our room was clean with a private bathroom. If you want to try something different from the well known chain hotels, this one might be worth a look. It's within walking distance of both forts and the Columbus Square. On embarkation day, we had no problem leaving our luggage at the Front Desk while we did our site seeing before heading to the ship. We would stay there again. You can find reviews for it here on CC or Google Da House for more info and reviews.

I hadn't really thought about events that happened while cruising, but we've got a couple. On our very first cruise on Princess, the deadly December tsunami hit Indonesia (I think it was). With so many Asians as part of the crew, it was big news and a collection for relief donations was set up onboard. Then, the day before another cruise, we were inflight to our embarkation port when The Underwear terrorist bomber was caught flying into the US. We didn't know about that until the next morning prior to heading to the port. That one put a damper on our excitement for a while since it highlighted our vulnerability when we're in the air.