RedLightVegas

Hello all!

My friend and I are looking at booking one of these long weekend cruises on Mariner here in October. One of the stops on the cruise we're looking at is CocoCay. Can anyone who's been there recently tell me if the construction greatly impacted their visit? I'm assuming there are parts of the island that are closed off and the noise may be a factor. I've never been there before so I'm not even sure how big the place is.

I'd hate to visit right now if the majority of the island is a construction site.

LOL! :')

 

"Oh wow man! Cool Davy Jones costume!!"

 

 

"Umm, no, I have a cove balcony"

 

:D

I am dying!! :')

But that's honestly about how it felt! Luckily it wasn't elegant night!

If anyone is with you that eats meat, make sure you ask for extra. I got the alfredo and asked them to add chicken...I got one whole whopping strip of chicken buried right in the bottom. The waitress couldn't understand why I wanted more chicken.....

We were on Vista last week and it was S&S card with the same rates mentioned above. I would send my laundry out or do their "stuff in a bag for $15" special but they dry everything on high and most of my clothes are made out of super thin material (yay Florida clothes! LoL) so I hang them up after they're washed and rarely dry anything.

We threw our stuff in the washer, went and got breakfast, came back and hung it up in the room. Took a whole 10 minutes out of the day to hang it up.

We were on the Vista on the April 8th sailing and the last 2 sea days it was closed. There was no wind or any other weather condition that would've made them close it (weather was perfect and slides were open), now I know it was due to maintenance. We wanted to ride it again, but were told it was closed by every outdoor staff member :-(.

On the Vista last week the lunch was noon-2:30pm.

It's also conveniently located under the basketball court. :-)

This isn't a full review, just a quick little review and opinion on the cove balcony.

We just got off the Vista on Sunday. Before booking this we were determined to get a cove balcony. I researched locations (as I wanted to be in between lifeboats) and ended up booking room 2305, starboard side of the boat and in-between the first gap of lifeboats.

The cove is extremely private. When you lean out, you can't see into the person next door's balcony like you can with a standard balcony room. The balcony is spacious with more than enough room to walk around the two chairs and the table out there and the view down the side of the boat can't be beat.

Now, here goes the rest. Being close to the water line is awesome, sometimes. On the fifth night of our cruise we were sitting out, seas were a little rough (I think 6-8 feet). We'd just gotten ready for dinner, make up done, hair done, etc. Sitting out in the dark enjoying a pre-dinner drink when WAP! the wrath of Poseidon decided to make itself known. A large wave smacked the side of the boat and the very top of it came up over our balcony, soaking us both. We both sat there looking at each other like "WTH just happened?" when WAP! it happened again, except this time the wave brought Sargasso grass with it. We both get up and are standing there soaking wet with bits of grass all over us trying to decide if we should stay and see if it'll happen a third time, maybe this time bringing a squid or small shark with it....but alas, we went in. Both laughing and aggravated at the same time, got re-ready for dinner, and ended up going to get pizza.

The next night, the seas were also rough, and we heard water splash out against the window and door a couple of times (we had the curtains closed).

Also, a fair warning for anyone looking at room 2305, it's located under a crew service deck. 3-4 times they were out spraying that deck down and the runoff dripped down all over our balcony, soaking it in the process.

The balcony was constantly wet. Everything out there was sticky all the time, we'd go out there and sit in our robes since sitting in regular clothes resulted in a small layer of salt being left behind on everything. As a friend of mine said "Don't wear any clothes out there that you like...."

Chairs always had to be wiped off as well as the railing if you wanted to lean out on it. Overall, I think the idea of the cove is awesome and I know several people that LOVE them, but I don't think I found that love, at least with this room.

You can also get omelettes in the dining room if you choose to eat there.

Did the Allure last year and loved it. It was so spacious there were times you forgot you were on a boat. We're going in two weeks on Vista (for the itinerary) in our first cove balcony and are super excited! Can't wait! We were going to do Harmony of the Seas this year but it goes to all of the same places Allure did :-( Downside of being a huge ship I suppose.

Thanks for your review!

In many ports you will see people debarking and embarking with luggage. Most often they are entertainers, 'fly-ons' who board and do a few shows, debark and get on another ship in a day or so, or even the same day. EM

No, these were definitely passengers. A lot of families with children. When we got back on our next door neighbors and a group of people that took up about 5-6 cabins down the hall from us were no where to be found for the rest of the cruise.

Eeek. I hope they still give the paper Fun Times, I don't want to have to look at it on a phone and get alerts. Part of going on a cruise for me is getting away from my phone and away from the constant work, social media, and e-mail alerts.

I went on the Allure of the Seas last year. Our 2nd to last port was San Juan and there were SEVERAL people that got off here with all of their luggage. So I'm assuming you can do it.

I can also vouch for the Hampton Inn Ybor City.

You can take the trolley ($2/one way) from the hotel to the port in a matter of minutes and it's fun.

The hotel is on the edge of Ybor City which is full of bars and restaurants if you want something to do the night before the cruise.

Right now the only rewards I'm seeing for Carnival on MyVegas are for cruises. Nothing for an OBC.

Tie between the Liberty and the Miracle. I liked the layout, décor, and overall theme of the Miracle better but the service on Liberty was by far the best service I've ever received on a Carnival cruise (and it is a very pretty boat). We had an obstructed view ocean view room on the Miracle with the French doors and I loved it!

I can't remember our room number but I stayed in one of these on the Miracle and loved it. The French doors are awesome!

We were on the Vista recently and stayed in 2308 (cove balcony) and we did not have a lifeboat overhead. The extra light and view were very nice.

My observation was that our cabin, the one aft, and the 4 or 5 forward of us did not have lifeboats above. We did our homework about picking this cabin and it paid off for us.

Did our homework as well! We're in 2305 on the Vista in April! No lifeboat!

They canceled my reservation for April saying that some of the golf carts were damaged by a recent fire. We ended up getting another rental through MaxKart.

I live in Ft Lauderdale and can see the port from my condo. It's always Princess, HAL, and RC out of that port. Rarely is there a Carnival boat over there.

Maybe that 'petty' incident wasn't so petty after all. :D

It was old marijuana shake. It was petty.

im 206 days out and still no link to pick a time.

 

where exactly will i be looking

When you do the online check in and print off your cruise docs and everything it'll let you pick the time there. It's one of the first screens.

We live in Fort Lauderdale so we'll be driving to the port. We got the 11:30-12:30 arrival time which is perf.

Going on the Vista in April out of Miami. I've been reading through various reviews that there is now an assigned arrival time to the port?

If this is the case, are all ports doing this or just certain ones? When do you get assigned your arrival time?

I don't mean to sound dumb on this as I've always just arrived at the port around 10am and went right in, checked in, then sat in the lobby/waiting area until our boarding number or group was called. There was no assigned time on Allure last year either.

Oh and to add insult to injury. When we got off on debarkation day back in Ft Lauderdale, they scanned our Sign and Sail cards to leave the boat, and a message came off not to let us off. We had to leave the boat (with a group of about 20 other people) with the Dept of Homeland Security and they took us all into a side room, called us in one by one and searched our bags top to bottom again.

We're going on a cruise again in April and have already joked to be prepared to get searched multiple times and treated like criminals. ;-) By April it will have been almost 3 years since the incident happened.

A friend of mine and I were coming back from a cruise 2 1/2 years ago and got our bags searched because we didn't claim anything on the customs form coming back (it was a 3 day vacation to the Bahamas, we live in FL, we can go whenever and just didn't buy anything this time around). Anyway, they search our bags top to bottom and find the little little bit of marijuana shake at the bottom of my friends bag (it was just enough to cover the fingertip of a glove and who knows how old it was) and they got fined $500 for possession of an illegal substance. We paid the fine right there and moved on.

Anyway fast forward a year and we're on another cruise that stopped at San Juan. As we're opening the cabin door to leave to get off the boat two Dept of Homeland Security officers are standing there, asked us who we were and said "We need to search the room. Your name is on a list as we've had trouble with you before." Seriously?

So they search the room, bring up the incident that happened a year ago, we kind of laughed at it (because seriously it was something so petty a friggin year ago). They got mad when we didn't think it was that big of a deal then mumbled some derogatory remarks to each other in Spanish (my friend speaks Spanish and understood every word). Then left the room mad that they didn't find anything. One even made the remark that he was ready to arrest both of us to give him something to do.