JenMJM

So far, I have followed every single piece of advice given - only picking ones with (recent) reviews, 2 full bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, location on the map, wifi, washing machine, etc. So glad that I was already doing the right things for the past several months:)

I found an apartment on Rental in Rome that I love, and most of the other options are from VRBO or AirBnB.

Thank you, all, for your advice and thoughtful replies!

 

Hope you are looking in the historic city center……. you can walk to everything !

Our favorite area is Pantheon/Piazza Navonna.

Yes, we definitely are! There are several absolutely amazing properties in Rome and a couple in Venice (in terms of beauty, architecture, functionality, and location) but lots of other great plan Bs and Cs, too.

I'll start narrowing the list over the next week or so and send out some feelers. Thanks so much for the feedback!

Our first visit to Europe will be next October. We have the cruise booked, and we know we want to stay 3 nights in Rome before and then take a train to Venice to stay 3 nights after the cruise. We are going with another couple and want to rent apartments in both cities. I have a pretty large list of interesting properties that meet our criteria, but I don't know at what point I should really start narrowing down the two lists and send out booking inquiries.

Is a year too far ahead? Should I wait until our flights are booked next year (which could be in May or June)? Thoughts, please, from anyone who has been through this process:confused:

Enjoyed your review. I was on Freedom the week before you. Another thing I noticed was how steep the ramp is for embarkation and debarkation. I saw a few passengers struggling with that, and I can imagine how difficult that must be with a wheelchair. I've never seen one that steep in my 30 cruises.

Exactly! Hot, steep, and narrow.

We're the steakhouse up charge options available in mdr..any menu photos

I don't recall seeing those options.

We just returned from a stop in San Juan on the Carnival Freedom. We will be staying in the Condado area in October pre-cruise and will be with friends borrowing his dad's car while we're there. Since it was our first time there, we wanted to see the city.

We got off the ship, stopped at a Starbucks for WiFi (we had a very difficult time getting our Verizon phones set up correctly in SJ), and then walked up to Castillo San Cristobal. Cost was $5 each for both forts. After Cristobal, we waited about 10 minutes for the next HOHO trolley, and it took us all the way up the long driveway to the entrance of del Morro. Lots of really cool places to explore for the physically fit on a hot day. I saw a lot of people wearing Old Navy-style flip-flops and couldn't imagine how they did all that walking and climbing in them. I had on my Teva sandals and did just fine with those. If you've never been, be prepared for a lot of steps and uphill/downhill slopes. We covered a lot of ground just in the forts alone.

For lunch, I got a text from a friend recommending Cafe Manolin. We stopped for lunch. The place was packed, but we were able to grab two seats at the first bar area. Beside us were two border control officers and a local who told us his father had been eating there since the '60s. We could tell there were a lot of local employees stopping there to have lunch by themselves or with co-workers, so we knew the food must be good. The hubs had the Churrasco steak, and I had shrimp mofongo. Both dishes were absolutely delicious.

I got a text from another friend who recommended finding one of the street vendors pushing a cart with 3 different flavors of ice cream (not really ice cream but that's the best way I know how to describe it - maybe more like a sherbet?). It's $2 for a cup, and I followed my friend's advice and tried the parcha flavor, passion fruit. Very good and refreshing. We came across two other vendors like the first one while walking the streets.

Finally, we had stopped in the infamous CVS to scope out the wine selection for our October trip. I'll be asking our friends to take us to either a wine shop or a grocery store at the least for our cruise wine. I don't want to fly down with wine, so fingers crossed we have better luck at a better store.

Since we'll have a car on the next trip and will be with friends who are from there, we're hoping to do a lot more exploring:)

How was the live music on the Freedom? Who and how was the band that played in the casino? Any good guitar players in the Red Frog Pub? Did you go to the piano bar? If so, who and how was piano player? Thanks!:)

I don't pay attention to names much, but the guy with the guitar was pretty good. He sang on Lido and other areas around the ship. The band that played in the casino and Red Frog Pub were ok. Not bad at all, but just not super impressive.

We aren't piano bar people on ships so I can't comment on the talent. The piano is in a room next to Alchemy Bar. I don't recall seeing a bar area in the actual piano lounge when we wandered through.

NC TribeFan - I don't post much on the CC roll call and have just recently started posting more on that other page. I'm from Akron originally. We did your itinerary on the Breeze. Here is that direct link: http://sunshinenwine.blogspot.com/search/label/Southern%20Caribbean%20Ports

I swear the Punchliner logo was still on the menu, and the menu was exactly the same as before. I didn't really enjoy the comedians at brunch, anyway, so no loss there.

As for "88 Key," I definitely wasn't expecting much since the other show we saw wasn't that great. Glad we went, though, because it was awesome!

Thanks for posting, 12 days and counting! :D Any shore excursions you'd recommend? Favorite foods in MDR?

Check my blog for my port write-ups. The Freedom review is the one at the top and has information on what we did at our ports. I don't know what your itinerary is, but feel free to peruse more of the cruise blog posts if you are looking for ideas outside of Antigua, St. Thomas, and San Juan.

Favorite food in the main dining room: cheese plate as one of my apps, chateau briande (sp?), lamb, prime rib, cappuccino ice cream pie, and the grand marnier souffle on the last night. We ate a LOT more than that, but those are the ones that stick out most in my mind right now without looking at a menu.

I have different information written up in my latest blog post, but here is our trip summary.

Embarkation:

Parking: Park N Go Fort Lauderdale - awesome!

Check-in at Port: Quick through the security check - didn't even open up our bag full of Coke and Sprite or ask about the 2 bottles of wine. Slowed way down standing in line for the actual check-in. They ran out of ice water in the waiting area. - just OK

Luggage - not delivered to our room until almost 6PM. We checked in around noon.

Dining:

Ate in the Steakhouse on the first night - best experience yet with both food and service BUT our reservations were at 6:30. The diners with the 7:30 and after reservations were there for 3 hours versus our comfortable and well-timed 2 hours.

We had YTD. First two nights in MDR in two different sections - both were sloooooow. Lucked out the 3rd night with Yatna from Indonesia in the back right section of Chic. Requested his section for the rest of the trip. No complaints about the food - overall very good every night. Almost never a line getting to dinner around 6:30.

I noticed that the eggs on the buffet at breakfast were never rubbery or strange. They were the best scrambled eggs consistently on Carnival so far. The tacos at Blue Iguana - wish I could find some like them close to home.

A disappointment - I really wanted the coconut shrimp in the Red Frog Pub, but the Freedom's RFP doesn't have a kitchen.

7441 Interior: AC was just fine, never had an issue with noise. Room is in great shape.

Entertainment:

Took advantage of the Dive-in Movies for the first time. Loved that as a night activity option.

Shows in main lounge were hit or miss. "88 Keys" was fantastic.

The comedians put me to sleep at the beginning of the cruise, and we didn't find time to go back for the second set of comedians. There were also no comedian visits during the Punchliner brunches.

Around the ship:

The CHOGs didn't seem to be too bad. If there were towels on chairs, you usually saw the people back and forth on them.

Public areas were all nice and clean. The new sanitation stations on the pool deck by Guy's were interesting. Automatic soap/water/dryer.

Went to the gym four times - always clean, and everyone was very respectful. Never too busy to find somewhere to lift or grab an elliptical.

Cruise director - Jen Baxter - just OK.

Debarkation:

Sloooooow with a long line at customs to look forward to. The ramp on/off the ship seemed to be causing a large back-up since there were so many wheel-chaired guests. The top of the ramp is narrow enough for only one person, so lines stop when wheel chairs are coming and going. The ramp is also quite hot with no moving air.

Overall:

Would definitely cruise the Freedom again out of Fort Lauderdale. We had a very relaxing trip with very few children and a lot of very nice retirees due to the time of year.

I found WCT Antigua on Trip Advisor, and the reviews on there were great. I haven't really seen any on here, though, which I found a little strange. They have a 3-hr boat and snorkel tour that leaves from Jolly Beach for $65pp.

Anyone familiar with this tour operator?

And do you know how much the bus is to take from the port to JB? Is it pretty easy?

Thanks for replies:)

My husband and I booked a cheap 8-day on the September 6 Freedom on Monday. This is the first time we are gambling with Inside Guarantee - we usually pick our own inside room. I have read through posts below that it's a crap shoot with what we'll end up in, and that's OK. I'm wondering, though, how I will be notified when our room is assigned.

Will CCL send me an email or will I need to keep checking my booking on the website?

Is it usually a month before? 2 weeks before? Day of? Just curious to see if there has been a set timeline in the past. Thanks, all!

Thank you, all, for your replies! I'm feeling much more informed than when I posted the original question. :)

I'm going to take issue with your terminology here, but all in an effort to save you money :D. You do NOT want one-way tickets to/from FCO or VCE; if you fly into one and out of the other, you want to purchase an open-jaw, which you can search for using the multi-city or equivalent option on any airfare search engine. That will give you pricing for half of each RT ticket, rather than OW pricing which is usually much higher for most airlines.

 

I like the FCO-train-VCE option, just because it minimizes travelling time, but going back to FCO by train wouldn't be horrible either. I'm going to throw out another possibility, just because of the good pricing we've seen recently - flying RT to Milan-MXP. Both Rome and Venice are easy to reach from Milan by train.

I am completely unfamiliar with open-jaw, so I will check that out. I was considering Milan as an option as well. Thank you!

If you look on the Italy board, there is tons of info, and lots of experts.

 

Venice is an expensive airport to fly out of. That is why we did the Rome RT.

That's what I had heard, too, hence the third option. I will definitely pop over to the Italy board to search for more info on this topic. Double thanks!

We're Europe first-timers, and I need a little advice. There are a few ways we can do this, but I'm not sure what would be the best and/or most cost-effective option. Help, please!

We booked a 12-day out of Rome and will be flying in a couple days early to spend time in the city pre-cruise. Once we're back in Civi from the cruise, we want to spend a couple days in Venice before flying back home to Florida.

Option 1: Fly OW to Rome from US. Take a train from Rome to Venice post-cruise. Fly OW out of Venice to US.

Option 2: Fly OW to Rome from US. Take a local flight from FCO to VCE post-cruise. Fly OW out of Venice to US.

Option 3: Book RT tickets to Rome. Then fly or take a train RT between FCO and VCE post-cruise. (not sure if this option may be cheaper because of the RT tickets, but it does seem to be a little more complicated and lengthy.)

If none of these are fantastic options, can you share your thoughts and experiences? Thanks!

Great feedback. Thanks,all!

Thank you so very much for your reply! I had my friend sign up for an account on cruise critic so he could read our roll call and post, but I will send him the link above. Appreciate you taking the time:)

We are cruising next October with another couple (2 men), and they are really excited about Italy and Greece. One of them has been to Europe with his parents several times; however, they both seem very unsure of Kusadasi as a cruise stop and are thinking about not getting off the ship. I'm OK with whatever they decide to do for their own comfort level.

I've asked a couple of other friends who have been to Turkey on cruise stops and I googled it briefly before posting this, but is there a reason for them to feel worried? It seems that the general belief is that this stop will not be friendly for them. If they are just being themselves and not too crazy with PDA (like you'd hope any visitor to a country might be, whether gay, straight, or green), would they be OK? They are really nervous that they will be shunned as soon as they step off the boat, and I know nothing about this port. My husband and I are planning an Ephesus excursion with a private tour company. Thoughts?

A few years ago, we used Pirates for our Zip N Dip. They dropped us off at Parrot Tree. Their little bay is right behind the breaking wall, so snorkeling there wouldn't be something I'd suggest. Their pool is nice, and they have a conveniently placed bar/restaurant right on the beach. I really don't remember seeing any kids at all the day we were there. The resort was not busy at all.

This past March, we used Victor Bodden and went snorkeling at West Bay in front of Infinity Bay Resort. There is definitely much more going on in that vicinity. If you want to have access to a pool, you will need a day pass. The snorkeling there, though, is really fantastic right off the beach. Your grandkids would love it, I think.

Thanks!

Sorry if this question has been asked and answered before:o We booked a Mediterranean cruise for 2015, and this will only be our second RC cruise. For Carnival, I always go to ".com/bookingengine/fareviewer" to look for price drops. Is there a quick link like this for RC?

 

Sure…. we used Lefty !!!! Here is his website

 

http://www.greecetravel.com/crete/taxitours/index.html

 

He quoted us an hourly rate…. so you can tour as much as your wallet wants to ;) I believe we paid 40 euros per hour but not sure if his rate is still the same.

 

The second visit to Crete he was already booked but sent a friend and we were just as happy with him as we were with Lefty….. well almost :p

 

Thank you!

We've been twice now and booked a private tour both times…… both times they were outstanding. I can give you the name of the company we used if you ask for it……. don't want to break any rules !

QUOTE]

 

Yes, please! Your first tour sounds like a great option for a first visit. Do you remember the cost?

Just there at CC a few weeks ago. We walked off the water taxi with another couple who were going for snorkeling. They walked with down the front street until they found a company they had seen mentioned on this board. There were quite a few tour options lined up looking for business. I remember walking by Ragamuffin and recognizing the name from here. There are a ton of options along the beach.

I just checked "Activities" on the Caye Caulker section of Trip Advisor and saw a few options listed that might interest you. Hope this link works: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g291963-Activities-c25-Caye_Caulker_Belize_Cayes.html