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nolatravelgirl

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Everything posted by nolatravelgirl

  1. Disney has a deluxe family room that sleeps 5.
  2. There is nobody policing where your beverage came from since you are free to move about the ship with an open container. They don't know if you got that glass from your room or from another bar on the ship. We had late dining so I always brought a glass of wine with me to the show. I did order a glass of wine with dinner and then swung by my room and did a refill to bring to the lounge later in the evening. Also remember that you can bring on two bottles of wine per person at each PORT. With the generous carry on policy, I really didn't spend all that much on drinks around the ship.
  3. why not just leave it with the bell desk at your hotel?
  4. As others mentioned, you can get a token at the bar when you are finished drinking at the end of the each night or really anytime you want. Secondly, on your last night, if you want to keep you mug then you can turn your dirty one into the bartender and they will give you a clean on to pack in your bag as a souvenir.
  5. It isn't booked via Disney but it is super easy to get a taxi to Paradise Beach Club. We really enjoyed our time there. It wasn't crowded and included all your drinks and food for one set price. My sister and BIL got a massage for like a third of what you would pay on the ship. The differentiator for this beach club is all the food is served to you by waiters and ordered via a menu. Open air buffets always give me the creeps. https://www.paradisebeachcozumel.com/
  6. Seabourn is pretty amazing with sourcing items for guests. On my first Seabourn cruise, we were going out of Miami and didn't know about even requesting items so I stopped off at a grocery store and bought my favorite Diet Dr. Pepper so I could have one a day. I don't know if they regularly stock it but it showed up in the bars around the ship and was on my future cruises and I know I didn't ever request it. I am sure I looked like "country come to town" but on that first cruise packing a case of DDP. They tagged it like luggage at the pier and it showed up in my room. 😄
  7. I would reconsider Playa Mia as it has lots of people who are on ship sponsored excursions. I would recommend checking out Paradise Beach Club as the food at Playa Mia was pretty dodgy IMHO. I liked that everything you order at Paradise is served by a waiter. They will also serve it to you poolside.
  8. If it isn't a Very Merry cruise I wouldn't expect the ship to fully transform overnight but they will be transitioning between removing all the Halloween and adding in the Christmas. I would plan for each day beyond Halloween that each night a different area will be transformed to Christmas.
  9. You don't have to dress up for any night of the cruise but I think it is nice to be a little spiffier in the evening. There is no need to pack evening gowns and tuxedos but at a minimum pack a nice sundress for the lady and a pair of chinos and collared shirt for the man will give you a little polish for a nice evening.
  10. Our local grocery always gives out these 6 bottle wine totes that are reusable. I have way too many and are perfect for carrying onboard. They are similar to these and are easy to pack. I trust these more than the wine shop bags. I think most cruise lines request that you carry onboard as they need to make sure you are of age.
  11. The short 7 day Med cruises tend to skew to a younger crowd, and my personal opinion, that is mostly smart dress in the evening but not would I consider stuffy formal. I think of it as what you would wear out to a nice downtown steakhouse in a major metro area. If you could convince your husband to carry a single sport coat you would be welcome in any venue on formal evening. I have sailed Azamara and found the dress to be similar and think you will enjoy Seabourn. I just finished a Silversea cruise and what I missed most was many of the evening deck parties and different evening socials that seemed so prevalent on Seabourn and Azamara.
  12. Disney is unique in that it allows you two at each port as well! I would always pour a glass before heading to the show and also poured one to carry into the dining room, which did help lower the costs since there is no drinks package on DCL. I did buy some drinks around the ship but having the wine helped with the sting of buying drinks onboard.
  13. I am not sure if there are staffing issues or what but we were on the Muse over 4th of July and every restaurant was out of reservations for pre-booking. We went went straight to the maitreD upon embarkation and they gave us the same song and dance about "we can add you to the waitlist" and our butler was of zero help in securing reservations. We did finally clear waitlists but it was irritating to not know till late in the afternoon as to whether we had won the reservation lottery on the daily. I too found it bizarre that every restaurant that required reservations was strangely empty. The thing that irritated us the most was we were seated right by the entrance at La Dame that sorta killed the mood. I figured the other tables were all just allocated but the only other table that was sat after us was directly next to us so we could hear their entire conversation even though there were 8 or more other tables they could have been sat at.
  14. If they are going to have that big of an upcharge then they need to really improve the quality of the food and service at La Dame. I was unimpressed at $60 and would have been super pissed had I paid $160 per person.
  15. If you do decide to go with the waterproof pouch be sure to add a floatie handle just in case. You can also just leave it in your beach bag. Plenty of people will be doing the same thing. It does take a bit of trust in your fellow man but I haven't had any issue.
  16. Interesting that Kaiseki can be such a different experience between the different ships. I only had one SS cruise that just wrapped over 4th of July but plenty of Seabourn. The lobster was the highlight but the steak was so thin that it was practically impossible to serve it medium rare. We were very disappointed with most of the food on board.
  17. I agree that it was somewhat stressful and did not make for an enjoyable cruise. Like I said before, we did eventually get in all the places, it just didn't feel relaxing. Secondly, everyone said online "just have your butler handle it" but he was of no use in securing reservations. Perhaps we just had a dud of a butler. Even talking to the maître d, it did not yield any better results other than "we can add you to the waitlist." My other issue with the multiple restaurants is I didn't feel like they executed any of them particularly well and they were trying to do too many things and doing them all with fairly mediocre results. I think the multiple specialty restaurants works better on bigger ships but trying to execute 7 different restaurant concepts on one ship was too many.
  18. I just got off the SS Muse in Alaska and would pick Seabourn over SS but would sail SS if the itinerary were right. For example, we are planning a trip to The Galapagos and Seabourn does not go there. Here were my main observations with Silversea Having to make dinner reservations every night made it so chaotic and less spontaneous. Most restaurants were waitlist only so we had to play the waitlist lottery every day in hopes that we got a call. We did get into all the dining venues eventually so it did work out but I hated that it was like playing the lottery every evening. Having two upcharge restaurants just cheapens the experience of a luxury line. I can see limiting people to one per sailing till everyone who wants a reservation can get one but nickel and diming just reeks of mass market Kaiseki, the upcharge Japanese dinner grill, was chef's kiss yummy. The lobster was probably the best thing I ate on the ship. I think it helped that we had the first seating and were seated at the grill and saw all the food freshly prepared. There were other lobsters just hanging out on the grill. I am sure they got over done as the night wore on. I don't get why they were prepping more lobster than they even had of people currently seated. Lunch at Kaiseki was very basic. There was only sushi and no ramen bowls like I had seen on other menus. I asked about getting some edamame knowing that it was on the dinner menu but was told it was only available at dinner. Even the cheap sushi places near me will give edamame. The spicy tuna roll was crazy spicy and the sushi chef did make me a basic tuna roll so that was nice. Silver Note was listed as last seating was 11pm. We had a 9pm reservation and were the last people seated. We saw others come up to the host stand asking for availability and were turned away but could come in and listen to the music. If it is just a bar after X hour then list it that way. The food in Silver Note was more form over function. It was all very artsy on the plate and ridiculously dark but the food just did not live up to the hype. The poor lobster on my plate died in vain. It was so dry and tough. I feel like it was sitting on some hot line just waiting to be served. We had barely gotten our apps and the main dishes were in front of us. The dinner menu only changes every 3 days in Atlantide so if you didn't win the reservation lottery then you were SOL and had the same menu. Breakfast pastries were definitely not made fresh on board. My suspicions were confirmed when we checked into the Marriott in downtown Anchorage and had the exact same breakfast pastries that were served every morning in the various venues. The little bear claw was delicious but it got repetitive. Bread selection at lunch and dinner were the same in every venue, even in La Dame. There were some additional bread twists in La Dame and focaccia in La Terrazza at the dinner service but otherwise nothing special or different. Ordered the lamb in La Dame that was supposed to medium rare and it came medium well. There was no pink left. Again an animal died in vain. There were enough courses that I didn’t send it back. The lunch/breakfast buffet seemed very disorganized. There was the waffle/egg station but it had a sign to order those items from your waiter. There was never a menu on the breakfast/lunch tables telling you what you could and couldn't order from the secret waiter menu. Waiters struggled with English and if you wanted to something that wasn't a click button on their iPad then they struggled with entering it into the computer. Many things came out wrong. La Terrazza was LOUD as it has tile floors and granite tables with no tablecloths for breakfast or lunch. I had a headache after sitting in there from all the clanging of dishes. Nobody ever addressed us by name in any venue. They would always ask for a suite number so it was clearly in their iPad but all the service seemed impersonal. I don’t think we ever saw the same waiter or bartender twice. The only person I recall seeing multiple times was the lady in the Art’s Café and she never remembered us. Waiters and servers were scampering all over in the dining venues but it was never clear what anyone's job was and we struggled with basically who was doing what. Seabourn has very clear roles in dining venues. Nothing seemed cooked to order. While there is nothing wrong with that, it just felt very mass market to me. Seabourn is much more bespoke and cooks to order Waiters never seemed to know much about what they were serving. I asked a server what one of the bread selections was and he picked it up with his tongs looked at it and said "walnut" so I took it and then bit into it and it was olive bread. This was in Atlantide for lunch. Food was prepped way too early. The buffet restaurant is supposed to turn into this fancy Italian restaurant in the evening, yet when we walked in you could see easily 40 bread baskets and 40 charcuterie trays ready to be plopped down on tables. The bruschetta and tapenade bread was stale and chewy as it had clearly been made hours before service even began. I love that Art’s Café has a rotating selection of snacks. They were changing at least one or two options every couple of hours. On the days we were working puzzles for hours we would keep popping over to see what was new in the case. Seabourn could increase the variety in Seabourn Square Dolce Vita seemed like a completely cavernous and wasted space. It wasn’t ever clear what it’s purpose was for. We went there for muster drill and for one sea day sing along. There were plenty of bars around but none of them felt inviting to sit at. You would have to go up and order your drink and they would come and eventually deliver it. They rarely ever came around to see if you wanted a refill. The “you can order room service anywhere” was a comical disaster the one time we tried it in the Panorama Lounge. We ordered caviar and he kept saying it was coming and we waited over an hour. We finally gave up and went back to the suite. There sat the caviar and the ice around the little jar was all melted. Hot Rocks is fun and I would do it again. Very good steak and shrimp. Drink orders were never remembered. My friend was pretty much only drinking non-alcoholic champagne and every evening they would have to go hunt it down and seemed surprised that she was ordering it. On Seabourn it was always so different. The suite and bathroom were lovely and on par with what I would expect for a luxury line. I actually preferred that it had only had one sink as it increased the counter space which is always limited in a cruise bathroom. The two sinks are nice if you are in a larger suite with more room The balcony furniture on SS was slightly less comfortable than Seabourn. Seabourn has chairs with adjustable backs on the patio and the table is smaller on which makes it pretty hard to enjoy breakfast on the balcony. The convertible dining table in the living room is brilliant. Having a glass oval coffee table is nice as it increases traffic flow but when you order a meal they convert it with this table top thing that doubles the space on the table. Seabourn should take note. The robes were warm and thick. They were perfect for the cooler Alaska climate There was no deck party or sail away party. I don’t need a belly flop contest but it is fun to have a little initial sail away celebration. It was just such a non-event on SS. Included excursions were nice but if you went on one of the “select” excursions you pay nearly full price. It wasn’t like you got some sort of huge discount. For example we could have booked the sea plane excursion on our own for $430 but the cost on board was $399 however one of the “included” excursions had a value of $189 so why didn’t I get a credit of $189 against my select excursion? Bundled pricing just doesn’t seem to be that good of a deal. I am sure it is lucrative for them but they make it seem such a good deal but in my opinion the only person who wins is SS. I would rather they unbundle excursions and just charge those separately. It worked out well for Alaska as we were interested in doing many tours but that isn’t always the case in some ports. All the excursions were extremely well organized and they had quality excursion vendors. We never felt herded or smushed onto mass transportation. There was supposed to be a pillow menu that we never saw. I didn’t need a different pillow but one was never offered. Our butler was nice but I didn’t see a big purpose. On the days leading up to Skagway he kept commenting that the buffet would open early at 6am since many excursions would be departing at 7am. Apparently room service (which is handled by the butler) was slammed. Thankfully, we had only ordered cold items and got our breakfast on time. He said a lot people with 6am orders were still waiting on food as the kitchen window for room service was jammed. A little heads up to say continental breakfast would be a better choice would have been nice.
  19. Why did they have to reduce the capacity of the Xpedition? I have seen conflicting reports of 96 or 48 passengers on board. Have they just closed off an entire row of rooms? I was thinking the Xpedition was something in size between the Flora and the Xploration. I just got off a Silversea cruise to Alaska and wasn't all that impressed with what they deem luxury so not sure I am willing to pay the premium. I know the maximum passenger count can only be 100 but does it make a difference in how many landings and activities you do in a day. Do the smaller ships do more stops/excursions per day than the bigger ships?
  20. You have to have timed tickets to enter the Tower of London. It really is an interesting tour and worth the time. The tours are given by the Beefeaters.
  21. I thought it may be helpful for others to see the Daily Chronicles for the Alaska cruise on the Muse. For some reason I forgot to download the Ketchikan day but I have all the rest. 🙂 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XXaSktIrKoPvMIrb-GUiNDUIzqyj1Vbh?usp=sharing
  22. I have done cruises on Disney, NCL, Seabourn, Azamara and while we loved the Disney cruise I could have taken the whole family on a luxury cruise line for the price of what we paid for Disney. Granted we did a 7-day Wonder of NYE so it was probably the most expensive week of the year. We did a 7-day cruise on the NCL Breakaway for Spring Break for less than half the cost of the Disney cruise and this included the drink package and specialty dining. There was plenty for kids to do as well as plenty for adults. I think it is great to try different lines and different itineraries. I don't want to have the same vacation over and over. I want to experience new and unique things. Look at the ship's amenities as not all ships are created equal.
  23. You will not miss the fireworks if you have late dining. We loved late dining as we were all fresh and lively for the early show. We would grab a snack from pool deck and then would freshen up for dinner/show. If you have early dining then you see the late show. If you have late dining you get to see the early show entertainment. Pick your poison, do you want sleepy kids in the show? The Broadway style shows were a must do for us. Also, if you have late dining then they can do "express dining" for the kids and if you would like the kid's club staff will pick up your kids which allows the adults to have a leisurely dessert and after dinner cocktail. The other bonus of late dining is that the fireworks and pirate show are between early and late dining. Because we had late dining we were able to stake out prime viewing spots for the show/fireworks. The show fireworks are scheduled for 7:30-8:15PM. The early diners were rushed and got less desirable spots since they were finishing dinner. After the fireworks then late diners make their way to the dining room for dinner. You don't miss anything. Even my brother-in-law who is usually an early dinner kind of guy agreed that late dinner was great, even with an 8 year old.
  24. I don't think you are missing out on much by not just booking port-to-port. It looks like you would probably be better off just booking your own flights and car service. I would confirm that your fare actually includes hotels pre/post cruise. The difference is $4,100 dollars. You can book Delta today for about $1300pp, so $2600 which leaves you with $1,500. With the remaining $1500 you could book some fairly nice hotels and get an Uber Black to/from the airport. The other bonus would be you would know exactly what flights you are on today and could research which fare are upgradeable.
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