cruisecraze96

should have actually looked before posting 🙂 never mind just saw someone posted them!!!  YEAH

On 1/31/2019 at 12:26 PM, Cruisin Trkrs said:

Okiedokie. We sail from 2/9-2/16. Probably going to spend a couple days in Jax with our oldest daughter and our SIL before we come back home. Lol messaging me to remind around that time would be great!😁 

Hope you had a great trip. Pretty neat to be sailing with John and we saw several of his videos during the week.  

We have done both RCCL and CCL and love both of them.  I feel the food is better on CCL and I recommend trying the steak house.  If you like comedy I also prefer that on CCL but get there early to get in line because it will fill up fast and there are no reservations.

Quest can be a blast, been to ones that are really raunchy and others that are more tame, saw lots of people just hanging out and watching too.  

We we loved the Dream and also recommend getting a spa pass (on sale now)  to enjoy that area more.  

Hope you have a great trip !

We had a suite on NCL Pearl with the forward and side balcony. It was great when going through Glacier Bay but that is it. Otherwise they had the front locked down so you could not use it.  At least it had a side balcony too  it it was very windy too.  Because of that I would not book a room like that again. 

On our trip one of our group was nicely asked for their family to change into long pants.  They even said jeans are fine, but no shorts.   I would either get pants, or my youngest prefers to eat with the camp that night :) 

Ouch , thankfully ours was only the 1 day and night and they honestly skirted around it so we did not get the banging that I noticed.  

On a positive I am glad it did not deter you from crusing again 🙂 

Cove balcony’s are below the life boats nd closer to the water.  It tends to be cooler because you are enclosed in more. 

We we had a cove on the Vista and this is just my thoughts on it. 

* it was neat to be close to the water

* it feels more private and quieter than a normal balcony 

* I would have rather had more direct sun 

* We had to dodge a hurricane so they moved all the patio furniture into our room and locked the doors and windows so you could jot use it or get light

Depending on the ship but I found my favorite is the balcony rooms we get on the Breeze in the Spa Balcony on deck 11 forward.  For me I don’t think I would book a cove again.  

Good to know, normally it is grandma bringing the girls back on the ship so we have never had that issue but this next cruise in March my brother and his family have 2 rooms and so I will need to make sure my SIL is set up to take the twins off.  I would hate for my brother to go do something and then she is unable to leave the ship.

Luckily NCL did not have that since my mom did take my youngest off to see the Lumberjack show while we went Bear watching.

When we have booked them in the past they allowed us to book up to 3 cabins under the Military Rate and each cabin received I think $50 pr $100 OBC with the ones we did.  We haven't used it recently but that was the last trip a year and half ago that we did that with.  

I have been on 3, all 3 were larger ships on both CCL (Dream, Breeze) and RCCL (Allure) and not one time did we feel it was overly crowded.  We actually prefer to do a cruise over spring break just because we have enjoyed ourselves more than trying to do Disney, beach, etc.

Kids, yes lots of kids but we have 2 and they really enjoyed all the new friends they made. My oldest daughter still has a few contacts that she talks to from previous trips we have taken.  The ones I have taken, we never experienced any issues with drunken out of control college kids.  Sadly I saw more bad behavior during a summer cruise than I have on the Spring Break ones.

I think part of what you want to look for though is the length of the cruise and price, even though we had our fair share of the college group we had more families because we were always on 7 or 8 day cruises that tend to cost more.  I feel from what I have heard in the past the shorter less expensive cruises tend to draw more of the hard core let's go to Mexico and Drink crowds (not that it is a horrible thing for them, fun to watch).

We tend to cruise during peak seasons, Spring Break and Summer just because it is easier to get off as a family and go.  We will be on the Breeze this Spring Break and I already have the Magic booked for the next one.

We were looking at the large vista suites in the front but we cruised in Alaska this summer and had one of the suites with a front balcony and never was able to use it except for the day in Glacier Bay and then a little on day 1.  They even had it set to lock so we could not use it when the ship was moving to fast.  Yes it was a smaller ship but that is why we decided to go with the Aft Vista suite instead.

I never thought that a larger ship would mean a difference in how the wind impacts you on the balcony.  Will be interested, and who knows maybe we change or if we do a repeat we get one 🙂

7 hours ago, Cruisin Trkrs said:

Okiedokie. We sail from 2/9-2/16. Probably going to spend a couple days in Jax with our oldest daughter and our SIL before we come back home. Lol messaging me to remind around that time would be great!😁 

Thanks so much!  Hope you have a great trip!

If anyone has recently sailed or will be sailing on the Breeze out of Port Canaveral heading toward the Eastern Intinerary our group would really appreciate sharing the weeks Fun times.  We know things change but we are all just super excited to start over planning.  

8 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

 

Vista doesn’t have a thalassotherapy pool. It just has a smaller hot tub located by the heated lounge chairs.  

Yes, thank you. I should have said lack of :)    I was thinking of that hot tub

I loved our spa room on the a breeze and booked a spa suite for our next trip in March. I really enjoyed just relaxing and using the T pool.  I was not impressed with the one on the Vista. 

If you do book a room you get access included for 2 adults, a scrub, slippers, and then some cloud 9 toiletries (the linen spray was my favorite). At least that used to be it, but as we know things change so check online too. 

I have been on both and prefer the Dream class ships with the Carnival Breeze being my favorite, going for third time in March .

For me I did not like the ship layout and prefer the piano bar, comedy club, Main lounge, and night club layouts more on the Dream class.  

If your a spa person, I get the spa rooms and the thermal spa was lacking on the Vista as well and the speciality restaurants seemed so compact. 

On positive for Vista I did like the sky bike, my youngest still talks about beating me on it. The new Havana and Family rooms with their areas were nice, we had rooms in both spots and the family lounge was a great hit.  I just was not a fan of the atrium and the shows were hard to watch with the seating layout. 

 I have thought about trying the Panorama or Horizon but tend to go back to other ships each time.

We have left. the kids in the camp on a Port Day to do an excursion that was not something they would be into. On Port days they do offer lunch if your not back by then. 

On sea days they close at lunch but my youngest loved eating dinner with her friends instead of the long dinner in the MDR.  

Also the late night parties were so much fun. Both girls prefer CCL kids programs over other lines we have tried.  

I just checked the spring break site , https://www.ststravel.com/college-spring-break-dates

Look like a lot of the big FL schools will be out the week of the 9th. so we since your 2nd trip starts midweek before that you should be ok. 

We cruise during spring break but usually on the 7 or 8 day cruises that cost more so less college kids and more families. They have always been fun and not super crazy. 

My oldest is 16 now and she agrees to go the first night since that is when you meet others and form groups.  Our rule is dinner with the family as well as other family things like see who can get Aunt Kathy through the sky course 🙂 she has made many friends over the years and are still friends online with several.  She like CCL the best so far, she was not a fan of the other programs as much. Next trip will be her first time in Club O2 so we will see if she still enjoys it.  

8 hours ago, Bosrox said:

If you have passports (Canadians) do you even need to take birth certificates?

No, if you have a passport then you don't need the birth certificate.  Only that and a Visa, depending on home country. 

On 11/13/2018 at 3:35 PM, mscinmia said:

While this is a good idea it will take some time to retrieve the luggage if left with the porters.....Personally I tell guests to take a picture of their BC and send it to the cloud.  This way it can be retrieved fairly quickly and can be emailed and printed out quickly.

My oldest turned 16 and we went down to get her adult passport. The very nice lady at the post office told her the same with that.  She told her as soon as she gets it make a copy and take a picture and make sure people not on a trip have them in case something happens or she can go online and retreive.  

We had the room next to it, 2409.  The girls had a lot of fun going to see what was to eat for snacks and saw several families playing games.  

We were on the Vista in a Family Harbor Suite and I was worried about the noise too.  We never had any issue throughout the week and my BIL that had an interior room also had no issues with the noise from above.  

I really enjoyed this area with the extra family lounge. My kids loved going down and getting milk before bed and I loved the cappuccino machine 🙂 

Yes, wait until you get onboard.  They always have spa specials on both sea and port days and many times they want your business so if you ask there usually will be one available even if you don't see it 🙂 

Normally I get the head to toe with the hot stones, yes it is more than my monthly membership at Massage Heights but the ones on the ship are more for relaxation and to get away from kids.  I always budget at least one on a trip, just be careful of the dreaded sales pitch......

My youngest daughter is 9 and we have just stopped by and checked on her, 9 out of 10 times she wants to stay longer if possible.  You have a good question because for her 9th birthday she got an iPod Touch from grandma and I know she will want to bring it with her in March.  I most likely won't let her take it into camp, just because things can get misplaced, but my oldest in now in the teen program and also has just loved camp all these years.  Of course it was very hard to let her do the check yourself out option when she hit 10 but then again we set boundaries of what areas she was allowed to go into at that age (no pools, halls, only lido and sports deck areas).

I would just ask on that first day what they suggest, they might have a place to store the phones/ipods/walkie talkies so kids can reach out to parents if needed or they might allow to use the phone to leave a message in the room.  If you do go before march let us know how it worked out 🙂  with the camp and what she was able to do.