CruiserBruce

11:15 is very doable. Very common question on the Florida Departures board.

You can experience rough seas any time, anywhere, and it is not predictable. If you have issues, you must prepare every day you are on a ship. Booking mid ship and low is always a good idea. Curious what you would do if someone said it was as flat as a table, you sail, and its rough?

A look at Google Maps would be beneficial. The entire town of Lahaina is a flat walk from the tendering location. So any restaurant in Lahaina is easy to get to. Don't know your tastes in food, but there is a wide selection of restaurants and plenty of shopping. Several restaurants have poke on the menu...Lahaina Sushi Ko is probably the closest more serious poke place. It is on Front St, the main drag of Lahaina. Unfortunately there isn't really a usable beach. The nearest reasonable beach is by Mala (walkable, but getting further out), but the better beach is frequently mentioned at Ka'anapali, a bus, taxi or Uber trip.

@Panhandle Couple, the 3 hours in Colon is standard for partial transits, and it mostly for picking up people who got off the ship in Gatun Lake for excursions. It is NOT a stop for the purpose of doing an excursion from Colon. Given the time it takes to lock up to Gatun Lake, tender excursions ashore, then seek a slot to lock down again, there is rarely much more time to dock at Colon. When you schedule 10 day cruises, usually one departure is on a weekend day, the next will be a week day, followed by a weekend day, etc.

So far no one has given any info that indicates either, a), Carnival will be there with HAL, or b), 3 ships will be there. A couple have confirmed what I posted on your other thread.

Everything is a "cash grab". Because making a profit is sort of an important step to being in business.

Nobody knows. Its secret.

The comment about tipping in dollars was only for the staff onboard the ship.

Not aware of any wineries in Santa Barbara...if there are, I would think it's simply a tasting room for a winery that is actually in the Santa Ynez valley.

By European standards, your tipping amounts for excursions and drivers are way high, by a factor of probably 4. If you are on a US oriented cruise line, you can tip in dollars if the makes your situation easier.

We will be staying at the DoubleTree in June. We picked it because it is commonly reported as a very good hotel in a great location. The Waldorf Astoria is commonly said to be the best Waldorf in the family.

The two beverage packages are "Elite" and "Signature". The HIA has included the Signature Beverage Package. Yes, you can upgrade on board...you must do it immediately, before getting any drinks.

You can make a noon flight pretty easy. There is a Hilton in the airport. As to getting to Rome, there is a train. Take a look around the board. Many discussions on the topics.

Who is "they"? There have been some discussions about some cruise lines still stopping at Monterey, and some replacing Monterey with Santa Barbara.

There was as we sailed from Lima, Peru to San Diego. A lot of fun.

The Danish village is Solvang. Monterey has done all it can to limit ships, but it doesn't have the final say.

The Rome hop on, hop off is not recommended here. It can't get close to a number of key sites due to narrow streets. It is frequently very crowded, making re-boarding very difficult.

Yep...a tremendously vague term, like someone should pay their "fair share" of taxes.

Again, the Carnival ship will be moved elsewhere. I have also NEVER heard 3 ships being there. There is plenty of time to reassign the Carnival ship.

The snorkeling on the Mexican Rivera is generally not recommended here due to poor visibility. Some ports in the Sea of Cortez are better, but the common ports in the area aren't so good.

I am confused. Are you staying in Rome, or Civi? Civi doesn't have a hop on hop off that I am aware of. Hardly ever seen a hotel refuse to hold your luggage until you can access the room. Just leave the luggage with them. It can easily take over an hour to clear Immigration and get your luggage.

The Ferry Building is far closer than Fisherman's Wharf.

The Carnival ship will not be there...it will be directed elsewhere. Carnival NEVER is at HMC with HAL ships. 2 ships there happens with some frequency. In our 10 visits, another ship has been there twice. On the Private Islands board, here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/308-private-islands/ there is a lot of info, and this is discussed there from time to time.

The route will be northwesterly up towards Canada and Alaska. Then southwest towards Japan. I bet there will be darkness at some point, but the starboard (right side) of the plane will have less sun.

The card is not used for air travel, except as ID for TSA. You use your passport for air travel.