mds0424

On 8/28/2022 at 11:32 PM, Tradestock said:

Are HAL gift cards available for purchase onboard?  If so, where are they sold on the ship (guest services, excursion desk, etc)?

Just wondering if you were ever able to get an actual answer to your question instead of suggestions for other ways to buy gift cards or other ways to blow your OBC? I am expecting to have >$1400 OBC on my next HAL cruise and was looking for an answer to the same question as to whether I could use my OBC to buy HAL gift cards onboard? I was able to successfully do this on Carnival earlier this year, but HAL seems to be much stricter with their OBC overall.

I cruised with passport being in my maiden name for about 8 years after getting married. I just always booked my cruise in my maiden name. So my cruise tickets/confirmation matched my passport. I never had a problem with this practice. When my passport was ready for renewal, I changed my name of name on passport and now cruise in married name.

I was booked on an Alaskan cruise out of San Francisco in July for 4 people in 1 cabin. We had not paid in full yet when Carnival cancelled the cruise. We had paid $1531.28. We are considering the FCC + $600 OBC option, but getting confused by the small print which says "non-transferable, non-refundable, cannot be used as a deposit or applied to a chartered sailing, have no cash value, and must be redeemed on a Carnival Cruise Line sailing departing by 12/31/2022. The FCC/OBC may only be used toward one (1) booking...  The FCC/OBC may only be used toward one (1) booking  "

My questions are:

1. With the FCC being "non-transferable", does that mean that each of the 4 of us get 25% of $1531.28 = $382.82 or is it all in my name?

2. If we could choose a new sailing for just the 2 of us without the kids (or if we book a cruise where the kids' rates are less than their share of the FCC), would we then forfeit 1/2 of the FCC?

3. Do the highlighted terms mean that if we book a cruise with base rate - deposit = less than FCC then we forfeit the remainder of the FCC? One replacement cruise I'm considering base rate = $1476 for 4 of us (if we went without kids it would be even less) but deposit required is $500. So does that mean we could only use $976 of our FCC?

Thanks in advance for any answers you can help with!

We have 2 boys - 5 year old will be on his 10th cruise in Jan and 21 mo old will be on his 3rd in Jan.

Our biggest "hack"? Sail with the grandparents! LOL! We find that it helps to have the adult to kid ratio higher.

We always take a bag with small toys, coloring supplies & story books for playing in the cabin. Usually take a coloring page and a couple markers to dining room for the 5 year old. DH usually takes the little one for a walk after viewing the menu while waiting for the food to arrive. We take one of those over the door shoe organizers with clear pockets - can be used for anything from hair products/toiletries to socks/shoes or toys, sunglasses, etc - really helps with storage space because the cabin seems to shrink with more people in it. Don't forget the hats & sunscreen!

Cruising with kids is different than without and you may have to take turns doing things in the evenings while one adult stays back at the cabin to put the kiddos to bed. But it can be a great family vacation. It's all what you make it!

We will be on the Glory later this month and stopping in Amber Cove. This is a new port to us. There will be 5 of us (4 adults & a 4 year old)

Is this something you booked ahead or found in port? Do you mind sharing what the price of the tour was? Also, considering that it goes to a rum factory & cigar rolling, would this be an appropriate tour for a 4 year old (did you see any or many young children?)

Thanks!

Clarksfan1 made some very good points!

We have not yet sailed MSC so I can't speak directly about them, but we have taken our son on 4 cruises so far - (2) Princess b2b at 11mo old, Carnival at 14mo old & again at 22mo old. He will be 29mo old for his 5th cruise in May on MSC Divina.

1. Our upcoming MSC cruise will be our first balcony (we are so excited!). So while I've always heard the advice about booking a balcony when travelling with little ones, we've always opted to save the extra expense so that we can afford to travel more often. My point to this is, while it may make nap-times & early bed-times more enjoyable for the parents, a balcony is not a must-have. You may just get more naps yourself and as a parent of a toddler and those are hard to come by, so enjoy the down-time.

2. We choose to cruise at the same time as my parents. Having a 4 adult to 1 toddler ratio really helps for being able to split up our time as to who takes the boy for awhile.

3. What we found to be helpful for dinners in the MDR in order to shorten the time that the little one has to sit: one of us would go by the dining room sometime early in the day and snap a photo of the dinner menu so that we could decide ahead what we wanted to order. Then at dinner time one will stay out in the atrium walking around with the little one while the others go in and order. When the food arrives, we buzz the other on the walkie talkie and they bring him in and eat, then one of us will skip dessert and take him out to listen to some live music somewhere (usually the atrium).

4. As far as the swimming issue, most ships do not allow swim diapers in the pools. Some people do ignore those rules and I've never seen anyone reprimanded... What we do is put a swim diaper on him and let him splash in the splash areas (some ships have splash areas with sprinklers where the water is only about 1/2" deep). To him it's just as much fun walking around & splashing in the splash area as if he was in a pool. He's not sitting down in the water so really it shouldn't be any more unsanitary as any other kid.

I think cruises are a great way to vacation. You just need to be prepared that it is different when you have a toddler in tow. But so is the rest of your life, right? And there will always be some rude kid-haters that for some reason seem to think you should take your family vacation without your family. Ignore them!

I believe that the actual price/day is the same. My understanding is that the no sales tax only applies after the ship has left port and is in open (international?) waters.

We sailed Caribbean Princess in Nov 2014 with our 11mo old son and there were indeed highchairs in the buffet and in the dining room.

I think Princess emailed me a form to fill out to order baby food. (you order a quantity of meats, vegetables, fruits, etc). Then once onboard, you still need to call room service and order the baby food. I guess the form is really so that they have enough baby food onboard. When you call room service to order, you can either order for that specific day or for the whole cruise. I suggest ordering for the whole cruise because as the week goes on, the availability & variety is less. Plus, then you only have to tip the room service person once. Also, onboard you can be a little more specific & they will try to honor the requests (ie. we want green beans & peas, but no carrots). The baby food is Gerber. Some in jars, some in those little plastic containers.

We'll be taking our 22 mo old on his 4th cruise at the end of this month. We haven't sailed RCCL since he was born so we haven't experienced the toy check-out programs. We always take a variety of small toys. We also take a variety of his books as we read books every night before bed. Our son is used to showering as opposed to baths so we don't bother with the inflatable tub (we took it once and for us it was more of a pain). As far as meds, we always take infant Tylenol, diaper cream, triple antibiotic salve, band-aids. I put some dish soap in a small travel shampoo bottle and take the bottle brush and the # of bottles he drinks in a day (3 now) plus a straw cup. So basically I wash bottles once/day. In addition to what you have listed we always take his sunglasses, swimsuit, baby powder (helps remove sand more easily if you go to the beach), some sort of door decoration (just for fun, helps him recognize our room as we approach it and it's exciting for him), a nightlight. We also usually take enough laundry soap & dryer sheets for a couple loads of laundry (just in case), but I don't remember RCCL having laundry facilities. Of course the laundry soap could still be a help if you need to wash something out in the sink and hang up in the shower. Hope this helps. Have a great time!

So if I were to try booking onboard using the "dummy" cuise method, and then change it to a "real" cruise after determining which one we really want, would the F&F vouchers apply to the new "real" cruise (if the cruise was changed within the 60 days) or could the F&F voucher be used within 60 days on the "dummy" cruise and then we all change to a "real" cruise and F&F still get the OBC?

Or does doing the "dummy" method kind of eliminate the use of the F&F vouchers?

Thanks for posting this question as I was wondering the same thing for our Oct cruise.

I, like fkfad, had thought that all ships had metal walls. But unfortunately it's not the case. When we sailed on the Fascination in Feb, the only place to put our magnetic notepad/pen & hooks were on the ceiling - doesn't work so well for a shorty like me :(

We will be taking our son on his first cruise at 11 months old.

Do babies pay full rate for shore excursions or are there special rates or possibly some excursions that babies are free? What excursions would you recommend for those travelling with a baby?

ETA: Our ports of call will be Costa Maya & Cozumel