Luke Dawg
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Posts posted by Luke Dawg
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We're on the Caribbean Princess and will be getting off the ship Saturday March 2. If we do self dis-embarkation, is a 10:10 on Southwest do-able?
Speaking from experience we made a 10:25 flight at FLL traveling from Port of Miami. Checked bags at 8am. In Nov we are cruising Royal Princess, we have a 10:50 am flight - we will self assist. Port Everglades is a short drive to FLL.
We just returned from Oasis of the Seas out of Port Canaveral and made a 10:46 flight at MCO. Left the port at 8:00 am was through TSA 9:25am. Port is 45-1hr from MCO airport.
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Does anyone have a recommendation for type of night light that can be used in the Regal Princess bathroom? We will be doing a New England/Canada Cruise later this month and would like to have some type of low voltage night light for the bathroom at night. Thank you.
I picked up motion sensor lights, they have magnet back so they attach to the wall easily. Don't need to turn on the light. They turn on when you open the door, soft LED lights. Only draw back is it last 20 secs so you have to wave your hand in front to keep it on.
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Hi - Does anyone have pictures of Royal Western Caribbean Patters
Day1-FLL
Day2-Sea Day
Day3-Grand Cayman
Day4-Costa Maya
Day5-Belize
Day6-Cozumel
Day7-Sea Day
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I think from my recollection on the Royal last year, the main pool has stairs rather than a ladder.
We have connecting balconies for our upcoming Nov Royal cruise, will the partition open up to create a large balcony
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5 years in Cocoa Beach, 2 in Orlando. Only seen 528 blocked once.
I can make MCO in 40 minutes from the Pier.
However, I would never book a flight before 11:30
Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk[/quote
Orlando is the longest port to airport drive we have encountered over the years. All good advice
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Yes, but we were not registered, something we plan to do.
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Wow,
We were on that cruise and didn’t get our number called until 10:30 and got to our car at 11:15.
If you self assist you are the first group off before they start calling numbers.
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Our Adventure cruise returns to Fort Lauderdale on 4/7/19. The best flight out was 8:05am. I know the port is only a few minutes from FLL and we can do self-departure (walk off).
Has anyone come back to Fort Lauderdale and made it to FLL in time for an 8:05am flight?
YES, I know we are cutting it close. ;p
S
ailed out of Port of Miami, w
e had a 10:25 flight out of FLL,
we did self assist, arranged SAS Transportation to FLL, we checked our bags at FLL at 8 am. I don't recall what time we were through TSA or at the gate
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That time of year, the airfare may cost more than the cruise. :confused:
Princess ezAir is $291 BOS to FLL round trip. We booked SW several months ago for $260
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How did you get the $14 price? I can't find anything cheaper than $20 one way, including AA Access Transportation...
We've got 4 of us, would love to save a little bit more...
Thanks,
Janis
Hi,
I sent AA Access Email: cruisetoportcanaveral@gmail.com
a request for quote for 6 people one way and they came back with $84., so I booked it. Week prior to sailing my brother and family wanted to go later so I called them up and reduced the booking to just two people. They gave me the same rate of $14. I was thinking my rate would go up since it was for less travelers. I booked in Feb, prices may have gone up. I see on
www.portcanaveralshuttletransportation.com there is a $14 one way banner, I would call and see if this is available
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Hi,
We cruised Regal 2016 Thanksgiving weekend, prices went down considerably just after final payment in Sept. At one point under $600 for a balcony. Over 200 open balconies to fill. They did give us some OBC and an upgrade post final payment, but it did not compare to the price if we booked in Oct for the same trip.
Price drops are based on availability, its a gamble, prices may go up.
We are going on Royal same weekend this year, got a pretty good deal, final payment is 9/1.
Hope this helps
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Third Orlando person here. A dozen times a year the 528 is closed for something. There is no really good alternative. (520 to 50 to 417 to airport is likely the 2nd best)
Totally agree, there are many opportunities to lose a hour or more. I would feel more comfortable with fights after 11 am.
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I also live in Orlando and agree with cello56. It is crazy to book an early flight. The road to the airport IS often closed due to accidents or wildfires. Also, the security lines at the airport are very long....it's never good to cut it close, it's a bad way to end a vacation.
I was worried.... I normally cruise from MIA/FLL so I had no prior experience leaving Port Canaveral direct to MCO. I pieced together what I learned from the boards and gave it a shot. I am glad it worked out.
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I live in the Orlando area. Please, please, please remember that all it takes is one accident on the 528 to totally mess up your travel plans to MCO. We often see the 528 closed due to traffic accidents or smoke from wild fires.
Or your ship getting in an hour or two late - it happens.
Have a back up plan!!
I totally agree, I wanted to point out that we had no issues, from port arrival, to disembarkation, to customs, to no traffic and TSA issues.
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Hi all,
I wanted to pass on my recent experience, hope this helps when planning post cruise transportation and airport arrival.
Sailing 8/19/18-8/26/18
Ship Oasis of the Seas (we beat two CCL ships into port)
Disembarkation - we self assisted
Pre-arranged Transportation - AA Access Transportation ($14 one way)
Orlando International Airport (MCO) - JetBlue 10:46 am departure
Day of Disembarkation
5:55 am woke up (pre-packed night before)
6:40 am left cabin
6:45 am entered Opal Theater where they directed us to a door onto the jogging track, saw guess already ahead of us walking off ship
6:50-7:02 - Cleared customs, fast and easy, line was getting long but moved quickly - exited customs and walked towards Pre-arranged transportation desk outside customs
8:00 - shuttle departed, quick stop at CCL terminal, then off to airport (MCO)
8:46 - exited shuttle
8:51 - checked bags at JetBlue counter
8:55 - TSA is long but it moves along, at the entrance the monitor said 25 mins to get through
9:24 - cleared TSA and moved our way to APM (people mover to terminal gates)
9:32 - at JetBlue gate 6 for 10:46 flight
A couple of points to keep in mind -
Other than time in lines which can be expected we experienced no real slow down or bottlenecks to mention. The ship arrived on time, departing the ship and customs were quick and efficient. No real traffic on road to MCO. TSA is what you expect long and slow but moves along.
If we woke up earlier and had a private pick up, we could have been at the airport by 8 am. AA Access first shuttle was at 8 so we could not have left earlier. There were other shuttle companies that were departing as we exited customs.
I hope this helps
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sit in the upper middle. we were on the left side and could not see the high divers on the right side. Middle is best
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Hi, what time did you get to the airport.
BackgroundMy wife and I booked our trip on Oasis of the Seas in January. Our booking was for an oceanview balcony stateroom, and the cruise left on May 27th (the day before Memorial Day). The itinerary was a 7-night Western Caribbean cruise that included calls to Labadee, Jamaica, and Cozumel. I had done a lot of research and was confident in our selection of the ship and date, so we used the non-refundable deposit option.
A little bit about us, we're in our mid-20s and live the mid-Atlantic region, although we're originally from Georgia. We've cruised twice before, although this is our first time with Royal Caribbean (previous two times were with Carnival). We like a good variety of things to do on our cruises - doing active stuff like rock climbing, going to see shows and trivia, eating at a variety of restaurants, and relaxing in the sun. On the other hand, we don't really gamble, aren't huge drinkers (maybe one or two a day between us during the cruise), and don't really like the pool, so I won't be able to talk to those things too much.
One final note - this review will be primarily text. There may be pictures here or there, but they will be few and far between. Many sections may have a lot of description with very few pictures, so forgive me if I end up rambling or go into a bit too much detail!
Alright, on to the review!
Pre-embarkation
Our cruise left on a Sunday, and we flew down a day before into the Orlando Airport on JetBlue. We hadn't flown on that airline before, but it was a pleasant flight, at least as much as one can be. We got in late afternoon and were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport, which provided a shuttle from the airport. The hotel itself was nice and seemed to have been fairly recently updated. My only wish was that breakfast was included - I think it was something like $12 for a hot buffet - but considering they were less expensive than other nearby hotels, I'm not going to complain.
Once we got checked in to the hotel, we took an Uber over to the local Publix supermarket, bought our bottles of wine to bring aboard the ship, and Uber'd back to the hotel. For dinner, we walked to a nearby restaurant, Rock N Brews. If anyone is staying in that area, I would definitely recommend it; we had some awesome BBQ wings, as well as a really good chicken quesadilla and a solid bread pudding. It had gotten pretty late by that point, so we didn't do anything else.
The next morning, we ate the aforementioned breakfast in the hotel (nothing to write home about), checked out, and met our shuttle in front of the hotel. We used Cortrans shuttle service to get to the port from Orlando and back again after the cruise was over. It was pretty nice for a shuttle, although it was close enough in cost ($40 pp round trip) to an Uber that I don't know if I would do it again. It was raining, which I was worried about, although for most of the trip after the first night, the weather was really nice.
The ride to the port took about an hour and was incident free. We got to the port at around 12:15 and were dropped off right next to where the porters could take our bags. Once the bags were with the porter, we got ourselves ready for the line into the terminal, the first of many on this trip...
Day 1 - Embarkation and Sailaway
The first line we had to wait on stretched out of the terminal into the parking lot area. It was pretty well managed, though - the line remained orderly, and it didn't ever feel like people didn't know where to go.
While we were waiting in line, the woman in front of us turned around and said something like, "Just to let you guys know, we're a group of around 40 or 50 people." I was thinking she just meant she was cruising with a group of other people who we might see here or there on the ship and was a little confused why she was telling us. Soon enough, though, my wife and I found out what she meant, as people from a charter bus started joining her in the line in front of us - first one, then a few more, and ultimately several dozen in total; it looked like it was maybe a family reunion or something like that. We realized the woman hadn't been just trying to make small talk but was wanting to warn us (I guess) that a bunch of people would be getting in front of us in line (or maybe she was trying to gauge if we were the kind of people who would make an issue out of it, haha). It did bug me a little bit, but given there were hundreds of people in line, I decided an extra 50 or so wouldn't really make that much of a difference.
Once we got in the terminal, we realized the line we were waiting in was the security line. It seemed like it was a really long time to wait, although in reality I think it only took about 30 minutes or so from the time we got in line to when we were able to pass through the metal detectors. We had our wine bottles in a separate bag that we were carrying with us - we'd previously made the rookie mistake of leaving wine bottles in our suitcases handled by the porters.
After getting through security, check in was a breeze. We had almost no wait time to see an agent (less than five minutes), and while it was crowded at the check-in desk, there weren't any problems (I did get a "tsk tsk" from the agent because I had torn the white space off my SetSail Pass to make it easier to fit in my pocket - apparently you aren't supposed to do that?). We got our SeaPass cards, and also the specialty coffee card we had ordered for my wife, which is essentially a punch card with 15 uses for things like espresso, lattes, etc. With our SeaPass cards in hand, we were ready to get on the ship!
Embarkation is on Deck 5; you come in on the walking track and the staff directs into the ship after scanning your card. It was right around 1pm when we got on, so we decided to wait a minute for them to open up the doors to access the staterooms. After a very short wait, we were on our way over to our stateroom. We had booked room 6720, which was on Deck 6 on the starboard side of the ship in the aft section, with only a few rooms farther aft than ours. We had wanted something a bit closer to the elevator banks, but this was the last room in the class and we didn't mind walking a bit more in exchange for not spending more money.
The room itself was very nice. It seemed like a lot of though was put into maximizing storage space; there's a lot of shelves here and there that help with making use of the vertical space. The lighting is good too - there's your normal overhead lights, but there's also two lower-brightness lights right above the two paintings in the room, which are great for providing some illumination in the evening without the full brightness of the regular lights. Both sets of lights have switches at the door as well as next to the bed, and the bed also has personal reading lights on each side. I was also able to find an outlet under the bed, thanks to seeing it mentioned somewhere on these forums.
The bathroom is also nice; small, obviously, but follows the same pattern of providing a lot of shelf space as well as five hooks - two above the sink and three on the bathroom door. The shower is cozy in size but I liked it - it's enclosed in glass (or clear plastic, maybe), not the dreaded clingy curtain Carnival ships seem to largely employ.
After we got our first look around and dropped off our bags, we did notice a bit of a problem in the room having to do with wind noise. There was a gap between the gasket of the balcony door and the frame, causing a very audible whistling noise that would have definitely kept us up at night. One of the first things we did was put in a call to maintenance. Someone came by several hours later, and it appeared to fix the problem, but once the wind picked up, we noticed it again and put in another call. I think they came back and fully fixed it later when we weren't in the room, although it's possible that it just didn't get windy enough again for us to notice it. Either way, we're glad it didn't end up bothering us throughout the trip.
After we put in the initial maintenance call, we went out to explore the ship. The first thing we did was head over to Park Cafe. It's located in Central Park, the area of the ship with real plants that forms an outdoor garden. This whole area is beautiful and quite impressive, especially considering all the challenges with keeping live plants on a ship (water usage, climate, wind damage, etc.).
When we got to Park Cafe, I already knew what I wanted. I had heard a lot through the forums about the roast beef sandwiches they have there. I was thinking to myself, "I'm sure the sandwiches are fine, but I doubt that they're all they're cut out to be." Let me tell you right now, the hype...is entirely justified! You wouldn't think that something with such simple ingredients (kummelweck bun, two slices of thickly cut roast beef, and a spoonful of gravy/au jus) could be so delicious, but it was definitely one of my favorite food items on the ship. Even if you're a vegetarian, it's worth breaking it just this once for this sandwich!
Alright, enough gushing, on with the review. Most of the rest of our afternoon was spent exploring the ship as well as in the muster drill; although everyone would rather be someone else, the safety video was actually reasonably entertaining. At some point, we did spend a little bit of time in the line to get waiver armbands (for rock climbing, zip line, FlowRider, and ice skating), but after waiting for maybe 15 minutes and the line only moving two or three people out of around 20, we decided to come back the next day. We also did the spa tour, where they take you to several different stations and give you the whole spiel for facial rejuvenation or acupuncture therapy or whatever; it also included a "massage sample" that actually felt really good and convinced us to book a massage - more on that later. As for the actual spa facilities, they seemed pretty nice, especially the thermal suite, although I'm not sure if it was worth the asking price. We walked through a few other areas of the ship which I'll hopefully talk about in more detail later.
For dinner, we were planning to go to the main dining room. We had My Time Dining, where you go in whenever you want, but I had read that it's a good idea to get a reservation ahead of time. We went by the reservation desk a few hours before dinner (you can call from your stateroom as well, but we happened to be in the area of the MDR). We asked what times were available, but they only had options between 8pm and 9pm. That's way later than we usually eat, and plus, we had show reservations at 9. We told the person at the desk that, and she offered for us to eat in the Solarium Bistro instead, which is normally a for-fee restaurant for dinner, but she gave us a card that allowed us to eat there for free and also marked it on our accounts in her computer.
Dinner at the Solarium Bistro was pretty good. It's Mediterranean-themed and is sort of a hybrid between the buffet and a full-service. You can get appetizers and desserts from the buffet but order off the menu for entrees. I had the chicken kebab and my wife had the grilled shrimp. Both were good, as were the buffet selections (including some tasty hummus and pita bread). For dessert, I just had a few of the cookies, which I discovered were not what I was expecting from buffet cookies - rather than being hard and unpalatable, they were just the right level of softness and had a good taste. I would end up eating more cookies over the course of the cruise than I would care to admit!
We headed back to our stateroom before our show, and on the way, we checked the entryway to the MDR just to see what it was like. It was definitely pretty chaotic, so if you're sailing on Oasis, I'd recommend trying to find an alternative venue for the first night. Also, on the way back, I bumped into our stateroom attendant and asked for a corkscrew, which was waiting for us when we returned later than evening.
Our reservation for that night was at Comedy Live, the relatively small comedy venue on board. We got there pretty early - roughly 45 minutes before the start of the show - and they hadn't even opened the doors yet. It turned out our earliness probably wasn't necessary. We had reservations, and up until they let the standbys in about ten minutes before the show, it was not particularly crowded.
The comedians themselves were really funny. On our sailing, the comedians were Paul Ogata and Nery Saenz. I think I liked Paul a little better, at least partly because Nery spent a few minutes talking about his CDs/digital download cards he was selling after the show. There was a lot of picking on individual audience members, so if you're at one of these shows and sit in the front, or even in another seat that has a direct line of sight to the stage, prepare to be embarrassed. One poor guy in his late 30s, when asked what he did, told the comedian he worked "seasonally" for UPS, which the comedian had a hell of a time with!
After the show, we headed back to the stateroom and cracked open our bottles of wine. We tried sitting outside on our balcony for a bit, but it had been on and off raining all day which had continued into the evening, so even though the balcony is mostly covered, we didn't stay out for long. We realized were pretty tired after the show and decided to call it a night.
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trying to decide between the Allure or the Oasis of the Seas. Any suggestions?
I will tell you after my Oasis 8/19. We did Allure 8/20/17
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check out SAS transportation, ridesas.com 1-4 passengers $15 each, 5+ passengers $13 each. Used them many times
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Thanks. I’ll guess I’ll pay the cruise planer pre board price. Do you Think if they offer a sale on board they’ll give a refund?
We were on Allure last August there will be reps from the specialty dining venues all week trying to fill their restaurants. I over heard some making deals to get you in, especially if you already dined in their restaurant. It is worth a try
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I would not count on that pattern -buy when comfortable and like cabin price drops, cancel/re-buy on any further dip.
I agree, my 8/19/18 Oasis Deluxe Beverage Pkg has move up and down 20 times, from buy 1 get second 50% off (or $47/per), a 20% off promo ($50/per).
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Fantastic review and super helpful photos! Thank you very much for putting this all together for us!
Does anyone have info about a draft beer package? I'd be interested in getting that.
I found this, if you zoom in it says gratuity is included
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Hey BirdTravels,
This is awesome, thanks.
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Hi All,
New to princess, just curious where the free drink opportunities are :) I noticed on the other freebee thread started about a bar tending competition, and also the classic art auction, but curious what other opportunities are out there.
Check out the daily Princess Patter BOGO+$1 buy one drink get second for $1. the venue is usually crowded
Booking two rooms- question on drinks package
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
Just returned from Oasis 8/19 cruise, traveled with my brother and his family (2 kids under 18), when booking your reservation, place you and your wife in separate cabins (wife does not drink a lot). That way you can purchase the drink pkg and your wife does not have to. My brother does this when traveling with family, I thought it was required kids under 18 have to have an adult (18+) assigned to the cabin. When you arrive on the ship go to Guess Services and get extra keys for both rooms that way you all have access to both cabins. Have fun
Unfortunately I had to buy two pkg for the wife and I, offset it with $175 OBC so it worked out.