SurferJoe57

Absolutely!

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Carnival Legend to Hawaii in September.

Anyone going on the Legend 10-day Vancouver to Honolulu in September 2017?

Depends on what airport...?

I flew to BCN from IAD (Dulles in Washington DC) last year; I could NOT find a nonstop flight, period...Which got me into "what's the best routing?" which lead me to consider a courtesy stopover.

- Original Option: Fly Turkish Airlines, stop over in Istanbul. No extra charge for staying several nights. Was going to do this but the coup interfered, so...

- Option 2: Fly on Aeroflot, stay over in Moscow. Actually cheapest, and you don't have to stay over, but it's a long haul. East coast to Moscow back to BCN.

- Option 3: The selected course of action: Fly Royal Air Maroc (https://www.royalairmaroc.com) to Casablanca, stay a few nights, then BCN. (Actually took the Marrakesh Express to..Marrakesh for a few nights). No additional cost to stay over - and if you just wanted to hurry up and get to BCN, it's the most direct route - it's a relatively short hop from east coast to CMN (Mohammed V International Airport) then onto BCN. Royal Air Maroc. RAM flies from IAD and JFK on the east coast. New Boeing 777, very comfortable seating, wasn't crowded, service was excellent. More comfortable in coach than many first class compartments on other airlines.

Key West with your grandchildren? There's an Aquarium right next to the Custom House Museum. The ship probably has an advertised excursion that comes with the Conch Train (really a jitney) hop on & off tour; and museum & aquarium passes.

- Definitely get the Conch Train for Key West as it'll take you to all the places everyone else has mentioned: Hemingway House, KeyLime Pie shop, the "Southern-most USA" spot marker, and you won't have to walk or get lost!

Nassau might have an interesting tour, but whenever we've been there, we went to the beach - best thing there is a hotel day pass. Freeport's got beach excursions as well; however, you have to either take a ship sponsored beach break or get adventurous, as it's an industrial port (shipyard) and nowhere near fun stuff.

They also have photo ops with Mickey and Minnie :)

I'll plug Dr. Suess and the Green Eggs & Ham Breakfast.

anyway...

Do you have a man version of that Week Plus 2 Week Europe packing list?

I did a TA with a week in Italy last year and way overpacked...and am about to do it in reverse (week in Morocco with a TA back).

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Meanwhile, for the OP, Childcare and port calls - !

I'd suggest as a departure port Ft. Lauderdale or Miami; Canveral (Orlando) is a long ride from MCO (Orlando airport) and there's no particular reason to go through there unless you're planning a side trip to Disney OR you have a particular ship and iteniary you really want.

As you've got a small baby, you MIGHT want to avoid port calls that require you to "tender," - that is, the ship doesn't dock pierside, but instead disembarks passengers onto 'party boats,' which then go ashore. Half Moon Cay (Holland/Carnival) in the Bahamas is a tender port (sadly). You'd just have to be comfortable getting into a boat that's bobbing up and down with the baby. Might not be an issue. Cayman Islands are another tender port.

Carnival out of Ft Lauderdale has lots of 5 day trips that visit no-tender required ports such as Grand Turk, Ocho Rios, etc. Cozumel, as noted, has interesting archeological stuff to visit, and you won't run into Spring Breakers in September.

As far as cruise lines, my experiences are limited to Holland America, Princess and Carnival; but of all those, Carnival is the most child-accommodating. You might want a little time off to go to a show or whatever, so consider onboard child care availability.

Have fun!

Find the New Yorker article by Patricia Marx, "Pet's Allowed." Hilarious but yes, a growing narcissistic trend as noted in this thread.

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I just love the Spirit class ships they are the best by far I sure wish that carnival would build a few more of them and stop sending that class of ship some ere else

Sadly they've moved past that design onto the larger, "more efficient" ships (Vista) - the Spirit classes are very useful to CCL though, as they fit under bridges in key markets Carnival doesn't want to cede - Baltimore, Sydney, and on occasion, Tampa.

I will note that the Spirit class ships are generally very well liked by seasoned crew members - who interestingly also favor the older Fantasy class as well. My only comment as a passenger is that these skinny Finnish hulls tend to wiggle a big more than the broader Italian ships.

Sad, but the trend will be bigger ships that pack in more passengers with a more profitable Crew:Passenger ratio.

The typical (no extra charge) "elegant night" lobster tail is only available on cruises of 6 nights or longer.

 

You can order a lobster tail from the Steakhouse Selections portion of the MDR menu any night for an upcharge of $20. I have not had it, but I have been told that it is better than what you get on elegant night.

And I believe the difference is that the Steakhouse selection is a "real Maine lobster," (or close to it), while the MDR is a "lobster tail," - eg, some other crustacean but not necessarily a premium lobster.

Sheepishly I'll admit having 2nds and thirds in the MDR...

Love Pride; have done 3 on her (and Miracle to Hawaii). The extra topside weight from the additional pool does make her stern shimmy s bit thought, but we love being able to cruise locally.

Agree with PORT side - have done all those and going into San Juan the view is on port; also, in St Maarten, the bow is usually at the foot of the pier, and that would be best if you were on the Port side as well.

Or, take the old British soldiers advice when deploying to India - POSH; port out, starboard home.

I've decided to give up on Turkey for the time being; took the cancellation penalty on Turkish Airlines and will rebook something to Spain or France to catch up to the ship.

I do live in Washington DC, and of course have read the State Dept advisory...which is less helpful that CNN. "Avoid tourist areas," .. well, if I'm going to Istanbul to tourist, that would rather defeat the purpose of my trip?

Better indicators than the State Dept (I was in the US Marines for 31 years and sadly know State fairly well..) would be what the cruise lines are doing - some have cancelled iteniaries to Turkey after the airport bombing, wasn't sure how many more would be cancelled after the Coup attempt, but.. Viatour is offering 20% Turkey tours...

In light of the minor disturbances in Turkey over the weekend (the Coup, the retaliation for the Coup, etc. etc.)...As I've still got travel plans to Turkey this Fall (late Oct), anyone hear/read anything that indicates what might happen in the intermediate term?

Our plans were to fly to Istanbul from Washington (On Turkish Airways), stay a few days, then head to Barcelona to pick up the Carnival Vista.

Thanks for the great advice...think I'm definitely leaning towards the Sirkecki, as it's got fantastic reviews on Trip Advisor as well.

Need a hotel for one night, pre-cruise in Istanbul, Aug 2015. Have narrowed it down to a few, but am confused as to whether it's better to be in Old Town (seems more convenient; choices are Sirkeci Mansion or the Sari Konak), or over by Galata (hotels are more classic, and it's closer to the port; choices are the Rixos Pera and the Vault Karakoy). Would welcome any thoughts!

Looking for three night in October, 2016 myself - we're on a three-day layover enroute from Dulles airport (DC) to Barcelona to pick up the Vista; so proximity to the port isn't an issue.

Any other thoughts on this? We actually need a hotel for 3 nights in October (2016); we're stopping over in Istanbul enroute to pick up the Carnival Vista in Barcelona (and oddly enough, the cheapest airfare was Turkish Airlines, who offered stopovers in Istanbul from Dulles to Barcelona).

So I'm not worried about being near the cruise port; just looking for a good place to tourist from.

We took the Oosterdam on a TA; we were in a Neptune, 6166. As you can see (hopefully), it's a wrap around, but the adjoining balconies on 6th deck have about 50% overhead open to the sky; I managed to squeeze in a day of sunbathing enroute to Rome. We had a decent sized table and more loungers and chairs than we needed.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful review. I had the overall impression from other readings that the K-Dam was designed in part to attract a "younger" crowd (I'm only 60), and your review confirms that.

We're booked a few years out and are looking forwards to it, but I am thinking we'll probably want to gravitate back to more traditional designs such as the Oosterdam or Eurodam, which we're quite fond of.

Different ship and person.

As in - the thread was started to talk about Carnival VICTORY out of Port Canaveral; this breaking news is the Carnival Liberty out of Galveston.

But the original point is this - when people manage to go "missing," they try to find them as quickly as possible.

I was on that cruise as well.

Yes, there's multiple sets of "PA Speakers," and normally, they don't turn on the ones in your cabin, particularly at 0300. I'd thought we were already in port and started to get up and get dressed...

A few days after this incident, I got a crew member to simply tell me that our friend "Wendy" was some young lady who had a disagreement with her significant other and ran off, hiding someplace else on the ship.

The significant other couldn't locate Ms. Wendy, hence the concern she might have jumped overboard (as people occasionally do when they're upset). The ship's master has an obligation to stop and conduct a search for overboard passengers, and of course was trying to avoid doing that.

That's as much as I know.

49 Days! Had such a great time on the Victory we're doing the same iteniary again on the Sensation 4th of July weekend.

Had a nice time there. I can't say if there's snorkeling or not as I didn't ask, but there were plenty of other water activities.

Self service draught beer servers on some tables in Red Frog Pub

 

Pure genius. Not that I don't love the service staff, but definitely cutting out the middleman will speed things up. Looks like a swipe for S&S Card between the taps?