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Just got off of the Sensation. They did not scan our cards as others are stating. On ours, they did make an announcement for several cabins to attend an "alternate muster drill". I assumed that was because they did not attend.

I am sailing on Thursday and when I was online yesterday I noticed that it shows "Cruise Day Points" and "VIFP Points" as separate categories. Maybe it has always been that way? Not sure, but for some reason it stuck out to me.

I stayed at Dreams for a week in September. I can answer any questions about the resort, itself.

John Heald posted about this on Sunday. Hope it does come to fruition.

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We had 2221 on glory. Porthole. It was great having the extra room.

That said, on the evening we had rough seas it was SIGNIFICANTLY worse (motion wise) when we ate dinner, and when I picked up kids from 11 at camp carnival. We slept fine.

During these rough seas we also did hear the waves loudly crash. It sounded like the metal was being ripped apart. It was scary at first, but those weather conditions only lasted about a day and a half.

Pic would book this room again.

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How was the depth of the water? Was there any difficulty with shallow water? Or did you get to float the entire way down?

Only at the very beginning and very end was the water less than 12" deep. Even the heaviest in our group had no problems. You just lift your "butts up"

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I have done both, and I prefer assigned (late) dining.

Pro anytime: 99% of the time you don't have to sit with strangers

Con anytime: there can be 15-20min waits & service was significantly slower

Pro assigned: waiters know you & anticipate your needs & service was prompt

Con assigned: duh.... Gotta be there at a set time

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We sailed with Captain Marvin's last month. It was wonderful!

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Once you get to the Baths, is there alot of swimming involved? How deep is the water and how dangerous is it? Alot of walking and hiking? How much time would you say is needed here? Do they rent snorkel equipment?

Once at the baths there is a moderate amount of walking/hiking. The water at the shore and within the rocks is not dangerous. Make mid-calf high at some spots. There are a couple waist/chest deep sections but you must venture out to those -they are not on the regular path.

Once at the baths, you NEED 1-2hrs. Anything more than that is awesome, but you can see everything in less than 2hrs.

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The beach at Bananarama is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. There definitely are a few peddlers. Only the hait braiding lady was annoying.

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Playa mia all day.

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From what I have read on here, they are one of the few companies that you DONT carry your own tube up. I can't attest first hand as we don't do ours till may ! But maybe email them to find out ?

 

 

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We definitely carried our tubes up. It wasn't terribly difficult. The staff will carry any child's tube. We were there March 2014.

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The walk is LONG but nothing really hard. We had people of all sizes in our group. Everyone has the same walk.

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We had an amazing time with Butts Up just last month. It was fun, informative, and safe. The booking process was easy and I received email confirmation quickly. The free lunch they provide was great, too.

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Embarkation: We arrived at the terminal at 10:45, and by the time we made it to the counter, they were already boarding Zones 1 & 2. We had FTTF, so immediately after we got our sail & sign cards, we boarded.

Our Room: We had Stateroom 2221. It had two portholes, and from what we could tell, it was the same size as the balcony room we had on the Freedom this past September. We had two small children, (7&8) and only once or twice did we ever feel 'crowded'. We did hear significant mechanical noise when arriving at ports, but it wasn't loud enough to wake any of us up. On our second night we had pretty rough seas, and the sound of the waves crashing against the ship was loud and a little unnerving. The motion we felt from the rough seas was nothing compared to how it felt on the upper decks. When I picked my girls up from Camp Carnival that same day, I literally had to work really hard to keep my balance. I would recommend this room for families of 4 so long as you aren't sensitive to noise.

Seaday Brunch: Yummy! This was everybody's favorite meal of the entire cruise. Don't forget your free drink coupons like we did, though!

Anytime Dining Service: For the first time we had anytime dining. We never arrived at the same time, but found that we had significant waits (15min-30min) if we arrived anywhere between 7 and 8. If we arrived earlier, there was no wait. Overall, we decided that we liked assigned dining better for the simple fact that you got to know your waiters and they were able to anticipate your wants and needs. We also experienced very slow service. It took several minutes before we were approached for our drink order, several minutes before we received our drinks, and a good 10-15min before we received appetizers. Our main course also took 10-15min to receive, even after our appetizers were taken away. Dessert came quickly. I'm not sure if the slow service was related to the new menu, or the fact that it was anytime dining. Our last cruise was assigned dining with the old menus and everything went so smoothly. No sooner was one plate removed, another was put in its place.

New menus What I missed most was the (hot) soups. The last cruise I was on I'm pretty sure I had a hot soup every night - and it was always delicious! This time, I only had the onion soup once. I consider myself to be a slightly picky eater and I had a hard time choosing appetizers each night. Every night I ended up ordering the chicken noodle soup off of the kids menu. I really did like the Ports of Call selections, and ordered those most times for my main course. The biggest thing I did not like was that on formal nights they just bring you out a dessert. On the second night I asked if I could order dessert and I was told "We have a chef's selection that we will bring out. If you want more, you can order it at that time." I hated that response because #1 I don't want your stupid chef's selection, I want my melting cake! and #2 It made me feel like I would be overindulging to order an additional dessert. Another thing that confused me was the 'For the table' selections. Not once were we offered any of these, nor were they brought to the table. I don't know if it's because we had kids with us or what, but that was strange. Overall, the food itself tasted very good, but I found the choices to be very limited.

Entertainment: We found the lido to be so crowded on our sea days, that we barely found anywhere to sit. There were people laying their towels on the decks so they had a place to lie down. As usual, the DJ played during the day and several silly contests took place. The acoustic guitar players/singers in the late afternoon were nice touch. We didn't see any of the production shows, but we did see the comedians. Our favorite was Alan Ball. We saw both the family and adult shows and we laughed so hard!! I would definitely recommend the comedy show! At night, the bars and clubs seemed to be crawling with spring breakers, so we usually just hung out in our room and went to bed early.

Ports of Call: During this cruise we visited Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize, and Isla Roatan. We enjoyed Stingray City at Grand Cayman, Playa Mia at Cozumel, Cavetubing in Belize, and Ziplining and the beach in Isla Roatan. Out of all the ports, we liked Grand Cayman the least. The tendering process was a lot easier than everyone makes it out to be. The tender into Grand Cayman was 5-10min and into Belize it was 15min. We did not book any excursions through the ship. We booked all of our excursions on our own. I estimate that by doing this we saved almost $900. We got back to the port on time or early with every trip, and I am positive that we got some extras that we would not have gotten with a cruise ship tour. I also get good 'feels' when I support locals directly. I did A LOT of research on here, tripadvisor, and the ports of call boards before I made any decisions.

The first picture is of Playa Mia in Cozumel. The second is of us Tendering into Grand Cayman. The third is of us about to go cave tubing in Belize. The fourth is us Zip Lining is Isla Roatan. The fifth is the beach outside the Bananarama resort in Isla Roatan.

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Faster to the Fun!: We chose to purchase this, and were happy that we did. The biggest perks were the priority tendering, and the shorter guest services line.

Debarkation: Since we had FTTF we figured we would have our luggage picked up. In hindsight, we could have been off the ship faster if we carried it off ourselves. Waiting for the luggage in the carousels was a major P.I.T.A.. Going through customs was quick, however.

Parking in Miami: We used Safe Cruise Parking dot com and were very happy. It was inexpensive, they provided a FREE shuttle to and from the port, and our car was exactly as we had left it.

Overall we had an amazing, busy trip! In fact, we already booked our next cruise! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Just wanted to come back to say that Playa Mia booked on our own was very easy, and I would have been so mad if I had spent twice as much through the ship.

We pre-paid online because we knew there would be 6 ships in port and were worried they would 'sell out'. When we got to port, we walked through the shopping plaza (go all the way to the left) and the taxi attendant asked where we wanted to go. We got in a cab (four of us) and within 10-15min we were there. We paid our $16+ Tip and walked to the ticket counter. I presented my e-ticket, and in we went. We were among the first dozen or so people there (it was about 8:30) so we easily found lounge chairs along the beach.

We stayed until 1hr before the ship was due to leave. We went to the front of the buildings and many cabs were waiting. We paid another $16 + tip for our return trip and walked right back into the trip with plenty of time to spare.

I absolutely recommend doing this on your own.

And, as a side-note the food was pretty good & it's worth it to buy the 'all inclusive' for the adults because it includes all drinks and bottles of water.

[ QUOTE=Fa310tx;42064139]My own 2 cents...

I purchased the card, on my first cruise, and found myself drinking pop at every chance, just to make it worth it.

I did not purchase it, on my second cruise, and really didn't have much of an issue without it.

It's not really worth it, to me.

Between lemonade, juices, and chocolate milk, I'm good.

JJ

Where and when do you find chocolate milk?

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We just took our cans out of the case and put them in rolling carry on.

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You can insert your larger bills into any of the ATMs / (those computer kiosks where you can check your sail and sign balance) and it will give you smaller bills in return.

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10 days til Glory for us! I'm curious as to what camp carnival will be like.

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We once bought a waterproof $10 watch and it stayed waterproof for exactly 30minutes.

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For only $140 I would do it!

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I was also struggling with the same decision but decided on booking ahead of time and taking a taxi once we get there. The reason why I am purchasing ahead of time is because there are 6 ships in port and this is a place I really want for it to not be sold out.

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Am I understanding that each passenger can carry on:

1 bottle of wine or champagne upon boarding and

1 12-pack of soda per dock location?

Yes. The 12 drinks can be anything non alcoholic

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We used rum runners last time we cruised. We bought the cruise pack. We just packaged the booze in our checked luggage and it all arrived intact. Funny, because we didn't drink a drop of it. Lol

We sailed out of Ft. Lauderdale in September on an 8 day cruise.

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