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Explore the world with Pete & Judy on the 2018 Holland America Grand World Voyage


The-Inside-Cabin
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Funny you mention being close to shore and the Cellular at Sea picking up.

 

 

 

Last May I had just disembarked from Celebrity Solstice in Honolulu I was sitting, ashore, waiting for my rental car company to pick me up.. they were late so I called them from my cell phone not looking at the provider because I was on land.

 

 

 

When going over my bill the following month there was a large roaming charge,

 

 

 

Called ATT and they removed it.

 

 

 

It does pay to keep an eye out.

 

 

Now that's a first.....logging on to Cellular at Sea while in port. I try to get in the habit of always turning off data roaming unless I am actively using the data. I also go thru my phone beforehand and turn off permission for most apps to use cell data. Otherwise many apps will download data in the background.

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Funny you mention being close to shore and the Cellular at Sea picking up.

 

Last May I had just disembarked from Celebrity Solstice in Honolulu I was sitting, ashore, waiting for my rental car company to pick me up.. they were late so I called them from my cell phone not looking at the provider because I was on land.

 

When going over my bill the following month there was a large roaming charge,

 

Called ATT and they removed it.

 

It does pay to keep an eye out.

 

Was there an alternative way to make the call without the roaming charge?

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C

As you can see from this picture, we shipped seven items – 4 bags and 3 boxes.

 

Fedex-Shipment.jpg?zoom=2&resize=500%2C375

 

 

Do you recommend shipping, in the boxes, various toiletries, including liquids like mouthwash, and OTC medicines like cold remedies, aspirin, etc?

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Do you recommend shipping, in the boxes, various toiletries, including liquids like mouthwash, and OTC medicines like cold remedies, aspirin, etc?

 

 

 

The boxes fold flat for easy storage in the cabin. But it all depends on how much other stuff you are taking. Plus if you don't buy a bunch of stuff you can simply leave the boxes behind.

 

Some people have reported that boxes are more susceptible to being misplaced since they may be mistaken for ship supplies...

 

One of the boxes is a bunch of granola bars that was easy to leave in its carton.

 

We also had unlimited FedEx so we didn't worry about the number of boxes. Otherwise we may have consolidated in a suitcase.

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Was there an alternative way to make the call without the roaming charge?

 

 

 

You can usually manually select your network when roaming and avoid picking cellular at sea....in fact as I write this, I realize this would be the method to avoid switching to cell at sea while near the coast....manually select the shore network and it won't switch...

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The boxes fold flat for easy storage in the cabin. But it all depends on how much other stuff you are taking. Plus if you don't buy a bunch of stuff you can simply leave the boxes behind.

 

Some people have reported that boxes are more susceptible to being misplaced since they may be mistaken for ship supplies...

 

.

 

We do have unlimited luggage, but I think your report as to misplaced boxes answers the question in my mind as to whether to ship the OTC's and toiletries in a separate suitcase or in a FedEX box. A separate suitcase, it will be.

 

Your suggestions and experience have been invaluable. Thank you, again.

Edited by Tampa Girl
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Thank you for inviting us along again. I immensely enjoyed your previous trips.

 

2 questions if I may:

 

You introduced us to Maps. Me and I’m getting ready for an upcoming trip, and am in the process of setting it up and learning it. The knowledge base says voice instructions only work for driving and cycling, and not walking. So I tried walking a “cycle” route, and still didn’t get voice instructions...... so how do you use it in port? (Are you taking out your phone and looking at it?

 

( I was really hoping to avoid taking out my phone on the street in BsAs...)).

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Thank you for inviting us along again. I immensely enjoyed your previous trips.

 

2 questions if I may:

 

You introduced us to Maps. Me and I’m getting ready for an upcoming trip, and am in the process of setting it up and learning it. The knowledge base says voice instructions only work for driving and cycling, �� and not walking. So I tried walking a “cycle” route,�� and still didn’t get voice instructions...... �� so how do you use it in port? (Are you taking out your phone and looking at it?

 

( I was really hoping to avoid taking out my phone on the street in BsAs...)).

 

I pull out the phone and look at it when in port.

 

I can't help much with that feature. I may experiment with that in FLL

 

 

www.theinsidecabin.com

Edited by The-Inside-Cabin
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San Diego to Fort Lauderdale

 

We finished packing today, well let me say, Judy finished packing, while I monitored the College Football Playoffs. Being a Big 10 fan, specifically Ohio State, I was please to see the great success the conference had this bowl season – 7-1. I was less pleased to see both SEC teams end up in the finals, but it should be a good game nevertheless.

 

I take care of packing all the computers and related peripherals, while Judy does the rest. We each have our own laptop, plus we bring the portable scanner, portable printer, several spare external hard drives for backup, plus the cameras, video cameras, binoculars. I’ll show you my setup once we get established on the ship.

 

If you want any advice on packing light, you have come to the wrong place. One of the pleasures of touring by cruise ship is that if you pack heavy, you only have to move all your stuff twice – getting on and getting off. Porters are always available everywhere, so if you have a few pictures of dead presidents, you can easily find people to help you with your bags.* Once on the ship, you can stow quite a bit of stuff in the closets, drawers and in the suitcases under the bed.* The key is to keep an inventory of what is where so you don’t have to spend much time searching for things.

 

Living in a condo makes leaving for extended trips a breeze. All we need to do is shut the door and turn off the water – and that’s about it. There are a few things we do inside: empty the refrigerator, unplug many items that still draw power when not in use, and this year we saran wrapped the toilets to keep the water in the bowls from evaporating and keeping the swamp gasses from wafting into our condo.

 

Our car service arrived promptly at 8:30 PM to whisk us away to the San Diego International Airport where we would catch the redeye to Atlanta and *then connect to an early morning flight to Fort Lauderdale. We have been using the same car service for 10 years and they are very reliable and cost about the same as a taxi. If you find yourself in San Diego, you can’t go wrong using San Diego Transporter for any local transportation requirements.

 

The airport is only 16 miles from our house, it only takes about 25 minutes to get there – and the San Diego Airport is a nice size – big enough for lots of flights, but not so big where everything is really far or you have to take a train inside the terminal.

 

We were surprised to find that there were no lines for curbside check in, or for security. One hour after we left Imperial Beach, we were sitting at an airport restaurant getting some food for our flight. Our flight with Delta left on time and it will only be 3.5 hours to Atlanta – with the help of our 85 mph tail wind.

 

Flight-Track-2.jpg

 

There is about 1 hour left in our flight as I write this, so we will sign off for now. More tomorrow after we check into our hotel in Fort Lauderdale.

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... this year we saran wrapped the toilets to keep the water in the bowls from evaporating and keeping the swamp gasses from wafting into our condo.

All those months down the road, don't forget to unwrap it before using. ;p

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For those still arriving at FLL.....baggage claim has plenty of those smart carts you can rent for couple bucks. You can push the cart right out to the covered taxi stand, where they had plenty of Sedans and Van taxis avail. There are also porters milling about with even bigger carts - they will take your bags off the belt for you and put them in your cab....

 

It has been raining all day...cold - miserable...

 

Taxi from airport to Embassy Suites on 17th was $15.60 on the meter. Taxi takes credit cards.

 

Hotel here offers a shuttle to the cruise port for $9 per person...Uber would cost around $13.00 per car.

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For those still arriving at FLL.....baggage claim has plenty of those smart carts you can rent for couple bucks. You can push the cart right out to the covered taxi stand, where they had plenty of Sedans and Van taxis avail. There are also porters milling about with even bigger carts - they will take your bags off the belt for you and put them in your cab....

 

It has been raining all day...cold - miserable...

 

Taxi from airport to Embassy Suites on 17th was $15.60 on the meter. Taxi takes credit cards.

 

Hotel here offers a shuttle to the cruise port for $9 per person...Uber would cost around $13.00 per car.

 

We used Lyft to go from the Hyatt Place (right next door to the Embassy Suites) to the port in late October and the fare was only $5.56...way cheaper than what the hotel was charging for their shuttle.

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So excited that you are blogging again! We've been using a LOT of your information & experiences to get ready for the 2019 WC!! I am so ready to go!

I have only two separate month-long cruises to get me through the next year until we board the Amsterdam ... ;p

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So excited that you are blogging again! We've been using a LOT of your information & experiences to get ready for the 2019 WC!! I am so ready to go!

 

 

 

I have only two separate month-long cruises to get me through the next year until we board the Amsterdam ... ;p

 

 

 

Thanks! I try to write this as a useful reference for future travellers !

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January 2nd

Arriving Fort Lauderdale

 

Low clouds, poor visibility and sitting on the left side of the airplane, made it impossible to see any of the cruise ships that were in Port Everglades as we were landing on our Delta flight around 8:30 am this morning.

 

Low-Visibility.jpg

 

Our connection in Atlanta was flawless – but we shuddered thinking about the unfortunate people who suffered thru that power outage a few weeks back. Can you imagine heading to a cruise only to be caught up in that mess? Horrors!

 

 

I did discover on this flight that my Windows 10 laptop could be used to create a mobile hotspot that allowed me to share my GoGo inflight WiFi connection with Judy without a second logon required. Nice, and it seemed to make a better connection than the HooToo I normally used for this purpose. You will find more information on my blog under World Cruise Reference – Cruising Tips and Tricks

 

I have started a new page on the blog to collect all my information about various ports along with links to other sites with useful information. Information on Port Everglades can be found on the blog

Once off the plane we headed down to baggage claim to collect our 5 checked bags. At the bottom of the escalator that takes you into the baggage claim area, we spotted some empty kioks for Carnival Cruise and for Celebrity. No one was hanging around for Holland America passengers so I assumed that the people who bought HAL transfers were on other flights.

 

On the way to our specific baggage claim area we noticed that baggage carts were available for rent and we were ready to get a couple when I spotted a porter with a very large luggage cart. Hiring the porter would be so much easier than dealing with our bags ourselves so we arranged for him to follow us to our specific baggage claim and help us with our bags.

 

 

All of our bags arrived in the first wave of bags and in a few minutes, we were outside the terminal – still under cover – by the taxi line. There wasn’t any line and the dispatcher summoned a van that would be able to hold all of our luggage. The taxi used a meter and took credit cards. We arrived at the Embassy Suites on 17th Avenue in about 20 minutes with a fare of $15.60 on the meter.

 

Check in time wasn’t normally until 4PM and since it was only a little after 9 AM we were prepared for a wait. However, a few days ago, Hilton offered us an early check-in option for $25 which I gladly accepted and because of that we were able to check in immediately and were in our room by 9:30 AM.

 

To recap: Our plane landed at 8:43 and we were in our room in less than 1 hour – that included all the walking, waiting and everything – pretty good day – everything running very smoothly.

 

The hotel seems to cater to cruise passengers as there was a desk in the lobby selling $9 shuttle trips to the cruise terminals. This is a good price for a single, but if you have 2 or more people, a taxi would probably be less expensive.

 

After our long night on airplanes and airports, we decided to take a nap and then order in some Italian food from a nearby restaurant called Sarpino’s. The food arrived in less than 1 hour and was very good.

 

We will relax for the rest of the evening in our room and spend tomorrow checking on everything we packed and probably stop by a few local stores.

 

More pictures on the blog

Edited by The-Inside-Cabin
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