Old Cruiser Is New Again! Tell Me What's Changed

[George C]

1 hour ago, emcraft said:

This is interesting, because even that long ago, we used to notice the number of people who ignored the dress code and went to the MDR in shorts and t-shirts. Back then I used to enjoy dressing up, but nowadays I basically live in sweatpants at home, so the idea of not having to dress up as much is more appealing.

But they had a dress code back then , that sometimes was enforced. I am retired so a dress anyway I want but going to a good restaurant or a cruise I don’t wear shorts. Really stopped going to mdr we normally do specialty or suite restaurants . Just was pointing out the difference a decade makes. 

[barbeyg]

1 hour ago, emcraft said:

Thank you for your message, especially the bit about there being an e-muster. (What even is that? Is it on the app?) Nice to know we won't have the chaos of going to muster.

 

Thanks for the tips about Coco Cay. I admit I'm tempted to splurge on the waterpark -- it would be a very rare opportunity to play at a waterpark withOUT the kids! -- but I think we'll probably plan to just walk around and explore free options that day.

 

Thanks also for the St. Thomas/St. John and St. Kitts feedback. What do you normally do at St. Kitts? We've never been, and the RC excursions don't really look that exciting.

E-muster is done by watching the video on your device (or the tv in the stateroom), and going by the muster station as soon as you possibly can (so you aren't one of those that the cruise director has to keep making announcements about to please show up).  There are RCI employees there to answer any questions, and to scan your boarding pass on your device so that you have checked in.  Easy peasy.  Just be sure to pay attention to where it is, in case you have a real emergency.  Hopefully not.  

 

We don't particularly like the offerings for St Kitts either.  We usually walk around town, and check out the shops, or take a taxi to one of the local beaches.  There are shared taxis available when you step outside the gates of the cruise dock. 

 

And if you love waterparks, you will love the slides at CocoCay!  Only you can decide if you would slide enough for the price offered on your cruise at this point.  We purchased it once when there was a great Black Friday price.  The waterpark is fun!  🙂

[emcraft]

20 hours ago, mikefromny said:

We absolutely LOVED Coco Cay. But to be fair, we splurged on a beachfront cabana at the beach club. However, the island is beautiful and there is plenty of free things to do. If you enjoy snorkeling at all then I highly recommend it. We say schools of beautiful fish. Later in the day, we came within 5 feet of a barracuda - scary but amazing. The snorkeling was so good that I bought an underwater digital camera for our next cruise.

 

In St. Thomas, we took the ferry over to Water Island and went to the beach there. We had a great time. I found out about it from royalcaribbeanblog.com (https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2023/01/12/i-went-stunning-caribbean-island-my-cruise-youve-probably-never-heard-of?fbclid=IwAR2fo5JrD2sBwDrQ-aDkswBx1M0w5trcVZ3MbMGd_Naucz2G5h5mY_GKKJw). The only warning is that the bathrooms are not nice. Other than that, we had a great day, and was easy to do on our own.

 

We found the wifi was fine. Was always able to stream music, get emails and use our kindle or tablet. The only problem we had is that with T-Mobile we could not get MMS messages. We used whatsapp to send and receive texts to avoid the problem. The free messaging in the app was very spotty.

Thanks so much for the info about good snorkeling at Coco Cay. That's one thing I want to do that no one else in my party seems interested in, so I'll plan to get my fix at Coco Cay. Do they have snorkeling equipment for free?

 

Thanks also for the St. Thomas advice. We've been once, many years ago (I think 2007!), and we went to Magen's Bay. 

 

Glad to hear the wifi is okay. I won't need it to be super fast, just functional for checking in with my parents who will be watching my kids. 

 

Thanks for the message! Much appreciated.

[mikefromny]

3 hours ago, emcraft said:

Thanks so much for the info about good snorkeling at Coco Cay. That's one thing I want to do that no one else in my party seems interested in, so I'll plan to get my fix at Coco Cay. Do they have snorkeling equipment for free?

 

Thanks also for the St. Thomas advice. We've been once, many years ago (I think 2007!), and we went to Magen's Bay. 

 

Glad to hear the wifi is okay. I won't need it to be super fast, just functional for checking in with my parents who will be watching my kids. 

 

Thanks for the message! Much appreciated.

If you go to the beach club they may have free snorkeling equipment, I know the cabanas have masks and snorkels, but I don't think flippers. I think there is a stand near the snorkeling area that rents the equipment. We got our sets on Amazon pretty cheaply.

 

Enjoy!