Cruisa Loosa

On 9/6/2016 at 5:34 PM, FlorenceItaly said:

This is for a 28 day March Hawaii/Tahiti cruise on the Emerald. I am conflicted because I do like the location of the Interior on the Riviera deck, and it is rumored to be a bit bigger than your typical inside. I think it is due to the layout. The size, location, and price appeals to me.

 

The obstructed view cabin is one of the better obstructed views with only a slight obstruction which looks like cables hanging. The window/natural light appeals to me.

 

 

The price difference is $856 TOTAL. Also, I am wondering if perhaps being in an obstruction view I MAY have an opportunity for an UPSELL to a balcony? This is PURE speculation, that I am NOT counting on.

 

Any feedback on Riviera Deck mid verus Emerald Deck AFT. We are walkers so that is not a concern.

 

We have traveled in insides/outsides/balconies. For this sailing, an inside or an obstructed view is what is in our price point. Thank you for any feedback you can give. I currently have R403 booked, and E631 on hold. E631 and E630 are the only ones available that are not really obstructed or slight obstruction is what I would consider E630/E631.

 

THANKS AGAIN!

 

Marie

We have done that cruise in an ocean view obstructed and it was excellent. Nice to have the sunlight and to be able to see a bit of view from the window. We spent most of our time on deck. 

The second time we did that cruise we had a balcony and to be honest I would have been fine without it. We have never done an inside, but I imagine it would be fine too. You just spend more time on deck and use your room for sleeping and dressing. I wouldn’t care if having either room meant we could take that cruise as it wasn’t fantastic and worth every penny! 

ENJOY, whichever you chose.

Now you're making me fret! We are booked on 28-day RT-LA (So.Pacific) and 18 of them are sea days! Read and relax is what dr'spin does, add knitting for me, and wants somewhere with a window/view to do so, otherwise he might as well be home! I know this cruise fills up, although maybe not too many 3rd/4th per cabin...

 

Is Internat'l Cafe the only place to get espresso drinks?

I wouldn’t worry about crowding on the upcoming 28 day trip, we did it a few years ago and it was wonderfully quiet everywhere most of the time. We liked it so much we're doing it again in a couple of weeks. See you on board! 😁

Thanks for your info everyone. I must have been thinking of Holland America for the mirrors. I guess I will,pack a small,magnifying mirror, it will be a long cruise.

Happy sailing all!

We will be sailing on Emerald Princess soon, and it has been a while. Can anyone tell me if there are still magnifying makeup mirrors in the balcony cabins?

We were on Royal recently and I was disappointed to find they did not have those mirrors, so had to use the bathroom mirror.

Thanks in advance!

We leave on March 30 doing the same itinerary. Have been on several other Princess ships but not the Royal. It has fewer pools than others, were the pools extremely crowded on sea days?

Can’t wait to get back on a Princess ship, it has been too long. Sounds like you had a good time.

We did this as a 'retirement' cruise in October 2013. It was fantastic! All the other posts have described the great things about this cruise. Loved the sea days, so relaxing. The ports were excellent, really enjoyed the excursions offered. One of our best cruises for sure. We plan to do it again at some point. Well worth it!

JUst booked cabin E428 for a 10 day in March, so I was very interested in reading these posts. Sounds like it was a good choice. YAY!

We stayed at Best Western Hotel Ala for three days before our cruise. It was fantastic! A small hotel a short walk from St. mark's square. Reasonable price, good breakfast, overlooking a canal, lovely rooftop terrace, friendly bar. Highly recommend it!

Good morning! I did purchase one of the pouches.

 

So can we talk purses / totes for holding your items on the plane?

 

Suggestions on a CHEAP one with a few pockets? I'm really just going to keep my tablet, eye mask, medication, etc in it. I have a SMALL purse for daily use at home, but it won't fit a tablet (iPad mini).

I use a cross body purse made by Roots. It has pockets on inside and outside. An iPad and phone, wallet and other items fit fine and it lays flat against my body which I like. I got it at Bentley's luggage store and it was quite inexpensive. I have used it all over Europe and love it.

Hi I'm new to cruising and going on my first cruise in January (9 nights New Caledonia). I would like to go snorkeling but unsure where your belongings go when doing that? Are they kept on the beach or safely stored? I won't be taking much other than some money really.

 

Is it worth bringing your own snorkel and fins? Thanks in advance ☺

The answer depends if you are going on a snorkeling excursion or just snorkeling off of a beach. We do excursions as much as possible to get to the better snorkeling areas. Typically we leave our belongings on the boat with the excursion crew and have never had any problems. If I am feeling unsure, then I use a waterproof pouch to hold my ID, ship card and money.

Hop on the bus...go to Seagrape Beach...and have 2 hours there. Traffic returning to the ship can get slow...so keep an eye on the road...you can see the road from the beach! There is no good snorkeling close to the ship.

 

For this short amount of time, it's almost a wasted day...there is shopping right across from the tender dock.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

Why do you insist on giving out incorrect information? I know you probably mean well, but you confuse people and it isn't helpful.

 

As Capt BJ says above, there is great snorkeling very close to the ship, at Eden Rock.

 

There is also not bad snorkeling at Smith Cove, about 15-20 minutes or so walk (or a short taxi ride) past Eden Rock in the opposite direction as Seven Mile Beach.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated!

7 Mile IS close, you can walk or taxi or bus

 

if you want to snorkel EDEN ROCK dive center is closer than even 7 Mile, less than 10 minute walk from the tender landings ... if you have equipment there is no charge to hop in. If you need equipment the shop is 'right there' and a set will run about $14. Be warned tho this is 'big boy pants' snorkeling, the water can be 40' deep ... NO STANDING .. and no beach but there is a ladder to get in/out. They rent lockers fro a small fee. http://www.edenrockdive.com/snorkeling.html

 

p.s. IMO in Cayman you either go to the beach and get sand ... or you snorkel. These two events happen at different parts of the island. On 7 Mile, if you snorkel you might see a few fish but what you WILL see is sand sand and more sand. If you go to a place like ER, there is no sand beach as this area (south of the tender landings and 7M beach) is 'iron shore', so called because the coral runs right up to where it is exposed and out of the water ... so when you get wet the reef is 'right there'

 

iron shore at Sunset House ... this picture is from Sunset House looking towards town .... Eden Rock is near where the ship on the right is parked ... this was taken on a blustery day in March while the ships were having some difficulty getting everyone back aboard from the tenders ...

Thank you so much for the very useful and detailed response! Just what I was looking for. I had seen reference to Eden Rock elsewhere on CC, so happy to hear it is good snorkeling. We have snorkelied in deep water off of rocks in other parts of the world, so that does not bother us. The proximity to the port is the best part! We can walk over in early morning and snorkel for a couple of hours and still have time to walk around the town a bit before the ship leaves. I am surprised at such a short stop at the port, but better than nothing I guess.

Thanks again. And happy sailing in the future!

We will be in Grand Cayman in early December for a short time, from 8:00 to 1:00.

Is there a beach within walking distance of the port where we could do some swimming and snorkeling for the morning?

Or should we just plan on walking around the town and go back to the ship as it is such a short stop?

Thanks!

Thank you so much for letting me know and I'm glad it was helpful to you. Both times we toured with Spencer (we did the Land, Sea, and beach on our most recent visit in September 2015), we were back by 3:30 but our ship was there until 5PM. That could be cutting it close, but Spencer does gear his tours to cruise ship passengers and they do have the ship schedules and times they are in port.

 

Do you know if you'll be the only ship in port the day you are there? That could be a factor. If you're the only ship in port, then others on his tours would also be needing to be back probably no later than 3:30pm. We sailed on Carnival and Carnival's back on board time is a half hour before the ship is scheduled to leave port. We were in St. Lucia from 8AM - 5PM both times, so had to be back on the ship by 4:30PM. If you're scheduled to leave at 4PM, then my guess is that they would try to have you back at the port by 3PM. Again, that's my guess. :)

 

The only reason there may be a "hitch" is ff there is another ship scheduled to be there that day that won't be leaving St. Lucia until 5PM. To be honest, I don't know how Spencer would handle that. We've always had to be at the little pier at Jalousie Beach by 2PM to head back to our ship. Again, not positive here, just guessing, but to accommodate two different ships with different times (yours leaving at 4PM, the other at 5PM), they *could* schedule two different times to leave Jalousie Beach. Maybe 1PM for those on the ship leaving at 4PM, and 2PM for those on the ship leaving at 5PM. That is, if there is another ship scheduled to be there the same day you are.

 

***I just looked up one of the websites that has the cruise ship schedules and this. It's pretty accurate, but not always, so you can't rely on it 100%. I just looked up Castries, St. Lucia's cruise ship schedule for November 15, 2016 till November 30, 2016, and there are three dates in the second half of November that will have more than one ship in port. The rest of the dates only have one ship showing as being scheduled in Castries, St. Lucia.***

 

November 17, 2016: Adventure of the Seas and Fascination

November 22, 2016: Royal Princess and Celebrity Eclipse

November 30, 2016: Norwegian Gem and Seven Seas Mariner.

 

But yes, please feel free to contact them, and I'm sure they will let you know for sure. I would probably do that, even if it is just for "peace of mind". They are very easy to work with and they will not mind questions and that is a valid and important question. It's not like you'd be asking for the weather forecast on the day you will be there (I'm sure it's asked). :D

 

I really do hope this works out for you since our St. Lucia days with Spencer have been our best on a cruise. We will get down there again, eventually, and it will definitely be the beach break next time, we just loved it. Hope this helps. :)

Hi again! Thanks so much for your very helpful response, I appreciate you taking the time. In checking our itinerary I discovered we are in St. lucia on Dec. 2, (sorry about that, duh!) and I checked and see that there is only one other ship in port that day, leaving at 4:00 as well, so I am thrilled. Shouldn't be a problem with returning to the ship in time for all aboard. So, I am going to book the beach tour and am very excited. Your review, plus others on CC and Tripadvisor are all very positive. Should be a great excursion.

Thanks again, and happy sailing! 😃

We did the beach break with Spencer Ambrose on our Carnival Valor cruise in May 2013 and highly recommend it. We also had the option of booking through the ship, but that beach break would only allow 1 1/2 hours at the beach, which we knew would not be enough time for us. We had seen pictures of the beach (just gorgeous), so we wanted time to get pictures, to snorkel (some of the best snorkeling we've seen), and just to enjoy the beach and an hour and a half time on the excursion through the cruise line just seemed to rushed. We're on vacation and don't want to be rushed. We knew that the beach break with Spencer would allow a lot more time to enjoy the beach and from other reviews I read, he was also very reliable in getting tours back to the ship with plenty of time, and Spencer's prices are very reasonable with all that is included, so we booked with Spencer instead of through Carnival. We were very happy with our experience, so happy that we booked another tour with Spencer (land/sea/beach) on our most recent cruise on Carnival Liberty last September.

 

What we really liked: Speedboat transportation directly to and from the beach; we were the first group there & had first picks of the free loungers; we had about five hours at the beach, so plenty of time to get pictures, snorkel, and just relax and take in the beauty of our surroundings; a buffet stye, home cooked lunch was included (very good); unlimited beverages (water, coke, diet coke, Piton beer, rum punch) were also provided; there were vendors at the beach, but they don't bother you...if you are interested you go to them and they were very nice and not pushy; the trip back to the ship included the "Sea Tour", with several stops along the way for explanation and great photo ops; back in plenty of time so we were able to browse the shops at the cruise center before getting back on the ship. Spencer and those who work for him (including his daughter, Shequana) are all very professional, very nice, and the communication before hand was very good.

 

I did a review of that cruise that includes plenty of pictures. I'll attach a link to the thread and I'm hoping it will go directly to the page that the Jalousie/Sugar Beach Break starts on (if not, the section on Spencer's Jalousie/Sugar Beach Break starts on page 10 and goes through page 12). It includes a detailed description of our tour and pictures, including snorkeling pictures.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1917645&page=10

 

We enjoyed the Jalousie/Sugar Beach Break so much that we booked the Land, Sea, and Beach Tour through Spencer on our most recent cruise on Carnival Liberty in September 2015. For that tour, we had about two and a half hours at Jalousie (Sugar) Beach. I'll copy and past the link to that section since I got a lot of pictures and my snorkeling pictures this time came out much better. We had the same lunch we did the first time, but this time I remembered to get a picture (I took a little of everything just like I did the first time). Again, copying link to hopefully open on the section that includes the Jalousie/Sugar Beach pictures (starts on page 21, post #413).

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2275573&highlight=liberty&page=21

 

I hope this is helpful and please feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.

We are going to St. lucia at the end of Nov. and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your detailed review! So much useful information!

One question....our ship is scheduled to leave at 4:00 that day. Will that be enough time for this excursion? I am always nervous about getting back to the ship in time. I will contact the tour company about it of course, but just wanted your opinion as a customer.

Thanks in advance!!

Before you book a 28 day cruise on ANY ship, LOOK AT THE DECKPLANS and see what you are buying into.

All of the information, including cabin measurements, is there for the asking.

 

 

I did a survey on this board asking if people really used the Deckplans and 90% responded that they did. I fear that number has slipped by half.

Yes, of course one would look at the deck plans, and I have done so. But I just couldn't find a promenade and I thought perhaps you could tell me as you are on the ship. Thanks for your reply.

I am on Sirena for the next 9 days if anyone has any questions

Thanks for offering assistance.

Newbie to Oceania here. We are considering a 28 day cruise to South America on the Sirena this fall. We have sailed Princess and HAL many times and are interested in knowing the differences on this line. It looks gorgeous, and the reviews are varying as others have mentioned. So, are the staterooms a great deal smaller than larger ships? Is there a promenade for walking? How is the entertainment? Sounds like the food and drink are amazing. Any other comments would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks!

So do we- a small zippered bag with OTC supplies such as band aids' date=' a few gauze pads and tape, painkiller of choice, lip balm, Bonine for seasickness, antibiotic ointment, etc. Who wants to go running around the ship to the Front Desk or infirmary when it's open just to get inexpensive ordinary everyday medical supplies for free.[/quote']

 

I agree. I always pack a first aid kit of OTC supplies to have on hand on any trip away from home. You never know what might happen and when so it is best to come prepared and the supplies don't take up a lot of packing space. Just makes sense.

We used the thank you OBC on a cruise we booked last fall for this summer. When the price dropped they took it away. After sending an email to HAL to complain they reinstated the OBC. You have to really be on top of them and keep an eye on the details.

Thank you all for your very warm wishes. Can't wait to escape the cold. Looking forward to checking out the Maasdam.

Happy Spring!! Yay!

Pat

We have the same situation for our ports -- snorkelers and non-snorkelers in our group.

 

Here's a webpage I've done for Antigua. Just under the photos is "Our Plans" with 3 links to the beaches we're considering. We'll probable go to the Coconut Beach Club AI but the other beaches look great too.

 

As you can see at the top of my webpages, I've complied the information from various websites so the information is only as accurate and current as the original websites. Be sure to specifically verify any details that are important for your group.

Wow! Just went through your webpage, what a lot of great information!! So very helpful. We are leaving on our cruise in two weeks so now I know I can reserve spots at some beach clubs and have a great time in places where we have not booked excursions.

Thank you for sharing such a great resource!!

We are going on the Maasdam in three weeks. I have been reading rave reviews on the HAL BB King Blues clubs and wondered if there is one on the Maasdam?

Thanks!

Hi there

We are heading out on April 7, 2015 on a ten day cruise of the Eastern Caribbean on the Maasdam! Can't wait for some sun!