Savmom9801

We will be traveling with our 18 year old who is bringing a friend. I know parents can sign a waiver allowing 18 year olds to drink beer and wine, but will we as his friend's chaperones be able to sign the waiver for his friend as well? His friend's parents won't be traveling with us.

Thanks so much for the quick responses. I think we will just see how it goes when we get on board. I'm looking forward to not having a scheduled dinner time!

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed - I promise I did search! This is our first NCL cruise. I thought reservations were not allowed at complimentary restaurants, but I see them as an option on my cruise planner on NCL. So do I need to make reservations for dinner? I'd prefer to just go when I feel like it.

We will be on the Eclipse next week. How do I find out what shows or performances will be onboard? Or do I just have to wait until we set sail to find out?

Anyone else having issues when trying to book on the Royal Caribbean website? It keeps locking up when I click on "book now".

The things I want from a travel agency are

 

(1) Sufficient additional perks and/or price savings to make it worth involving a third party.

 

 

(2) Availability - I want to be able to call and talk to another agent who can take care of whatever is needed when my regular agent is not available.

 

I intensely dislike needing to leave voicemail messages and then wait in suspense until someone gets back to me.

I want the transaction completed, and have my yes or no answer by the time I get off the phone.

 

After all, this is not rocket science.

It is not something that can only be done by one specific individual.

Any capable agent should be able to process a price drop or cabin change and send me the revised invoice.

 

 

(3) No fees for processing changes or cancellations.

 

But there are sometimes exceptions, where I will book with an agent who charges a cancellation fee if the perks are especially good and it is a cruise that I am unlikely to cancel.

 

 

I would not rely on any TA as a source of current and accurate information about my cruise or flights or the destinations I will be visiting.

 

If a TA happens to have recently taken the same cruise or visited the same places I am going, then that would just be an extra bonus.

 

No individual, no matter how well traveled, can have personal current knowledge about all vacation destinations.

In this day and age, with things changing rapidly, there are so many better sources of information available.

 

 

This is great advice and I'm going to remember it the next time I investigate travel agents. Thank you so much!

My agent is a one woman show - I think she works under another larger agency because she had me write another agency on the transfer form. She has not provided me with any other contact. When better suites started opening up, I wasn't able to reach her because it was over a weekend. I ended up doing a courtesy hold on the room and had to conference call with Celebrity and my agent to change my reservation. It was a hassle. It would have been so much easier to deal directly with Celebrity. Like I said, I am happy with my reservations, but I saw two royal suites come available after final payment that I couldn't get because my agent was out of the country.

Before you transfer you should have asked "what perks can you provide" . If the answer is nothing, then call another agent.

 

If you don't ask, you likely won't get anything.

Yep - lesson learned. I have since found that out. This was a local agent from a business network group. I was trying to throw business her way to support a member. Unfortunately, she's no longer even a member of my group - so that was a waste too. LOL! It's no big deal - I'm excited about my cruise and happy with the perks offered by Celebrity - I just wish I had known better beforehand.

I may cancel my next cruise and rebook since final payment isn't due until March. I'm waiting right now because the rates have increased significantly since my original booking. I can't take an agent off of my booking once I've transferred it - can I?

I transferred my next two cruise bookings to a local TA and haven't received any benefit from it at all. It has actually been very frustrating to me to have to contact my agent - who was out of the country and completely out of reach at the same time as final payment. I would have liked to upgrade from a sky suite to a royal suite as they started opening up, but Celebrity would not discuss my booking with me at all. I wish CC would allow members to post the names of the box companies that give great OBC as well as great customer service. i think I'll just keep my reservation next time.

By May of 2016, the only Dream class ship in Florida will be the Magic in POrt Canaveral. The Breeze will already be in Galveston, Vista still in Europe and Dream in New Orleans. I would choose the Magic if Florida is a must.

Thanks for that heads up! We are in Georgia and Florida is only a few hours south, so that is a must. Is the Magic just as nice as the Breeze? Now a road trip to New Orleans might be fun! Is the Dream worth the extra time in the car?

Congrats on Graduation. What graduation? Grammer school, HS, Grad School? Ive taken my dd and her friends on a cruise for Sweer 16 six years ago and I would never have had them even then in a balcony room.

 

If I had to choose, I would book the Breeze. My dd is graduating a semester early in December from College and we are going on the Breeze to celebrate.

 

Happy planning. I

Oh sorry! It's high school graduation for my son. We will have 2 - 18 year old boys, a 16 year old girl, and a 14 year old girl. My son (who is the one graduating) really wants a balcony but I just don't think they will use it. We will get at least two rooms. Does carnival allow kids in a connecting room with the parents? I'm thinking two connecting rooms for the girls and my husband & myself and maybe a 3rd adjoining room for the 18 year old boys. If they won't let us do that, my husband could stay with the boys and I could stay with the girls.

Considering a graduation trip for our kids and a few of their friends. Which Carnival ship is the newest, with the best water slides, etc. on board? We would love to book the Vista but we need to sail in May or June 2016. We will need to sail out of Florida.

Also, is it worth the extra cost to book balcony rooms for teenagers? My thought are they will not want a leisurely breakfast on the balcony and will want to get to the happening spots as quickly as possible in the mornings.

Thanks for your help!

I've noticed lots of comments on here about grabbing a couple of drinks from the bar and stocking the mini-fridge. I just wonder how strict they are with the one drink at a time rule? Would they let me grab a couple of bottles of water and a cocktail at the same time? Just curious. It may be easier to just bring a case of water bottles with me on the boat. I will definitely be brining two bottles of wine!

Thanks so much for all of the responses! An S1 corner aft just opened up on a lower deck so I made the switch from my S2.

Iamthesea, we decided to go and see. Our trip is after your trip, so it wouldn't be helpful, but I will post a review of our stateroom when we return. I am hoping we are below the carpeted area. I find it interesting how many SS2's are available on our sailing on deck 12. Hoping we haven't made the wrong choice.

Thanks so much for your help! We went with the sky suite. I'll write a review when we get back about how we liked it.

My husband and are on the Eclipse in December - celebrating our 20th anniversary and our first Celebrity cruise. We currently are booked in a C2 on the "hump". I am thinking about changing to a suite, but the only thing left are sky suites on deck 12 under the ocean view cafe. I've always stayed between stateroom decks so I'm not sure if the upgrade to suite would be worth losing the hump balcony and locations between stateroom decks. I've read mixed reviews about the noise level below the ocean view cafe. We are traveling without kids so I don't want to be awakened early by serving carts and chairs scraping. Also how does Luminae compare to the main dining room? We will be eating specialty restaurants several nights, but do have a few nights where we will be eating in the main dining room. Anyone whose stayed in the sky suites on deck 12 recently have any thoughts?

Geezercouple the reason I put it in red was to clarify that I was NOT making a general statement across the board for all policies with all insurance companies. I did not want there to be any confusion that I was speaking about all policies in general. Apparently I made it more confusing. Sorry about that!

I was only relaying information that was given to me for MY particular policy with the third party insurance company that I was using. The information that I provided was copied directly from my policy. This information was helpful to me and I thought it might be helpful to others considering travel insurance. This is the first trip that I have actually had to be concerned with the illness of a family member at home since my father is terminally ill. I generally wait until final deposit to purchase insurance. I am glad I looked into it further for this particular trip.

I know this is an old post, but we are in the process of booking our cruise and purchasing travel insurance. My mother and her husband (who are not travelling with us) are in poor health so this thread almost convinced me to wait until closer to our sail date to purchase the policies. I was told by Travel Guard that the Pre-existing exclusion of benefits does apply to non-travelling family members. Below is the portion of my policy that relates to it. I am glad that I checked into it further. You only have 15 days from making the deposit on your trip to get insurance with the waiver to the pre-existing exclusion. This is just my experience with my particular travel insurance company.

) PRE-EXISTING MEDICAL CONDITION EXCLUSION: The

Company will not pay for any loss or expense incurred as the

result of an Injury, Sickness or other condition (excluding any

condition from which death ensues) of an Insured, Traveling

Companion, Business Partner or Family Member which,

within the 180 day period immediately preceding and

including the Insured’s coverage effective date: (a) first

manifested itself, worsened, became acute or had symptoms

which would have prompted a reasonable person to seek

diagnosis, care or treatment; (b) for which care or treatment

was given or recommended by a Physician; © required

taking prescription drugs or medicines, unless the condition

for which the drugs or medicines are taken remains

controlled without any change in the required prescription

drugs or medicines.

That's strange dioxide45. I heard back from Bar Hop and they said we'd be better off booking the Bar Hop tour for our anniversary trip in December because they may not have the minimum to make a beach hop tour. I then asked him about the beach hop for our family trip in June 2016 and he said that we could book the beach hop within 6 months of our sail date since there would be 9 of us and we would have the minimum amount to make the tour. Maybe it is only offered for groups. I will do a comparison review after our family trip in June.

Thanks c-legs5! That is good information to consider. It will just be the two of us and I would hate to have the tour cancelled due to lack of participation. I emailed Bar Hop a few days ago, but haven't heard back from them yet.

Thanks so much Crewsweeper. That helps me make my decision!

Does anyone know the difference between these two tours? It seems that they are very similar.

However, the beach hop doesn't go to Playa Bonita & Coconuts. It goes to Chen Rio instead. So I guess they spend a little more time at each beach/bar?

Both tours include a shot at every stop & a t-shirt. They are operated by the same company.

I can't find any reviews on the Beach Hop. We will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. We aren't big drinkers, and we would love to see the best of the East Side of the island.

So is Coconuts & Playa Bonita comparable to Chen Rio?

We are taking our children (12 & 15) on a spring break cruise in March 2014. I have a deposit with RCCL Freedom of the Seas (7 day western Caribbean) and just put a 24 hour courtesy hold on celebrity silhouette (7 day eastern Caribbean). I have until Dec 31 to cancel with RCCL without losing my money. There is very little difference in price & I was able to get connecting staterooms with balconies on both. I will post this on Celebrity page as well.

These are my concerns:

I hate crowds, waiting in line, and frustrating unsupervised kids. I am concerned about spring break travel because of this, but have no choice due to school schedules. Therefore, I am thinking the Celebrity cruise would feel like a vacation - thinking less kids since they don't cater to kids. I want to have some fun with my kids, not be separated from them all week while they do teen club stuff. Maybe one date night with my husband, but that would be it.

Celebrity has a much better non-alcoholic package for the kids than RCCL.

Especially since it includes bottled water, etc.

Celebrity has no smoking. We did a Mediterranean cruise last fall and you couldn't see to walk thru the pool area because the smoke was so thick. I am sensitive to smoke & suffered allergy problems during the entire trip.

I like that RCCL seems to have more fun stuff to do on the boat, but I won't enjoy sexy leg contest, etc. plus thinking if the lines are long, will we even get to do the surf simulator, rock climbing wall, etc. I am worried that my kids will be bored on Celebrity. Anyone got suggestions for having fun with kids on celebrity on days at sea. We will have 3 days at sea on Celebrity vs. 2 days on RCCL.

We are in Georgia so the drive to Ft Lauderdale for Celebrity is 2 hours longer than the drive to Port Canaveral for RCCL.

Which is better - eastern or western itineraries. We really just want to snorkel, play on the beach, and swim with dolphins. My son would enjoy the Mayan ruins in Mexico, but he would also enjoy the fort IN Puerto Rico & we wouldn't have a long bus ride to see it.

As you can see we really need help! I want it to be an awesome trip. My husband didn't enjoy our Greek Isles trip last year because the days at sea were pretty boring & the night time entertainment was terrible. If this one is a flop, I will never talk him into a cruise again! He would rather just go someplace in a plane and stay than be "stuck on a boat" as he says. I'm afraid if there's not enough to do on Celebrity he will feel that way when we have 2 back to back days at sea.

We are taking our children (12 & 15) on a spring break cruise in March 2014. I have a deposit with RCCL Freedom of the Seas (7 day western Caribbean) and just put a 24 hour courtesy hold on celebrity silhouette (7 day eastern Caribbean). I have until Dec 31 to cancel with RCCL without losing my money. There is very little difference in price & I was able to get connecting staterooms with balconies on both. I will post this on RCCL page as well.

These are my concerns:

I hate crowds, waiting in line, and frustrating unsupervised kids. I am concerned about spring break travel because of this, but have no choice due to school schedules. Therefore, I am thinking the Celebrity cruise would feel like a vacation - thinking less kids since they don't cater to kids. I want to have some fun with my kids, not be separated from them all week while they do teen club stuff. Maybe one date night with my husband, but that would be it.

Celebrity has a much better non-alcoholic package for the kids than RCCL.

Especially since it includes bottled water, etc.

Celebrity has no smoking. We did a Mediterranean cruise last fall and you couldn't see to walk thru the pool area because the smoke was so thick. I am sensitive to smoke & suffered allergy problems during the entire trip.

I like that RCCL seems to have more fun stuff to do on the boat, but I won't enjoy sexy leg contest, etc. plus thinking if the lines are long, will we even get to do the surf simulator, rock climbing wall, etc. I am worried that my kids will be bored on Celebrity. Anyone got suggestions for having fun with kids on celebrity on days at sea. We will have 3 days at sea on Celebrity vs. 2 days on RCCL.

We are in Georgia so the drive to Ft Lauderdale for Celebrity is 2 hours longer than the drive to Port Canaveral for RCCL.

Which is better - eastern or western itineraries. We really just want to snorkel, play on the beach, and swim with dolphins. My son would enjoy the Mayan ruins in Mexico, but he would also enjoy the fort IN Puerto Rico & we wouldn't have a long bus ride to see it.

As you can see we really need help! I want it to be an awesome trip. My husband didn't enjoy our Greek Isles trip last year because the days at sea were pretty boring & the night time entertainment was terrible. If this one is a flop, I will never talk him into a cruise again! He would rather just go someplace in a plane and stay than be "stuck on a boat" as he says. I'm afraid if there's not enough to do on Celebrity he will feel that way when we have 2 back to back days at sea.