jbrinkm

I haven't been on Icon, just read a detailed trip report, but I think that I would greatly enjoy the Aquadome Market i.e. food court over any of the complementary options on Oasis class ships. What did you think?

We brought $500 on our last trip, $100 in singles and various denominations for the rest - it WAS a lot of singles so we split it up between us. We came home with quite a bit left, but we didn't want to run short on cash like we did the year before. Two years ago, we ran into several "broken" credit card machines during different excursions and got so low on cash while on Cozumel that we weren't sure we were going to be able to pay the taxi to get back. My husband used his cash for one thing and I used my cash for a different thing (we split up with the kids and then met back up later that day) and we each hoped that the other would have more cash on hand than we did. My 12 year old son ended up saving the day - hearing us talk about it (i.e. panic and freak out), he said "I have cash" and proceeded to open the back of his phone to around $70 in cash that neither of us knew he had with him 🤣 (from his little piggy bank from various birthday and other gifts). We did have more on the ship but still ended up running lower than we felt comfortable that whole trip.

JFK may have gotten better - someone can easily correct me since it has been many years since I flew into that airport on an International flight - but I remember feeling like it was cattle herding there. Everyone from all the flights, all in one big hall/chute, no order, people pushing and shoving to get past each other, dragging luggage over people's feet, etc. I have paid more since that experience to fly from any airport OTHER than JFK. (However, I've never flown into O'Hare on an International flight but the domestic terminals seem fairly well organized - albeit huge...)

If you want to sightsee, you could look into luggage delivery or luggage storage in the city.

Join your roll call and see if anyone wants to meet up for a slot pull, or a social/sport event, or a certain bar, etc.

https://www.aruba.com/us/blog/arubas-top-rated-snorkeling-beaches I know Aruba also has a great bus system also if you want to take the bus to one of these beaches. The bus info is on the same website: https://www.aruba.com/us/plan-your-visit/getting-around-aruba

Liberty is not amped; Freedom and Independence are. Both Freedom and Indy look to have 3-5 night cruises from Miami to different places.

I'm a little confused. When I use insuremytrip, I get a choice of many different policies. Did all of the policies increase in price, or just one particular one that you were looking at? Is there a different policy that you could choose, or did all of them go up? BTW, this just happened to me also but on the Geo Blue site. I put in the ages for travel but they needed the ages right now. That is so weird to me. Also, we needed insurance coverage for a new car recently, but for a different state, and got a quote - but then the car came in a few days sooner and we wanted to bump up the start date. The policy went up by over $100 per six months. If it had been a one time cost, we wouldn't have minded, but it would be $200+/year more, every year going forward. And they couldn't explain why - just that it did and there was no budging them.

Yes, I thought $20 was very reasonable for that. My parents won't have to worry at all about finding chairs at the beach (although they won't have an umbrella... but maybe they can find a tree).

I'd recommend Royal Caribbean. The Freedom Class ships (although I'm not sure which are doing 3-5 days from FL - two are amped with slides and one is not) have interior cabins with Pullman beds that come down from the ceiling and those were fantastic as first cruises for our kiddos. We've since moved up to Oasis class, which are absolutely fantastic ships as well, but unless your kids would share a sofa bed, you have to look for which ones have the trundle style couches or pay more for the bunk bed rooms. Interior rooms are pretty small so it was fantastic to use some of the overhead space for sleeping rather than having another 2 beds set up on the floor and having to get around them. For your teen to have a little privacy (as mine always do), you could rig up fabric with magnets on the ceiling to wrap around the bed and block it off from the rest of the room. Honestly, I'd suggest you contact a good travel agent who might have group rates and pose your question to them for a recommendation. We are not allowed to share TA info on this board, but if you decide to go with Royal, there is another blog - royal caribbean blog dot com - and there is a current thread about finding a good TA in the message boards over there. With cruising, the TA can book for you but you still have control over your vacation. You would still book all of your extras. The TA would just handle any problems that occur between you and the cruise line as far as your room, your fare, etc.

When do you go? I have a rental at the end of March and can check back in after that. We are using Top Drive (a 6 or 7 person automatic SUV) and they had an add on package for $20 that includes 2 chairs, 2 sets of snorkel equipment and a cooler - but I'll have to take the bus down to their meeting point. I'll have my 14 and 17 year olds, as well as my parents. The four of us will scuba dive in the morning while my parents just spend time at one of the beaches north of the port (Eagle/Arashi/Palm). Then we'll take the rental car for lunch and sightseeing, so a little opposite from your plan. We want to be back on the ship for an early dinner, then we'll walk around town for a little more sightseeing after dinner because we depart at 10pm. We have the following potential stopping points but haven't narrowed them down yet: Butterfly Farm Donkey Sanctuary Philip’s Animal Park Ostrich farm Natural bridge (the one that didn't collapse) Alto Vista California Lighthouse Aloe factory @kings2001 Can you remember how much the admission fees were for your trip? That may play a factor in which items we try to squeeze in. @mand75 Would you be willing to report back after you go and tell us how it went?

I know a lot of people go to and enjoy Willem's, but it appears that there are other Dutch Pancake places somewhat near the pier. Has anyone gone to a different place and enjoyed the food? Did you find (that place) less expensive or less crowded?

Would you consider snorkeling from shore instead? There are a few places where you can do that.

You can go in the first day when they register for the program (for us, they just checked them off of a list and punched a "T" on their SeaPass cards). If you are on a ship with a Playmakers, I believe there are also some free games there as well. My teens are also introverted and we ended up connecting with a few other families on a roll call (cruise line specific blog message board, not on here because you can't DM here - some people also use Facebook for their roll call). We all had teens that were a little nervous about the teen club so we met up before the teen meet up, all got to know each other a little, then we all swapped cell numbers and the kids ended up hanging out for the whole cruise. One family even added on an excursion we were doing so the kids could still be together.

It depends on the ship/class - Oasis class includes 12 year olds in the teen group.

We have early fixed dining in the MDR, which we love, but with the menu changes and fewer vegetarian options, on our last cruise, we ended up for second dinner in the MDR several times. We'd grab our Freestyle cups and just hang out with some snacks and watch out over the sports court. Wow, that is appalling.

I'm surprised that Icon went back to 13+ for the teen club. Oasis class puts 12 year olds in with the teen group. My son was 12 when we went on Allure two years ago and he was part of the teen group - which he much preferred than being with the younger kids (he mostly hung with his older sibling).

@DrPepper7 I'm super invested in this now! Would you be willing to come back and share what you end up doing, or posting a pic of the bags when you finish?

I like the idea of magnets - to play with (there are small building kits) and perhaps the kind where you can color the front and then put it on the outside of the cabin doors (something like these). Maybe some little portable games, like mini connect four or card games that can be played easily and quickly. My kids always liked putty, although that comes with its own risks. Do they still sell disposable cameras? Or maybe you can pull together a few outdated/old cell phones with no service for them to take pictures with. Stickers. Little ducks to hide. Lanyards in a style of their likes. Water shoes (I've seen them at Five Below before, another great place to look for some of these items). A special towel. Glow sticks or a special, fun, battery operated night light or battery tea light. A sleep mask (they might find it fun). A tiny beanie or stuffie.

Would you consider an accessible stateroom?

I thought there was really good snorkeling right from the shore on Cozumel - we were at the Cabana Beach but Chankanaab is next door and Money Bar is neaby as well - that is the stretch of island that is rocky, not sandy, has steps to lead in for the most part, and has a bunch of colorful, different kinds of fish right there. There is a current, so we definitely needed our fins, and the water was chilly (mid-April) but you got used to it quickly. We had decent snorkeling also in Roatan but we haven't been to West End. We snorkeled near French Key. The water was really clear and shallow.

However, a good TA can help you through billing issues that arise when the person on the phone might not know what they are doing. There is currently a big kerfuffle where the funds from cruise planner cancellations are getting subtracted from cruise fares instead of refunded to the credit card. In the trip reports, half the people writing are complaining that the reps on the phone don't know what is going on and are having their cruises threatened. And all the people who ended up leaning on their TAs when they got FCCs, to make sure they were able to receive and later use all of them that were issued for cruise cancellations. Plus when I book with my TA, I get a lower fare than is advertised online and I get it refundable. To each their own - I've done it both ways, just listing some additional reasons why people might like to use a TA. With any other type of vacation, I want to control the planning, but for cruising, I'm a TA convert.

You're right - I misread it as they each would drink 4-6, rather than together they would would drink 4-6.

Following up - Wonder does apparently have (at least some of) the multi-layer sofa beds. Look at 4:32 in this video:

I have read about people bringing a small air mattress, if that sibling wants to stay in the room with the other teens. A tight fit, but doable. The couches are super hard and a bit snug for sleeping, IMO, but I'm no longer a teenager! I also think that you could probably get extra bedding from your cabin attendant. We had a QR code in our cabin on Allure last year and you could request an extra pillow and an extra blanket, so that seems doable. ALSO, some of the sofa beds are more like trundle beds, with an upper place and a lower place to sleep. I "wonder" if there is a way to determine if you have that type of sofa bed rather than the traditional pull out double.