Koali

On 10/28/2023 at 8:31 AM, sebas030 said:

Taxi's are regulated, you can find a website and the chart for the fares. It's a flat rate from point "A" to point "B"

 

ex: port to Maho, port to Marigot, Maho to any beaches, etc

 

Prices are for 1-2 passenger, third passenger is extra, and includes 1 piece of luggage per person.

 

I will use a taxi on my next stop there instead of a tour. I will save about $120 ( we are 3 ) I will taxi from port to Maho, Maho to Marigot and Marigot to port.

Do you know how much from the port to Maho is ? How much is it for the 3rd and 4th? Trying to decide is we want to go to a resort next to Maho 

On 8/17/2023 at 5:41 PM, PORT ROYAL said:

Consider the Chocolate Museum, plenty of hands-on experiences and fun (eating also) things to do.  Little one could make a chocolate bar as a gift for their parents.

 

Is this in St John Antigua ? I couldn’t find anything except for the chocolate museum in Antigua Guatemala 

On 3/5/2023 at 2:00 PM, nolegirl01 said:

 

Yes we did the Dolphin SeaTrek excursion. While it was nice to see the dolphins, I think the normal SeaTrek would have been better. I think you see more. There was only 1 dolphin swimming around and while they were trying to get him close to us, he would do a swim by and then swim away. We only did one lap around the enclosure and that was it. I thought it was too fast and we barely saw anything. I think I saw the dolphin only once or twice in a swim by. I think the regular SeaTrek you get to see more fish, more corals and I think it's a little longer. But the staff was great! 

 

We booked the roundtrip transportation through the Coral World site and once you leave the ship, there was someone with a Coral World sign waiting for those who booked transportation. Once you get there, they have a list of people who booked the transportation and they will let you know what time your transportation will leave. 

As far as Coki Beach, once you get to Coral World, there is a little path that leads you to Coki Beach, so you can just walk over. It's literally next door so no taxi required.

did you have to wait a certain time to return back to the port? We are sailing with NCL and they have an excursion which would be convenient but I have 2 toddlers, I’m not sure they can withstand 4-5 hrs. 

We’ve been to Alaska twice with Holland America and it’s one of our favorite itineraries. We hope to do it again in the future! 
 

we will be on the NCL Sun later this year, can you tell me anything of the golf area? I saw it in some ship tour videos. Are there clubs there? 
 

did you have any difficulty booking speciality dining restaurants? I had heard that with everyone getting the free at sea promos, reservations were tough or at very odd hours. I know a benefit is that the Sun is a smaller pax ship. 

38 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

Kids are allowed to order off the kids menu.  It is possible - but not guaranteed - that a specialty restaurant might offer to let your child order an appetizer for free instead of a main menu.  That happened at one of the specialty restaurants we visited (La Cucina).  But you absolutely cannot depend on that, and they do have the right to charge you in full if your child orders off the main menu.  Please note though that the specialty meals on our January Getaway cruise were extremely long and all of the steaks in Cagney's were cold in the specialty restaurants, so it's not ideal for families.  Another possibility is feeding your child at the buffet early and then leaving them at the kids club while you go to the specialty restaurant.  The waiters were kind and welcoming, but I must assume the restaurants were understaffed because they were not able to comply with our request to have faster meals and some of the food was cold.

I will keep this in mind, but we’ll probably have to break out the tablets and screentime. Do you know if we could take any food “Togo” like the dessert if things take too long. I mean I guess I could wait until the server brings to our table and then we take the whole dish. 

With the free at sea promo, we will get 3 meals for our next cruise, is there a charge for kids ? My kids are 5 and 2. Or would they charge ala carte or is it possible to order from a free kids menu? They do like steak, so if we go to Cagneys I’m okay with buying 1 extra steak for them to share. 
 

we are traveling alone and the youngest can’t go to kids club so the kids will have to come with us. 

New to the free at sea promo, is the speciality dining # of meals per person for the first 2 guests? I am on a 12 day cruise in a balcony, so do I get 3 meals to split across 2 people or 6 meals for 2 people? 

16 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

imho, totally unnecessary at that age. Especially, if you can score Kids Sail Free.

And yes, there is space for a pack and play. See photos above.

 Thank you for the photos! This helps visualize it more and if the sofa bed is by the balcony that’s better for us. 

Sorry if it was not clear, the kids would not be sleeping in the other room by themselves. We would each take 1 child in each room. 
 

but I am asking if 1 room would fit the pack n play and have space for the older one to sleep on the couch bed. It doesn’t look like there is any other place to put the pack and play other than between the couch and desk, but then we would have no access to the bathroom/door once he is sleeping. We are thinking 2 connecting rooms so we can still hang out in the other room or access the outside door when the youngest goes to bed. But if there is sufficient room for all of us in 1 room, it would be nice to save some money 

We are looking at a RCI cruise for next year and wondering if we need 2 rooms for our family of 4. Our 1 yo will sleep in a pack and play and the 3 (will be 4 at the time of cruise) will sleep on the couch bed. Is there even enough room in a balcony room on Anthem of the Seas? Last time we cruised with just the older one when she was 1 and we did an ocean view on NCL. We asked them to take out the extra furniture and waS able to fit the pack and play in without blocking the space to the bathroom. We are wondering if we need 2 connecting rooms. I had looked at a junior suite but the price was more than 2 balcony rooms and it didn’t seem like you get any more perks. 

I would use the stroller at checkin. Our embarkation took over an hour and our room wasn’t ready. My daughter also doesn’t like to be in a carrier that long unless she is napping. 
 

you don’t need to bring a food maker. There will be plenty of soft steamed veggies or other appropriate food that can be served. You can also work with the dining room manager and they can have additional steamed veggies prepared and mashed/puréed for you. 
 

the ship that I was on had a kids play room for under 3yo. It had a push walker toy that my daughter used occasionally. Personally I would not bring that large of a toy. It would be very awkward to carry on and could be damaged if checked in. 

Thanks for the replies. Glad to hear that our experience was not normal. 

 Every time a server called down, they said the food was never ready. We had even asked if we could pick up the food from the dining room ourselves at a set time every night arranged in advance so we didn’t have to wait. The special diet person was a very nice person but it just seemed very disorganized/ lack of communication and a lot to do for just one person to manage. 
 

We got off the gem with my 16mon. They had daily activities for guppies that were 30 mins long. It was okay, I probably wouldn’t have gone if it was something that I had to pay for. Mostly painting, coloring, playing with different toys, bubbles and music. the guppies room is open 9-9 with toys so we were in there a lot to play and run around. Not sure if the Pearl has the spinnaker lounge, but my daughter spent a lot of time running around there on port days since it was empty a lot. She also enjoyed the bliss lounge when it wasn’t being set up for art auction. 
 

as others mentioned, no diapers of any kind in the baby pool. I don’t know if other families followed this though.... 

My 16 mon daughter has a peanut allergy which I declared at booking and checkin. There was a letter in our stateroom to call the special diet number. I had previously read that it was recommended to stop by the dining room to talk to the manager if there were special diets. My husband went and they said to call the number. The person answered and said that he would meet us in the dining room the first night, we let him know what time we were going to be there. The first night he never showed up. Luckily I had packed food for my daughter otherwise she would have had nothing to eat. The next day we went to guest services to ask and they said same thing- contact the number. After we told her that we did that and my daughter had no dinner, did she call the person who came and took our order for lunch and dinner. 
 

every lunch and dinner food always took around 30-45 mins which for an adult is borderline acceptable considering my husband and I finished our meals while waiting for my daughters food. Toddlers do not understand patience. Eventually we decided to call early from the buffet and then I would show up with my daughter 45 mins later. The last 2 days we just gave up and got her food from the buffet. It was much less stressful and much less food wasteful too. 
 

This is my first time cruising with my daughter, with allergies and on NCL, so everything with her food is new to me. Is this typical for NCL? Does anyone know how other cruise lines deal with special diets? Overall this was pretty ridiculous and stressful/annoying to deal with on our cruise. 

Got off the Gem on Friday. This is our first time on NCL so I’m not sure what’s normal. Checkin took longer since they had a second person checking passports. We brought wipes to clean our room since we have a toddler who puts everything in her mouth. I think more people were conscious about sanitizing their hands. I only noticed one person coughing throughout the trip. 

I booked an inside cabin and after regretting it, I wanted to purchase an upgrade directly. However balcony rooms were going to cost me an additional $1200 which was outside of my budget. About a week out, the prices for ocean view were within reason but they would not let me upgrade because the fare for the first 2 passengers were less than what I had paid even though overall I would be paying more since I would have to give up the Free 3rd passenger promo. Anyways, I had an upgrade bid in that I kept lowering to match the cruise prices but decided to up it to what we were originally willing to pay for if we upgrade directly. It was in the “good” range. Our Oceanview upgrade bid was accepted 3 days out. 

I sail in 2 weeks to the Caribbean but I have noticed price drops. I have thought about cancelling our trip too mostly in fear that somehow we would get put on a 14 day quarantine after the trip. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I do have the cancel for any reason insurance. I plan to call tomorrow to see if I can get an upgrade since prices have dropped and pay only a small difference. 

We went on a cruise for our baby moon. I was 19 weeks. It was a Canadian cruise and pretty chilly, so no issues with being in the sun all day. We mostly just walked around the port cities and no crazy excursions. I tried to limit buffet food just because of germs, we stuck with the restaurants for dinner and lunch was usually at places where they serve you or dish out the food for you. No alcohol of course, avoided the smoking areas. I usually get a massage but skipped that. It was very tired overall during my pregnancy, so I was in bed by 8 after dinner. 

5 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

As our fabulous cruise winds down, I want to say how much my wife and I have enjoyed dining in the Grand Pacific MDR.  We’ve been seated all over the dining room, and the service has been excellent everywhere. (The same for the one time we’ve eaten in Magenta.)  The food in the MDRs has also been the best we’ve ever had on an NCL ship (and far better than it was on our recent cruise aboard the Celebrity Summit).  Just tonight we were commenting on how affirmatively good each course of our dinner was.
 

I wish I could say the same for the service and food in the specialty restaurants (we’ve eaten at all five of them), but I can’t.  
 

I know that how folks feel about food and service is very subjective; obviously, I’m just giving our personal reactions. YMMV.  

glad to hear you had great food and service at the main dining rooms. We will be sailing the gem in February and it will be our first NCL cruise, we typically cruise on HAL. 

On 1/15/2020 at 11:04 PM, Turtles06 said:

This was our second visit to Corinto.  The ship docks in a very small commercial port.  The town itself looks exceedingly impoverished.  On our first visit, three years ago, I went to Leon, which I recommend. Today, we walked off the ship around 11am just to wander in the town; folks who had done the same were already coming back, and I think plenty of people had a total ship day.  There is very little to do or see in Corinto itself; mostly, there are a few blocks of stalls set up right near the entrance to the port (and some right on the pier) where the local folks are selling cheap crafts.  I doubt that Corinto will be on anyone’s list of top ports ever visited. 
 

Sailaway was pretty though, with a beautiful sunset. 

We have been to Corinto on another cruise line and did the same. Walked over to the “town”, spent 10 minutes at the craft stalls and then headed back. Not too much and spent the day onboard the ship. 

14 hours ago, boscobeans said:

But what if the client drops the case, could the lawyer ask for payment??  If not there could be a lot of shady settlements between the parties...

 

I was a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against a contractor. Our contract was lawyer fees only. Our lawyer did not get any other payment. When we won the lawsuit, we had to get a different lawyer for the actual collections since it was a different state. That lawyer’s contract was 1/3 of what is recovered, minus difference in fees. If we had dropped the case in the collections, my lawyer would still have been paid in fees which was just court fees (paperwork). We did not pay him a per hour fee. 

22 minutes ago, billslowsky said:

In general, if you book an inside, are you better off not bidding on BOTH and oceanview and a balcony if you really prefer the balcony?  Anyone have any insight?  I've been upgraded to oceanview a couple of times with low bids (I prefer it to inside) but am I making it more difficult to get balcony?

 First time doing the bidding process but we have an inside and did not bid on an ocean view because we didn’t think it was that much of an upgrade with the risk of a room location that we dislike. We would prefer the balcony over an ocean view and would stay in an inside if we got an ocean view 

I was in my late 20s when we started cruising. So most definitely always the youngest in the group. My husband is more the chatterbox than me, but it’s easy to get the standard introductions done and if you’re not

vibing with the crowd you can leave. One of them we had pre-arranged shore excursions with some folks from the m&g so we met them at the event. 

19 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

 

Careful, I don't recommend disclosing the winning bid amount until it is less than 48 hours from sailing.  Someone else lurking might now just outbid yours by xxx plus $5 or $10, or whatever, to possibly win that last cabin at a higher amount than yours. 

 

Good luck, we always embargoed ours until all bids on a given sailing are final, one way or another for everyone.

 Thanks for the heads up! I will try to edit my original post! My cruise is still 2 months out so it looks like I just have to be patient as it seems like upgrades are given out closer to sailing date. 

59 minutes ago, soxfanattic said:

Hi. I am on this same sailing and just received an upgrade from inside to aft balcony for $200/person

 

do you know how much is the difference with the upgrade compared to the going price for a balcony? We bid $110 per person from inside to balcony. It would be about $300 difference for the current balcony price. I’m trying to decide if I should bid a little more.