Platypus_72

Looking forward to reading your review. It will be nice so see what someone close to our age (we're in our early/mid 20s) thought of the cruise. We'll be on the Jewel in January.

So sorry, haven't been on this thread for a while. We bid $155 and won Condado Hilton which we were thrilled with as it is $100 less than the going price. I just kept bidding and bidding, upping my amount by $5, til I finally won at $155. Took many days of bidding and I started much lower. When I saw an Express Deal for $160 that I was pretty sure was going to be for Codadlo Hilton, I upped my bid to $155 thinking I would just do the express deal otherwise, but we won it at that price!!

Lucky duck! I tried bidding in the low $200s and all of my bids got rejected. I guess I'll just have to keep trying....

I am travelling in March - which is a long time from now. For regular trips, I would never book hotels this early - too expensive. But, I am concerned with San Juan because the people I'm competing with are others going on cruises who know many, many months in advance of when they are travelling and my fear is that if I don't book now - I may risk not having any rooms left - or only a few and more expensive later than now. I'm a worrier and a control freak, so I had to ask.

 

We want to spend the night before the cruise in Old San Juan and the night after the cruise in a hotel on the beach. All prices right now are high - Low to mid 200s USD.

 

For those of you who have travelled in and out of San Juan - how soon or how late do you feel is best for booking your hotel?

 

Thank you so much!

We are in the same boat as you. We'll be in San Juan in January. I've been watching hotel prices since about March. So far there hasn't been any change up or down. I, too, am not sure if we should just bite the bullet and book our pre and post cruise hotels sooner rather than later just to be sure that we actually get a room at the places we want.

Prices are terrible flying out of Minnesota in January too. The cheapest ones I've seen are still almost $600. Another person on here is flying to San Juan from Denmark and their flight was about that price :eek: Two years ago our flights to Miami were only about $300...

We were in San Juan in January 2013. We did a tour through Carnival. It think it was called San Juan tour and shopping. We went to the forts, did shopping in Old San Juan, and drove by some other historic sites. We really enjoyed it! After the tour we still had time to grab lunch and do some exploring on our own.

We did Express Deal on Priceline as well, put in Condado/Old SJ, 4 Stars (there are no 4 stars in Old San Juan so will most likely only get a Condado Hotel)....we won Mariott Stellars for 1 nite, Conrad Condado Hilton for another nite before cruise this year, and La Concha (our hopeful and most favorite) for nite between cruises on B2B this Jan. We love Priceline!

If you don't mind me asking, what price did you bid to win the Condado Hilton? I really want to stay there in January but don't want to pay the $250+/night.

We haven't stayed there in San Juan yet (our cruise isn't until January), but we're planning on staying at the Condado Plaza Hilton. It has restaurants, pools, and a private beach. It is pricey, about $250/night plus a resort fee, but we got a great discount because my fiancee is a government employee. Good luck finding something!

My January sailing on Jewel has been changed too, We are now visiting Antigua instead of Tortola. They have changed the Itinerary around completely to accommodate this change.

Just a pity they didn't notify me of this change.

Good job I hadn't booked any private excursions!!

I'm going to be on the January 3 sailing. I just looked on RCI website it. Our itinerary looks the same as when we booked it. Now I wonder if they changed it and just haven't updated the information yet :/

You should look into Spirit Airlines. I'm looking for flights in January and Spirit's prices are $200-$300 cheaper than all of the major airlines and on Priceline, Expedia, etc. I'm not very familiar with Jet Blue. They don't fly out of our airport.

We booked our first one to celebrate my fiancee completing is first semester of graduate school. He ended up proposing on the cruise, so obviously we celebrated that too. Our next cruise is a winter getaway (our last two winters have been terrible! Even though it's may we were under a frost advisory last night) We'll also be celebrating buying our first house and me completing my first semester of the best nursing program in Minnesota. We're in the midst of planning two more for 2016. They will probably be just to relax after a stressful holiday season (6 Christmases in four days is not fun!) I think we're addicted now :eek:

Beautiful St. Lucia pictures! I wish our itinerary was going there. I guess it just means we'll have to go on another cruise. Oh shucks! ;)

I'm loving your review so far! We'll be on the Jewel in January. It's great seeing all of the pictures of the ship. I think we're staying a directly under your cabin.

Subscribing! :) We will be sailing on the Jewel in January. Looking forward to reading about your experiences

I have never in my life been a runner, not even in Jr High or High school but I have seriously been thinking about training for a 5K. I would love to do the color run and it is in August. Please somebody tell me if I am totally nuts..............

I have always hated running too. I just got the C25K app on my phone. I just completed day 2 today, and so far I'm loving it. I really like how you gradually ease into it. Good luck in your training! :)

We did an Eastern in January 2013 on Carnival. The weather was perfect for us! High 70s to mid 80s all week. It was extremely humid in Nassau and San Juan, but in the other ports there wasn't much humidity. It did get a bit chilly on the ship at night though. I wished I would have brought a sweater or long sleeves for watching the movie outside.

Are we sure this is the same guy as the other posts refer to? Did anyone else mention that he had attempted to lay hands on them? ... maybe he's getting desperate... he's beginning to sound scary, not just comical or sad.

Yep, it is the same guy. He looked exactly like the picture someone posted above.

This wasn't on a RC ship, but it was on Carnival Valor. My fiancee and I decided to eat lunch in the MDR. We got sat at a table with four other couples. We were all strangers. Throughout the entire meal, there was conversation going, but as soon as one of us would say something, they would cut us off. These couples were a bit older than us, probably mid 30s to 40s, and talked down to us like we were children. (We are in our mid 20s). One of the couples even went so far to ask how we were able to afford the cruise and that we must have "had mommy and daddy pay for it." I found it to be quite rude. Needless to say, we decided not get to dessert and left as soon as we were done eating.

That's abusive. I'm paying a little over $600.00 to fly from San Juan to Copenhagen! I know that doesn't help you, but for comparison's sake.

 

As mentioned before, book as early as possible or try a stop or two at the major airports that service San Juan (DFW, ORD, JFK, EWR, ATL, MIA).

Holy cow! :eek: I knew $600 was bad, but it's crazy to think it costs nearly the same to fly from Europe! I will definitely be waiting for prices to come down.

My fiancee and I were in San Juan in January 2013. We were on a downtown shopping excursion through Carnival and this man started following us. When he asked if we spoke English, we made the mistake of turning around and saying "yes." He told us a very rehearsed story about how he was staying at the Hilton and that he and his father were robbed and that he needed money for a cab to get to the hospital to see his father. We said no, and he kept repeatedly asking. He tried to grab at my purse, and we took off running through downtown to get as far away from him as possible. We'll be in San Juan again in January, and if we run into him again, I will probably just bust out some Spanish. (I knew that Spanish minor in college would come in useful haha)

We'll be flying from Minneapolis to San Juan. We're sailing on Jewel of the Seas January 3. We're planning on flying down on January 2 because Minnesota winters are unpredictable and this winter was full of snowstorms. I've started looking at flights are they are about $600/person. Does anyone know the best time to book flights or when prices are typically the lowest? How far out do you typically book your precruise flights? I'm expecting that flights will still be a little pricey since it's so close to New Years. I really don't want to pay $600! Curse MSP for being one of the most expensive places to fly out of :eek:

Has anyone booked this excursion? Is it worth the price? Fiancee and I are thinking of doing this when we're in St. Martin because it's a really good mix of everything. I like shopping, he likes sight seeing, and we both love the beach. I also love this this gives us the chance to see both sides of the island. Any advice or input is much appreciated :)

Try Sea Bands! I get extremely drowsy from dramamine and my boss recommended I try these. Sure, they looked kind of dorky in pictures, but I didn't feel sick even when the waves were really rough. I've also heard that eating green apples is supposed to help with sea sickness/motion sickness.

Watch-set to ship time, of course :)

I LOVED reading your review! I loved all of the pictures and details. I am one of those crazy people who likes to plan out everything. (I have just started a spreadsheet of different excursions for each port. My fiancee thinks I'm crazy :P ) Thanks for sharing! We will be sailing this itinerary in January. I think we might even be staying in the same cabin as you or the one above it.

Try Sea Bands! The motion didn't bother me except for the one night that the water was extremely rough. I honestly thought I was going to lose my dinner walking back to the cabin. I put on the Sea Bands and within a few minutes I was feeling much better.