poutanen

Telus has the same thing... $7/day in the US, $10 anywhere else. I've used it many times. It just uses your normal data plan. I used over 1gb one day on our recent cruise, no issues.

Thank you so much!!! Really means a lot to me! I am soooooo jealous of your sailing. We had Adventure books again for next January but our cruise just got cancelled because of them finishing the rest of the dry dock :( so we had to move to Jewel of the Seas. I will miss the Royal Promenade the most. I hope you have a fantastic time and will report back to let me know! Enjoy!!!

We just finished our Jewel B2B a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it. There are some things missing from the experience, but other things filled their place. Hope you enjoy your next cruise!

I wanted to but I never found him sleeping standing up.

HA!!!

This thread brings up a great debate about tipping in general. It seems to be very regionally dependant. Common practices in the states (where it seems like you tip everyone?), aren't mirrored in Canada, and may be very different in Europe and Asia. Some people may take offence to you offering them additional money for doing their job!

My personal view is that a tip should never be EXPECTED. I would much prefer the standard wage to be built into the cost of the items. I'd rather meals at restaurants be 10-15% more than they currently are, and then if you get better than expected service, you could tip an additional 5-10% on top of the price.

I tend to tip my massage therapist, because she does a GREAT job every time, and gives me additional stretches to do at home to help. That said, why don't I tip my dentist for doing a great filling? Why don't we tip our auto mechanics when they solve a problem in record time? Why doesn't the wife give me a tip for taking the garbage out and cleaning the cat litter?

The custom is inconsistent. And it's inconsistency is a problem that can leave people expecting a tip to feel snubbed, and people that are unsure of what's the local custom to feel anxious. I tend to look up the local customs of wherever we're travelling, but I'd much rather the world worked on a more consistent philosophy that tipping should only be for service "above and beyond what is expected".

Hey there long lost friends!! You crazy Patriot fans you! ;p;p I'm sorry to hear that you guys have been going through medical stuff! I wonder about you guys often because I remember trying to convince your wife to book another cruise! We booked another one for 2018 on Adventure and it sounds like it'll be our last since Adventure is leaving San Juan! Not sure what is replacing her yet but we are excited to find out! I'm so excited you guys are going in April! Have a wonderful time and I hope to hear about it from you! :)

Thanks! It was a great year to be a Pats fan, that's for sure! Our medical stuff is fertility related, so extra emotional, but we're learning a lot about ourselves, our friends, and life!

The biggest thing I've learned is that I need to spend MORE time on cruise ships. In fact I think one of the doctors we saw prescribed it. So it had to be done! We're stoked to be heading back to the southern Caribbean again, and doing a whole bunch of things we've already done before but loved.

Enjoy your 2018 cruise, and maybe we'll see you on another ship one day! We love cruising out of San Juan, and going to the south caribbean. This time we're flying in one day ahead of time, and spending a night near the university. It was a super cheap hotel but with good reviews, only one way to find out if we like it!

Happy sailing! :D

p.s. This thread is helping me get stoked for April! I don't think it's sunk in yet for the wife... but I'm in cruise mode already.

We cling to the ship as long as possible like a toddler being taken away from their parent [emoji1]

Hey Laura, great review! We were with you on the Jan 2016 B2B :) Didn't think we'd make it for a cruise this year, as we've been going through some medical crap that we had to pay out of pocket (don't believe in the hype of "free" Canadian health care, but that's another story)...

Nevertheless, we're doing a B2B on the Jewel coming up in early April!!! Decided it was a worthwhile investment in our mental health. :D Glad you had a good cruise, and maybe we'll see you guys again on another one day!

You haven't booked yet?? Come on! :) Hope you guys are doing well!!

Thanks you too! :D

So after responding to this thread today, and finally posting our cruise pics to facebook, I'm getting a second wave of post-cruise blues. I put together an excel spreadsheet of all the Adventure cruises from Jan-March 2017 and now I'm trying to figure out which week(s) to do.

I suppose we can always book and if the finances don't look right in the fall we could cancel, right? Sure, I'm going to go with that logic. What week did you guys pick?

Thanks, Laura. I agree it seems like an easy process. Did they have lunch for the B2B'ers in the MDR?

Hi Cindy, we were on the same B2B as Laura. Agreed it was a really easy process! Much faster than our Allure B2B (where we had to disembark, sit in a waiting area, then get back on)...

They had a small but tasteful lunch for us in the MDR.

To tell you how fast the process went, we all met at 11:00 to be processed by a customs agent, and by 11:30 or so a bunch of us were at the MDR waiting for our lunch. :D

I really hope my wife's business does well this year because we'd both love to do a Jan 2017 Adventure B2B, the itineraries look amazing!

I've taken my Canon 7D DSLR to the beach before, did that on our honeymoon cruise. Got some amazing pictures, but felt like I always had to watch it. Wife and I wouldn't go into the water at the same time to play.

Since then I've bought a Fujifilm XP80 for $140, and just carry it with me at all times (especially when I'm snorkelling!), and it's a lot more fun. I brought the Canon on our B2B a few weeks ago, and didn't take one picture with it.

There is a big difference in image quality, but looking through the XP80 pics brings me just as much joy remembering the cruise as looking through the Canon pics.

I won't bring the DSLR next time...

I think he responded to this a month or so ago. Oh, and 40 days till Freedom

Yup, she posted on Jan 11th that it was a big waste of cyberspace and should be removed. I guess all the other uses for cyberspace are good? :D

What a waste of a thread. I guess it gets people's post count up.

How ironic... :D

Yes, the flyer says "for house products only". I'm not sure what that includes because we had the Premium drink package

House liquors, wines, etc., not premium like Grey Goose, fancy wines, as far as I know.

I can't compare them to other lines, as I've never cruised on anything else. That said, we leave for a B2B today... There's got to be a reason I keep spending my hard earned money with them!

Entertainment we've seen has been fantastic. The aqua show on Allure, comedians, piano players/singers, and the solo or duet acts played in "central park".

Staff has been great, we sailed on the Allure in March 2014, then again in Jan 2015 for a B2B. We recognized many crew members, who also recognized us and in many cases knew us by name. Maybe they're primed on this stuff before each week, but we actually felt like family with the crew. Some fantastic people (and others mediocre).

The ship has been great, much more comfortable bedding than I expected, much more to do than I expected, much shorter lines than I expected (based on the Oasis class cruise critic naysayers).

They seem very organized for herding 6500 cattle onto and off the ship, feeding them, entertaining them, cleaning up after them, etc. So I guess that's my overall impression of Royal...

Impressed. Relaxed. Welcomed. Fun.

Wanted to use a little of the OBC for the ports.

I board Freedom on Sunday and will be trying to get cash from the casino for spending money in ports.

Let's hope that this is not the end of the deal.

Wouldn't surprise me with pages and pages of people explaining how to take it out as cash to use on shore, take home with them, buy their little girl a pony, etc. :mad:

We always pay in US. Try to avoid credit cards as well. I don't see how Euros helps you though. Many places are euro =US or 1:1 and the euro is still more than the US dollar is it not?

We found that most of the shops on the french side were less in Euros than they were in USD by a fair amount. The USD is worth 0.93 Euros today. Also our accommodation was in Euros last time as well, quite reasonable too! :D

I think most tourist spots are USD=Euro, but the prices are jacked up there. The little restaurants, shops, etc. all seem to prefer the Euro. Maybe that's changed with the USD getting better? In which case it would make sense to bring that instead.

Well St. Maarten is a wonderful place for a vacation. Still US dollars though at the restaurants and hotels or do you have a timeshare or go to an AI?

We stayed on the French side last spring and paid for almost everything in Euros. Most places had two price lists, one for Euros, one for USD... We're likely to stay on the dutch side this time which tends to do more in USD, but the accommodation is paid for by a friend of ours time share! Flight is in CAD, so it would just be food and fun paid in USD or Euros. We prefer the French side beaches anyway. Further from those damn cruise tourists!!! lol

The Canadian $ was better last Feb though.

Yeah that's what I meant when I said if you book in CAD (when the CAD is higher) it doesn't matter what the currency does. We book, paid our deposit of $1000, and then watched the USD climb with no worries. Paid off the balance in Nov in CAD...

We just looked at cruise pricing for April, as there's a seat sale on some airlines right now, but the pricing was too high. We'll probably go to St Martin again instead. :D

What was the exchange rate they used for booking in CAD ?

Not sure as I didn't check the USD prices at the time. We booked Feb 5th 2015 for a cruise coming up next week (and the next) and we ended up paying about $750 cdn per person, per week including taxes an fees, less gratuities.

I am sorry for the loss of value in the Canadian $. But I am confused over the pitch that Europe is a better option. Maybe those people don't know how expensive Europe is regardless of the value of the $, American or Canadian. Maybe I am missing something.

Check my post above re: Caribbean islands. St Martin is Dutch/French, many others are English, French, etc. For us it might be cheaper to convert to Euros and travel to a Euro friendly country vs USD

Also, this is another reason to book in CDN $$$ instead of USD. We booked in CDN, paid our deposits, then watched the Loonie fall as our cruise price stayed the same. If we had booked in USD we'd likely have cancelled and done something else.

The exchange rate for Euros is much worse than the USD, by about 10 cents.

When you compare the chart for the Euro vs CDN for the last two years: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=EUR&view=2Y

VS the chart for the USD vs CDN for the last two years: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CAD&to=USD&view=2Y

You'll see that the Euro-CDN exchange rate is about the same now as it was two years ago, while our dollar is about 25% worse vs the USD than it was two years ago.

In other words, heading to countries that price things in Euros hasn't got any more expensive for Canadians (assuming their prices have stayed roughly the same).

For what it's worth, the condo we rented in St Martin was 650 euros or so for 8 nights. Food tends to be more expensive there, but the shops on the French side usually give you a discount when paying in Euros.

edit: I just wanted to give a little insight that it's not the Canadian dollar that's tanking, so much as a strengthening US dollar.

Another thing to look at is our dollar vs other currencies. Yes it's taking a beating vs the USD, but not so much compared to the Euro. We'll probably be heading to St Martin for a week this spring, fly in CDN $, pay for everything else in Euros... :D

4 days until an Adventure B2B!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D

Sint Maarten.

Thanks, actually I was wondering if anyone knew where she was on the current google maps imagery. I checked all the ports on our upcoming cruises on her, and couldn't see anything. I assume she must have been at sea when the satellite passed over?