Bonnie J.

Can't answer as we haven't done a ship's tour in many years. But often do same tour ship has but privately for a LOT less $$$!

I write the ship's prices of alcohol we want. I know Carnival will match any price I find ashore. I just buy one bottle then show the receipt and the ship will sell me the same alcohol at the price I paid ashore. There are other ships that do this so ask if they do when you board.

How much tax do you have to pay if you bring more than the two bottles home? Would it still save you money if you bought 4 or even 6 bottles home and paid the tax? Once we were stopped as we had too many bottles but they let us go as the tax was under $10 and they said it wasn't worth the time to write us up! In the US suitcases aren't opened when we get back so we have put more just in the suitcase and I have seen people go through customs with boxes that hold more of the allowed and never questioned.

Do you have to book the train ahead of time? I've just gone to the station and bought a ticket then got on the train. Do you leave from Penn Station or Grand Central?

When ships get in at 8am they say don't book flights before 12. That's four hours so you should be ok. However, you can never be sure that's what time you can debark. They may get to the port at 10am but you can't get off then, so it could be 10:30 or even later before you can leave the ship.

Carnival ships have 186 sq. ft. cabins. Some balcony cabins have a sofa which makes you feel the cabin is bigger. But all cabins have small bathrooms except for handicapped cabins. Their bathrooms are big enough to put a bed in them. But the cabin is smaller with only two closets not three.

Carnival ships have a deli open until 11pm. They make sandwiches for you while you wait and room service is 24hrs. And they have the Serenity Deck which is adult only and no smoking and they mean that. Most have a hot tub or two and some ships have a pool here too.

We have also enjoyed Princess's cabins and their food.

We cruise from Charleston a LOT- only 6 times this year but 10 last year. We love the Fantasy. Luckily we live 4 hours away so we drive there. The historic district is near the port. I would contact Charleston's Chamber of Commerce and ask for a map of Charleston and info on what you can see. I have a map but think I may have gotten it from AAA.

Welcome and watch out. You will get hooked on cruising!

In San Juan go to El Moro! This is the fort your ship passes as it goes into the harbor. It was built in the 1500's. Walking around the fort is fascinating. Many walls are 2-3 feet thick. There is an open air small bus that will take you right up to the entrance, if you take the free regular size bus or a cab it is a long walk up to it.

You can get a map if you go to the visiter's center in Havensight which is where the ships dock in St. Thomas. You can ask about beaches there and get a map of St. Thomas.The cabs have fares posted as to the various beaches.

Can't help you with St. Kitts, haven't been there for years.

Maho Beach is in St. Maartin. The beach is at the end of the airport and planes literally land right over your head. But they don't land all the time. Think there is a restaurant or bar that posts the times planes will be landing.

In Tortola take the ferry to Virgin Gorda and go to The Baths. This is where there are many HUGE BOLDERS all over the beach and in the water.

Look at the ports here and you can google these places also.

We have been on the Glory many times and really enjoy her. (We last cruised on her last December 8th!) Are you going to the Eastern or Western Caribbean? We have been to both and can help you if we know where you are going. Do go to your roll call here and you can email everyone and talk about what to do in each port.

Next time you post put your question in the title. Otherwise cruisecritic just puts your 'name' in the title and people won't open your post if they don't know what your asking.

Ladies wear whatever they wore to dinner. However very few couples go back to their cabins on formal night after dinner and change back into shorts- then they go to the clubs.

If you go to El Moro it is a very long walk up there as a cab or the bus cannot go up there. El Moro is the fort you pass as you come into port. It was built in about the 1500's and is worth seeing but there is a lot of walking and stairs in it. This is something some of your party may want to do- not everyone has to do the same thing in every port.

But there is a small open air taxi run by San Juan that will take you right up by the door. There are also two local buses that you can get on and off along its route and it is free.

Check with your roll call here on cruise critic. Often there will be someone who has been on the ship and can answer your question.

Formal night depends on your ship. A friend got turned away from the dining room because he didn't have a jacket on on Celebrity (he went and put one on). More people are formal on Princess but not everyone and I have seen shorts every night on Carnival.

We haven't done a ship's tour in YEARS! Private tour operators do not want to lose the business they get from cruise ship passengers. Our tour operators have been very aware of when we have to get back and have always been careful to get us back in plenty of time.

And they are a LOT less than the ship's tours for the same exact tour. An example is cave tubing in Belize. Reggie charged us $45 each plus like $3 to enter the park. The ship's tours were from $74 to almost $90! It took the same amount of time to get there, same time to go thru the caves, same time to get back. But we paid almost 1/2 of what the ships charge. Reggie also says if anyone misses the last tender, he will take you out to the ship - but he has never had to do this!

Check with your roll call here. We have learned about tours and gone on them with people we've met on our roll call!

Let the maître'd know this the first night. On our Carnival cruise over New Years the hostess came, as my husband as acid refux, with the next night's menu. Our tablemate has what you have and we told the hostess. So, she was shown the next night's menu and whatever she ordered was gluten free -even the chocolate melting cake and she was brought a type of bread she could eat each night. This was her 1st cruise and she didn't know the ship would do this for her.

I think you can email the maitre'd at Royalprincess@princess.com, subject: maitre'd and let him know about your diet. I email them because we don't want a huge or round table and we get the table location and size we want. The maitre'ds make up who sits where and with whom.

Make sure you do your own thing on the cruise, not what they want to do. Whenever we cruise with friends we make that clear. If its the same thing great but if they want to snorkel and you want to shop, do what YOU want to do. Then talk about what you each did at dinner. We also let them know where we like to sit for days at sea. Then we know where to find each other.

All the suitcases are x-rayed. If they see anything they even want to check on they will open your suitcase, locked or not. Or in some cases you'll get a letter in your cabin saying to come to the 'Naughty room' to get your suitcase. When you get there you must open it and they watch you open it and tell you what to remove and give to them. On some cases if its alcohol you will get it back the last night. We don't bother to lock our suitcases as we have nothing of value in them - just clothes. Anything of value we take in our carry=-on.

Get Downey Wrinkle Release in the soap area of your store. Just spray

it on, stretch and wrinkles disappear but do this in the morning so there is enough time for it to do its job.

Ladies dress elegantly not sexy.

I may be wrong but I believe Royal Caribbean & Carnival do not allow any TA or anyone else to charge less than their price. Can anyone say if other lines are doing this? We now book directly with the cruise line, not a TA anymore. We also frequently book on line with the cruise line.

We check available cabins on line and ask for a specific cabin, (you can pull up floor plans with available cabins on line). You can always get someone from the cruise line on the phone at any time. Can you always get your TA, especially if you have a problem or question in the evening? Has your TA been on the ship you want to book so she knows answers about the ship to your questions? We're happy with not using a TA anymore.

We cruse the Fantasy A LOT! We've only done 8 this year but did 10 last year. (We have also cruised other Carnival ships & Princess during this time.)

The back of the Empress deck is our favorite location. The elevator to the Prominade deck (9) which I call the fun deck at night, is near our cabin and those elevators go right to the buffet, the Lido deck (10). ( the elevator in mid ship only goes to deck 9 not deck 10, the Lido deck -which has the buffet, grill, carving station and the Mongolian Wok and this is the deck with the pool.) The elevators by the atrium go to deck 10, then you have to walk, outside, to get to the buffet.

If Brandon, the assistant cruise director is still on board (he's going on vacation soon) do not miss his show at end of the cruise. He told us he gets everyone up and dancing and he was right, it was the ship's best show!

Let me know if you have any questions about the Fantasy, I'll be glad to answer them!

Size is a BIG difference! The Glory (Which we love and got off her December 16th!) is 2900 passengers and the Breeze is a LOT more but not sure how many. When we were next to the Breeze on Nassau it looked twice as big.

We prefer smaller ships. Its easy to find your way around and we actually bump into tablemates and others we've met. My husband says you could make a lot of $$ if you designed a GPS for these HUGE ships!

You've been on the Breeze so try a smaller ship. We were the 1st and only ship to have the new menu and dining room set up. The VP of Food Services for Carnival was on board so there may be some changes as he was getting feed back from us and other passengers.

Maybe on your balcony??????

I always email the Maitre'D on Carnival for table size, location and age of tablemates. I have always gotten what I request. On Carnival the email address is first two letters of the shipmaitre'd@carnival.com.

On Princess it is the name of the ship (like rubyprincess) @ princess.com. You put maitre'd in subject line.

Before I started doing this we met with the maitre'd when we got on board and our requests were always met.

Without a doubt, San Blas. These are islands off the coast of Panama. The Kuna Indians live on them. They have the most spectacular molas & hand stitched shirts. Each stitch is so tiny you need glasses to see them. The shirts have all types of colorful birds, under water scenes and I bought on that had our ship on it! The only way you can get there is by boat/ship or 4 passenger planes- the runway is very short. They have no electricity on the islands, only generators.

When our ship arrived the natives came out in hand dug canoes and dived for the quarters we threw overboard to them. Woman had umbrellas open so we could see if we could throw the quarter into them. They weren't interested in any other coins, saw a necklace of many dimes.

Our divemaster (snorkeling) told us to bring apples with us as they are a delacasy (sorry I can't spell). Think about it-where do apples grow? Not in the Caribbean. Anyway as we canoed past a village, little boys came out in small hand dug canoes and we threw the apples to them. They dove into the water to get them.

The ship threw rolls to them and even a bed! One canoe had the box spring, another the mattress. Some one held up a coffee cup and the native shook his head yea so it was thrown to him- along with some other stuff!

I believe only the small luxury ships go there now. HAL used to go there on its threw the Panama Canal trips.

I was able to get their shirts when I asked for them in Panama.

Other port we loved was Tortola so we could go the The Baths!

Make sure the wine is carried on. DO NOT PUT IN YOUR LUGGAGE! If it is in a suitcase it will be taken out of your bag and you won't see it again until your last night.

We LOVE the Fantasy! Got off her Sunday, our 6th Fantasy cruise this year (we did 10 on her last year!!)

When we have done B2Bs and had to change cabins it was easy. 1st, we didn't pack anything. We left everything in the drawers and took them then brought the drawers from the new cabin and exchanged them, The drawers are the same size. Our room steward brought a hanging clothes thing like you see in a hotel and everything was hung on it. we just put what was on our shelves on this. We have never been told when our cabin was being made up, when we couldn't be there.

Everyone met, usually in the atrium at about 10am, other passengers were off by then. All the B2B passengers are taken right to customs where we sometimes handed them our custom forms and our passports were checked. Then we were escorted right back on and got new sign 'n sail cards.

If you want to get off the ship you could but had too wait with all the new passengers to get back on board.

Years ago cruise lines used to have a 'match' program where a single traveler could ask for a room mate to share a cabin. The cruise line would provide you with another passenger who also wanted a room mate. Then both would not have to pay for the entire cabin themselves. However this was not like a dating service. You had no idea who would share your cabin, their likes, dislikes, etc, just a total stranger.