LeeW

We've even abandoned the soda package - it used to be $6.99/day. Now we preorder six packs of soda (around $1.50 a can) and bring a 12 pack onboard. And switch entire Elite minibar to soda.

The dogs checking for food in Cozumel will certainly alert on you. Most countries have rules on importing food or agricultural products, including the US. Major infestations of things like the Mediterranean Fruit Fly caused the policy.

Have them forward the email to you and then you can send them multiple copies back....

April 1 each year. Get 1000 points by then for Prime (free drinks and inside cabin free offer). Points don't reset each cruise, although you do get credits during the cruise that have to be used on that cruise. As I recall, $5/pt slots, $10/pt for video poker (might be $7), whatever the pit boss decides for table games.

Goport will sell you transportation with or without rooms at the various airport hotels. Has worked well for us multiple times. Usually we stay at Hampton or Embassy.

Biggest problem with our 4 pm flights is that airlines won't check in your bags until 4 hours before the flight. So even if you get off the ship at 9, you will have to sit at the airport until 1030 for your bag checkin, and there are very few places to sit. Bag storage is $10/bag.

Easiest and cheapest way to get to Clearwater Beach is rent a car. October is not a particularly busy time of the year, so traffic should be easy even if we drive on the wrong side of the road. Tons of family restaurants up and down the beach road, more south of Clearwater than north. The port trolley runs right by the ships (parking lot in between, down by the aquarium and up into the central part of town. Aquarium would be a good place for the kids for a few hours between cruises. Small shopping mall there as well. If you have a rental car you can drop Avis at the Embassy next to that mall or Hertz at the Marriott across the street, both adjacent to the trolley. Trolley isn't designed for luggage but we did use it last trip there. Of course with a rental car kids might like Busch Gardens in Tampa - nice amusement/animal park.

The York city location is a pain to rent at but you could drop there. If you are not staying in town you could drop wife and luggage at pier, then drop car at York, then take the free Miami Trolley back to the pier. If you are dropping the car at the airport you could take the light rail into Miami and get a cab from there to the port. Trolley won't work because it can't handle luggage.

Avis car rental/drop is in the Embassy hotel right at the Tampa pier. Hertz is across the street (Marriott, I think). Florida doesn't have drop-off charges for rental cars.

We took Express Shuttle from port to MIA (rental car center) in December. Dropped a couple of people off in a local hotel then straight to airport. For our group of 7 it was $70. We needed a rental car and it was cheaper and easier to get at the airport than downtown (and it would have been a pain to get the group to the rental center or get one and return to ship to pick the rest up). Nice folks - texted and called to contact the driver for port pickup.

Springs are 72 degrees year round. Warm for someone coming from your location. Chilly if you are a local. Would think that a drive from Missouri wouldn't take much longer than flying into Tampa and driving up.

Goport has hotel/transportation packages both for airport hotels and a few at the Cape. As I recall we couldn't do a Cape hotel last time because our flight got in too late (they only run at certain times). If you book Goport with an airport hotel, look for "Early to Cruise" shuttle times. They pick up at several hotels and the airport, although they move buses around based on space and how many people are at each location.

Walked between terminal 25 and 19, around 5 minutes mostly spent getting around people, through the parking garage to Liberty. Oasis uses terminal 18 and is a bit farther walk. In our case the road between the garage and over to terminal 18 was open, so a walk thee would have added 5 minutes more. If that road is closed it is a longer walk, but still not a big deal. In January it was a no-brainer but July and rain would be a pain.

Last time we needed a car in Miami (for drive to Orlando with 7 people) I tried the Avis outlet downtown but way too expensive and location is a pain for that many people. So I booked Express Shuttle Miami for $10pp and they dropped us off at the Rental Car Center at the airport. Rentals at airport are a lot easier than downtown.

Brickell is a long way from the airport. Cheapest way would likely be free shuttle to airport then use the metro downtown to Brickell.

We normally stay at either Embassy Suites on the NE corner of the airport or the Hampton Inn Blue Lagoon south of the airport. Both have shuttles to the airport although latter has more reliable shuttle. Both have paid shuttles to the port for around $12pp. Blue Lagoon area has a lot of restaurants around the hotel. Embassy has fewer but does have a great steak/fries for $35 that can be easily shared.

Most TAs don't have a lot of ports - you have to really like sea days since it will be unusual to even see another ship. The exception is the rare east to west northern route in the fall. Our last one left from Southampton and hit Norway, the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, two stops in Iceland, Greenland and Canada (on Princess). This year's Jewel transit starts in Amsterdam and hits three stops in Iceland and two in Greenland. Icebergs near Greenland are spectacular. These cruises cost a LOT more than the typical TA and book up quickly. You get a lot of 25 hour days.

Dining room doors should open at 5:15, and doors close either 15 minutes or 1/2 hour later, depending on ship. Crowd will gather before. Helps if you know where your table is.

Technically most ports don't allow food or drink from the ship onshore and you will see this in the app and printed Cruise Compass. I've never seen port officials someone for any kind of drink. Most restrictive port we have seen was Cozumel - they use dogs to check for food.

We did this for years before retiring. Our retirement plan allowed picking specific stocks and it worked great. After retirement could have left it there, but had to either move all funds or none to external account and their 401 never did all that well for the employees so I sold, moved it all to an external 401 and rebought. Unfortunately none of the cruise stocks pay dividends any more. We really enjoyed getting onboard credit and 50 cents a share quarterly.

Avis is across 17th in the Hilton (this is called the Port Everglades location on their website). Budget is in the shopping center across 17th from the port entrance. Both easy walk to the ship if it is in the normal berth.

The only share is through stocks - own 100 shares of CCL and you get onboard credit on any of the Carnival family lines.

Not sure what level is minmum, but when they first brought this out Elite could make reservations early. I've been able to make Anytime dining reservations (now Dine Your Way) as soon as I have booked the last two cruises. You do have to use the app or the web version of the app.

I used to call to do this (typically flower delivery). Online the gift is at the bottom of the princess.com page - "Give a Guest a Gift" link. You just enter some information about who you are giving something to and then it is a normal purchase. I don't see a gift of a specialty dining package on these pages. All I see are balcony dining on that link. Closest I can see is giving someone some onboard credit, which is easy to do and better than egift cards (they will get a card in their cabin saying you gave them a gift). The other option: Specialty dining is done now through the princess app, so you need to log onto that. Try this login and use their booking number and birthdate: https://oceanready-personalinfo-ui.prod.ocean.com/ On the next page select Dine My Way and then specialty restaurants. But at that point you need to select a specific time and restaurant, so it doesn't fit what you want to do (although your mom could change the reservation once onboard). Problem of this approach is that if she has existing reservations this process will cancel the one for that night.

Bellmen don't use the tunnel at Fairmont and don't seem to mind the steep ramp down to the port. But we do use the tunnel. Has an escalator at Pan Pacific end that sometimes isn't working.