kicker

Kudos for the review (helpful to me as we're doing Oasis in Sept with our. 7 yr old DGD), but more importantly, kudos to you & your family. You sound like a wonderful, caring, loving group who have a way of looking at the bright side of everything. Glad you had a great time -thanks again!

PS:shhh! Don't tell everyone about the Wipe Out Cafe & the Park Cafe - I don't want them to get too crowded by September!:rolleyes:

Renting a car? Time to see other parts of Fort Lauderdale? If its just a stayover, Holiday Inn Express 17th St should be reasonable. Embassy Suites is nice if you can get a good price. Lots of food choices near Embassy Suites.

I booked a stay at the Residence Inn Airport location for September. No stores near there, whereas other hotels will be close to a CVS or Walgreens, or Publix market. Read further down on these threads and you'll get lots of info.

If the OP is whom I think she is, she is my client :D If it's not then she's in the same situation as my client!!!!

 

Classic 1 / Classic 2 were NOT available when my client booked, either to wait list or confirm. RCCL has been unable to assist either myself or her with her party of 11 other than what she has described. Dynamic Dining really does pose a challenge for large family groups! I feel so empathetic for their situation and wish I could do more to assist but I have been getting a RESOUNDING "NO CAN DO" at every turn!!!!!!!

We booked (I believe) Anthem OTS only 30 days out last year, ended up switching to another ship because:

Booking only 30 days out, when I tried to set up dining everything (and I mean EVERYTHING!) was already booked. We like to eat around 6PM. All that was available was the Chef's Table two nights around 8PM (Chef's Table is around $100pp). All other paid restaurants were booked. I called Royal; they suggested going to Customer Service when I got on board. I didn't want to chance having to eat my meals in The Windjammer, and didn't care to take a chance reaching Customer Service with 5K other people, so we fortunately were able to change to another ship.

We will be doing Oasis OTS in September. I can guarantee that, as soon a sfinal payment is made, I'll be booking everything I can!

Something different to do in Port Canaveral:

http://www.floridaairtours.com/

Did this 2 years ago, flew over our cruise ship. Great fun - we didn't go for the flips, but wished we did after the flight.

Residence Inn is a good choice. Another option, however, might be this:

Where are you flying into? If its Orlando, there's lots of good hotels near the airport (or even near Disney), and you'd get to see some of the area highlights with your time. I think the Cocoa Beach area is more of a one-day thing (IMO). Assuming you're renting a car, many rental companies won't charge extra for renting in Orlando, dropping off at Cocoa Beach.

Coconuts is good -atmosphere & all, reasonable prices, but 15th St Eateries is one of the best. Can't really go wrong with either choice. The water taxi also, I believe, goes near a shopping mall with several brand name choices, but personally I'd go local.

I might get flamed for this, :rolleyes: but:

If you look at CC's Carnival boards one of the first threads is a request from CC entitled "Clean it up", which refers to postings by Carnival cruisers. No such admonition on the Royal boards.

What does that mean to me? Carnival cruisers tend to be more the partying type, and probably overall younger, while Royal is a bit more laid back, and slightly older. Younger cruisers overall would tend to be a bit "looser" with language and such.

That being said, cruisers often vary from ship to ship and port to port. Having cruised out of Florida, Norfolk, and NYC, I can tell you NYC cruisers can be quite different from southern folks no matter what cruise line you choose.

As far as which cruise line is better, an experienced cruiser once told me, ANy cruise is a good cruise".

This would be mainly for older kids and adults if its still available: A few years back my adult son & I booked a bike tour of Nassau through Bahamas Outdoors. The guide picked us up in her car, drove us to her home and we biked from there. I never liked Nassau until we did this tour. It was just the two of us and our guide; she took us to the beach, through neighborhoods where we saw houses and locals, and spent a lot of time explaining the area, and expressing her love of Nassau. I know she does bird & nature tours, but I loved the bike excursion. It gave us a true appreciation of Nassau - not something you're likely to get from a place like Atlantis. As the guide said, "Why pay to visit fake ancient ruins when you can see the real Nassau?"

PS: I should mention I don't do much biking, and she allowed us to go at our own leisurely pace.

You can also check the flight records for your flight - get an idea if its usually on time. That might give you a little peace of mind (or not:rolleyes:).

I'd worry more if you were travelling in the winter months, but May should be safe.

And right before you exit the casino and enter in to the MDR areas, there is a floor to ceiling art display. It's very impressive if you ask me.

 

 

Going forward from the art display, we find ourselves at The Grand dining room.

 

 

And as you can see right down the hall to the right of the enterance is Izumi.

 

 

We had a fantastic and very entertaining meal at the hibachi portion of Izumi on the second night. I ordered the lobster and steak and my wife ordered the chicken and steak. Both were very delicious. And the fried rice was extremely good. I normally am not a fan of fried rice or rice in general but I ate to heaping bowels here. And for dessert, I cannot recommend enough the Assorted Mochi Ice Creams. One was Mango flavor, another was Green Tea flavor and finally one was Strawberry. The Mango one was good. The Green Tea one was ... well ... strange but edible. But the strawberry one was pure deliciousness. I would have been able, I would have got all of them in Strawberry flavor. Others at our table, those who were enjoying this dessert also agreed about Strawberry being simply the best.

 

Kudos to our Chef for the smiles, laugher, and a most excellent meal.

 

 

Just a note, at our 530pm reservation on the night we were there, there were 2 seats open at our table and about 4 seats open at the other table, so there might be a possiblity of grabbing some seats without a reservation.

1). Where do I send the check? You should get paid for one of the greatest reviews I ever read (or maybe Royal would like to offer a free cruise?:rolleyes:

2). Not sure if you have a typo above. I think I would enjoy heaping bowls of rice. However, not sure I'd want to go there if I'd end up with heaping bowels.:eek:

Seriously, thanks for a great review.

Closest Walgreens is about 1 1/2 miles. 17th St. location much better choice for shopping.

Thanks for all the info. Yeah, 17th St has Publix, restaurants - I just hate paying an extra $40 or $50 bucks for a hotel if I'm only going to sleep there. I also looked at HIE on 17th, but I think we'll stick with Residence. It's not until Sept, and I might change my mind a hundred times by then!:rolleyes:

Yes, just built last year. I do not consider it to be in a bad area and I live here.

People always have wide opinions on what constitutes a "safe" area, like cruisers who refuse to get off the ship in places like Jamaica or St Thomas.

How about stores/restaurants? We'll probably get in too late for a dinner, but a CVS or Walgreens might be useful. We usually stay at Embassy Suites on 17th, but a fairly new hotel sounds good. Last year we booked Embassy, didn't arrive due to flight delays until 2:30AM - spent about ten hours there total.

This seems to be a fairly new property. Rates are reasonable; one TA review mentioned its in a bad area. Anyone familiar with this property? We're there for one night pre-cruise stay, and outside of picking up any forgotten toiletries we'd have no need to go off property anyways.

A car will certainly help. And for dinner: 15th Street Fisheries - take the water taxi to it. Great atmosphere and food.

http://www.15streetfisheries.com/#_=_

It's even funnier when you show it to someone (like my DW) who doesn't know it's a joke!

We were there in January 2015 and had one of the greatest restaurant meals I ever had. On the docks you can feed the large fish found in abundance. Kids especially love it. Thanks for reminding me about the place.

Here's the Port Everglades map: http://www.porteverglades.net/includes/content/docs/media/PEG545_MultiMapBrochure_Map_REVISED-Feb-17-2015.pdf. According to google maps, it is a 1/2 mile (10 minute walk) from the Holiday Inn Express to terminals 2 and 4 at the northern entrance of the port (Eisenhower Blvd off of 17th Street). All the other terminals are much further away plus it is an industrial port with lots of large truck traffic. Walking in the port is not pleasant. There is no shade and if it is hot and humid outside (at least half the year) it will be miserable.

 

If you need to know your terminal, that info is published on the ship schedule a week in advance: https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/

Pretty much confirms what I thought. Thanks for clarifying.

HIE says its a 5 minute walk to the port. Can you walk to the port, or do you have to shuttle/taxi?

Not really, but if we visit the Diamond Lounge we'll have a glass of wine. Interesting that the listing above contains Zinfandel, as our last cruise (Brilliance in January) didn't offer it as a choice, but the waiter gave it to us anyways. As I recall, the list we had was shorter than the one shown above (smaller ship, smaller list perhaps?).

I would bet a "GTY" booking wouldn't qualify for the "free" stuff...since you won't be paying the full fare.

With a guaranteed cabin, you're still paying a full fare and receiving all the usual benefits. The new perks don't start until November (I'm doing Oasis in September), but it seems like a pretty nice perk. Of course, as its something new, we'll all have to wait a while to see how it works.

OP has a point if it was presented to her that way. In about 15 cruises over three cruise lines (mostly Royal), I've never had anyone (waiter, steward) request a certain score.

That being said, their jobs DO depend on how well they're rated, and the cruise lines seem to find these hard working people to be easily replaceable. I've never had a reason not to give a top score.

I should mention my thread title was simply a play on words, not all that serious, but I figured it might get people's attention. I'm looking forward to the cruise and to the Carnival experience. We actually booked a Carnival cruise out of NYC a few years back. Hurricane Sandy was scheduled to hit New York (as it certainly did!:mad:), so they moved our cruise UP one day (how often do you hear of that?); we couldn't arrange our schedule to get there a day earlier, so they ended up refunding our money.

You're better off clicking on the ship name at the top of the page or searching for reviews, then going back to roll calls. People usually don't go back to them after the cruise is over. Especially to post a review with the same people they just sailed with. I use that ship button at the top of the page often. It will bring up any thread related to the ship you click on.

Done all that. Personally, I usually post something after returning (besides posting a review), as many times cruisers on the ship after me will post on my Roll Call, asking for comments. And, I've done the same, checking other threads to see what excursions people are doing, specialty restaurant experiences. CC is a great, helpful tool, so I've learned a lot over the years - just seems people are posting less and less (all cruise lines, not just Carny) than before. Could be because I'm not a fan of a particular well known site that starts with F.:rolleyes:

My first Carnival cruise was Festivale in 1984. I'd be happy to sail her again if they could raise her from the ocean bottom.:rolleyes:

Perusing the Carnival Roll Calls for Ecstasy - basically no one ever posts after their cruise (one exception, in recent cruises, and his reply was one word: "Sucked"). So what's up with people not responding? Is Ecstasy that bad? Do people take Ecstasy cruises and never return?:eek:

We're usually Royal Caribbean cruisers, but an August Ecstasy cruise fits our summer schedule best. Our most recent cruise was a Royal with horrible reviews, yet we had a great time (and for that matter, out of 15 or so cruises, never been on one I didn't enjoy).

So, anyone have any thoughts? My personal opinion on reviews: it's never as bad as some make it out to be.