Nike4000

My sister-in-law and her husband have always driven down from Frisco to Galveston the day of the ship and been fine. However, about a year ago, they drove down the day of their cruise as usual, and unfortunately there was an accident somewhere in Houston that blocked up the whole freeway. They were stuck & ended up missing their cruise. They had to eat the cost of that cruise. It was then that they realized how minimal the cost of a pre-cruise hotel is in the grand scheme of things. Since then, they've driven down the day before for all of their subsequent cruises. Can you drive down the day of your cruise? Yes, definitely. Do you want to have to deal with the stress of not knowing if you're going to make it? No! As @GJustice said, treat the day before your cruise as the start of your vacation. Relax and enjoy the drive. Spend the night in a Galveston hotel, get some good seafood for dinner, sleep in the morning of your cruise and take your time getting over to the terminal. Make it an enjoyable experience.

We've booked the monkey, sloth, glass bottom boat excursion through Royal for our upcoming fall cruise. I'll post a reply about the experience once we've done it. The excursion took a while to open up for our fall booking, so just keep an eye on it.

The last time we were in Roatan, we booked the Daniel Johnson Monkey & Sloth Hangout tour directly through Daniel Johnson's and it was both good and bad. The good was that we got to hang out with monkeys & sloths. Holding the sloth was super cool and totally worth the price of admission. Their staff was incredibly friendly and helpful - very responsive to my multiple emails in advance of our cruise. Awesome to work with and the price was great. Our driver, we were in her personal car, was amazing, friendly, and highlighted all sorts of cool & interesting things we passed along the way to the Monkey & Sloth hangout. She was a fabulous tour guide and a great driver considering that the "rules of the road" in Roatan are more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules. The bad included two things. First, we added the Zip Line experience to the tour and were never able to actually go on the zip lines. After our monkey & sloth encounter, our driver took us to the zip line place where we sat for nearly 2 hours waiting for the group in front of us to finish. Every time we asked, we were told "They're on the last zip line" - for 2 hours we heard this. Plus, there was another group ahead of us. We finally asked to be taken back to the ship. The people at Daniel Johnson's refunded us for the zip line experience and were very apologetic. The second negative aspect was finding our contact after debarking the ship. We had to go outside of the cruise port to get our ride and it was absolute chaos. There were tons of people crowding the gate, making locating our contact challenging. I dislike crowds and this one was huge and aggressive. I ended up getting pick pocketed while making my way to our contact (they got nothing of value) and someone tried to pull our backpack off of my wife's shoulder. It was rough and not pleasant. So, all that being said - Sloths were AWESOME & we can't wait to hold them again. But, based on our negative experience, we're going to book through Royal directly for our upcoming trip and see if the transportation experience is any better.

The times we've gone, the food was included and it's a pretty basic buffet for making tacos and fajitas. The food was good, nothing super special, but since it was included, it was fine. We usually end up only snacking from the buffet - i.e. chips and queso - and then eating when we get back on the ship. However, we've never done the catamaran and I think they end up at a different part of the beach. So, YMMV.

We've seen Jeep tours to Passion Island before, like this one. We've never taken the Jeeps though, we enjoy the Twister boat too much. Good luck!

My daughter and I did the Jade Caverns by ATV excursion in 2021 and had a blast. The ATV ride wasn't too difficult, but I preface that by saying that we've owned ATVs previously. Jade Cavern was interesting, only 1 person in our group of about 12 riders was willing to get in the water. The sulphur smell was overpowering. If I remember correctly, we were on the ATVs for about an hour and a half or so total, getting off to explore the cenote and then another break for water and bathrooms. The ATVs were serviceable, definitely high mileage and well used. A few of our group had to swap out their ATVs because they wouldn't start. If you're looking for a fun little ATV ride, it's not too bad. If you're looking for challenging off-roading, it's not the right excursion. There were bumpy parts of the ride and a nice mud pit to drive through. I second the recommendation for closed toe shoes, face and eye coverings, and some sort of mask to keep bugs & dust out of your mouth. Happy to answer any questions you might have.

@cruisemom42 - The Malibu Beach Inn is a fantastic hotel just up PCH from the Getty Villa. Definitely historic and not a chain. Everyone stays in Santa Monica, why not try something a little more unique and right on the beach?

Which ship will you be on? Disney Wonder WIFI was pretty much unusable on our most recent trip in February.

For those staying in Santa Monica with extra days and not sure where to go or what to do, I'd highly recommend heading to Geoffrey's Malibu for dinner. It's a quick 30 minute drive along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH, aka Highway 1) from Santa Monica, the food is excellent, the views are amazing, and, more than likely, you'll spy a few celebrities sitting at nearby tables. You can also make a day of Malibu - visit Pepperdine University, explore Malibu Village and Malibu Colony Plaza, walk the Malibu Pier, explore Point Dume, bury your feet in the sand at Zuma Beach, and have lunch at one of my other favorite area restaurants, The Sunset. Lots to see and do within a quick drive from Santa Monica that many people completely miss because they're focused on Hollywood or other places south of LA.

@ilv4cruising - we stayed at the SpringHill Suites San Diego Downtown / Bayfront and it was fantastic. My comment above pertains to that location. It opened in 2016 as a newly built dual-hotel property. There are other SpringHill Suites hotels in the area that the reviews your seeing might pertain to - Oceanside, Carlsbad, Mission Valley, Escondido, Rancho Bernardo, etc. All I can tell you is that the hotel we stayed in was very nice, looked new (7 years old is still pretty new), and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful. It is right across from the pier, a simple 5 minute walk and you're dropping off your luggage with a porter to start your cruise journey.

We stayed at Springhill Suites pre-cruise in February and it is a very nice hotel & location. Lots of stuff you can easily walk to along the boardwalk - restaurants, attractions, etc.. Plus, as @DaveOKC said, it's right across the street from the cruise port. Our room was very nice & spacious, the bed was comfortable, and my daughter crashed on the in-room couch after coming down to visit us. She said that was comfy too! We'll book the Springhill Suites for future San Diego departures for sure!

Just booked North lot for our November 2023 cruise and didn't see any options for North Lot premium or the VIP lot. Are those booked full through April (yes I tried every sailing from Nov through Apr)? Or, is there some other trick to getting access to those lots? I'm not thrilled about leaving my car uncovered.

We’re interested in this excursion as well and would love to hear what others have experienced. We had a horrible experience with a submarine style excursion in Cozumel, so we’re a little hesitant to book this one. Everything else looks great - how was it in reality?

Yeah, it's a big Sprinter van that should fit your party pretty well. I'd recommend trying to schedule your time as soon as you check in.

We signed up for a time slot, but the shuttle bus wasn't crowded. There were 6 of us total on the bus and it easily could have held another family.

We like buying in advance so it’s already waiting for us when we get to our room. But, cost wise I don’t think there is any savings buying in advance.

Last month we stayed at the SpringHill Suites right across from the cruise terminal and it was fantastic! Super easy walk across the street at a traffic light with crosswalk to the terminal. Took less than 5 minutes. Also, tons of restaurants up and down the shore within walking distance. As for the flight, we walked off the ship after a leisurely breakfast bringing our rolling bags with us and were at the airport within 12 minutes of debarking. Big caveats are that we kept all of our luggage with us, we had our passports ready to be reviewed by customs when we walked off, and there were no delays with customs holding the ship or delaying debarkation. Cabs are plentiful at the port, the cab stand is right outside the terminal doors, and then it is a super short drive to the airport. My wife noted for future trips that we easily made it to the airport before 9:30 without rushing or zero stress.

@jeromep - wow, what a thorough and fantastic reply, I can't thank you enough. You broke everything down so well, we have a much, much better understanding of what to expect now. Thank you! Our typical cruise beverage consumption runs along the lines of Coke Zero or diet soda for me a couple of times each day - usually with lunch & dinner and then water. My wife sticks with tea and bottled water on cruises (she says the regular water tastes funny, but I've never noticed that). We'll probably take your advice and avoid the top level package, it doesn't sound like the value will be there for us. Also, great point about the excursions. We always book in advance, but I didn't know if Premium Suites gave earlier access to book them. As for The Enclave - it sounds like we need to stick to our standard embarkation process and head directly to the spa once we're on board to take the tour, book access to the Enclave, and schedule our massages. It's all good! @deise17311 - thanks for clarifying. I'm still learning what is available on the Regal Princess, your post was very helpful. We're learning so much thanks to all of these fantastic responses. Y'all really know your stuff when it comes to Princess! Very impressive. Thank you!

Okay, my wife just saw an article about a "Chocolate Journey" on Princess. Is that still a thing that happens? I'm assuming it means that there are numerous chocolate dessert offerings on the menu and buffet. Can anyone provide some clarification? The Princess website wasn't helpful and I only saw press release type info about it without any specifics. This could be a game changer. Also, @donswife and @Rick&Jeannie - the photos y'all have shared are fantastic! We're ready to go!

Yeah, that's what we assumed, I was joking about it being the primary selling point for her.

Thanks to everyone for their very thoughtful and helpful responses. Y'all have given us significant food for thought. We're still doing some research, but we're heavily leaning towards going with a Premium Suite for this trip. The extra space in the room, the concierge lounge, priority specialty dining and shore excursion reservations, complimentary laundry service, and other perks are really attractive to us. My wife read somewhere that Premium Suites include complimentary bottles of water, which might be the strongest selling point for her. 😁

Thank you for this extremely insightful response! We will definitely take the guidance about the amenities into consideration. So helpful! I don't recall mentioning factoring the balcony size into my original message, we're more focused on the room site - max room size for 12 days is a good thing in our minds. However, since you did mention the balcony, I don't think the temperature will be a concern. I practically live on that thing in tropical weather or cold. On our Alaskan cruise I was out there as much as possible and will definitely come prepared for UK weather. I spent 3 years in Ireland and England back in my younger days so I'm familiar with the climate (barring massive shifts due to climate change). Awesome, thank you for clarifying. Sounds pretty cool - I geek out over technology and this sounds like fun.

What did you love about it? Any tips or recommendations? I totally misread the amenities and assumed "Complimentary use of the Lotus Spa® Thermal Suite" included the Enclave. Whoops, my bad! The question stands - how hard would it be to get Enclave access as new Princess cruisers? I'm not worried about movement, we used to do private charter trips on a 93' sailboat which moves a heck of a lot more than any modern cruise ship! How many soft drinks qualify as "a lot"? This is the way!

My wife and I are considering booking a Princess cruise in spring 2024 and, while we've cruised on other lines quite a bit, we have not been on Princess. Well, technically I was back when I was much, much younger, but I have very little recollection of that cruise other than spending time with other kids my age doing things our parents would be ashamed to know we were doing. 🤫😜 So, as we look at our options, we thought it would be wise to ask the Cruise Critic resident experts for input and guidance! We're considering a 12-day British Isles cruise on the Regal Princess in April or May 2024. For level setting, we're in our early 50's, are reasonably physically fit, and don't drink alcohol. It would just be the two of us. Some questions: We're considering a Reserve Collection Mini-Suite but are intrigued by the opulence of a Premium Suite. For 12 days, are the upgraded perks of the Premium Suite worth the extra expense over the Reserve Collection Mini-Suite? Instead of upgrading to the Premium Suite, would it be better to upgrade to the "Best" cruise option(instead of "Better")? As mentioned, we don't drink alcohol, so wine tastings, champagne, etc., are not selling points for us. However, things like specialty meals, reserved seating at shows, and premium desserts are interesting. Speaking of, what are the "premium desserts" that are considered perks on the Better & Best packages? How are the medallions used? I saw that they do "stuff," but how, when, and where? I picture a form factor similar to an airtag, is that pretty accurate? Is it used as a room key? We're super interested in "The Enclave." I see that complimentary access is included in the Premium Suite. As first time Princess cruisers, are we going to be out of luck trying to get passes for the duration of the cruise if we go with a Reserve Collection Mini-Suite? Will we get earlier access to book excursions depending on the level of suite we book? What do you wish you knew about cruising with Princess before your first cruise? What aren't we thinking of as we consider a Princess cruise? We're also considering similar-ish itineraries from Silversea and Oceania. I worry that those two options will skew much older since my dad said those are his lines of choice & he's pushing 80. Thanks in advance for the feedback. We're super excited about heading over to Europe for a fun-filled cruise.

That is invaluable information! I don't usually carry much cash on me when cruising - at least very small bills like that. I will be prepared thanks to your sage guidance!