amydresh

3 hours ago, CGrey93 said:

I'm NE Wisconsin as well. Appleton area. My husband took our son for his temps on Saturday. 30 minutes. I think they do a nice job. It used to be worse, but when they switched to different lines for different things and the whole number and letter system, it got so much better. I don't really know how it works, I just know that it does.

 

I’m in Green Bay.  There definitely was a time when it sucked to go to the DMV but their number system now seems to get people in and out fairly quickly.

2 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

Lol not even close! Before Covid you could, waits were 4+ hours. During Covid waits were 13+ hours, folks would advertise their services to sit outside in line for $. Now it’s appointment only, a year ago I finally renewed my license after trying for many months to get an appointment (jumping to sign up at midnight). Our system is SO broken.

Wow!  I live in NE Wisconsin and i just got a Real ID this past summer.  Walked in and was out in about 20-30 minutes.  They don't allow license plate renewals there anymore though, you have to do that all online, so that definitely frees up the lines a little.

I don't really notice what other people are wearing and whether or not they are wearing something more than once, but for me, I don't want to wear the same tops because i don't want to have pics of me wearing the same thing. 🤪  I do try to pack carry on only and have succeeded when we did an 8 day trip to San Francisco, but I need a little more stuff for a cruise than I did for SF.  We are also driving to the cruise port so there's no reason why I have to pack light.  I have always been of the mindset, it's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

7 days on Carnival Dream in Jan 2017.

We have had the social media package on 2 cruises and were not able to Facetime or IMessage, we had to use What's App.

2 hours ago, mz-s said:

 

The last time they hiked prices they had the same issues. They delayed the price hike a day or so last time but haven't heard of the same happening this time.

 

If you're going to be on the Sunshine (I see you are in Charleston), I wouldn't bother. I was just on her last week and the internet is absolutely useless unless you just want to be frustrated.

I just saw right now that this price hike was happening and I was so bummed as we planned to get the social media package for 4 of us (to be able to keep in contact with our kids on the ship) and the premium Wifi for our son who has to be able to do his college schooling during the cruise.  It was going to cost a lot extra.  I went immediately to check prices and they hadn't gone up yet!
 YEA!! We were able to grab it for the cheaper prices!

We used Machu Picchu parking and we really liked it.  They have a shuttle to the port and pick you up quickly when you return.  It’s gated and covered parking.

I was able to get on earlier and I was able to snag $3000 in gift card and literally right after buying them, the site wasn't loading again.  I'm glad to have a big chunk of what we need bought at least.

When are you sailing?  We are on the Jan 9 one....had it booked since Nov 2018.

Just now, HeidiHo said:

Correct, but, you might be able to get away with only one or two internet plans. You can share internet between devices but only one device at a time can be connected. You log on using the folio number of the person who bought the plan. Basically it comes down to whether or not you think you will all want to be online at the same time. My daughter and I shared a plan. she knew my folio number and used it when she wanted to use the internet.

Just now, Organized Chaos said:

 

That's right. Well, just to be clear, the Hub app itself is free and it's free to use all of its features except the Hub chat. That's $5 per device. But yes, you have to buy the Hub chat for each device you want to use it with. If your two boys have Hub chat, anyone else who wants to chat with them will need to buy it too. It's a messaging service only for those who have Hub chat. Then if anyone wants to use any of the other internet services, they'd have to have an internet plan.

 

Also, for the Hub chat to work, the app needs to be left running on the phone. It can be running in the background, that's fine, but don't close the Hub app. If you do, you won't receive new chat messages until you start the app again.

Thank you both!  Great to know all of that!  I wondered how the hub chat worked so that we didn't miss messages, especially with teen boys that aren't the best at communicating what's going on. lol

4 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

The Hub app connects to the ship’s wifi, but does not need one of the paid internet plans to work. Hub chat should work pretty good since the Horizon has very good internet service, but there’s always a chance reliability will vary at times. The way the Hub chat works, if only your two boys got the chat, they could only message one another. It only works between those who have the chat service activated. It’s $5 per device for the whole cruise.

 

If you want internet services in addition to the Hub app, you’ll have to pay for that. 

 

Facebook and WhatsApp work on all three internet plans. Carnival doesn’t officially support iMessage on the Social plan, but many people report that it does work. It worked for us a few years ago. It is definitely supported on the Value & Premium plans. 

Thank you for your reply....so if we wanted to chat using the hub app we would have to buy 5 hub apps and also 3 internet plans because the hub app isn't included in the internet package?

Our family of 5 will be sailing on Horizon and we are trying to figure out our budget.  We have 3 teens and we all have iphones.  We obviously want to be able to keep track of the kids while on board but I'm confused about the messaging options.  My husband, myself, and dd will want internet for FB but our boys don't need actual internet on their phones because they don't use FB.  Is messaging through the hub app reliable enough?  Last cruise we were on we used what's app for messaging, that's part of the internet package, correct?  So if we wanted to use that we would have to pay for internet for all 5 of us, but if we used the hub app to message we could get away with paying a lot less for the boys?  Am I right on that?  If we want the hub app and internet do we have to pay for both or is the hub app included in the internet price?  I tried to search so I didn't need to make a post, but I couldn't find much by way of the most economical way.

Loved St Maarten, it's such a beautiful island and we loved the ziplining.  St Kitts was also beautiful and there was so much to see and do there.

I'm glad to hear that so many love Aruba and Curacao because next January we are cruising there.

We will be sailing a year from now...on the Dream there was a "private deck" up front that was unknown to most cruisers so we were the only ones out there.  Does The Horizon have a deck like that?

We were able to get switched from YTD to early on embarkation.  We got a postcard in our mailbox the next day saying that we were switched for that night.  There were only 5 of us though and we had FTTF, so I don't know if that mattered or not.

Instead of waiting for a gift card, we went to the casino and added the amount of our S&S balance onto a slot machine, spent a few dollars and ten cashed the whole amount out at the cashier.

Last year on Nov 28 we booked a cruise on Horizon with $50 per person deposits and $50 on board credit.  My niece wants to book a cabin on the same cruise with $50 deposit so she's hoping for that sale again this year.

We did the one Cozumel at Dolphin Discovery.  I wish we had saved the money and not bothered.  It was as fun or exciting as we had thought it would be because like others have said, it's all about the pics.  They have you standing around in water for long stretches to make sure that everyone poses with the dolphin in all different poses and very little time is actually interacting with the dolphin.  I almost felt like we were held hostage and it took much longer than they state on their website, I was almost afraid we would miss the ship because it was like 5 hours.  We barely had time to scarf down lunch and look at the pics.  They REALLY push the sale of the pics too.  I would not recommend this excursion and wish we had gone to Paradise Beach like we debated between.  In Grand Cayman definitely go see the sting rays, sooooo much fun!  They are in their natural habitat so it so much better than the dolphin swim.

Views of St John

The Fascination in St Thomas

Lunch view in St John

Monkey feeding in Barbados

Bathsheba Barbados

View of New Orleans

Jamaica sunset

View from our lunch spot in Grand Cayman

How do you know when check in times become available?  My cruise isn't until Jan 8, 2021 but we have a good sized group that would all like the same check in.

We did this cruise last February for our 20th anniversary.  We loved it!  The ship wasn't as big or nice as The Dream which is the only other cruise we have been on, but we still found plenty to keep us entertained.  We did an excursion at every port so we weren't on the ship that much anyway.  We had no problem ever finding somewhere to sit on the ship away from others, it actually didn't seem like many were on the cruise because it always seemed so empty.  We did miss the dive in movies, that was one of our favorite things on the Dream but we were tired and went to bed early most nights anyway.  We would definitely book this cruise again without a second thought!

Zip lining in St Maarten

swimming with the stingrays in Grand Caymen

Thenford Grey's tour of the fort, batik factory, and island sightseeing

We cruised with our 3 kids in 2017.  We had passports for dh, myself, and dd who was 16, she was going on a missions trip to Mexico the same year so we knew she needed one no matter what.  For the boys being 11 and 13, we didn't feel it was needed.  We never needed them and didn't regret not having them for them.  Our next cruise is in 2021 and my older son will be 17 so we will be getting him one.  The younger will be turning 15 shortly after our cruise and as of now we do not plan to get him one.  If he will be needing one for a missions trip that year, we will obviously get him one, but being that he will be a year away from a 10 year passport, I do not want to get him one that will only be good for 5 years.

We also used Thedford Grey and we loved it!  The tour was amazing and he was an awesome driver!  We used them because of the wonderful reviews I had read online.