Bluidshay

This is great, thank you so much jgmpuma!!

Hi folks, our family of four is coming in a day early and staying at the Omni by the terminal. Then we're staying another night at the Hilton Gardens. Does anyone have any recommendations on nearby restaurants that have good food, won't break the bank, and will allow us to sample the local fare? Thanks!

I am not happy unless I'm planning a big trip. I am an Excel guru and keep a lot of stuff there (Packing lists, excursion prices, etc) but I also have something the fam affectionately calls "the manifesto." It's a Word template that I use to build the trip, filling it out as I go. It's got the calendar, all my logon and checkin info, the flight info, the hotel info, the ship info, the places to eat on the ship, tips from cruisers that I find on the web, excursions, etc. It is usually 30 pages long or so. I print it out and bring it with us for reference.

I might jump off the ship if someone serves me crickets. Ew, gross. Do they look like crickets when they are prepared?

I can't eat avocado, at sea or no. I've had them three times and it was fiercely rejected by my body. Never again.

I won't eat baby mammals on principal, so no lamb or veal. And foie gras is on that list too, even though ducklings aren't mammals. I just don't like the way the poor things are raised.

I don't like raw tomatoes, but I do like them in any form besides raw.

No liver. No way I'm eating nature's toxin processing factory.

I'm not sure if I'd try other stuff, I probably would try anything once (I've had everything above at least once in my life except crickets). The only thing I probably wouldn't have specific to the cruise would be scrambled eggs. Buffet scrambled eggs are just gross. They are either too soupy or too crusty. The RCL cruise we went on a little over a year ago had a crepe station and that's where I went every day for breakfast. Yum.

I would say the self tour. You can go at your own pace and there's plenty to see. But then again I am from Cape Cod, Massachusetts...so going to a sandbar for the day isn't a novelty to me. If I had never done that, I would say do the sandbar.

We went in November of 2016 with a group of 10 that included 5 kids ages 6-19.

In Coco Cay, we didn't bother with a bungalow, we just grabbed chairs and either relaxed or the more adventurous folks in our group (that would be me and the older kids, haha) toured the "shipwrecks" (fake ships and small sunken airplanes) with snorkel gear, rented cheaply on the island. There are some closer ones and some pretty far out, so you don't have to swim for miles if you don't want to.

In Nassau, we had a TON of fun with a scavenger hunt run by Islandz Tours.

http://islandztours.com/tours-booking/ncs-scavenger-hunt/

It was a really inexpensive and fun way to see Nassau. I had a lot of conversations with the tour operator beforehand about safety, and at no time did we feel unsafe. We saw so much more of the city than I ever expected, and it was all done by lunchtime so we still had time to go back to the boat and eat and then poke around the waterfront afterwards. The kids had a blast finding the locations and doing the "extra credit" activities (one of them was to take a picture hugging a policeman, lol), we had a breathtaking view from the old fort, we stopped for refreshments as needed, and the locals seemed to be aware of the scavenger hunt and were very helpful to us. At the end, the winning team got a HUGE bag of "swag" including a bottle of local vodka, tee shirts, candies, etc. It was the highlight of our trip and I highly recommend it.

When I was there with our group of 10 in November of 2016, some of us rented snorkel equipment for pretty cheap (I can't remember the price, it was definitely under $20, and maybe under $10). There are a series of "shipwrecks" and sunken small airplanes dotted all through the cove, some closer and some further away, and interspersed with docks you can rest on. We had a ton of fun moving from spot to spot, looking at the sea life. I would wait to book anything until you are there though; we almost didn't make it to the island because the seas were so choppy in the morning. We were below decks waiting in that line FOREVER. Still, I guess we were one of the lucky ones because I hear a lot of people don't get to disembark there at all.

Following, I think you and I are having the exact same anxiety about Montego Bay =)!

Four Seasons

Hi, I see instructions for walking to Julia terminal but not to Erato. Can someone tell me if I can walk from my hotel to the terminal?

Thanks!

iluvcruises, I'm not sure how I would feel if I only had one child roaming the ship. As it stands, I have two girls, one is 11.5 and one will be 15 in March. They have cruise rules: 1. Stick together AT ALL TIMES if not with one of the adults they are travelling with. 2. NO going into anyone elses' cabin that we are not travelling with, at any time, for any reason, period. 3. If they say they are going someplace and then change their mind, they have to check in, either using our magnetic dry erase board we bring, or the Hub app, or our walkies. If they ever were to break these rules it would be the end of their freedom on the ship. We are travelling just on our own for the first time in a month (we've gone on another cruise with a large group of friends), so we will see what they end up doing. Who knows, they might actually end up wanting to spend more time with us!!

We're cruising next month out of New Orleans. We decided to come one day early and leave one day after, because we are from New England and one never knows if you are going to be delayed with weather!

We're staying in Hilton Riverside the night before. It was a little pricey but holy heck, we can roll out of bed and be on the ship! It actually wasn't *too* bad, I just need to remember to quit the stupid hotel club I had to join to get the special rate.

The day after, we booked at the Hampton Inn Downtown - French Quarter. Reasonable rate and a good place to be so we can spend the day exploring the city once we disembark.