fitcruisecouple

We use Agave and bring it on board for our coffee. Also good as a syrup. Never had an issue smuggling err i mean bringing it aboard.

We are in port now and just left the pool area. Dropped in after our jeep excursion and had a blast! The pork tacos are great. Good crowd but no trouble finding chairs. Drinks were awesome! First time at this port and loved it. Also did the bird avery.

Date Port Arrive Depart Activity

11-Dec Tampa, Florida 4:00 PM

12-Dec Key West, Florida 11:00 AM 6:00 PM Docked

13-Dec Cruising Cruising

14-Dec George Town, Grand Cayman 7:00 AM 3:30 PM Tendered

15-Dec Cozumel, Mexico 9:30 AM 7:00 PM Docked

16-Dec Costa Maya, Mexico 7:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked

17-Dec Cruising Cruising

18-Dec Tampa, Florida 7:00 AM

leaving on Brilliance out of Tampa on 12/11. Are the dining menus online somewhere?

According to the deck plans it's a sofa bed with third pullman bed available. Probably lowers from ceiling.

Just noticed Bob beat me to it. He's good! ��

lol yup - I saw it on icruise.com as well - wasn't aware you could search by cabin #. Very cool.

7166 has both a sofa bed and one pullman bed.

Perfect thank you!

Bottled water is against the rules, but they usually don't enforce that rule.

 

Balcony staterooms usually have a sofa bed, however to confirm, we would need the stateroom number.

Cabin 7166 Deluxe Ocean View Balcony

Two questions:

We are sharing a balcony room on Brilliance of the Seas with our two children. Do those have pullman's generally or is it a sofa bed? When we sail on CCL, we usually have two pullman's that fold down out of the ceiling. Wondering if it's similar.

Also, what is the policy on packing bottled water? On CCL, we've always had a couple of cases brought to our room prior to sailing. Can we pack our own bottled water in our luggage?

Will be in Costa Maya 12/16 - thinking about a day at Jamie's for our family of four (2 kids 13/10). Anyone been there lately?

Does RCI offer an on-board app like CCL allowing text messaging between members of our family while on-board? It's nice to be able to remind the kids show up for dinner lol.

Are you talking about the Turtle Farm? If so, the bus will take you there...no excursion needed. And, you'll get to see some of the island on the trip there!

Yes - so hop a bus or taxi? Is it worth it though? I've seen mixed reviews. The Website says you swim in a salt lagoon with turtles but some of the reviews say it was actually a dirty cement pond lol. Not sure what to believe.

Anyone have any experience taking a fishing charter out of Costa Maya?

We will be in Grand Cayman on December 13 via Brilliance of the Seas. We are a family of four with two kids 13/10. Wondering if anyone has done the Turtle Encounter & Island Tour? We've done the stingray stuff and plenty of snorkeling so we were looking for something different. I've seen mixed reviews on the Turtle excursion so not sure if it's worth checking out. Are there any other recommended excursions? Anything outside of what RCI offers?

sailing out of Tampa on 12/11/17. Are there any special themed nights we should plan on dressing up for?

Visiting Costa Maya for first time in December. Any suggestions on the best shore excursion? We are a very active athletic family of four -kids are 13/10. Lots of experience with zips, ropes courses, kayacking etc. open to whatever though. We also like off the beaten path stuff with dune buggies etc. We've had some bad experiences at other ports so jst like to get recommendations!! Thanks all!

Hello! Few questions about the Brilliance of the Seas. We just booked the December 11-17 cruise out of Tampa. While we have cruised on RCI before, it was on the smaller ships just to the Bahamas. We mostly sail Carnival but to be honest, have not been happy with them lately. One of our biggest reasons for booking this ship is because of the rock climbing wall! Our two kids are very athletic and love rock climbing, so they kept asking to do an RCI cruise with the wall. Which leads to my first question, what are some of the other fun activities for a 13/10 year old? They don't usually do a camp, just like to be off on their own.

And overall, how is this ship? I guess compared to carnival paradise, it would be much nicer? LOL! We sail Paradise a lot simply because it's local and convenient.

How are the rooms laid out for a family of four? Do they use he beds that fold down or is it a pull out couch?

How is food on BOS compared to Carnival?

Does RCI offer something equivalent to Carnival's faster to the fun that would allow us priority boarding?

One last question - port of Puero Maya, anything fun to do there with the kids?

Anything else we need to know feel free to mention!! Thank you guys!

How do i get set up with a PVP?

just curious how others book their CCL cruises? Do you book directly on the CCL website? Through a travel agent? Through another Website? I ask because it seems like whenever we price out a new cruise, our agent ends up at the same price as what we can get ourselves by just booking online through CCL. Are rates pretty much set in stone no matter where or how you book?

When does Paradise go into dry dock?

February 2018 for 30ish days

So just returned from the four day Carnival Paradise cruise to Cozumel. We hop on this regularly just to get to Mexico and back. It's more or less like a ferry to us so we don't expect the service and quality we would get on a bigger ship. We did sail on Vista in December and it was great. I just wanted to leave our $.02 to help anyone considering the Paradise.

As been mentioned before, this is an older ship. Yes it's outdated a bit, old and a little rusty. And occasionally smells a little poopy. But again, we usually pay about $500 for my wife and I and last month when we took our two kids, we got on for under $700 for the four us - plus we won the Bingo jackpot on the last day so it was a super cheap cruise. So my point is, for the money, just don't expect much. It's what we consider a bare bones cruise. We are fitness freaks, so we don't drink or go for the food - we go to simply relax and catch up on book reading.

So this is about our 8th time on this particular cruise and have to say this was the worst. The majority of our past cruises were without incident. This time, not so much. Starting off Thursday when we boarded at 11 am we headed to our room. It was ready but of course our luggage hadn't arrived - even through we are faster to the fun. For some reason, our luggage never arrives early, even though it is supposed to. When we arrived at our room, we had a letter advising there was an issue with the embarkation door that had to be repaired and we'd be hanging around in Tampa until 10:00 pm. Ok, fine. Not like we were going to do much for the next 10 hours other than lounge. I have to be honest though, it was a bit irritating after a few hours listening to the ship yard workers and machines and all that. Off to dinner at 5:45 pm and we had a great view from our window of the terminal lol. Would have preferred open ocean, but wasn't in the cards this time.

So we noticed the spring break crowd had thinned out since our last cruise in March. Except for the room directly next to us. We were in M197 and in M199, about 12 college age people from NJ decided to use their room as the meeting place. Needless to say, Thursday night involved NO sleep. Finally called guest services around 3 am and they sent security up to chat with them.

Friday was a relaxing day starting out in the gym breakfast and lounging on the Serenity Deck. We were so tired that around 1:30 we decided to go take a nap before dinner. Just as we laid down, our spring breakers decided to head to their room as well! No naps. We out for a stroll to see what was happening in the lobby and popped in to guest services and asked if there was anyway we could move rooms. Was told they were full but would see what they could do and they'd let us know. So dinner was great as usual (we had table 219 with Salmet as our server - second time with him and he is fabulous). Knowing we were getting up early to head off ship to Nachi Cocom, and the lack of sleep the night before, we got to bed pretty early - around 8. At 1:00 am, our spring breakers returned, drunk and fighting. The girls were crying and the guys sounded like they were going at it. Then it sounded like they were about to come through our wall when one guy through the other guy into the wall. Enough. Called security and they came up and broke up the group. Can't fall back asleep now. Think we finally did around 3ish.

So got up Saturday, hopped our cab and made it to Nachi for a day of relaxation. Of course, we had to be with ANOTHER group of spring breakers from TX who obviously heard about the all you can drink special. So our quite Nachi visit turned into an MTV realty show. By the end of the day it was a very loud place. Saving grace was the lack of a crowd so we were able to head down the beach to some private loungers.

Back to our room Saturday evening and find a note from guess services that our new room is available. Yay! Moving to M172, across the hall. Pack up, move and yay a good nights sleep finally!!

Sunday was the usual lay on deck and then partake in some of the trivia games. Didn't hit Bingo this time since I figured we used up all our Bingo luck on the last cruise.

Got back into Tampa at 8 am, off the ship at 8:30 and home by 930. Love the quickie cruise out of Tampa, but was disappointed in the lack of respect from our spring break neighbors.

So again, due to age of this ship, don't expect five star amenities or service. If you like to drink yourself to death, great ship for you. If you like to go and relax, hang out on serenity deck and you'll be fine. Will probabyl be going again next month to take the kids over to Mr Sanchos. Hope the spring breakers are gone by then lol!

We are gym rats and always bring our normal gym/workout clothes when we cruise. So she's usually in leggings and a sport bra and I'm in some sort of UA shorts and tank. yes, it justifies us eating all the crap we eat on the cruise lol. We don't drink but we do partake in the many desert options!

Carnival Miracle will start sailing out of Tampa in January 2018.

Cozumel is a completely FLAT island. Seriously. The zipline on the island is a couple of towers, that are the height of palm trees and you zip between them. It is fine for children, no one else.

 

Since you don't have kids with you..... consider doing the Bar Hop. It gives you a tour of the eastside of island, including Coconuts.

Duh! Didn't even think about it being a flat island! Coming from someone who has ZL in Costa Rica, that's embarrassing lol. Where do we find the Bar Hop info?

Hello - new to the forums. We are hoping on Carnival Paradise to Cozumel for like our 10th time. This time with no kids. We've pretty much done all the advertised shore excursions so we're looking for something different to do on our own. We're a fit active couple in our 40's so high intensity activities are right up our alley.

Some ideas we had:

We've read a lot about Mr. Sanchos and Nachi CoCom and the reviews seem to be split evenly between both. Considering we won't have kids with us, which would you recommend?

Thought about maybe renting a Jeep and going off on our own. Are there private beaches we can find on our own? Best place to rent a Jeep? We heard that you can rent a Jeep/Buggy and cross the island and eat at Coconuts? Is it worth the drive?

Would also like to go Zip Lining, however, the only tour I can find is what Carnival offers. Are there any other recommended Zip Line tours we can book outside of Carnival that would be a bit more advanced for the experienced Zip Liner?

Thank you!