Lmm79

We will be headed to st Martin for the first time in August. We have a 5 and 8 year old and typically like hanging out at the beach. It’s easiest to just do all inclusives- for example we really enjoy mr sanchos. 

The search function isn’t working great. And I’m struggling to find much.  I found one available location in Maho beach the sonesto?

how far from the port is Maho?  Anyone been to the sonesto ?  Anywhere else we should consider?  Thanks!

Our first two cruises with our kids were on the allure and then the adventure. Although we had a great time on both, we much prefer the oasis class ships. First thencheck on checkout process on adventure for kids club is awful. You line up in the arcade and everything is and written. We often spend 30 minutes just checking them in. Also the lack of food options made my kids nuts in adventure. 

That said we did allure then adventure. We didn’t have a bad time in adventure and the staff was great. Had we not known allure first we wouldn’t have known what we were missing. But after adventure our family decided for now, for us we are sticking with the bigger ships. 

My kids were 4 and 7 when on allure and adventure.  

What kind of supervision are you thinking, like you need to follow them up the slide?  I would just tell your kids to point to the group that if people at the bottom of the slide and say that you are waiting for them at the end of the slide. 

Our 8 year old went On slides by herself as I don’t do water slides and my husband is too big. It was no big deal. 

I often feel people on this board expect compensation for unreasonable things. I feel the opposite on this thread.  20% doesn’t cut it for me. An 85 degree cabin is unusable.  Heat is a migraine tigger for me so I would be miserable. 

I hope RCCL does the right thing.

22 minutes ago, rusty nut said:

Next time you're in the Windjammer, take a look around and see if you can notice the dozens of passengers coughing and hacking into their hand, and then touching all of the serving spoons. It's an ongoing problem. The most vile part of the entire ship is right there on that serving spoon.  

What makes me cringe is

the people who walk around the windjammer eating and licking their fingers while going from item to item. I am considering gloves for the next cruise. 

1 hour ago, cruisegirl1 said:

We got something like 46 last month on Oasis!  ( we were in a standard balcony  and have high status with RCCL)  Didn't  matter, as we do  walk off. Does C&A status (except  for Pinnacle) dictate the debarkation number?  I thought it was more accommodation driven.

 

back to the topic - hope everyone  will be OK

 

m

We got 50 something in a jr suite in November on oasis. The year before in a jr suite we got 14.  Our room steward got us new numbers so we wouldn’t miss our shuttle. 

We just booked two 2s rooms on oasis (cp view insides). Connecting rooms. 

We were happy with the price give. We booked a holiday sailing. 

1 hour ago, romesauce said:

 

Yep! Thank you for that point. I should have added that to my original post. We always tipped as well. 🙂

I have a question about this- we always tip extra as well in specialty restaurants but if the OP left her tips in place (which we do, and this is not a question about doing that) what happens to the portion of tips that are supposed to go to their servers at the MDR that they don’t use?  Does that also go into the tip pool for the specialty restaurants?  Or the CK servers if you have access to that location? 

On 12/13/2018 at 6:22 AM, Milwaukee Eight said:

Don’t you think Oasis will get a new show after drydock?

So I have no way of verifying this but I was told by nextcruise manager on oasis that the show will not change as they have a contract to perform cats for a specific number of years. 

The last ksf didn’t go into 2020. We are waiting to book for Jan/feb of that time frame. 

1 hour ago, Grenouille21 said:

I just read that the Oasis had a power failure in mid-November.  Is this normal for cruise ships, to lose power and just get pushed along by the waves for a while?

1 hour ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Normal...no, but it does happen

I was on the cruise the power went out on. It was like one minute or less. I was in an elevator and didn’t even have time to panic. It wasn’t a thing. 

We are disappointed as well. The parades on the non dreamwork ships just don’t have the same allure for the kids as the characters- even characters they are not super familiar with.  

I am a bit of a food snob. 

On allure in 2017 took one bite of sorrentos and that was enough for me. Soggy and gross. 

On oasis 2018 it was much much better. Ate a number of slices over the week. It was noticeably better. 

The kids clubs were packed on our 11.11 sailing 

I don’t know who she it so I am not sure if we saw her. I did see a number of groups of larger people wearing t shirt which had body positive slogans so I assumed they were in her group.

I did not see it advertised on our 11.11 sailing on oasis. I didn’t ask because we had the drink package but did look for it in the planner and for the bar signs to report back here. I do not think it was offered. 

On oasis on 11.11 we were in the cafe on the promenade.  They had the volume up so loud I started getting nauseated. No matter where I moved it was very warm and loud. I have super sensitive hearing and I was not happy. It was so loud you really couldn’t make out he words of the video- it was distorted. 

The chops on adventure this summer was fabulous. Everything was delicious and we are not big steak eaters and are pretty picky when it comes to food.

What? The HGN test *may* show signs of intoxication but cannot be used to determine bac.

It’s an eye flutter test. You can’t tell if someone a . 3 with that.

Signed former prosecutor who has been trained on SFST (standard field sobriety tests)

We are going Xmas week with our 3year old. I am looking for advice also for Cozumel and just onboard.

We did mr sanchos with our 3 and 7 year olds. We are headed back there again this year. They take reservations so you know it won’t be too crowded. Don’t have to pay until the kid is 4 so cheaper too!

Are you asking about the nursery? Some ships don’t have a nursery so the kids have to be above 3 and potty trained. Adventure doesn’t have a nursery.

With four of you. Why not just rent a car one way? Do a price comparison between a vehicles and shuttle.

I’m not wanting to drive a big conversion van in an area I’m not familiar with. I’m not sure where you got that there are 4 of us. As I said in my original post there are two families of 4 for a total of 8.

i am trying to book a shuttle for my family of four as well as another family of 4. Due to limited direct flight options we are not flying out until 3:30. We don’t want to try to do any excursions or anything because our kids are little and will be tired from the trip. I would rather leisurely leave the boat and head towards the airport. Given all that what time should I arranged the shuttle for pick up at the port?

If you compare Disney with a budget line like Carnival, it may very well be closer to double. If you compare Disney with something more like Holland America (which is what my main comparison was), it should be much closer to what I stated.

I was assuming that people would be comparing similar level/quality cruises, not a lower-end against a higher-end.

Also, my last deep price comparisons were back in the 2010-2012 timeframe, so prices may have diverged a bit more since then.

 

Well, just out of curiosity, I did a quick search for cruises from Disney, Holland, and Carnival for an October 2019 cruise to the Eastern Caribbean out of Florida. A 7-day cruise in an Oceanview room (no obstructed views) for 2 adults. Results were rather interesting. Disney was the most expensive (as expected) at $3,468, followed by Holland at $2,498 and then Carnival at $1,720.

So, Disney was 39% more expensive than Holland and in fact was 100% more expensive than Carnival.

 

Now, in my defense, when I have cruised Disney the 2 of the 3 times that I handled bookings and prices I got especially good deals. For instance, I got a partially obstructed balcony room for the price of an oceanview room and got a few perks through a travel agent. Those two bookings did average about 15% more than a comparable cruise on a few other mid-tier lines at the time. It is good to be aware that Disney seems to be notably more expensive than they were just 6-8 years ago. I didn't compare prices to Carnival back then.

Maybe for 2 it’s not double but for a family of 4 the cheapest I could find for a balcony room in November was 6800. Jr suite on oaisis for 4 is 3100.

Looked at next August- have two bw balcony rooms on allure for 4400. Same week for one room on Disney was 7100.

I have never priced carnival so I can compare but for a family its double royal carribean.

Disney Cruise Line does tend to cost about 15% more than other lines for a similar itinerary.

However, you get non-alcoholic and non-specialty drinks included with your cruise price where you would

have to pay usually over $20 per person for drink packages that you might use up and have to purchase another.

Also, you get specialty quality food every night on Disney Cruise Line, so you can say that it included in the cost as well.

They do cost more, but I don't think they cost as much more as you make it sound.

However, to each their own. I was just trying to be helpful. Whatever makes you happy is what I encourage you to do.

In my experience DCL is usually about double for my family not 15% more.