Itchy&Scratchy

I might as well post the rest of the dailies, since I posted the embarkation day daily already. Here they come! Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7

we like to try many different entrees and appetizers, but the 13 yo in the party mostly leans towards pastas, pizzas and caesar salads. If my mom doesn't see anything she wants, she orders salmon. We eat chicken at home. 🙂 I am going to post food pics and opinions in a little bit.

they may have had their own package. Were you there to witness every single time that an adult shared his package with the kid? I saw a kiddo telling the Gelato place assistant that he had a Plus package for himself and would like to get 3 of the Premium desserts. The asst informed him that he could only have 2, unless he wanted to get charged for the 3rd. Kid got 2 to share with a friend who didn't have a package. And nobody cared that he was sharing.

I definitely call getting an $80 pppd package for kids just so that they could do fitness classes daily "having money to burn." Sorry, but, IMHO, it's just an expensive want, not need. You can spend your money however you want, of course, but there is no need to argue if somebody else thinks that it's unnecessary to spend this kind of money on a kid during a cruise in addition to paying for that kid's cruise fare.

that's different from getting a kid without a package an occasional soda.

our ports were in different order, but shortly before the sailing Belize and Roatan were switched around. I too would assume that the food will be served in the same order.

It looks like Capri and Amalfi were open for lunch: It

since non-alcoholic drinks are unlimited, nobody cares if you get a soda (for the kid) with your Premier/Plus package at the same time with your alcohol. All the people were grabbing a couple of sodas and/or 3-4 bottes of water at the same time as their alcohol and nobody blinked an eye or raised an eyebrow. Obviously, nobody is going to drink all 4 bottles of Perrier, Coke AND their Dunes while still standing at the bar. You walk away with the goodies and consume them whenever and where ever you wish. I ordered 3 coffees or mineral waters at the same time and nobody followed me to make sure that I only got it for myself and DH, and none for the kid (kid doesn't drink coffee anyway - it was for my parents who also had a Premier package, but it was more convenient to order 3 coffees with one medallion than one coffee per each medallion). Other people were ordering in the same manner.

Day 7, at sea (we had a dinner at Sabatini's)

Day 6, Costa Maya

Day 5 Roatan

Day 4, Belize if you can't read above, please see below:

Day 3, Cozumel

Day 2 sea day breakfast Lunch Dinner

I am going to get the menus out of the way to make it more convenient for people with the same itinerary to plan their specialty dining reservations. Day 1 (we had dinner at Rudy's Catch since we managed to get a reservation for the same day)

will post tomorrow morning. Yes, the menus in the app are only available for that day only, which made booking specialty dinners pretty difficult. ETA: could have been easier if we had only 2 people, but it was tougher for 5. We weren't all that thrilled with the specialty dining anyway, so definitely happy we didn't actually have to pay for the experience.

10 minutes later we dropped our luggage off with the porters and went towards the terminal. Here is when our first inconvenience happened.... As I mentioned in another thread, I chose not to get the medallions shipped to the house. y USPS has lately been aggravatingly slow (it took a package 4 weeks to get from CA to GA), so I didn't want to risk it. We stood in a very long line to get through the x-ray scanners first. Not sure why. We are Platinum and supposedly have priority at embarkation. Other people were let in without standing in line. Then we got the port agent who was very slow at processing docs. She was perplexed by our "new" passports and kept repeating that they were new and that I used the old ones to check in. They are not new. Two are 10 months old and one is 6 months old, and we already sailed with all three of them prior to this Enchanted cruise. There is no way I used the old passports to check in because they expired last year, so I am not sure what her problem was. We were hot and bothered after standing in a long line, and tired after a sleepless night, so I didn't have the patience for her. Everything I think shows up on my face... After a while she was finally done, retook my mom's photo, and gave us our medallions. People with medallions in hand just breezed in. We did NOT have the same slow experience in Nov 2022. It took 1 minute to get our medallions at the port, but we didn't have any choice at that time. Due to some glitch nobody could choose shipping to home for that particular cruise.

This Hyatt doesn't have a free shuttle so we took an Uber XL/Lyft for $20 (5 of us, 4 suitcases) to the hotel. This time the flight I could afford for all 5 of us left at 11 am instead of later afternoon/early evening that I am used to. Since the kid is out of school, it didn't really matter, but we found that we very much enjoyed getting to FLL earlier. We grabbed a quick lunch at Publix (wraps, chicken fingers and a sandwich) and then spent a couple of hours at the pool. It was lovely to relax after traveling. We then took showers and walked over to Outback for a dinner. I know some people like to sample local cuisine instead of going to a chain restaurant, however, for us consistency and a walking distance are a must. We are not adventurous eaters at all. We ordered a couple of appetizers and entrees to share so we wouldn't end up with leftovers like last time, and I got a delicious drink with a croc on top! I am very partial to Midori liquor, so Croc-Tail did not disappoint. Since I am a light drinker and I drank it before eating, I was thoroughly buzzed within minutes. After dinner we retired for the night, and once again found the two of us are just way too big for a queen sized bed... Plus, the temperature kept getting out of hand, so neither of us slept well. The kid couldn't care less - he slept just fine, thank you very much. The free breakfast at the hotel was very nice. Regular fare like scrambled eggs, sausages, donut holes, coffee, fruit, etc. The lobby is rather small and cannot accommodate everyone, and the small sign that points to the conference room for additional breakfast space goes rather unnoticed. Some people were leaving the hotel for their cruises (including Enchanted) unusually early, when we just walked down to breakfast around 9. We had a leisurely breakfast, packed up the suitcases and left around 10:30 in Lyft/Uber which arrived within 2 minutes of us ordering it.

International cafe, and MDR on sea days.

no need to be anxious! We had a great time!

It's once again time to review our lovely cruise on Enchanted last week. We had a wonderful time, with some minor inconveniences, which were greatly diminished by having a Premier package. It's the first and last time we'll ever get a Plus or a Premier package, so we enjoyed it to the fullest. Or at least tried to, since we are not drinkers at all. 🙂 It was a glitch in the matrix which allowed us to have a Premier package at a very discounted price, so we jumped on it. Yes, we loved having it. No, I cannot imagine ever paying a full price for either a Plus or a Premier package. We brought our 13 yo kiddo with us on this cruise, and also my parents who also ended up with a Premier package. My dad couldn't take full advantage of it since he cannot have alcohol or sugar, but he drank a lot of Perrier, San Pelegrino, Diet Coke and Heineken 0.0. We traveled the day before and stayed at the cruisecritic's perennial favorite Hyatt on 10th, booked through Valuetrips. Everything went pretty smoothly with the booking, although it took a good 2-3 weeks to get a confirmation. I must say that if there are only 2 of you, having a king size bed and you don't need privacy, this hotel is fine. If you have a teen with you or anyone who needs extra privacy, and you have a two queen bed room, you may not be thrilled with the way the room is arranged. I know I wasn't. The bedroom was a good size, and the living room was gargantuan, but the toilet and the shower part of the bathroom was tiny. The sink area was separate and out in the open. I found it very inconvenient if one in the family is an early riser and needs to use the sink to brush teeth, put makeup on, do your hair, whatever. Or just needs to change in the tiny bathroom. A somewhat minor inconvenience, which may or may not be a deal breaker. For this price, it was most certainly NOT a deal breaker. This is what our room looked like: as you can see, the A/C unit was flush with the bed, and the air was blowing right on the person lying on it (our kid). We just couldn't get the temperature right - it fluctuated from blowing heat (literally) to blasting frozen air, with nothing in between. That was the negative part of our stay. Also not a deal breaker at this price point, but if the hotel was about the same price as others, I'd reconsider. And this is what my parents' room looked like - right across the hall: they had a somewhat prettier bathroom and a better A/C placement.

yay, we'll be on her with you. I am about to publish my own review of our last week's Enchanted cruise.

yes, plenty. You could do a search with the words "obstructed balcony" and find many more. When ship is out in the sea, the top of the life boats comes up to about floor level of the cabin. If the life boat has a "cabin" on top, it will shop up like the first photo. When in port, the life boats sometimes are raised up for cleaning and maintenance.

yes, we loved it no medium, but we felt no movement usually associated with smaller ships not at all, at least not in terms of size or bells, but it sure did in terms of entertainment and food we do as well, so imagine how surprised I was to actually love this smaller ship without the bells and whistles of an Oasis class or even Royal Class on Princess. What I wish they had was a soda package at a reasonable price for our kid, but as it turned out, we could bring sodas onboard instead, so it worked out great in the end.

I hope they sell the cruises to you at a ginormous discount to make up for all these restrictions. Have you logged in to your Princess account to see if you are eligible to bid? If eligible, I'd bid.