bookbabe

Sign up for special offers on the airport website, they’ll send a coupon for your first “stay.” Westjet also has a link for discounted parking rates on-airport, I’m assuming AC does as well. We've started parking at the value lot onsite, it’s usually not that much more expensive than the various off-site places, and it’s much easier to deal with before/after a long travel day.

LOL indeed. We feel the same way about AC, and only fly it under duress if no WJ flights are available. We’d actually rather even pay more for WJ to avoid AC. AC is better than AT and the low cost carriers like Southwest and Spirit, in our opinion, but that’s not saying much. Almost every bad flight experience we’ve had has involved AC.

If Cuban food isn’t your thing, Joe’s Stone Crab was fantastic. https://joesstonecrab.com

I always get suspicious of any courier, carrier or airline that forbids AirTags. My assumption, whether accurate or not, is that they are worried about you seeing what’s going on with your luggage, since it’s been established that they are safe for travel. If they don’t want me to see where my stuff is, obviously it’s someplace it shouldn’t be. Unless they provide their own detailed tracking like American Airlines, I won’t be using Luggage Forward unless there’s no other option.

I’m guessing it’s Tukka in West Bay, not the east end one. I haven’t been to the west bay location, but if it’s similar to the east end one they just have the normal sort of restrooms you’d find in any restaurant. https://west.tukka.ky

We did not use Viking Air, we paid for their transfers separately, $49pp each way. And we did a few days in Orlando pre and post cruise, so did WestJet round trip YYZ to MCO then added a Spirit round trip MCO to SJU in the middle. Would not recommend Spirit, but the MCO-SJU flights are all with low cost carriers so I’m not sure it would make a difference. I think both WJ and AC have at least one direct flight a week to SJU from YYZ, so if you plan on extra days in San Juan it might be worth watching for seat sales on those and then adjusting your pre/post stay accordingly.

We had a 9:30pm flight out of San Juan on our recent West Indies Explorer cruise and we had Viking’s transfers. They arranged for a meeting/hospitality room at the hotel across from the port, and walked us all across the street at around 7:30am. They loaded all of our large luggage into a truck, to travel to the airport separately. The hospitality room had some light snacks and drinks, but was very crowded. They ran two buses to the airport, one at 11am and one at 1pm. You had no choice of bus, and because they had your luggage that had to be claimed when the bus arrived at the airport, you couldn’t opt to stay longer and make your own way to the airport later. A few people had their luggage with them, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be trying to deal with mine in the crowds. It was cheaper and easier than getting a day room at a hotel somewhere, but I think in retrospect we should have just gone with the day room. It was a long day of waiting around, we had to be up way earlier than if we’d been DIY-ing to the airport, and SJU’s airport lounges are really crappy. If you go with the Viking transfers route, bring a book, electronics and chargers, etc. and a lot of patience.

Even playing other genres of music, we just can’t do the strings duo. Pull out that bow and we’ll flee in the opposite direction. Just us maybe, but not something that’s going to change no matter how talented the musician or how beautiful or “popular” the selection. (Ashley MacIsaac possibly being one of the only exceptions.) Classical piano is something else we just aren’t fans of, regardless of the talent. We are only moderate “pop” fans in any case, and realize that we are unlikely to find our preferred genres of music on any cruises other than charters. We accept that, but still wouldn’t have minded a bit more diversity in entertainment offerings. I’ve seen a number of complaints about Viking moving away from its original demographic in terms of entertainment choices, but I personally think that’s a smart business move on their part. They won’t be able to survive forever on the current 60-70+ crowd, and future 60-70+ cruisers won’t have grown up in the same decades. Maybe The Beatles will get replaced by Rolling Stones cover bands at some point?

We aren’t fans of classical music at all, and fled in horror from most of the entertainment we encountered on our recent West Indies Explorer. I’m sure they were talented performers, but if that’s not the style of music you enjoy, most of the entertainment was pretty painful. We didn’t make it to the Beatles or Abba, Murphy’s law that they were the same nights we had our CT/M’s reservations, and the later shows were a little too late for us since we had the first excursion of the day most days. If they’re changing it up a bit, that’s only a good thing as far as we’re concerned. We’re on In the Wake of the Vikings in the fall, and 15 days of cello is not a part of the cruise we’re looking forward to. We’re hoping the speakers on that itinerary make up for the other entertainment. Sure, have the classical somewhere for those who do enjoy it, but bring in some other entertainment for those who’d like a different option.

Thanks! The food hall concept sounds like a good option, as do a few of the others. That should give us some options for our two days there. Even the chain one is okay, really, I should have been clearer about meaning “no North American or UK chains” since it’s just a desire to eat more locally on vacation. I mean, why eat at some place on vacation that you could eat at anytime? As for the shorts, DH wears them year round, even in Canadian winters, so he’s used to getting stared at a bit. It’s more just whether he can get in the door in shorts. He had to invest in pants to eat dinner in the restaurant on our Viking cruises…. 😉

I’ll start another thread since I don’t want to hijack the other thread on this. Staying at the Thon Opera Hotel in Oslo pre-cruise in September, looking for a couple of good suggestions for dinners. - preferably local-ish, doesn’t have to be local cuisine but at least locally run rather than an international chain - good food but not fancy (ideally if DH can go in shorts it’s a plus) - menu that can accommodate my fish allergy (can eat shellfish, crustaceans, mollusks, etc, just not finfish) *** most important aspect Thanks for any suggestions you can provide.

Public Beach is a section of Seven Mile Beach, yes. https://www.explorecayman.com/things-to-do/beaches

Since you’re from TO, I’ll clarify with an analogy in case you didn’t see the info previously posted about the group…she’s got Caribana on her ship, and the tour group organizing the partial charter is advertising huge pool parties and concerts and such. It’s not a group of accountants sitting in a meeting room discussing RRSP tax breaks then heading to the buffet and a show after.

You are unlikely to see puffins at any of these stops. You want stops in Newfoundland or Labrador for that. https://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/what-we-do/resource-centre/featured-species/birds/atlantic-puffin.html

https://www.turtle.ky

Street (beach) vendors may vary from day to day, but it’s likely jerk something.

I’m a retired teacher who spent her working life with jr high and high school students. I’d be more afraid of him using up all your internet minutes to send pictures to his friends back home… 😉 In all seriousness, I get it. And have been to/near festivals of that variety in the past, it could go either way. You could just have a lot of energetic dancing and loud music, with more skin showing than he’s used to seeing but generally just people having a good time and loving life. Or it could be a raucous drunken party with a lot of lewd behaviour. And if the organizers aren’t forthcoming with concrete info about their plans, and if NCL isn’t providing any assistance, that would make me worry about it being the latter. Have you involved your teen in the discussion? Maybe watch some YouTube videos as a family and talk about best and worst case scenarios to help decide a plan?

They’re good buses, and not horribly erratic, or locals would never manage to use them to commute. However, they aren’t really on the same type of rigid schedule that the buses in a major US city would be on. It’s the cruise ship factor that makes it scary IMO, since if there was a breakdown or accident you couldn’t just quickly grab a taxi to head back to the port instead, especially as far out as Rum Point or East End. A taxi would likely have to be ordered from town, and would take up to 45 min to get to you, depending on where you were, and then the same back to the port. Would I use them to head to Public Beach, Hell or the Turtle Farm? Absolutely. Cheap, friendly drivers, easy to use. And in an unforeseen delay situation a taxi could get to me quickly enough that I wouldn’t miss the ship.

That must be relatively new. I didn’t notice it when we drove by in January, but I wasn’t really looking too hard. Great idea on their part with Paradise closed, should get a fair number of cruisers since that’s the most convenient snorkeling to the port, even if it is a more challenging snorkel.

Not the OP, but yes, that was West Indies Explorer (I was on it too).

Buses are mini-buses, and I personally wouldn’t take them to points outside of town when visiting by cruise ship. They do not necessarily operate on a fixed and rigid schedule, and can be much less frequent outside of town, and might be full so you’d have to wait for the next one. “Soon come” as is frequently said actually means exactly the opposite most times, and you can’t risk being on Island Time when visiting by cruise ship. They are a great option for heading to the beach, maybe even Hell or the Turtle Farm, where you’d have good access to taxis as a backup for a speedy return to the ship. Then again, your comfort level with the risk factor might be higher than mine. So yes, those really are the one-way rates, no hidden extra costs.

@Capt_BJ recommends Sunset House. I haven’t been, but it’s accessing the same general area as Eden Rock, with the addition of a bar/restaurant, which the Eden Rock area doesn’t have since Paradise Restaurant closed. It’s better for more experienced snorkelers and strong swimmers, and you’ll want life vests and fins. https://www.sunsethouse.com If you can do without a restaurant, or if you have kids or beginners with you, I’d go to Smith Cove. Nice little beach with some rocks to snorkel around, bathrooms. About the same travel distance as Cemetery Beach but in the opposite direction. You’d likely need a taxi and would want to arrange a return pickup in advance.

I think it’s more than fair for higher categories to have more advance reservations than lower ones. When you are paying three (or more) times the money, it’s to be expected that there are at least a few more perks.

If it was beside the Kimpton, you were at Public Beach, which happens to be on West Bay Rd, but it is NOT West Bay Public Beach. West Bay beach is almost all the way to the turtle farm, and it’s much smaller, with a dock and boat launch ramp.

I’ll tag in here, hoping @J80crew doesn’t mind, as we were also on that same cruise, and it was also our first experience with Viking. DH and I are experienced cruisers in our mid-50’s, and if you were on that cruise you can likely ID us easily as we were two of the maybe a dozen under-60yo passengers who were not traveling with older relatives. We’ve cruised NCL (including the Haven) the most, with a few Disney and even a couple of Carnival cruises thrown in when we were traveling with friends or family who preferred those lines. Embarkation/debarkation and getting off the ship in the various ports was unbelievably easy, quick and painless. We arrived late afternoon to San Juan on embarkation day, and initially thought that the comparatively empty terminal and smooth boarding process was just because we had arrived later than we usually would have, but no, that ease continued all week. We even took a few pics to share with friends of us virtually alone on a pier even though it was first thing in the morning and theoretically prime time for people leaving to tour ports. Disembarking was just as smooth, and we were impressed by the fact that Viking arranged a hospitality room at the hotel by the port for those of us with transfers and late flights. Service on the ship, overall great, similar to what we’ve experienced most times with NCL’s Haven. Our cabin steward and his assistant were both awesome, very personable and competent, willing to go above and beyond. Most servers in the various dining areas were good, a few seemed new and uncertain but nothing too glaring that would put us off dining there again. Our cabin was great, but we were in an Explorer Suite so that’s to be expected. 😉 Didn’t really partake in any of the entertainment or enrichment options, weren’t many things we were interested in. Loved the decor of the ship, especially the displays of Norse culture and history. Excursions had some hits, some misses and one epic fail, but most were the included ones and those are so dependent on the guide it doesn’t bother us at all. Food is where we have worries about the future Viking cruises on our schedule. We did Xiang at Chef’s Table but canceled our other two reservations as the menus weren’t ones we were interested in. Did Manfredi’s twice, food and service was good enough but I don’t know if I’m as wowed over it as many seem to be. Ate in the Restaurant once, again, food and service was okay, but we really aren’t fans of long drawn-out dinners, so we did the buffet most nights other than one night where we ordered room service. I should add that we abhor the “foam and swirls” trend in dining, and due to food allergies I have to be careful about what I eat. I also prefer buffets where I have lots of opportunity to have small portions of a bunch of different dishes, DH says I have Dining Commitment Issues. If you are a fan of fish, you will love the menus on Viking. If you are allergic to fish, like I am, dining will be challenging. And as much as everyone on the boards assured me that they would be happy to customize dishes, that seemed to only be an option if you prebooked your dinner choice by 9am that morning. Not a fan of that system. Even in Manfredi’s, the waiter hummed and hawed and had to consult the chef about swapping out a sauce in one of the pasta dishes for just plain garlic butter and Parmesan. And, if you have food allergies, be very careful in the buffet because things aren’t always labeled correctly and repeatedly a conversation with the crew member behind the counter brought to light different ingredients than were on the sign above the dish. And once he insisted crabstick was crustacean rather than fish. So, diner beware. Overall, the food we ate was generally well-prepared, but some items felt like they were “lost in translation” as we eventually named it. Curries, Philippino dishes, British dishes, most were surprisingly good for buffet food. But some ingredient choices were odd, such as Mexican night with spiceless fajitas made using naan bread instead of tortilla wraps, and chicken cordon bleu with only a vague hint of cheese and ham inside. Our joking analogy was that a Norwegian language cookbook was handed to an East Asian chef and recipes were run through Google Translate in order to figure out what they were. However, the seafood night was an impressive surprise when I discovered a whole grill full of lobster tails out by the pool grill and no line at all for them. Just walk up and fill your plate as many times as you want. They definitely weren’t trying to cut costs there. Our next cruise is In the Wake of the Vikings this fall, and we’ll make final payment on that because we are really interested in ancient Norse culture and history. The stops are such that they will outweigh any reservations we have about the food. Our 36-day Istanbul to Bergen in spring 2024 is still iffy, though. We’ll see how the one this fall goes.