ARandomTraveler

No issues at all, as long as you pick a login and password that you don't mind sharing with the other person.

I'm fine with 30 minutes. All I'm trying to say is that I've seen lots of chairs to unused for hours, HOOOOUUUURS, (and by unused I don't mean that people are in the pool, and therefore using the chairs because they're actually in the vicinity, I mean just pure saving of chairs in case they decide to come back hours later from trivia and lunch or whatever they're doing, to use them), and I think it's fine if people decide to remove the offenders stuff and take the seat if there's none other available in the area. Not sure where my statements started being interpreted as though I'm walking around the pool deck looking to just remove peoples stuff for no reason, I never said that and don't think I've implied it either, but if I did, hopefully this clarifies it. Either way, if I'm looking for a longer or a clamshell and there's none available and someone has left their stuff there to save the seat, I'm gonna take it. If they come back in a reasonable time, I'm happy to give it back. But if they show up over an hour later and it's clear they haven't been in the pool, I'm not getting up unless an employee comes over and tells me I have to.

I've been to Chichen Itza when on a land vacation in Mexico. I would not advise doing this on a cruise. It's a really long day, and to get the full tour and benefit of seeing it all, you really need multiple hours to be at the site, not to mention the time it takes to drive there and back (not sure how long it takes from progresso but it was a 3 hour drive from Cancun, each way). We left around 8am and didn't get back until after 11pm at night. A 15 hour excursion. Way too long, but glad I saw it. Also, even if they offered this excursion, something could cause a change in port stops (weather for example), and the port could get skipped altogether, and you'd miss out anyway. Since you're thinking of canceling the cruise just because you can't do this excursion, that leads me to believe you would be highly disappointed if this happened. If your main reason for taking this cruise is to tour chichen itza, I'd cancel the cruise and book a land vacation to Mexico.

I never said a towel was the ONLY item that could identify a chair hog, I just gave that as the most common example. In my other example, an empty bag that someone clearly didn't care to lose was another. And the fact that nobody came back to use the clamshell for hours (not to mention she came came back fully dressed, no swimsuit, so she wasn't in the pool). If there had been another clamshell to use, I would have moved on. Same with other areas of the ship with seating, I'll move on and find another spot if there's one in the vicinity. But if they're all taken, I'll happily move the towel or whatever else is there "using" the chair. If someone comes back in a reasonable time (say, under an hour) , or even if they come back after longer than an hour but they've clearly just gotten out of the pool, I'll give the chair back. But so far, that's never happened. If they come back at all, it's more than an hour later. I see it all the time, even when I've found another chair to sit in, but can see the folded towels waiting on loungers, still unused after I've gotten up to leave. It's rude.

The most obvious is when people put the towel down with no other belongings, still nicely folded. Bonus if multiple chairs in a row are covered the same way. Usually in the most coveted seating areas (right next to the pool, or the cabanas or the clamshells). And most simply, when you see the chair that way for over 45 minutes with nobody ever coming back to it. I was sitting in a lounger in the solarium once, watching a prime clamshell next to the window go unused, other than an empty bag sitting on it. So I moved the bag and spread out with my daughter on the clamshell. The woman came back more than 2 and a half hours later and started screaming at me for stealing her chair, telling me I was rude and selfish 😂 I let her know I thought SHE was in fact rude and selfish to think it was appropriate to covet one of the nicest seats in the solarium for multiple hours just in case she decided to stroll in at some point during the day and use it. She walked away, but when we got up to leave, a couple approached us and asked if they could take the seat if we were leaving, and then the chair hogging woman came up and had the nerve to start yelling at THEM too! I explained to the new couple that this woman thought she owned that seat, and that she had no rights to it and they were within their rights to us it, but they got scared and let the chair hogging woman take it! I couldn't believe it. So weak.

Absolutely not. The whole reason people are putting their towels down is because they know someone else will come along while they're eating and take the chair, which they SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DO since they're actually ready to use the chair, while the person eating their breakfast is not. If someone wants to go eat breakfast before going to the pool, they either need to eat earlier, or accept whatever lounger is available once they show up to the pool. Putting a towel down to save a chair (aka, chair hogging), is selfish and self absorbed behavior.

I think it's generally obvious when there's a towel on a lounger that's actually being used vs a towel that's been placed there in order to keep other people from using an otherwise unoccupied chair for hours at a time. I think it's ok for people in the pools and hot tubs to leave their towels on loungers, but not people who just want to go do other stuff on the ship, like eat, to put towels on there just to guarantee their preferred longer will go unused for the hour+ they aren't there. I think you're saying the same thing, just thought I'd chime in, since in my last post I said I'm a towel-remover 😂

It won't be there if it's on a chair I wanna sit on 😂

Gone

Press on the little triangle arrow underneath the calendar icon at the top of the page (above where is says "Miami, Florida" and "Day 1." You'll then see the itinerary of that sailing pop up, and at the very bottom of the itinerary list, is a button that says "change ship/dates"

I just looked in my planner for my cruise at the end of this month. The only excursions for Atlantis that I see are a day pass for the water park, listed at $219/person, an Atlantis playtime with dolphins for $464/person, and a "swim in wonder at dolphin cay with Atlantis aquaventure" for $490/person.

Check the phones next to the bed too. Sometimes they have usb plugs in them.

If someone could coordinate a stoppage of bookings for even just 1 day, prices would drop dramatically. Someone pulled this off for Game Stop stock, seems like it shouldn't be so hard to get people to hold onto their money and stop people from making reservations for one measly day 😂.

Nice! All those things will make it feel like a new house! Im on the opposite side, just now packing everything into a pod, ugh. The nice part of this tedious exercise is that it forces you to go through your stuff and throw things away. Fingers crossed I'll be done before 3 months is up but we'll see.

Oooo me too! What are you having done at your house? I'm knocking a wall out of my house to make a bigger bathroom and adding a steam shower, and putting in an on-demand water heater before winter starts.

If the day hotel isn't hugely expensive, go for it. Even if you don't stay long, it gives you something more pleasant to do. Otherwise, head for the airport. I think our flight was around 5pm and we couldn't check in until 1pm. Got off the ship at the last minute (close to 10am) so we were sitting at the check-in area for almost 3 hours, and then another 4 hours until our flight left. That 7 hours wasn't worth the couple hundred dollars I saved on flights. If I'd thought ahead about a day hotel, it would have been worth at least $300 to me.

Those have gotten expensive too! My last road trip to the mountains for a weekend getaway (in an Airbnb though, not camping) still cost me $2000 for just 3 days. Not meaning to turn this into an "is cruising cheaper than a land vacation" thread, but I've got a 4-night cruise booked out of Florida, and the cruise, plus airfare, plus a night in a hotel cost me under $1000 this month.

I've done that evening flight out of Miami after a cruise and regretted it because we couldn't check our bags until 4 hours before our flight, so we had to sit for 3 hours in the entrance/ticketing terminal of the Miami airport (which isn't very nice and doesn't have a lot of seating). To top it off, it seemed like every other cruise passenger was doing the same thing, so the area was jam packed for hours. Now I always spend the extra money for that noon-1pm flight, but if I had 4 people to pay for, or the price difference was really high, I'd suck it up and wait at the airport again too. It's not fun, but if your phone is charged and you have some headphones, and you get there before all the seats are taken, you'll be fine. I don't know if there's lounge access on the baggage claim side. None that I could access anyway.

I said the same thing to the people checking the seapass cards when I was there in July, and he said people from nearby islands have taken boats over to coco cay and tried to get on the ship. I guess it could happen, since the kayak tour takes you all the way over to NCL's island, so it's doable even on a self-powered boat. But security scans you on the ship anyway, so do they really need the extra layer of security? I don't know. I guess they think so.

Symphony is my favorite ship so far. I'm excited to try wonder in December to see if I like (or notice) the upgrades. You really can't go wrong with any oasis class (as long as you like that class of ship). I'm doing allure in a couple weeks, which I also did in July, and even though it's one of the oldest versions, I really like her too.

If these are the options you've narrowed down because they fit your budget, go with voyager. I have a 22 year old daughter and she likes that class of ship, but definitely prefers the Oasis class a lot more (as do I). If you're open to other options, go with an Oasis class ship (Oasis, Allure, Harmony, Symphony, Wonder, Utopia). Waaaayyyyy more to do.

They taste just like the dinners, and will make you less hungry come dinner time, so you can save some money if you don't have the dining package.

Well, the time change and all....

Not a bad price. Not great either (I should have specified that my $41/day price threshold includes gratuities). If you have a couple sea days and will eat lunch on those days, you can include those lunches in your calculation (if you have 2 sea days on a 7 day cruise, you can do the calculation using 9 days). I like having the package, but it's a lot of food, and I tend to limit myself to eating at specialty restaurants for every meal when I have it. When I sail by myself, or if I don't have the package and am eating in the buffet where I dictate my portion sizes, I eat about 1/3 of the food that I eat when I sail with someone else and have the package. It's fun, but it's a lot of food.

I'll re-phrase: I'd do the other way around if you're thinking of cancelling one leg. That way you're going in the direction of upgrading your options as the cruise progresses rather than downgrading. Plus, if you do it that way (canceling the package for the first leg), you might find you're perfectly happy with the free food and would prefer to cancel the package and get your money back before the second leg starts. That being said, if the price is good (daily price being at or under $41/day), I'd just keep it for both days. I like having choices, even though I personally end up feeling like I'm forcing myself to overeat in order to get my moneys worth out of the package.