Need-a-vacation

thanks for the input. Right now I'm leaning toward rony's "Make new friends" tour and add the south shore zip line option. I was concerned that zip line could be too much for beginners.

While comparing various tours roatan it seems there are several different places. I'll be with my 16-year-old son and neither of us has done this before. I'm looking at bodden's canopy tour, some place called monkey business, and another place called South shore.

Any suggestions on the preferred options for a first timer where the actual zipping is pretty easy?

My son's 16th birthday is a couple days before our trip and I've marked that we're celebrating his birthday on the guest information form. Do they usually actually do anything for special occasions? I had a birthday cake show up in my cabin on NCL when I had a trip a few days after my birthday a few years ago. I don't know if that's the norm for NCL or Carnival, or just a fluke.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing these! I know it's been a while, but do you remember if they had sore excursions specifically for the teens in any port?

ETA - well I did it. I now have a Budget car rented at IAH to drop off at Texas City and canceled my Alamo rental. I called the Avis office and spoke with Barbara and have a spot on a shuttle. It will be about $15 more than I was going to pay with Alamo + hobby + carnival, but I realized I was probably going to lose at least an hour screwing around to go back to Hobby and return the car and then take the rental car shuttle to the airport and get on the carnival shuttle. Bleh. If I get on the first shuttle from Texas City, I can make the most of my FTTF!!!

FWIW -- I tried calling the Avis 800 number and their price wasn't any better than the quotes I was getting online.

Just to clarify -- does the shuttle for the texas city location only available for avis rentals, or is it available for budget rentals as well? I'm a bit unclear if the office there is all one set of people and services?

Avis will do a one way rental from IAH to Texas City. They will drive you to the port for an additional fee of $ 50. They will do the same on the return as well. Was by far the cheapest option we found.

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Forums mobile app

Is that $50 per person or for your whole party?

Does Budget offer the same service?

I've been checking a few times a day for our June trip and no luck. Now Carnival has changed the way the excursion page lays out and I don't like it. Rather than saying it's sold out, I have to try to add it to my cart and then it shows no tickets available. :mad:

Is that $600 for just the one day???

Have you looked into taking the cruise shuttle to Hobby and renting a car there for the day and returning it to Hobby? You wouldn't have a ton of time, but a few hours anyway.

Could you be better served with 2 smaller cars?

Another option would be to look into hanging around Galveston for a few hours and then using a car service to get to Hobby. I don't know how late the cruise shuttles run??

Somebody please correct me if I am wrong...

1. You can cancel or change sailings/ships on non-ES rates anytime before final payment and keep, transfer, or cancel your OBC for a refund.

2. Yes.

3. The benefit is if you have definite plans, you can take advantage of drops after final payment without any penalties. If you think your plans may change then it is not worth it.

Thank you!! It's important to understand exactly what you are comparing!!

A couple separate questions

1. When you book on board with a normal fare (not ES), is there any difficulty changing your booking to another cruise or canceling it all together anytime before the final payment date? For example, if I'm on-board and book a cruise for sometime in 2017, can I switch the booking and my OBC to another cruise? Any limit to when I have to take that cruise? What about changing passengers?

2. Even without the ES rate, can't you get a price drop any time until final payment?

3. If #2 is true, then what is the benefit of the ES rate other than possibly catching price drops in the last couple months? When I looked at a trip over a year out just for curiousity, the ES was only $20 less which would get annihilated if you change.

Our trip on the Imagination was the first cruise for either of my boys. The youngest liked it a lot, primarily because of the kids he met in Club O2 and being able to run around with them all evening. He and I are going on the Freedom this summer and I fully expect it may feel a lot like a solo cruise for me. :) My older son was 19 at the time and he was pretty bored and I think he wouldn't go again except maybe if he was bringing a friend with him and it'd have to be the right cruise!

On that trip, the piano bar was closed most of the time. They used it for trivia a couple times. I think it would have been very suitable place to have open a few hours in the afternnon and evening for kids that age to touch base

It's perfectly common for cruises to arrange and host LGBT, Singles, Friends of Bill and other targeted meetups, why is it so bizarre to suggest facilitating something similar for the young adult age group? In theory, those people are all adults as well and should be able to have fun and magically find each other for companionship without the cruise line doing anything special for them.

These young adults are forming opinions about what kinds of vacations they may like in the future and it does no good to sour them on cruising!

ETA: Well hand me my crow. Right after I finished this I flipped over to an old Fun Times from the Dream last May that I had up in another window looking for something else and it's a miracle -- that cruise DID have an 18-20 meet and greet scheduled for very late on the first sea day. So maybe someone is listening?

I think there must be something going on that week because I am getting warnings about low inventory at the location. I should check Costco and see if it's just as bad

My wife and I looked at the option of using a private car service and it was pretty expensive. In the end, it was better to rent a car, travel to our hotel in Galveston, and drive to the port and pay to park the car for the week, and return it to the airport after disembarkation. About the same price as the car service and we had all the control.

 

Enjoy!

Kel:)

I just checked this option for our trip in June and the rental car costs were over $500!! I think I need to keep looking!!

Looks like it would cost me about $100 to rent a car at IAH for my 2 days prior and return it to the airport to take the Carnival shuttle, or right around $200 rent at IAH and drop at Texas City Saturday morning. I did notice I could return it to Hobby instead of IAH for the same rental costs, so that might be a less painful option -- closer to where I'd be staying and cheaper for the Carnival shuttle.

So this is what I understand based on the comments in this post. Our cruise leaves Galveston on Saturday and returns the following Saturday. I won't be able to buy Cheers! until Sunday and will pay for 6 days. For Saturday, I can buy drinks on the ship for normal pricing.

Couple questions: Is there a way to have bottomless bubbles for the first day and then upgrade it to cheers on day 2?

I guess for the potential headaches if there's a problem, I'd get the passport if you have time especially if there is anything the least bit irregular about their birth records. Then it's just done and you don't have to worry that some lame-brain somewhere along the way is going to give you headaches about the BC.

And obviously if you are flying to or from a foreign port, you need passports.

Just wanted to let you know if you plan to do the Deep 9 tour at NASA (this is the deep tour that takes you to more places than the regular tour) which we are they only run M-F not on Saturdays but as part of the tour ($89) it includes space center admission for 2 days. we plan to do the level 9 tour on Friday and come back on Saturday and see anything else we want to see that we didn't get a chance to. you need to make reservations early online as the level 9 tours sell out fast. They only take 12 people. On Friday's they have 2 tours running. One I think starts at 10 and the other 11:45 both include lunch. I got the phone number for the VIP shuttle from Best Western hotel of the Mainland in Texas City. just googled it-- Phone: (409) 761-7311

So is this shuttle service only through Best Western, or is it available for whatever hotel in Texas City? I haven't been able to find a web page or email for them to contact for a guesstimate.

ETA: I am looking at doing the exact same thing. Our cruise leaves on Saturday, so I've scheduled the Deep 9 tour for Friday morning, which means I need to fly in sometime Thursday and figure out what to do Thursday and where to stay and how to get there. Unfortunately, it looks likely I'll be flying in to IAH since I have miles that can get us there.

So, I just booked the Carnival Freedom for June 20 out of Galveston. I'm going with my 16-year-old son, but he will be plenty busy with Club O2 and probably not hanging out much with me on ship. So I expect I will get quite a taste of the solo cruising experience even though I'm not officially alone!!

I have daily disposables that I take on vacations. I usually bring about half as many spares. I bring plain saline to rinse if needed.

I was pleasantly surprised with the lido deck coffee on the imagination a couple weeks ago. But I do use a lot of half and half and sweetener. I've definitely had way worse and I'm usually wary of vat coffee since it's often more acidic than my stomach can handle. I didn't try it until the sea day when I knew I want going anywhere!

When we returned from out Mexican Riviera cruise on princess, i'm pretty sure we had a similar flight time. We actually were within minutes of catching the flight before. I think that was before 10.

If you can do early self assist walk off, should be fine. And definitely go for the cab or some other private transport.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I also prefer to be between passenger decks. I also try to get away from the elevators/stairs a bit to avoid noises from people waiting, etc. We were very happy with our Upper deck location on our cruise to Ensenada a couple weeks ago. Since there's only the one port, convenience getting on/off the ship was a very minor consideration. But we could easily walk up and down the stairs to the Lido deck and the other decks with the main ship activities areas. Our endurance for walking far exceeds our patience waiting for the elevator!!

My first choice is mid-ship, then aft. Then the highest deck that has cabins above and below. Beyond that, it's comparing specific areas of specific ships. I don't want to be below the pool area or near the late-night dance club. And there's always the cost factor to weigh in to the process as well. One common theme is avoiding things that might disrupt my sleep at crazy hours, and that's all relative. My in-laws might not be bothered by moving deck chairs above them at 6am. For me, 6am is a four-letter word. In my mind, these rules apply whether it's an interior or OV or balcony. And for an awesome deal on a better cabin, the rules can bend. :)

One thing that can be hard to predict with an interior room is what might be going on in any crew spaces between cabins. On one cruise, we apparently were right by the freight elevator where they were moving the luggage for disembarkation and all stinking night we could hear luggage being thrown around. Really far forward or aft you may have to contend with the anchor noises when it's lowered, which is often quite early in the morning. My mom had a far forward cabin once and hated it -- lots of movement and lots of noise.

It's really very personal and depends on what bothers you, any mobility concerns, and how you spend your time. If you are a light sleeper, bring your earplugs and white noise. Every ship and line lays things out differently.

$17/ day as of last Sunday. The park n ride only works if you need a hotel.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

We had Rondell Sheridan on the Imagination last month and I had tears streaming down my face every show - he was HILARIOUS.

He wasn't on our cruise last week. They must have swapped out performers since then.

An observation though. If you waited and left it on your account the several billing cycles would start later.

 

Wouldnt that be better?

I think you are saying that just letting them default at the end of the cruise would allow the latest hit to the cc? That is true, but I just wanted it done. With the timing of our bill cycle, we could also have the tips on a different cycle than our other on board expenses. doesn't really matter - more of a mind game with myself than any true need.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk