JamieLogical

I have definitely seen full bands on my MSC sailings. This band played a lot on my February Divina sailing, including a lot of rock. They were great! This band was on my Meraviglia sailings last April... sorry I don't have a better photo, but there is a drumkit with a drummer back there. You can kind of see the left half of his shirt/shoulder, but his head is behind the iPad.

To my knowledge, there is no dress code in he buffet? Aren't people allowed to go in there in their swimsuits from the pool deck?

I did go ahead and rebid. I don't have high hopes of actually getting upgraded, of course, but it would be nice to have the better room layout, wrap-around balcony, and Reserve class perks.

Not much news on cruise progress this morning. I got in touch with our petsitter last night to make sure she is still able to check in on the cats and lizards. My husband set out his suitcases last night. He always gets them out a week or so ahead of our trips as a "warning" to the cats that we will be leaving soon. I don't know whether or not they comprehend it (he insists they do), but they seem to like to have some new and different surfaces to lay on for the week...

I believe all of your examples pre-date the upgrade bidding system. I imagine that has impacted when they assign GTY rooms and the likelihood of free upgrades.

MF is just the lowest mini-suite category.

All I can say is that I hope things have DRASTICALLY improved on the Emerald since I sailed her so you can have a good cruise.

Brooklyn to JFK is a shorter trip than Manhattan to JFK... plus that was Marathon day, so that's why I was pointing it out specifically. Can't really expect traffic to be an WORSE than that on a weekend.

We booked a GTY MF on the Enchanted Princess. We sail May 4 and just got our cabin assignment on Tuesday night, so under two weeks out.

I just looked back at a few of the menus from my February cruise and I do not see any notations on the menus about items containing lactose. However, I do know that your servers at the MDR as well as every server in the specialty restaurants will ask you if you have any dietary restrictions. I do not recall seeing milk onboard at all (maybe in the buffet?), much less milk alternatives....

Definitely not. The last cruise I canceled with Princess, I saw the refund on my credit card account the next morning!

I have had Lyfts canceled by the driver when they were at the pier. The issue has been they accept the ride to pick me up at debarkation while dropping off a passenger who is embarking. If they go in the lanes for dropping off embarking passengers, they across several lanes of traffic and a median from where they would pick up disembarking passengers and there is no simple way to loop back around. Last time, I had my first ride canceled for this reason as they began driving away from where they dropped off the embarking passengers and realized they couldn't get back to where I was. The second time, I realized this was just going to happen all over again, so I literally chased my driver to where he was dropping off his previous fare and flagged him down.

I will have to keep that in mind if I ever end up back in a Balcony or below and don't have the tub/shower combo.

So, my experience with having a cabin by the fire door on any cruise ship has been that there is a little threshold at the bottom of the doorway that causes the room service carts and the housekeeping carts to rattle every time they roll over it. That noise of rattling dishes and whatnots can be disturbing if you are a light sleeper.

My understanding is that it is free so people who use the fitness center can access the changing rooms/showers. Maybe it depends on the ship since I know that on some ships, the fitness center and spa are not lumped together. Just checked the deck plans for the Enchanted, since the Fitness Center is on deck 17 and the spa is all the way down on deck 5. It does show changing rooms available in the fitness center, but not sure if those include showers. On the Ruby, which is the one my coworker is on, the changing rooms are shared by the spa an fitness center, so I am sure those have showers.

9 Days to Go! We will be flying down to FLL a week from tomorrow! As I mentioned, we got our medallions yesterday. Now we just need to not lose them before the trip and remember to pack them! I also printed out our luggage tags last night, so it is definitely getting real! I reviewed and revised my packing list yesterday as well. I didn't find anything on there that I still need to acquire before we leave, since we bought most of our travel supplies when we did grocery shopping this past weekend. I do have a prescription I need to refill next week, but that shouldn't be a major issue. It feels weird going on a 7-day cruise. Most of our cruises of late have been 11-12 days. I am sure I am going to end up overpacking because my standard cruise packing list includes more than I will probably need for 7 days. We are flying down the night before and we are staying with friends in NYC for two nights on our way home. So the whole trip will actually be 10 days, but packing for those two days in NYC is different from packing for two days on a cruise. Also, we aren't flying first class this time, so need to be a bit mindful of packing so we can get away with only checking one bag between us.

If your destination is Penn Station, then the Ferry is a good option for sure!

Yes it does. Click on the "Weekend Schedule" button: https://www.ferry.nyc/routes-and-schedules/south-brooklyn/

I would say anything around noon or later would be fine. You could probably make an earlier flight (I've done an 11:00am flight out of JFK after docking at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal on NYC Marathon day!), but if there is a delay with docking or clearing the ship, it could get pretty stressful. Something would have to go pretty catastrophically wrong for you to miss a flight that was after noon.

Trust me, it's an issue for wide people two. Here is a picture of me from our cruise in February. I am VERY wide: My husband is a little over 6' and he hit his head on the shower head in his first shower attempt on the Emerald. Fortunately, it looks like the Royal class ships have adjustable height shower heads instead of fixed shower heads, so that shouldn't be as much of an issue for him on the Enchanted.

Yeah... not many people I know are 5'5" and 120 pounds. I think for those of us who are much bigger than that, the showers simply cannot work. At least on the older ships. It looks like the Royal class ships might have *slightly* bigger and better configured showers?

I was hoping to avoid another intimate relationship with a shower curtain. Wouldn't want my old shower curtain on the Emerald to get jealous! That's why we were determined to book a mini-suite for this sailing. Even with the tub, the bathrooms in the minisuite still seem really tight to me, but we will see how it works out. I had a coworker go on the Caribbean Princess for her first cruise a couple of weeks ago in a normal balcony and all she could talk about was how tiny the bathroom was and how terrible the shower curtain was. I had tried to warn her ahead of time, but I don't think she believed me about how bad it would be until she saw for herself. I have another coworker doing her first cruise in July to Alaska on (I think?) the Ruby Princess and she is in an inside room with her family of four! I cannot imagine trying to share one of those teeny tiny bathrooms with three other people. I told her the tip about showering at the spa and she is planning to do that and leave the stateroom bathroom to her husband and kids.

I do not believe the OP wants/needs an accessible cabin. When they booked a GTY, the lowest deluxe balcony cabin category it was not defined as accessible cabins as the deck plans had not been released. Now the concern is because they are booked into an "accessible cabin category" they can only upgraded to another accessible cabin category, which the OP does not want or need and limits their upgrade options.

For LaGuardia and JFK, I don't see why you would take the ferry to Wall Street. For LaGuardia that takes you out of the way and makes you drive the full length of Manhattan. For JFK, it takes you in the complete opposite direction. PS: I have taken Lyft from the Brooklyn terminal to JFK and LaGuardia without incident. I don't see any need to pay extra for the ferry and go in the wrong direction if you just intend to Uber/Lyft from Wall Street to LGA or JFK.

Got my medallion in the mail today! Now to start working on that packing list!