ATSEAMYLIFE

I'm Hilton loyal and use to stay in SD frequently before we moved nearby. As suggest the DT on Front street is a non-starter. We like either the Hilton Gaslamp, Hilton Bay Side, or Embassy Suites; in that order. The Hilton on Mission Island isn't bad, but no place nearby to walk to except a couple of fair places to eat. The Residence Inn is OK, but not much around to walk to.

I believe "biometrics" is the correct all encompassing term. Facial recognition is one biometric as would be fingerprint and retina scans. If you use the Global Entry kiosks at major airports CBP uses two of the three. Hopefully, we won't get to retina scans for travel.

That's true, my stepfather was retired LtCmdr from WWII and he was in his 70's before my mom could get him to take a cruise.

To much work, I can find enough to do without it.

It could be because of the "2nd person" sails at X% discount and the single doesn't get the discount?

Not to long ago, Sacramento airport had a computer glitch and the only people allowed to board were those with paper boarding passes. I'm a "no paper" guy and if I can save it to my Apple wallet I do. It was great when the Safeway pharmacy sent us links to our VAX records with QR codes. I put my boarding pass in my Apple wallet also, just in case. I'm not a big fan of Hilton's digital key however, it seems to not work more often that it does work. But the online check in is pretty sweet. All that being said, my paper copies aren't to far away if needed.

Nothing is worse than being on the last cruise before they sell the ship. We did that on an old Royal Cruise Lines the Crown Odyssey on an Alaska cruise that ended in San Francisco. We had sailed her before on a Panama (San Juan to San Francisco) and she was great. Then RCL was going broke and they decided to sell off ships. The Alaska cruise not so great.

We did a TA on an Oceania ship that was going to extended drydock in France. There were issues with work starting at sea. They closed one of two specialty dining rooms, but did alternate the menu in the other one. Best thing was the ship was empty. They closed three decks and upgraded everybody. We ended up with a Butler. We had to put up with some paint smells and closed areas, but with 175 pax on a ship the held 650 I was good.

Been the same on both OS we had on Allure and Oasis, can't move the one TV and can't feel for the HDMI. The other TV was pretty easy. I thought I read somewhere RCCL was going to install Chromecast on some newer ships to resolve this issue.

Somewhat true, we had an OS and I could get to the HDMI in the living room they were not accessible in the bedroom.

Thanks for the suggestions we will be at the Hilton Garden Inn Coco Beach in November pre-cruise for Thanksgiving on Wonder and will try a couple of these places.

We love the Galleria One Doubletree. Granted it's not close to the port, but not a far ride either. The rooms are huge, great places to eat directly across the street, and the water taxi stops in front of the pool. They might even have a shuttle to the port. The did a few years ago but our group was to large so we got our own shuttle.

Universal....buy the head of the line pass.

If they were using RFID you wouldn't know it. Probably same with facial recognition you wouldn't know. However, since returning cruise pax aren't high risk I suspect CBP put the money elsewhere.

Darn, we loved our day there.

Costa Maya don't shop go to Maya Chan and enjoy the day.

We loved sailing out of Barbados. The island is wonderful, so whatever minor inconvenience there is with boarding is worth it. BTW: if you can stay at the Crane it's wonderful. It's on the east side away from the "tourist" area. The beach really is pink.

I saw no overt evidence they were using facial recognition to speed up processing. The CBP officer took all our passports, looked at them, and looked at us. I didn't even see him scan the passports, but they could be using RFID.

In September 2023, we are doing the Rhone southbound to Arles on Avalon. I would be interested to hear from people who are doing it this year. With all this drought I'm concerned about the river conditions.