harlekuin

I love the Chase Sapphire Preferred. No international fees, free trip protection, free rental car coverage, 20% bonus on points, etc.

Agree on the Chase Sapphire card. Nice extras, no fees.(plus it looks cool- sort of feels like blue metal. No numbers on the front) Gave me a much higher limit than I expected also.

I thought the porters worked for the port and not for the cruise lines, or is that wrong? If they work for the port, then I would not expect them to want to do that work nor would their unions.

Also, I think that if folks showed up at the time RCL sends you instead of like people tell everyone here - show up when ever you want - then it would be a bit less hectic.

Only problem we ever had was at Port Canada this last May and that was customs not the cruise line.

I'm thinking this would have been a good case for a helo evac - I'm assuming there are/were helo assets in PR to do this and would have gotten back to San Juan much faster than the increased speed got them. If the diff in the baby making it was the two extra hours gained by the increased speed of the ship, it could have been even easier/faster with a helo. I have to assume there was some issue preventing this or given some of the story, simple miscommunication from med staff on board and others.

As many maritime professionals have reported here, they don't land helicopters on moving ships. They use the wench and basket.... so don't think that would work.

As a former paramedic, we have moved many a premmie. They would need a special unit and an neonatal team to move the baby, then the mom... None of that could happen in two hours. Oh and it was the middle of the night.

Remaining Gold (Diamond after this cruise)?

I think we skipped Platinum and Emerald in there somewhere.

From someone that has 15 Carnival cruises and 2 RCL, I can say we had fun on every one. The "over the top" decor on some of the CCL ships makes no difference to us. And when people say the design is bad, they have obviously never been on a Spirit class ship. Dining rooms on 2 levels in the very back. You can go front to back without going up and down.

The food has been quite good. There are always some things you don't like but it's just not to our taste, not poorly prepared. Service, very good except one 3 day boozy cruise. (We're just a bit too old for those).

RCL has been very nice as well. Good food, good service. Those are the only things we really ask for and have gotten that.

We changed to RCL just for something different, not because we didn't enjoy CCL. We have already booked a Princess cruise too.

I know I haven't helped much but I guess the point is, try everything and don't go with a preconceived idea. If I were to do that based on comments here, everyone on CCL is a bumpkin and RCL they are snobs. Neither of those statements is true.

This might be your picture. It's by Anatoly Metian.

Yikes.... it's listed for $8,000! Perhaps, since it says it's a unique work, he has some others... Not to sound cheap but check ebay. They often have art from the cruise ships cheaper.

Two things, I think:

 

1) it's going to seem tonally like night and day after watching House of Cards.

 

2) it does start slow, but more importantly, the main writer has a very specific style, and you may find that you either love it or hate it pretty quickly.

Haven't seen House of Cards, but I totally agree with #2.

Is West Wing slow to start? I tried getting into it a while back but it didn't get me hooked straight away. I've got them on a SD card so might give it another go.

Well, there is a ton of dialogue and you do have to pay attention. I watched it when it was on originally, but my husb is in the middle of season 5 right now I think, and has enjoyed the twists and turns.

Since you already have it, worth a shot, but don't skip ahead because each episode builds on the last.

The West Wing - intelligent, funny, sad, scary and you learn about politics. Real folks that worked in the White House did an episode talking about how real the show is.

If you liked Homeland, you will like West Wing.

Just my 2 cents.

We ate there twice on our Oasis cruise. DH loved the bison so much he had it both times. It is very quiet with very nice ambiance - "candles" in large holders and ambient lighting. The staff was amazing. We only ate at specialty spots each night and Solarium Bistro was the only double up.

Btw: I had that dish and it was quite good. Didn't notice the - yuck - turkey bacon at all.

You cannot take any food, except prepackaged food, off the ships.

Balcony at a minimum. Lots of sea days to look at the beautiful ocean and while in the ports in Hawaii, it's lovely to sit outside and enjoy the view. We did a 15 day round trip and we were glad we had an aft suite with lots of wrap around balcony to hang out.

It's a great trip, you will enjoy it.

I think it's normal for the first cruises of the season (been there done that :eek:) This time we'll be on the last of the season...hope that makes a difference. We'll be arriving on a flight at 12:35 pm and going straight to the ship.

I would bet that you will miss all the craziness of the 10:30-1:00 boardings. While your timing is cutting it a bit close for us, I think if all goes right, you will have an easy time.

Added: I see you're in SoCal. No timing prob then. ;)

We sailed on Jewel on the first Alaska cruise, May 22nd. We got to Canada Place about 11:30. It was a zoo. Getting through customs was the problem. They were merging US citizens into non-US prior to customs and it was a big bottleneck. When we got to the entry point, they took people in groups and made us wait in chairs prior to getting to the customs officers. But people kept jumping the line and not waiting for the officers to call us up. It took about 1.5 hours or so from arrival time to get on the ship. It was our longest embarkation of any cruise.

Once we got past customs, we were in a suite, so we could get ahead of a lot of folks waiting. Our traveling mates got there about 1 hour earlier and we watched them walking on the ship deck while we were in line waiting for customs.

Don't know if this is the norm or because it was the first Alaska cruise of the year.

When I travel with my family I designate my cc as the one to charge and that I will pay for others. You do this when you fill out your setsail pass online. Then all of the charges your husband makes will go on your bill.

Exactly.

I must be blind as I don't see Carnival listed.

I was going to say the same. And then, who cares about polls like this? These are done through magazines that the "average" cruiser probably doesn't read - Travel and Leisure. Note how all the winners are the highest priced companies. Them being on top should not be any surprise.

And to Pete... the 'baby' in your avatar is darling!!!

Not sure if the OP is still in need of this, but found pics of 9622 on Voyager and it is set up the way she was looking for, bath on the right, closet on the left.

Found these on cruisedeckplans dot com I think I paid $10 for a lifetime membership and it has pics and deck plans of almost 90,000 different cabin pics - I have no affiliation with this site, just found it to be helpful.

We used Uber twice back in May on our Alaska cruise. Pier to Grand Hyatt, extra large car, 4 people (not sure what they called it), $40. Hyatt to SeaTac, $50 for Uber black, which is a luxury car. Their are several levels of vehicles you can get which you can see on their app/website.

You can see all the Uber cars when you use their app. No additional tip needed and you can get $25 off your first use when you sign up. Waited 5 minutes for our car to come. We will use this service again.

There is no need for you to explain yourself. :) It doesnt matter around here what kind of problem you had on board. Someone would chime in and call it petty. As long as people continue to think like that and never say a word, service will only get worse and worse. Kudos to you for speaking up!

The point of pettiness is that they went to guest services to complain. There are multiple levels of supervision right there is the dining room. I'm no cheerleader for anything but common sense: that says talk to the supervisor, the assistant maitre'd or even the person that gets you your table. Not guest services, because I would bet they act like they care, but don't. Oh wait, I forgot, dissenting opinion.... I'm out.

Petty after two nights? [emoji15] I would have mentioned it to the head waiter but I did not see him! I am telling you the head waiter was jumping in to help serve....this I noticed later in the week! You can think petty if you want but I feel that I did it in their best interest. I was in no way ugly about it. I just wanted it fixed...quite frankly, I was thirsty! [emoji16] I told my teens to head to the buffet if they ever wanted more to eat after dinner (yes teen boys eat A LOT!) but nope, never occurred to me that I would need to go to buffet to get drinks! [emoji23] A table of four water glasses all sitting empty shows an issue.

Then 3/4 of all the restaurants I have been to have problems. Water glasses are not the number one thing in a restaurant. Food out appropriately hot/cold in a timely manner is. You also could have asked anyone that passed you for water and for them to leave the pitcher.... And, yes I know boys, I have 4 between 33 and 23.

The water glasses sitting empty during a meal was mainly WHY I went to guest services. I knew they would want to know & have a chance to correct it. They did but from that point on it was easier to notice how pushed the wait staff was to getting their job done. They are given an impossible task for a service oriented (or what used to be) experience.

I find this amazing. You went to guest services over empty water glasses. Yes I'm sure they would want to know.... Did you try telling the head waiter first? Just seems really ridiculously petty.

We had this cabin booked on Allure for January and the only reason we changed was to get 12330, one of the new aft suites.

Several have recommended 8660 and when we were on Oasis we checked it out. Quiet and so near to Central Park. Lovely.

Travel ombudsman, Christopher Elliott has a website and contact emails and phone numbers for many different companies.

http://elliott.org/company-contacts/

He has a lot of great travel advice.

Thank you all so much! Switched from GS 8660, which was already awesome, to 12330. Really wanted 11330 but am happy that we were able to get one of these new suites.