DukeASUGirl

Following - I'll be taking my Girl Scout troop on a cruise when school lets out as their end-of-middle-school trip to spend their cookie money, and not every girl will have a parent in attendance.

Unfortunately, no. It has to be a 4-night cruise, and has to leave either in late May or early June. That's literally all that fits in anyone's schedule, so it could only be out of Los Angeles (to Baja/Mexico) or FL. And the girls already said they don't want a West Coast/Mexico cruise. They'd be okay with Caribbean Mexico, but don't want Pacific Mexico.

It will basically need to be a May 27 sailing, because too many girls have their dance recital on June 2 for us to even consider a June 3 sailing, and once it goes really any further into June then we compete with summer travel basketball season and rehearsals for musicals.

Under 17?! That's amazing - I've never heard of kid pricing going up to that old! I'll definitely look into that that.

I'm my daughter's Girl Scout leader. They're in 8th grade now, and it looks like roughly half the troop intends to quit before high school, so we're planning a big blowout end-of-Girl Scouts trip this summer. 7 girls and we haven't decided yet how many adults, but it looks like 4 are interested. So that's 11 people - which would work out to three cabins (4 in two of the cabins, and one will have 3). The intention is for the girls to afford this entirely though cookie sales and whatever other fundraising they can do this year. We've been selling cookies since kindergarten, and while we've spent a lot on badges, activities, and a trip to Camp Surf in San Diego a couple of years ago, they really aren't much interested in badges anymore. They mostly just want to hang out and do community service, which we can do for free. So we really haven't spent much in the last year because they really just want to save for a cruise. We live in Phoenix, and it looks like our budget will be roughly $650-800 per person. We had a big planning meeting last night, and they are really leaning towards a 4-day cruise to the Bahamas, which unfortunately will really add to the costs because we have to fly across the country first. I'd been hoping to steer them to a Baja cruise so we can drive to the port, but my own daughter said "We never go anywhere but Mexico!" and the other girls were totally jazzed about Florida and the Bahamas, so I guess we'll have the girls host some Parents Night Out babysitting events this year to raise extra money. Sorry for the long backstory. Anyway, when they pitched the idea, they looked at Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas. With airfare at its current rate (and I do think we can do better based on what day we book, what kind of sale we hit, etc), it will be about $900/person all-in which is definitely outside our budget unless we REALLY hustle (but the older they get, the busier they get, so I doubt they have time to sell as many cookies as they've done in the past) or families agree to pay the difference in cost. This morning before school, my daughter jumped on a discount site to check all the different brands, and discovered that Celebrity is currently running a really good sale, which would save about $150 per person, bringing us down to roughly $750/person on Celebrity Reflection, which is in our target zone. She also found that Carnival Conquest would be a little over $800/person all-in with airfare. (I do think we can do better on airfare if we book at the right time, so all these prices should go down a bit.) So my question is this...which would you recommend for teens? We will have six 14-yr-old girls, and one who will still be 13 (albeit almost 14), and it will be right when school lets out at the end of May. Choices: - Celebrity Reflection - goes to Key West and CocoCay (right in target budget range and least expensive using current pricing, but looks to have the least amount of amenities that would interest teens) - Carnival Conquest - goes to Nassau and Princess Cays (about the top of our budget range, seems to have a decent amount of amenities interesting to teens) - Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas - goes to Nassau and Cococay (about $100 more per person beyond our budget so would require more fundraising or parental buy-in, but seems to have the most for teens to do)

I'm always amazed that people will pay the upcharge for Johnny Rockets on Royal. It's not even like it's a unique dining experience or anything - there are Johnny Rockets all over the place on land.

I would definitely agree with this. Personally, I thought the production/show entertainment was better on Royal, but felt that the cruise directors worked harder to make sure guests had a great time on Carnival. On Royal, during the day, it was all "sign up for ice skating, etc" but my kids don't consider that to be a vacation (daughter is a figure skater and son is a hockey player, so they needed a break from the ice, and anyway they would have been beyond frustrated to have to wear rental skates and a helmet and just skate in a circle, no jumps, no speed, etc). We loved attending the skating shows, and went multiple times, but didn't really feel like there was much in the way of classes or other organized daytime activities. It was too chilly on the sea days to actually enjoy the waterslides or Flowrider (don't get me wrong - we did go on them, but by the final sea day we were freezing), so most of the time we were left floundering, whereas on Carnival there were always dance classes, games, etc we could join in. All in all, I felt like there were more similarities than differences, and I did love the big production shows of Royal, but I think my next cruise will be back to Carnival.

See, I'm the exact opposite. We loved Cabo, and hated Mazatlan. Never want to go back there.

I know this is a super-old topic, but I'm so glad to have found it because my 8th grade Cadette troop is going to be voting on their end-of-middle-school trip. We have a bunch of cookie money saved up and want to do something big because several of them have decided this will be their last year in Girl Scouts. We have 7 girls going, and one of the options we're leaning towards is a 4-day cruise from Long Beach (going to Catalina and Ensenada). Other choices are National Parks in Utah, a cabin in Colorado, and Disneyland. I've priced it out, and the cruise is actually really doable for them and I think they'd really enjoy it. Lots of great tips in this thread!

I would contact the Shore Excursions department and ask them. Explain that you need to know where to book the hotel, given that super-early hour.

All these people who say that cruising is a "special occasion" and thus you should dress up...for me and my husband, it's pretty darn special not to have to work. So we don't want to dress like we're at work.

My group was 6, so definitely not a very large group. But it was two linked cabins, and even though I thought I had linked us in Cruise Planner on the website (it showed that I had), when we got on the ship, my App had the reservation for 4, but my parents' didn't have anything. So we went to the maitre d' that afternoon and they fixed it for us. It was fine by the time we got to dinner that night. But it's much easier to switch a table for 4 to a table for 6. Quite a bit more complicated to get three tables for 8 right next to one another, because you're going to change everyone else's tables if it wasn't already set up. So I would definitely call in and speak to someone in advance.

I can only speak to Navigator, but 5 or 5:30 pm was too early for me, and 8 pm was too late for me. So I made a standing reservation for 6:45 pm every night for MTD, and I got the same waitstaff and same table every night. On Nav, there was a 5 pm Early seating on 3rd floor, 5:30 pm Early seatings on 4th and 5th floors, MTD from 6:45-9 pm on 3rd floor, and am 8 pm Late seating on 4th and 5th floors. As we were leaving dinner (generally around 8 pm most nights, but it was closer to 9 pm on Lobster Night), there were always a small number of new guests trickling in on 3rd floor for MTD. So yes, I would imagine you could make a standing 8 pm MTD reservation.

This is 100% my husband's POV. He is an attorney, so the last thing he wants to do on vacation is dress like the office or court.

I just went back and checked my photos, and you are correct. It isn't floor length - looks to be about a foot betwen bottom of tablecloth and the floor. But my point still stands - you would have to be really looking to see what type of shoes people are wearing under the table. Seriously, who stares at other people that closely? I spend my time caring about my dining companions and my meal, and couldn't care less about the others in the dining room. Really, it's quite creepy.

Okay, I'll bite. Why would anyone feel uncomfortable if someone else is wearing Crocs? Personally, I hate Crocs. I find them incredibly tacky and ugly, but I know loads of people like them. What difference is it to me what someone else wears? Seriously, I don't get it. Not to mention...there are floor-length tablecloths covering the tables, so how would I even be able to see what the person sitting at the table next to me is wearing?

If we had a particular show time we wanted to attend, we simply let the waitstaff know so they could meet our time constraint. This generally meant that they shaved a few minutes off of every step (returned to take our order sooner, brought the main course as some were still finishing up their apps, etc), but we always made it. That being said, Lobster Night tends to be the most crowded in the MDR, so it's also the slowest. Is there a 7 pm ice show you could attend instead?

We created our own fixed time during MTD on our cruise a couple of weeks ago. 5 pm was too early, and 8 pm was too late, so we did a standing MTD reservation for a party of 6 for 6:45 pm, and had the same table with the same waitstaff every single night.

Yes, and I was responding to say that while it would be too late to get Royal insurance, the outside companies allow it closer to sail date.

Are your dining companions such a bore that you find yourself looking at what others are wearing instead of enjoying their company and a nice meal?

We booked our travel insurance for what should have been our October cruise, 6 days before the cruise was supposed to occur. Then 3 days before, the airline canceled our flight due to the hurricanes and Royal allowed us to take a Future Cruise Credit instead, so we just rolled the insurance over to the replacement cruise. But my point is that it was WELL after the final payment was due, and like 8 months after we'd booked. We used Allianz.

We got to the distribution area 4 minutes after it began, but I was already Tender group 23 by that point because apparently people had been lined up waiting for more than 2 hours. I kid you not. Anyway, at least on our cruise, but they literally didn't even check the tickets at all when it came time to board the tenders. They called 3 groups at a time, and all they did was scan your Seapass. And if you missed your slot, you just went when you could. Like if you were in the bathroom when they called Groups 7, 8, and 9, you could just go when they called Groups 10, 11, and 12.

I think the only time my husband ever wore pants in the dining room was formal night, and even then it was just khakis. He literally wore shorts every night, and nobody cared or said anything. And he was hardly the only one. My 11-yr-old never even wore pants on formal night - khaki shorts was about as dressy as he got.

Stir in butter or coconut oil instead of cream/half and half. Apparently it helps keep you fuller, so you eat less. I think it's a keto thing, or something like that. I don't know. It sounds gross to me.

I don't drink coffee. Dad drinks it black. Husband has recently switched to butter to make "bulletproof coffee" and he never had trouble just using the butter dishes in the MDR. My mom usually ordered tea most nights, but the couple of nights she ordered coffee and asked for cream, she had no issue getting cream. In fact, on the nights when she ordered tea, and it was just the men ordering coffee, they had to tell the waiter to take away the cream since they wouldn't be using it. We disembarked Navigator about a week and a half ago.