gooch47

When I first saw the title of this post I thought someone was going to attempt to take the entire senior class on a class trip with only some chaperones. It gave me a cold chill.

Southwest had a delayed flight so we caught a different one from Phoenix to LA where we boarded an Air New Zealand Flight to Auckland. Our bags never left Phoenix in time to make the flight to Auckland.

In Auckland we filed our report for lost luggage.

We boarded the old Regal Princess with just our carry-on with a few clothes in it.

Two days later, the suitcase with all my husband's clothes in it showed up in our cabin. The next day my suitcase showed up. We actually saw it being taken out of the trunk of a taxi.

First lesson learned: cross pack.

Second lesson learned: use only carry-ons if at all possible.

We thought it was amazing that we received them at all considering it took two different airlines plus the cruise line to make it happen.

Biggest problem I had with not having local currency was where they wanted money to use the toilets.

We always tip a couple of bucks for the trade out.

Now of they would just go back to delivering what you want the first time ...

We travel so much I keep thinking we should look into some kind of yearly full coverage policy.

The question to ask, how can someone insure something they know nothing about? Heck, you could have $5,000 air tickets. Insurance is often tied to the actual expense, as known upfront.

Good point. When we buy other non-cruiseline insurance we've had to give $$$ amounts to determine the premium.

What it says on that page and what we actually received is different.

We ate at le bistro, Moderno and La Cuchina (twice) on our b2b earlier this month. Can't remember the exact wording, but the certificate spelled out it could be used in any $20 or less venue.

Each platinum member gets a certificate for dinner for two for each cruise.

The complimentary platinum dinners can be used for restaurants that charge up to $20. It would be nice if you could just get the $20 applied toward the steak house or Teppenyaki and pay the difference.

What about trip interruption, having to fly home from one of the ports?

Or you miss the ship? Trip delay?

We buy our trip insurance through NCL but book our own flights.

If we would have flight delays and it ended up costing us additional airfare or other expenses, would the NCL insurance cover it?

Do I remember correctly that the patch was taken off the market for a while because of side effects?

We use Bonnie.

We will think long and hard before booking another after being delayed 24 hours on our Christmas cruise with our granddaughter and her parents.

At least we still made three ports even though Costa Maya was substituted for Roatan.

We aren't booking a two week cruise. We are booking two one week cruises, one right after the other with two certificates. One certificate for each week.

If this can't be done we must have been stowaways in early January.

They already took our money, payment in full for both weeks.

Maybe the 2nd week you are trying to book, CAS cabins are at capacity. Even though you are booked through Harrah's you are still guests of CAS and therefore, probably fall under their cabin cap available to them for comps.

As far as we know, we have a cabin reserved, we just don't know which one.

Exactly, Allizona.

We've used a lot of these certificates but always had assigned cabins before this.

My husband said the CAS representative said something about it being a "floating" cabin assignment which I thought was kinda cute.

This isn't based on play on the ship. We get these certificates from land-based Caesar's casinos. So yes, we can use them b2b as long as we have two of them to apply.

We did it in early January, leave again on Sunday for two more weeks and now these.

My husband tried to make reservations for a b2b on the Jewel for the last week of March and first week of April. Not only couldn't he get the same cabin both weeks, they couldn't give him a cabin at all for the second week. Apparently we have a guarantee, but no cabin number.

We were given two inside cabin certificates and he was upgrading to a balcony. I wonder if there is an outside possibility we will get an upgrade?

I imagine spring break and the relatively short time between now and then are the culprits.

This one will be weeks 5 and 6 on the Jewel just this year alone.

Never mind. I figured it out.

We did the dolphin encounter at Costa Maya, right at the dock. I wasn't happy doing it but my granddaughter was so looking forward to it. The dolphins seemed small. Young maybe. All I could think about was whether they were happy living on such a small pool.

We wanted to do the encounter in Australia where wild dolphins come in to interact with humans, but the excursion got screwed up and all we got to do was see the beach where it happens.

Couldn't find it in the app store on my Kindle Fire HD.

Except for St. Petersburg, I can't remember the last time we were asked for ID when reboarding, other than cruise card, of course.

But we still take our driver's licenses with us just in case.

Question for those of you who personally disinfect your cabin upon arrival:

What about the cabin steward who enters every day and touches and handles so much stuff? I've never seen or heard about them disinfecting their hands between cabins.

One warning: bugs

We came back from the Alton Ha and river boat ride covered in bug bites. Whatever they were they took a tiny chunk of skin off you leaving a tiny bloody hole that turned bright red and itched like crazy.

But the river ride was one of the best wildlife viewings we have ever had. The ruins? Not so much. Lamanai was better. If you have back problems, the bus ride was really rough.

Our upgrade from an interior to a balcony for a "free" cruise given to us by various Caesar's casinos was in the $350 range for the Jewel out of NOLA.

It does seem to be a fixed price.