Motor City

yeah, no problem with kid spending time at kids club while we are on the boat,,,but we would never “leave” her on the boat, not in a million years you’d convince my wife to do that one, lol

17 minutes ago, Cheadle_Chick said:

 

This is fantastic! Exactly what I needed to hear. And I like the idea of doing an early dinner with them, dropping them off and then having a nice adult dinner while they're busy. 

 

Any other great tips like that for successful cruising with kids? 

She would much rather do some fresh fruit, bacon, plain-ish chicken, fries and pick out a couple of her own desserts…we take her around 5pm, let her eat, have a snack ourselves, buffet usually isn’t too busy yet.

We drop her at kids club at 545ish, and we are off to dinner. Works out great for her, we miss her at dinner and would much rather hang with her,,, but it really is what she loves.

She always makes a friend or two at the club and really looks forward to see them throughout the week. 

Room service chocolate cake and milk waiting when we get back to the room, always a hit.

To bad, we are the following week Sept 10 Westerdam to Alaska, she’s 6

My kid has been on several cruises, we have been on many more cruises than we’d normally do, since she enjoys the kid’s club so much!

She’s not at all interested in a multi-course dinner, so we feed her, drop her at kids club and go for dinner. After we usually do a show, after dinner drinks or casino, We will sometimes walk around the ship just killing time, because if we pick her up too early, she gets mad.

She LOVES the kids club and activities they do.

8 hours ago, highscar said:

You get casino offer sent to you by e-mail for various cruises. 

yes, I'm aware...

I'm on a casino offer in a few weeks, wanted to know the protocol for the "free drinks while playing",,,and ANY tips to maximize my cocktail fun, while minimizing my casino deposits

Either way I'm sure we'll have fun in their casino, we enjoy craps & black jack 

3 hours ago, pellanor said:

It was really confusing on the Rotterdam. Schedule on app showed half off but the printed schedule showed buy one get one half off.  I had free drinks in the casino so didn't test which offer was right.

How did the free drinks in the casino work?

Can you sit at the bar for a bit and relax or you have to be playing at all times?

Can you take a break, sit at the bar and have a drink?

14 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

Read about Port Valet here:

https://www.portseattle.org/page/port-valet-enjoy-seattle-luggage-free

 

The company collects your bag for you and checks them in with your airline.  It's a free service--you just pay the checked bag price the airline charges.  If all goes well, which it almost always does, you'll see your bags at your destination airport. 

 

Caveat is that it won't really work if you have a ton of carry on bags.  You still have to schlep those around yourself.

Yes, unfortunately we will have several carry-on

Good to know for the larger checked bag

Thank you for the link!

1 hour ago, 1025cruise said:

You aren't going to want a car in Seattle proper. You'll end up paying a fortune for parking. Seattle offers Port Valet which will take care of your bags.

So we’d have to valet bags, uber around for the day, find our way back to the port to collect our bags, and then uber to the airport…would be less?

9 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Who are you cruising on? HAL? They dock at Pier 91, which doesn't have much of anything close, at least in terms of hotels. They used to have shuttles to rental car companies, hopefully @Ferry_Watcher can confirm they still do, and what brands.

 

There are dozens of threads here on hotels, both downtown and airport. 

 

Pike Place Market will be very interesting to your 6 y.o. Especially the flying fish. The Space Needle and the Seattle Great Wheel may also interest the little one.

Yes, we are on Holland America

Just trying to figure out the best way to kill a day after the cruise, given we will have luggage and our flight isn't until 10pm

First Alaska Cruise, first time in Seattle so any advise and tips would be very much appreciated!

Get in at 10pm Friday, so plan is to just stay at SEA-tac.

Saturday make our way to DT, stay Grand Hyatt or someplace central to DT and cruise port.

Sunday is embarkation

The following Sunday - debarkation

Our flight home (Detroit) isn't until 10pm. 

Anyone know the best place to rent a car close to the port? Easiest way to get there?

We were thinking of just renting a car and spending the day exploring surrounding Seattle, instead of storing laggage and doing Uber, or stuck at SEA the entire day/evening. Thinking with a car rental we wouldn't need a place to store luggage, see a bit of Seattle, and have just return it to the airport that evening before our flight home.

Any places to see in or around Seattle for a couple with 6 year old?

Pikes is on the list, just was trying to find something different, we may hit Pike's and then scoot to Discovery park for a picnic.

Thanks for idea and advise

First Alaska cruise out of Seattle and a few questions for the veterans.

1) We arrive at 10pm on Friday, embarkation is Sunday.

Should we stay at SEA hotel and then make our way DT or another place to stay on Saturday? 

We would like to explore Seattle, but haven't been, and don't know where a good jump off point would be.

2) Our flight home (Detroit) isn't until 10pm on debarkation day (Sunday).

Anyone know the best place to rent a car close to the port? Easiest way to get there?

We were thinking of just renting a car and spending the day exploring surrounding Seattle, instead of storing laggage and doing Uber, or stuck at SEA the entire day/evening.

3) Places to see or go in or around Seattle for a couple with 6 year old?

Thank you!

I’ll  reach out to Air2Sea, but I’m not holding my breath,,,I’ve looked at most options from my home airport and surrounding, as well as regional arrival airports. 

Planes are full, dynamic pricing has the few seats left at silly prices, not to mention schedules.

Spring break is fun,,,just don’t remember it being this tough, EVER. 

Didn’t think to reach out to CR for a possible switch. I’ll ask ✌

I’m considering canceling an upcoming cruise, since flights are astronomical for the dates needed and very few options for getting us there/back with reasonable schedules

The cruise was a casino royale comp room.

charges thus far are:

-upgrade room fee, to add a child 

-pre-paid gratuities 

-port fees/taxes

-bev packages

-excursion 

If I cancel, do all of these get refunded?

or would I eat the room upgrade fee?

When would I have to cancel by?

What happens if we just “no show”?

We haven’t made a final decision, but flight options are getting progressively worse, not looking like it makes sense for us at this point 

Thanks for any experience on this, it’d be the first cruise I ever cancelled 😞 

12 hours ago, Oneluckywoman said:

Have you completed your tour?

we go on Feb 8

Ambergis Caye is much like Caye Caulker,  except larger…beaches are decent on the north end of the island, but you wouldn’t be able to get from Belize City to the north end of Ambergis on a port stop. Not enough time.

We are doing Caye Caukler w Coral Breeze Tours

first time having the bevie package, what is the standard cash tip per drink?

57 minutes ago, Jeal said:

We went to Cucumber Beach last year and will not go there again. The water looks nothing like the picture in the link above. However, the vendors were extremely nice and said they wished the people selling the tours were more honest about what to expect because so many people were disappointed when they got there. We stayed a couple of hours and then left. 

Agree, I'm looking for a beach day w a little snorkeling mixed in, but definitely not Cucumber... We may just hang on the ship while in Belize.

So I was just looking for a beach day, but apparently Goff's is not opening up ANYTIME soon.

What can we do? Any suggestions?

I don't want to do any cave exploration, zip lines, hours on a bus to check out ruins is a no, etc...Broke my knee last year and just want to keep it chill.

Considered doing a water taxi over to Caye Caukler, but seems we'll spend more time on the taxi, then exploring the island.

I'm really bummed about Goff's, was looking forward to relaxing on the beach and snorkeling a bit.

15 hours ago, fac429 said:

 

Which cruise?  I was looking at this week's Symphony cruise, which I thought was the only one in the app that reflected the new menu.

Feb 4 Serenade from Tampa 

9 hours ago, fac429 said:

 

Wondering if that's because it was NYE.  

this is for an upcoming cruise in Feb

Seems more selections on day1?

following 

Visiting Roatan in Feb on Serenade, planning a beach day and hopefully be able to snorkel from shore or catch a quick boat to spend an hour or so on the reef. Any suggestions from the pros? TIA

2 hours ago, Longford said:

No.  In my opinion, RCL should not dock there.  There won't be another time, because I won't book an itinerary that docks in that spot.  By the way, I logged 25,000 steps exploring the area by foot ... so it wasn't just the rundown dock area.

I bet you're fun at parties