Interestedcruisefan

The potential cost of data roaming scares me! But that's probably down to ignorance on my part!

I think you mean your peninsular number? We sat down with the next cruise booking rep on Arvia and had ours added to our booking on the ship They also backdated it to before we got on the cruise and they automatically applied 5 per cent discount to our cabin bill at the end of the cruise Prior to that I had tried twice unsuccessfully to get a peninsular number by email

I take it you guys don't pay for internet on board?

Send some credit my way!! Lol Can you change currency at guest services with OBC?

Yes it's irrelevant to dining times on Arvia and Iona Also re being worried about noise from a cabin. We've cruised about 8 times now. Never had a noisy cabin until our last cruise Our last cruise we did and we complained and were moved from a noisy inside cabin to a quiet balcony cabin So as long as you aren't booking a school holiday totally full cruise I think the low risk of a noisy cabin can be overcome I think people who are paying for balconies may want to be more careful as location of a balcony can be far more important

Worth checking if you are overnight in Oistins on a Friday? For fish fry after the beach?

Book the 90 minute Jetski safari without snorkelling. It's cheaper to share a Jetski (one on the back of each other - you can swap over at any stage) As it happened my wife got scared and so went on back of the tour guide so I got a Jetski to myself We went top speed and for miles and miles along the coastline Really exhilirating

Stories with songs is great I remember Bernie Flint was supposed to be a singer. But was a brilliantly funny comedian as well Saw him on P and O. But that was before limelight existed Roy Walker was on the same cruise and was also brilliant

My wife made the point that Limelight should be entertainment not just a singer

I felt the same but bit the bullet and bought tickets to see Mary Mac. And had a really great night of food and entertainment

We paid for Epicurean and Limelight Club on Arvia Both meals were excellent quality.

Lots of excursions In no particular order: We took the ferry to a nice beach and went jet ski-ing in Martinique (tip - leave the ship early to avoid big queues for the ferry) Snorkel trip just off Boatyard Beach in Barbados (great value) Oistins Friday Night Fish Fry in Barbados (brilliant) A jet ski tour St Kitts I think (best excursion ever) Mini tour and beach in St Lucia (very nice) (I may have got the above 2 mixed up and it might be opposite excursion in each place) Trip to a fake Mediterranean Village with fake amphitheatre in Dominican Republic (lot better than it sounds) Taxi to Maho Beach (the airport beach) in St Maarten (great fun. Your son will love it there) Cane Garden Bay/Beach in Tortola (that's the only one I wouldn't recommend) was too crowded - too many cruise passengers go there Details of all those should be in my live thread (Arvia 18TH Feb)

He just wants to help people and he started making videos with advice long before it became a way to earn a living

The British guy with the bald head who's been doing it years is brilliant IMO This guy. I trust him to give great advice on everything cruising And he seems a nice guy as well

Loads of places to fill water bottles all over Arvia I never saw anyone on the ship walking around in a bathrobe

He's sleeping with the fishes

These guys pay a lot of money for managers and assistants who oversee everything they do and say. If they didn't like the script it would have been changed I just don't think that approach worked Nicole looked stunning however

Same here Every time someone replied to a post I had taken part in I was getting an email I've disabled getting any emails using my account settings My email inbox was getting over run!! Lol

Like I said - people compete for the best spots in The Retreat just like everywhere else For those who like to sunbathe there's often a shady side - so what's good in the morning may not be good in the afternoon There's also a lot of glass screens round the sides of the Retreat and I don't think being close to those is a good place to be We liked the back of the ship deck 16 in the middle if poss near to the infinity pool as that meant you could get the sun throughout the day

Yes she didn't do it well

Olly Murs did well Prime Minister of Barbados - she was great Didn't like the approach from Nicole - who kept referring to it as "my ship" Because as far as I'm concerned its our ship!

Yep I'm sure that will happen We obviously are still working as well A lot of you guys have retired now and so have got used to relaxing more My parents are in that mode. My dad's 80 this year. They would never consider not having a balcony. No matter how many times I send them great deals for cruises. It always has to be the balcony price. I've sent them a Canaries one on Azura from the cheap lists above But they like Princess cruises now. Very set in their ways (They get launderette for free and early boarding and some kind of canape night from having done 15 cruises with them now and that over rules pretty much any deal I show them!) Lol

That all makes great sense I think with us we just love the facilities on the ship so much and love to be doing stuff on the ship itself or off the ship that right now we just don't have time to enjoy the benefits a balcony brings We don't have time as it is to do all the things we want to do on the ship I can barely sit still on holiday! Lol

Agreed

The standard balconies are so small I just can't get my head round why such a large surcharge and why people pay it? But clearly they do If people could sunbathe on the balconies I could perhaps understand paying so much extra as it becomes a really useful thing to have (when the sun is that side of the ship of course)? It's working out at £50 plus per person per night for a balcony isn't it? £100 per day to sit (not lay) normally in the shade with a one sided view no better than you can get anywhere on the decks in the sun (I realise there are other benefits. My mum and dad like to have breakfast on their balcony most mornings for example. Even though they can't get same quality breakfast as outside their cabin) I could have cruised twice for 2 weeks on Arvia in the Caribbean for the same price people with standard balcony were paying for one holiday And the real irony is on sea days this couple were lying next to us on deck 16 sunbathing every day When are they getting their £100 per day value out of their balcony? It's not during the day. They were up early just like us to get sunbeds in a prime spot on deck 16 I cant fathom it? Let me say we could afford balconies if we could see the value for us. We like them as a nice to have But it's similar to people querying £40 per day to use The Retreat. I don't think that's good value But honestly I think the surcharge for The Retreat is slightly more justified than people paying more than that each day to have a balcony which they can't be using a fraction of the time they could use the Retreat