bguppies

Best of luck to your group too. We were mostly interested in Almaplena, since their beach, further south from town, seemed to have less seaweed than I've ever seen in any video for Maya Chan or ANY beach club in town.(although I've only been able to find a couple of videos from years ago) But as I have found, in here and on you tube, it is very difficult to find first hand videos or accounts, like you easily can of Maya Chan. The one time we ran into seaweed at Nachi Cocum in Cozumel, the smell by the end of the day, definitely had impacted our enjoyment that day. The one time I have been to Costa Maya before, every beach club along the Malecon was deep in seaweed and the smell was pretty tough, even walking on the Malecon, not even trying to head to the water. Most of the videos on you tube of Jaime's, Tropicante, etc. are frightening with seaweed at all times of the year. Tried to see if time of year plays a part like in Cozumel, but clearly not nearly as much.(One video looked like they tried a net to keep out the seaweed, seemed to work a little. Outside the netting the seaweed bunched up so much there were 2-3 foot Iguanas walking on top of the seawweeed in the video) Would just like DW to have a 2nd relaxing beach day on our December cruise.

Just more piling cost cutting into the nobody wanted that service or cutting a service that covid problems made them cut, yet surprisingly, most of them will never be brought back.

Yeah that was the whole thing we tried to get ironed out with them since the last review that barely mentioned the transporataion was from years before the shutdown. We kept trying to explain why we were questioning where to pick up transportation and where to meet it, but I don't think after three different e-mails explaining our situation like I have in here, they understood why we were questioning it. They just kept responding that transportation WAS available, but absolutely zero details we asked about in any of the 3 responses we got.

Thanks again for all the info current and future.

Good call. I forgot that Nachi stays open late the few times a week Carnival docks late. Not PAYG but a wonderfully relaxing day with a great ,pool area and wonderful food. Well worth the money for AI. Plus the limit they place on people per day is great on a busy Cozumel day. (we have 8 ships in on our day this December.) Been to Nachi on a day with 10 ships in port and still was not overcrowded.

I would be extremely happy to hear anything. It seems like nobody has been going to Almaplena much since covid. I was hoping with Maya Chan closed most of the summer, a few more people would try Almaplena, but it hasn't appeared to be the case. Everything we've seen looks like this place would be the kind of day we are looking for, just the walking logistics is making this so difficult. Cozumel is easy, short walk, cab, nachi Cocum. The pier in Costa Maya is much longer , plus from what I've seen for Almaplena and Maya Chan you need to walk past the taxi stands outside to somewhere down the street to catch a ride. I'm just worried that might be tough. So any current info from your visit would be incredibly helpful. Thanks in advance. Hope your visit is a great day.

The cigar factory at the Graycliffe Hotel is great. Make sure to ask if they'll let you take a quick tour through the hotel grounds. (if they aren't super busy they have for us before) Its like walking through a swanky 1920's-30's Beverly Hills Hotel.

Alos, any people with valid handicap plates or placards, DO NOT pay to park. Parking is free in the state of SC.

I found this when dropping DW off back in March. You use this gate one block closer to East Bay St. than the parking gate. Picking them up is at the old Uber/taxi dropoff area.

Do you mean the old British Colonial Hilton? Margaritaville's opening put the nail in their coffin that Covid started. Margaritaville wisely bought the property to expand their offerings next door. They are just letting the old BCH pool area be used for daypasses until they need to do construction there, Haven't done a daypass there since they closed. Was super nice deal when it was the BCH. Super close to the pier with a nice pool and clean, tiny beach.

As long as you don't mind seaweed, Costa Maya is the perfect port for you. Like Crewsweeper said, many pay as you go clubs along the beach there. Enjoy.

Amanda Kaye thanks for the updated website. Price does seem to have risen. DW is mobility limited and needs a walker. We tried e-mailing Almaplena about transportation details, but got no clear answers from them. (I'm hoping it was due to laguage issues) If we could find out ANY recent information about the transportation, we would probably be all in. The walk at the pier in Cosya Maya is long enough.(since I keep reading the shuttle there runs VERY sporadically) I don't know if she can walk the entire pier AND then walk through the entire port area, then out onto the street and 1/2 mile-1 mile down the road to catch transpostation. Any details about a recent experience would be extremely helpful. Would love to do this if it sounds do-able, but with zero info to be found recently, its looking more like another stay on the ship day.(Belize once was enough)

This is what we saw on our last cruise. Some hairy disgusting guy, sat at the table next to us wearing one of those Right Said Fred mesh t-shirts from the 90's. I didn't make it to desert. But glad he got to dress as he wanted on Formal night. (I can'ty imagine ***** that fool wore on non-formal nights when we luckily weren't sitting near him.)

Since they have done away with paper copies for the most part and they are now, in abreviated form in the Hub app, few people come home with them anymore. Occasionally someone will take screenshots of the pages in the app while cruising, but it seems to be fewer and less frequent, than when board members used to come home with a full paper set in their luggage and publish pictures in their revires. Good luck to you. I hope yuou get extremely lucky.

Excellent pictures of the facility. Should really help someone make a well informed decision.

Depends on when Daylight savings starts. Cozumel does not observe DST so depends on if the US is doing DST next year and when.

This super old news. Seen it mentioned in here and by all the cruise vloggers on you tube when it happened. Be some soggy cabins on that deck for awhile for sure. (especially the one the pipe broke in that flooded that whole deck.) Just looked like downtown Charleston after every medium to heavy rainstorm.

Don't guess or assume, definitely e-mail special needs. Bring a hard copy of any approval attached to the ensure, so when the security guard and his supervisor, who don't work for Carnival or know any better, you have the approval right there.

I was offered 9:30am for my upcoming Sunshine cruise out of Charleston just this past Tuesday. I know I've had 9:30 at other ports before.

That is the other problem with this, is how it is going to impact other dining venues that were already experiencing long waits before shuffling MORE people into lines waiting for a Guy's burger or deli sanwich, who would've happily taken a snack in their cabin after a long day of excusions, etc. As many complaints as I have been reading about how bad the pizza has gotten, I can't imagine how this will trickle down.

Well said. I'd rather sail less frequently. with the line that will give me closer to the cruise experience I want. Than a line that offers an inferior product for the old price or slightly higher.

Thanks I hadn't checked that one out yet...

Exactly. Lower your offerings to the customer until they look elsewhere for where to spend their cruise dollars. Exactly what our next 2 cruises will be for us. Branched out once to try NCL but found it almost identical to Carnival experiencewise, but Carnival's ports are more convienent for our location. But if the experience has fallen below other lines, then we may have to reevaluate how much the convienence of the ports outweighs the cruising experience onboard. (Charleston and Jacksonville are superclose for us for weekend cruises, but we already have to travel to Port Canaveral or Tampa for longer cruises and everybody else cruises out of those too) Clearly reading alot of responses on this board, Carnival has not yet hit some minimum threshold for many of you. They can just keep cutting amenities and experiences until they finally hit one that crosses a line.

I don't think anyone is complaining about there being free stuff. Just in the declining quality of what they are offering for what is supposed to be a frequent customer appreciation gift. Basically when Carnival puts less and less effort and ingenuity into these items, they are just showing their frequent customers their true value to the company. From quality items like bluetooth speakers, headphones, and Tervis Tumblers to decent still usefull items like Blankets, toiletry bags, mini backpacks, nightlights, ballcaps, etc. down to minimal thought/usefullness items like luggage tags and koozies. It just shows that the thoughtfulness/expense of the gifts is equal to what they think of their frequent customers.

Yeah it looks like you leave the cabins and go to the right and you are right in the spa area. Leave the cabins and make a left and we are right by the lido deck/serenity area.