HappyTexan44

Assuming you go with the Chank. option, know that there is a Swim with Manatees option too. Like I told DH, you can swim with Dolphins many places, but where can you swim with Manatees? The stinker said he has done it, but I'll stick with my point. Another thing to look into. I haven't been yet, but I'm really excited about our reserved Cabana. The prices seem to be very reasonable. https://thecabanabeach.com/ The prices include Chank. admission.

That is why we'll be bringing stuff on board. DH gets cranky without his Diet DP. Even when available, it can and does run out on cruises starting in Texas. I am particular about my champagne, so we'll bring that on board too. We won't bring water. We'll either buy it beforehand or use our brita water bottles (probably the later) We will have our beverages, and carry-ons for the four of us in one of those collapsible wagons and once on I'll find an out-of-the-way chair to read a book and stash the wagon near my chair until our rooms are ready.

For those considering Magnesium. Instead of orally which can be /is a laxative, Mg can be absorbed through the skin. The below is what I use on vacations. You get your magnesium and help your aching feet with the same thing. I don't know if this is the best since it is the first I've tried. One lasts for a long time. https://www.walmart.com/ip/PROcure-Epsom-Salt-Rub-Gel-6-fl-oz/49912425?from=/search

But but, if chair hogs are banished, and no one is using their towel to hog a chair. Then I won't be able to go down early on the first morning, wait for an hour then grabbing a bunch of chair-hog towels, thereby making us immune from being wrongly charged for a towel. So, annoying 🙂

Me too. I like Natural Rose Champagne. Really unlikely to find that

So, are these people that know each other beforehand? Can random people (ie me) that likes cards join? I added playing cards to my pack list.

Makes sense. Texas and Dr. Pepper. Although you'd think Royal would notice that and plan accordingly. So, I guess even if there were Freestyle, we'd want to bring Dr. P on board anyway.

That is really cool. Makes me more annoyed our ship doesn't have the freestyle. It had been a knife's edge deciding between Voyager and another ship. Freestyle would have been enough to sway me to the other ship. Isn't Dr. Pepper a different company?

Would the Coke Freestyle machines have Dr. Pepper, though? We plan on bringing Diet Dr. Pepper on board for DH on our starter cruise on Voyager.

Because of that, I wonder if a power bank would be a good idea. They can usually charge a few things at once (at least ours can). Then it can sit there in the room staying topped up. They are allowed aren't they? I mean those blocks for charging your cell phone when you're away from home.

There is the conflict between Rules From Above and the inherent Do Guests Reasonable Requests in a service industry. Rules From Above say Only One Plate At A Time. Customer reasonably requests something like, "I'd like some shrimp cocktail at the same time as my Caesar salad because I'd like to put the shrimp ON the Caesar salad." So they do what they can to do without violating the rules. ETA: The no individual plating bugs me enough that I wouldn't have gone with Royal for our starter cruise if I were booking right now. Cruise is non-refundable and some friends decided to join us, so we are stuck.

And they could have done that if they'd handwashed their clothes every night. I was fine with just a school-sized backpack for a few weeks in Europe after everything was stolen in Barcelona. It was fine, but Woolite was essential.

After the first bit, reports were bad. As in people never meeting an actor even while actively trying to role play, or when an actor was met they were flat and didn't want to play their part.

Not challenging you, but wondering why they promote kids joining the cruise. Although, maybe they don't consume much either when they are in the parent's room.

I really really really hope they stop this ridiculous policy before my cruise. Some things are just meant to go together.

I might need to buy more before our cruise. I bought some FOR the cruise but they are around the house. We also got a new stainless steel fridge and normal magnets don't stick very well.

Travel insurance is a new thing for me. I think I got it once before. I was under the impression that if you got on the cruise and had no medical problems, that was it for the insurance. It sounds like you are saying if the cruise dumps you in a completely different place, the insurance covers costs to make things right? Please excuse my ignorance. I bought Royal's travel insurance.

To bad they didn't talk. One could have said bring the steak first and the other the lobster. Then chop each in half. Do the same when finished with the first plate. Although I guess one person might want the steak differently.

Thank you. I guess I do have to set expectations that we not even make the port. I did read about several times the cruise skipped that port. That Native Choice has a good reputation had been a part of my decision to go on a non-royal tour.

It is scary. I use a blacklight in hotel rooms but I learned to only use it on the bedbug-likely areas.

Well, the site that listed two Carnival ships in port was wrong. I just looked at the Carnival website. I really really didn't want to tender.

We have booked a private tour with Native Choice. There will be 5 of us and it is the same price as the exclusive tour through Royal. I know it will be more expensive than directly booking the regular tour because it is private, but I think it will be nice for it to just be us. I am getting very excited about this port (from very meh). Amazon Plus has a book The Mayans that I think we'll listen to. They said that they can start tours one hour after the ships scheduled arrival time. Which site is reliable to figure out which ships will be in port and when? I got this from https://cruisedig.com/ports/costa-maya-mexico/arrivals just now. Carnival has two ships in at the same time???? That can't be right. Plus, I think I read somewhere that Costa Maya maxes out at 4 ships. If the two Carnival ships are true, then that would mean that we'd have to tender. ugh. I suppose I can look at the Carnival site. This is what I'd saved to my cruise document. Not sure where I got that, which is why just now I looked for the same info. On another site, they only listed three ships and didn't include the Norwegian. The arrival and departure times are also different with that first screenshot showing one less hour in port. The time in port and how crowded it will be has had an impact on the shore excursion. If it is 8 hours, then I'm fine with booking a non-cruise excursion. If it is really crowded, then I'd prefer to do a private tour. There is the same cruise happening right now. They arrive at Costa Maya tomorrow and the app says, "Gangway Down 12:30" and "Gangway up 6:30" So, only 6 hours, which makes me nervous about an independent tour. But on the other hand, the official Royal tours start at 12:30 or 1:00 for my cruise.

Our blacklight is about 3" long and uses one AA. Before I got that, I checked for dark red-brown lines around the bed. They get blood on their feet. If they didn't notice until day 3, they might bring them home.

That is the thing with bedbugs. The room can be really clean. But, if someone in the room before you stayed someplace with bedbugs, the room can have bedbugs. We have a blacklight to search. I hope they didn't take the bedbugs home., That is what scars me.

At least for our ship (Voyager) I know there is. One thing I was pleasantly surprised about was the organized activities. In the app, I changed the cruise to one just like mine only in few days then looked at the schedule. There were things on the schedule just for them!