catcruisers

If you join the LMT Travel Cub (Free with code "4JULYFREE") you will see the hotel names and get better prices.

If you have an iPad and use their browser, it will show the hotel names. You can call to get better prices than the website is showing, though I don't know how the phone in prices compare to the member prices.

Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort

12/11 $169 including taxes

12/23 $285 including taxes (holiday week)

Is there an online port schedule site for Nov. 2012?

 

http://www.portevergladesguide.com/cruiseguide2012/ doesn't go into the latter half of the year

I like to use this site, which you can search by port or ship:

http://ports.cruisett.com/schedule/United_States_Of_America/212-Fort_Lauderdale_Florida/December_2012

You can click on the individual ship leaving on a particular date, and it will show the ports for your entire cruise, and the other ships which will be sharing the port with you.

Could someone tell me if or what the differences are between the Balcony E1 and E2 Cabins on the EOS? The price difference is $100.

It looks like most of the E1 cabins are on Deck 8 and most of the E2 Cabins are on Deck 7, but I'm not sure if I'm reading the deck plan correctly.

 

Thanks

E1 and E2 rooms are the same size. E1 rooms tend to be more expensive because of location (for the rooms on deck 8), or they are connecting rooms and/or rooms with a pullman bed.

Thanks so much for the pictures and information. We are booked on the coastal cruise. If we decide when we get there we want more time on St John do you think it would a problem to get off with the shopping people?

Nobody did it from our group, but I don't think they would care. They didn't seem to care if the shoppers and town tour people went on their tours, or went on their own. I don't know if you could join one of the other tours though.

For this excursion, the folks taking the shopping and the town walking tour are on the same boat. The folks for the other two excursions are dropped off at Cruz Bay, then the boat continues up the St. John coast to around the northern tip of St. John. It then returns back the same way to Cruz Bay to drop you off. All three excursions return on the same boat a few hours later. We took a cab to Trunk Bay for a couple of hours, then returned to Cruz Bay for some quick shopping and lunch. The cab ride to Trunk Bay and back is fairly short.

The boat drops you off at Cruz Bay, and you can catch a taxi from there. The pic above is as close to Trunk Bay as you will get on the boat.

We went on the St. John Coastal Cruise a couple of weeks ago. This is a great way to go to St. John. Highly recommended. Captain Jack (not THE Captain Jack Sparrow from the movies!), is a great narrator, and does a narration of the history of the islands and some of the houses along the way. He does narration on the first half of the trip, but not the second half. It starts a short walk from the ship on a boat the size of the typical people ferries. The trip to St. John takes about 40 minutes. We dropped of the shopping and the town walking tour folks (and for the people who didn't want to do either one, there are cabs waiting to take you to wherever you want to go) before proceeding to the St. John part of the trip. The extra cruise around the western part of St. John takes another 40-50 minutes. We ended up with about 3 1/2 hours of free time on St. John.

The trip over to St. John has some great views of St. Thomas that you wouldn't see if you took the short ferry from Red Hook. The views of the St. John coast (a few are below) are amazing! The pics don't do the view justice. We had a pretty nice day, though with the sun behind St. John, some of my pics didn't turn out as well as I wanted. I would recommend bringing binoculars, at least a small pair if you can. It's very pretty without them, but you will see more with binoculars.

I think this is a great way to go to and to see St. John. Even if you don't want to do the coastal cruise part, it's still the best way to transport yourself there. For $40, you don't have to worry about catching an early ferry so you don't miss the ship, and the price is probably not much different than taking the cab-ferry round trip. The other St. John transportation only excursions offered on RCI only leave you with a couple of hours on the island. If you are looking to just use this for transportation, you would end up with about 4 hours on the island. We may not do the coastal cruise part every time going over to St. John. We may just head to the beach next time. However, this is something I would recommend doing at least once.

Trunk Bay Beach above

I think this is a new excursion, that might be why nobody has responded that they have gone on it. We are taking this excursion in a few weeks. We thought it would be nice to see the beaches from the water and still have a few hours to go to one of the beaches. The price isn't much more than going to St. John on our own, and we don't have to worry about the ferry running late or traffic. I'll report back how it went next month.

Our final payment is coming up next month for our Nov. cruise. Since we have mostly cruised Princess the last few years, and always 10 day ones, I know what a good/fair price to pay for one. I don't know that with RC. I booked the 10 nite on the Explorer when the WOW sale was going on. I booked at $2800. with the OBC from RC of $200. plus the TA gave us a $206. OBC. I was hoping that there'd be a price drop. I think $2800. for a E1 is high for Nov., even with the $400. OBC. We never pd that on Princess. Yes, we won't have to get airfare, but I never usually pay for it, I use FF miles. The ship doesn't appear to be near full, and people might cancel with final payment approaching.

 

I'm thinking of cancelling and hoping to re-book. Has this worked out for anyone that's done it?

 

Thanks!

There are only three E1 rooms showing available for this cruise, so a price drop is probably not too likely in this category. You are leaving during Jersey Week, so that may affect the prices a bit, even though people would have to pull their kids out of school the following week. If you don't have kids and are flexible with dates, you might consider trying the 12/1 10 nighter. It's the same itinerary, slightly lower prices, and likely to be less crowded (because there will be few kids on board).