utopiahereicome

Bought my first set a year ago, ultralight from Ebags, and was skeptical - but found that I can get more into the suitcase with the cubes than without, and everything is not as wrinkled and a lot more organized! Bought a second set for upcoming cruise in Med, will be first time using for a 2 week trip.

Was on the Allure a few weeks ago, did the "seaweed wrap" massage and it was wonderful!

Also bought the pass for the week for the "thermal suite" that includes the heated lounges and several different steam rooms, sauna, rain shower, etc - the space is very disappointing, no windows and very small, no hot tub, and noisy if you have to share the space with someone who insists on talking... If you have ever done the spa pass on one of the bigger Norwegian ships, you will be disappointed in the RC experience.

We are looking at this hotel but wondered how you travelled between the hotel and the cruise terminal? It seems to be on the wrong Alilaguna line?

We don't go until October, so no first hand experience yet - but when you book directly with the hotel on line, you are entitled to one trip you can reserve on their private boat (they have their own dock) - so we reserved that to take us from the hotel to port area.

We booked at Hotel Palazzo Stern - no bridges, Aliliaguna stop right next door to hotel (Ca Rezzonico).

First choice - deck 17

Second choice - deck 8

Well done, Abbie! My granddaughter and I just visited your page and left you a comment...:)

Thanks for the info, I had Giovanni's booked for our upcoming Allure cruise at $30 per person! Just now cancelled my booking and rebooked at the same date/time for the lower price!

My step daughter and son-in-law are in that room when we sail on Allure June 4th, will report back with pics.

Thanks for the info, checked the cruise planner for our June 4 Allure sailing and it is $19 per person.

We like Sabor, but will probably pass at that price.

There is a board called "Cruise Air" in the Cruise Discussion Topics section that will give you tons of great info on Air2Sea - referenced this when booking my first European cruise and was grateful for the info I was able to find.

We visited Sapphire last week and it was perfect. The shuttle was $10 each from main port. The public beach is nestled between resorts so the drive up to the beach is nice compared to other beaches. When you arrive there is a small stand to rent chairs or scuba gear, chairs are $9 each and they put them anywhere on the beach you want, scuba gear was relatively inexpensive, I think $15 to rent the set. There is also nice bathrooms and change rooms and a nice little bar that has reasonable priced drinks, beer $ 3, waters $ 2 and exotic drinks for $10. They also had a nice little menu with a bbq going, with hot dogs for $7 and burgers for $10. The beach is clean and very quite. There were 4 ships in the day we were there and the beach was not very busy. If you want a nice relaxing, safe and secure beach for the day this is the place.

We went to Sapphire beach many years ago, and although the beach was gorgeous, the only bathrooms were more like outhouses - tiny, no toilet paper, dark, not clean - and because of that we never went back. Sounds like the bathroom facilities have been upgraded?

They are open now. Call 866-562-7625 and it prompt #5 and then #2 for a new reservation. They can adjust your price.

Molly361, I am so grateful that you posted about calling in prior to 8am! I am always up very early and saw the price drop, but was going to wait till I got to work to call because I thought they didn't open till 8. When I saw your post, I thought I may as well do it now, called around 6:30am and saved $1,300 on 2 bookings!

Thank you for sharing...love this board!

The crown loft is great but it is still only 1 bedroom - the bedroom is upstairs, downstairs is a convertible coach - worked out great when I travelled with grandkids, but would not be so good if it were 2 couples sharing the suite, it is all open so no privacy.

Also depends on which aqua suite - if it is the one bedroom/one bath on deck 11, 12 or 14, I would take the crown loft over the one bedroom aqua suite due to the CL having 2 bathrooms.

If you are looking at the 2 bedroom aqua suite on decks 8, 9 or 10, and it's 4 adults, I would definitely recommend that as you have the privacy of 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, and an awesome living room and balcony to share!

We are sailing on Allure on June 4, 2017. Dining reservations opened up on August 20 (about 9 months in advance of sailing) and entertainment reservations were able to be booked on January 7 (about 5 months in advance of sailing).

The timing may not be the same for every ship or sailing, but that may give you an idea of when to start looking at your cruise planner.

Enjoy planning your cruise! :)

Yes, the beds in the Master split when we had a CL on Oasis.

Thank you for posting pics of the balcony, we have aft JS 8100 on our Venice to Barcelona cruise in October, have not been able to find much in the way of aft balcony pics!

Would love to see a pic of your room if you can post...

We also did Blue Hole with Liberty tours back in May of 2015, and it was a wonderful day! Not crowded at all, the guides at Blue Hole were entertaining and so incredibly skilled at diving and doing crazy stunts into the water, our driver was terrific - my grandkids still talk about Blue Hole as the best excursion we have done.

I would definitely take the long layover. PHL is actually a great airport to kill time in. Shoopping, restaurants, and if you have access the AA Club in terminal A has a great view of the runway for plane spotting.

I agree, so I called Chase Sapphire travel and had it changed to the 9:35am flight with no problem.

By the way - LOVE your packing lists! I'm committed to learning how to travel lighter, you provide great example of how to do just that - thank you!

For $12, you can buy an full-day Independence Pass from SEPTA, the Philadelphia transit authority. Takes you from PHL into Center City about 25 minute travel time. From the Jefferson station, you have access to the Reading Terminal Market. Also,you can switch to the Market metro line and head to Independence Hall.

Thanks for that info, since we have the long layover we will have a little time to do some exploring!

We did an independent tour with Nacho and Cynthia (NCQ Belize Adventure Tours), went to the ruins at Altun Ha and then a tour of Belize city - it was wonderful, highly recommend! At least check out some of the independent tour options on Trip Advisor - Belize was absolutely beautiful and worth visiting!

Thanks for all of the advice, I am changing the flight to the morning. I have plenty of time to make it to the cruise out of Venice should something go wrong - but don't want the stress of worrying about missing the flight and missing a day in Venice!

I had a flight booked with American Airlines from MIA to PHL and then to VCE for 10/25/2017. Original flight from MIA left in the morning for PHL and had a 6 hour layover in PHL, and I was OK with that. Now i see that my flight from MIA has been changed to the afternoon and gets in to PHL at 5:07pm - connecting flight for VCE (also on AA) leaves at 6:45pm. So now I'm second guessing myself - should I leave it as is, and do you think 1 hour and 38 minutes is enough time to leave between the flights, or should I change it back again to a morning flight from MIA and deal with the long layover (only other choice on AA leaves MIA at 9:35am).

Thanks in advance for any advice!

We put a luggage tag on the walker and it was delivered to our cabin with our luggage.

Did the same for disembarking

We did the same, luggage tag on the walker and it was delivered to cabin with no problem.

My grandson was 9 the first time he tried the flowrider - boogie board - on Allure - he loved it and spent a lot of time doing it the entire week. He got really good at it, learned some tricks, made friends with other kids while waiting on line, and just had a blast! He is not the most coordinated or sports-oriented kid, so I was a little surprised that he took to it so quickly and mastered it - it was the highlight of his cruise!

On the other hand - my granddaughter tried it for the first time when she was 11, she is the "sporty" one and quite the daredevil, so I thought she was going to love it - she did a face plant on her second run and got banged around a little at the back of the flowrider - that was it for her, she had no interest after that.

You just never know with kids...:rolleyes:

My step daughter and son in law had 7688 when we sailed on Navigator - balcony was absolutely awesome, we spent a lot of time out there! Never saw any soot. The walk to the back of the boat was not a problem for us, and well worth that great balcony. I was up one deck in the family suite on the aft, and the view was somewhat obstructed by the superstructure - thought the 7688 balcony had better view than the suite.