AandBmom

22 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

Do you know what time this conversation took place? We were at Labadee today on Symphony. As of this afternoon, per officers on the ship there are no plans to stop visiting Labadee. However, I understand plans/policies can and do change quickly at times.  

I don't know what time that happened at. It was just posted within the last couple of hours though.

1 hour ago, master029 said:

If you don't mind me asking, where did you see this? I have an upcoming cruise in 2 weeks to Labadee, and would be happy to have it replaced with CoCo Cay!

On a Facebook group for our April cruise

Just read this is another forum...

"I talked to RC today. They said it’s a serious issue and have taken Haiti off upcoming cruises until April 8 and replaced it with CoCo Cay. They said they are most likely going to change upcoming cruises beyond 4/8 as well and our April 22nd one will likely not go to Haiti. They explained that it’s not a separate island but just a fenced off part of the mainland and guest safety comes first.

I agree it’s not as fun of a topic as other posts are but nonetheless extremely important.. nothing like this has happened there before. They have taken over airports and Haiti is reporting basically a collapse of their government."

Sorry it posted twice and I can't figure out how to delete this

I'm hoping somebody can clarify something as i've read differing pieces of info. 

Can we do one alcohol package and one soda package?  Do we have to call to arrange?

We are going on a specialty cruise on Royal Caribbean in april .  (Real party crowd)  We are used to bringing our own refillable cups on resort vacations (ie. Yeti or bubba).  Does anyone do this on cruises?  I don't recall seeing it in the past but might not have been paying attention. 

We are going on a specialty cruise on Royal Caribbean in april .  (Real party crowd)  We are used to bringing our own refillable cups on resort vacations (ie. Yeti or bubba).  Does anyone do this on cruises?  I don't recall seeing it in the past but might not have been paying attention. 

I'm curious if there are stores in labadee to purchase bottles of alcohol?

Cruises are a floating petri dish for covid, flu, Norwalk, etc.  If you're high risk for complications,  then it might be best to avoid during peak sickness times.  Otherwise,  practice risk reduction (hand washing, don't make out with strangers, masks if you wish), and accept that you may come home sick.

18 hours ago, zinman said:

We choose to buy the drink package for the convenience and variety even tho we know not breaking even.  If we see a drink that sounds good but then don’t like it just get something else.  And don’t have to constantly pull out the sea pass card, wait to get it back, sign etc.  We cruise about once a year so just factor it into overall cost of the vacation.  But it’s just personal choice.

How do you show you have the drink package then? Don't you still have to use your sign and sail card?

we had great success booking at costco for $17 might be easier than getting a letter. 

walmart is fairly cheap too

our server brought the cheese spread one night but otherwise we got butter by default.

the cheese spread was tasty 

16 hours ago, Ralphinsc said:

Make sure if they are going to be allowed to buy games with their own seapass that you set limits. We found out that our son may need to be kept away from Vegas and the casino when he gets older on our 2019 cruise. Kid ate througha $100 arcade card and $100 of onboard charges on the first night before we noticed and cut off spending privileges. 🤣

same!

On 4/13/2022 at 9:37 AM, 13cheermom said:

Do you remember how long it took to receive that refund in regards to the actual cruise date?  Also did it come in the form of a check as others have stated?  Thanks!

so i asked about this and guest services said you get refunded for credit added by you or for certain reasons but not the type we had left over from past bookings/cancellations. 

On 4/6/2022 at 8:34 PM, RumpunchGirl said:

I am not able to use my OBC to prepay my gratuities. When I click on the PAY NOW button, it only gives me the option to pay with a credit card.  We were able to buy beverages for our room, a shore excursion and specialty dining. We have a lot of OBC left so I'm confused. Any thoughts?

try the casino trick.

On 3/28/2022 at 10:05 AM, teknoge3k said:

Having lots of OBC is fun! We have $2700 for our upcoming cruise and I have no clue how I am going to spend it.

 

We will not do excursions through Carnival, we use the locals instead. I know we can use it for gratuities, but we've prepaid them and I'll likely leave it as is. 

 

We have hundreds of pictures from ships, as we bought the "unlimited print & digital images" package Carnival had a few years ago. 

 

We have Cheers as part of our promo, so don't need that. 

 

I know John Heald stated we couldn't buy gift cards with some of the OBC. If I can't do that, I'll likely buy a bunch of GoPro cameras or something and sell them on Ebay. 

you can buy gift cards.

Also, i read ahead that you can't dump it in to the casino and cash out, but i did put A$50 in and spun, it went up to $94 and i cashed out for the whole amount in USD.  So you can clearly do this.  Just not sure if there are limits. 

On 3/27/2022 at 12:09 PM, ontheweb said:

No excursions? The one time I was not sure we could use all our OBC, DW bought the most expensive Anne of Green Gables excursion (was on HAL), and my worries were gone.

we couldn't use credit ahead and I wasn't sure if desirable excursions would still have space.  Plus we typically hire locals directly. 

What a unique position to be in..... we ended up with $3,000 in onboard credit b/c of past cancellations, lower prices, etc.   

Here are the best ways we found to use credit

daily tipping amount

cheers package

soda package for kids

kids were allowed to pick treats at the candy shop a few times

sky zone trampoline park for kids

bought family photos

gift shop purchases

some nice tequila to take home

cologne for our teens

some casino play

teppanyaki dinner

pedicures

increased tips

I used the last $50 in a slot machine at 11:59pm on the last night. 

Not sure how it will be going back to no OBC in future , but this sure was fun.  

Take note there's an outside access that has a buffet I believe and then there's the pub inside.  I wouldn't pay extra for it, that's for sure. It was huge let down last week on the Panorama. 

We had the same scenario last week. We chose to sleep 2 adults in one, 2 kids in the other.  We didn't switch rooms officially as we didn't want to affect the need to purchase 2 cheers packages when only he needed it. So we just asked guest services for a 2nd key to each room. You need all passengers at guest services to approve the extra key.  I recommend you go there directly upon boarding as the line up grows all day and last until the 2nd day. 

You can order drinks 5 minutes apart.  It is supposed to be for you.  If it ends up being drank by someone else, it does.  Just saying. 

As others have stated, you aren't "allowed" to purposely buy someone else a drink on your package. 

After reading so much about Stone Island on here we thought we have to check it out.

Well I'm glad it was a cheap trip, because we found it to be quite meh.

The beach isn't the greatest and isn't really all that beautiful.  Especially not next to Cabo or PV.

There are many run down looking establishments.  We ate and hung out at Lety's. Food was good as was service.  But really it wasn't really a great beach experience.  The vendors are nonstop every 2-3 minutes so it's hard to kick back and relax. 

We would probably stay on the ship next time rather than put the effort in to going to a basic beach that isn't really all that nice.  

We had a good experience at Lety's last week.

We did this in reverse.....

taxi from long beach cruise terminal to Avis (5 min away).  Had a rental van for 1.5 days, then dropped at LAX, shuttle to terminal. 

it was super easy.   

Also factor in you can get soda, bottled water to take in to port, milkshakes, lattes, etc if you cancel your bubbles and get cheers.  Those add up too.