cooncat_mom

We’ve stayed at both, and the walk to Pier is only a couple of blocks. Crossing 12th Ave is the hardest part and even that was easy. There were always people around because the stragglers coming off the ship were coming past.

So my cruising buddy and I are booked for the Carnival Venezia on the 10/14 sailing to the Bahamas. There are a lot of excursions for Freeport and Nassau but nothing for Half Moon Cay (hoping for a cabana) or Miami. I’ll keep checking but was just wondering, since we usually sail NCL and Royal and they seem to have their excursions up bright and early, is Carnival usually a little slow posting them?

I got it too…not only don’t I have a cruise booked, but when I looked at my past cruises they’re all gone. Since I’m an Emerald level (almost a Diamond) I’d better rack up a bunch of cruises fast to make sure I keep those points!

She wants to stay in the casino for an hour or two. I figured the shops might be open to us, otherwise, I’ll sit in the casino.

Thank you! Does look like I’ll be wandering around while my daughter is in the casino!

We’re doing a Carnival Venezia cruise in the fall and although we’ve been cruising we haven’t gotten off in Nassau for years! I’m cruising with my daughter who’d like to go to the Atlantis casino and shops (which I assume is free…) and was wondering about taking a taxi. I know there are taxis at the pier but how hard is it to get a taxi at Atlantis? Pity the ship doesn’t do an Atlantis shuttle!

Thank you - good to know! We usually stay at Comfort Inn or Holiday Inn Express on West 48th so it's a quick walk. Sounds like I should just look at them again.

I’ve been in Royal’s cabanas (ceiling fan, waters, loungers, snorkel gear, and they bring you lunch) and NCL’s which have a/c, TV, full bathroom, living room, water, snacks, bar servers, loungers on a covered porch….very nice! At my age the a/c and private bathroom make them top of the line! 😆😆😆 The thing with the cabanas for us is that I won’t get fried because I have shade (and I do burn very easily) and we have a place to relax in. We’ll do a clamshell, but would rather spread out a little more and have a cabana. We’re not ritzy though.

We’re Amtraking in for our cruise in October also and trying to choose hotels without knowing areas. Pre-Covid we stayed in hotels on the outskirts of Hell’s Kitchen which were walking distance to pier but have also heard that the area is very sketchy now. Prices for October are pretty high, too, for a quick overnight stay. We’re looking at Yotel New York and figuring we’d taxi to the pier since we know nothing of the area! (Luggage is not a problem - we both do 22” carry ones with a backpack.) I’ll be following this for some advice too!

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2023/01/03/news/hancock/businesses-sue-bar-harbor-cruise-ship-limits-xoasq1i29i/ It doesn’t seem to be totally settled yet…

That’s what I was thinking too since Miami excursions aren’t available yet either. We are still pretty far out so it wouldn’t surprise me if they just haven’t gotten everything up yet. Good to know! Thank you!

Thank you….Weird - we’re doing an Oct. 14 sailing on the Venezia and the shore excursions for Nassau and Freeport are up, but nothing for Half Moon Cay or Miami. I’ve tried checking the Half Moon Cay cabanas as a favorite on my cruise planner, but it just keeps saying not available on this sailing. Maybe we’re just too late!

DD (my cruising buddy) and I will be doing our first Carnival cruise since 2014 in October. We’ll be doing the Bahamas with a stop at Half Moon Cay and I was wondering how early they put the Cabanas up for rent. Since the sun fries me pretty quickly a cabana makes a beach stop much more pleasant! Thanks!

Umm...I'm a mom and an ex-paramedic still working at a hospital...can you say worry-wart? (Drives my adult kids nuts sometimes. Even if I AM right! 😂😂😂)

Southwest in New England is a mess still, add in staffing problems, planes not in position and the WiFi is still iffy. IF you drive, please schedule walking breaks in (those if you with lityle ones shouldn't be in trouble 😆) - I've had long distance drivers admitted to the hospital I work at with DVTs. One week we had 3 of them admitted. For others, AmTrak can be an alternative....

So did we! Hadn’t planned to cruise in 2023, but DD & I broke down. Haven’t sailed Carnival since 2014 so it will be interesting….

@onlyano Sending a virtual hug…I understand where you’re coming from and I’m sorry that happened. It is awful to be missing a bag but knowing you’re leaving it because you can’t stay longer to search is frustrating- especially if you have some control issues (I do 😆). You sound like you had a really good Carnival employee to work with. It’s not just them though. We cruised Royal in Sept. and had our 2 bags well marked plus had an air tags in them. Gave our bags to the baggage handlers when I arrived and by 3 pm I realized not only did we not have any luggage, we didn’t even have a signal from our Air Tags! The daily whatever it is said if luggage isn’t there by five to come to Guest Services. We did since were were supposed to sail at 5 pm and hadn’t yet. They thought we were foolish. They said to check downstairs (there were two others with the same problem) so we all went down stairs. Not our bags there (I was surprised they let us down there too). We went on to dinner, finally started sailing at 8, got out of dinner at 8:30 pm and when we got back to our room there were two lonely bags in front of our door. Lessons learned? I was glad I pack extra undies and my pjs in my backpack - I could have done the cruise from them if I had to. Also, we are now planning to pack in 20 in or 22 in suitcases so we can pretty easily wrangle our own (note the control issue thing!) Since we don’t do formal night we’ll be fine. Things post-Covid do seem to be somewhat discombobulated. But I’m glad it’s pretty well worked out for you (Can a neighbor hold your luggage for you?)

I’m sorry to hear about the lack of vegan foods, as I’m also quite lactose intolerant and doing our first Carnicl cruise in YEARS come October. (Royal has a vegan appetizer, soup, entree and dessert every evening in their MDR with almond or soy milk pretty readily available. It was very nice!) @phoneman69 Does your wife know that Lactaid now has chewable tablets? You take 1-2 before eating and can have one more 30 minutes later if you’re still eating dairy. I actually had my first Crab Rangoon and slider cheeseburger in YEARS! It’s easy to slip 3 of them in a purse or pocket too since they’re individually wrapped.

We’re also coming in by Amtrak for a cruise in mid-October so will follow this. Pre-Covid we stayed at hotels on 48th St near the pier. Had heard the area may be a little sketchy now so I’m interested in hearing about hotels too. It’s hard to pick when you’re in another state!

Once the return tickets were straightened out (I would just not upgrade seating - should be fine then ), it was a breeze. They had nice air conditioned tour busses to take us to LaGuardia. Our flight was at 5 PM so it was a 4 1/2 hour wait, but that was fine. (The shuttle TO the pier was a small shuttle bus with bad shocks that took an odd route with tons of potholes. As an ex-NY’er it wasn’t the route I would have taken to the pier!)

If you can get a great price, it might be good…we used it for the first time in April when we did a Haven sailing on the Getaway. Short flight from New England to NYC, and they booked us for 6:30 AM the day of our sailing. We landed at LaGuardia (which was still under renovation) at about 7:30 AM. We, unfortunately did NCL transportation to port as well (not again!). We stood at LaGuardia (with no seating or food outside the security areas at the time) until about 12:30. By the time we got to the pier it was a mess. With the return flight, I had called the airline and a nice lady upgraded us. This, evidently did something to our reservation because I couldn’t access it when I checked at 6:30 the morning of our return flight. Fortunately, I called and a very nice man said that this can happen with the NCL flights when upgrading is tried (something about the way they book) and he was able to fix it. We’ll be doing our own transportation (Amtrak being our first choice!) from here on in!

While I know many people prefer the old style muster drills, I preferred the E-muster. The length of time we had to wait to get everyone to the station was so long - and before I had my hips replaced it was painful; and except for “Captain Bob Speaking’s” speeches and announcements on the Enchantment (really enjoyed him) , I totally can’t understand what’s being said! I actually watched the safety channel to go over it. Much prefer the E-musters, but I will put my mask on and comply with whatever they decide.

We loved our Oasis Boardwalk Balcony - 10329. I did post some photos in a thread but here are 2 of them. We sailed 9/2021 when the ships were still at 1/2 capacity, but noise wasn’t a problem for us. We usually go to bed after most activities anyway. Loved watching the Aqua theatre from our balcony and would definitely book it again.

I'm a retired paramedic and it works for me as well. I used to carry proof from the state that I was but no one has ever asked for it.

I tried to search this but got some interesting threads. (Some info on Puerto Rico 🤔) We're going to be at Boston North Station around 10:30 AM tomorrow. Are taxis readily available there? Or will we need to do Lyft or Uber? We usually drive down but had some Amtrak points to use! Thanks!