celoplyr

Kanazawa is a major Japan tourist town (I had a boss who went there once for a conference and she wasn't happy because it's hard to get to but everyone loves it).

Have you tried wikitravel? That's my major go to for looking up destinations.

I don't see any listed for sale besides 2 in Australia and some cruise tours (until November).  Sure would be nice if they made an announcement.....

23 hours ago, travelhound said:

I had a non-refundable deposit on a 9 night cruise and just changed it to a 7 night, using the RCL "Cruise With Confidence" offer.  The only catch is that you have to rebook on another RCL cruise.

Apparently I'm not that smart because I booked the 7 night already- so we have two cruises, and the cabins we want in each.  That is what makes my mom feel better, and so I'm happy to do it 🙂

Im waiting to find out what will happen on our 9 day radiance Alaska cruise in May 2021 from Vancouver. We don't really want to go on it (we found a 7 day one that better fits our personal schedules) but it's a non refundable deposit, so I would prefer if they cancelled. It's round trip Canada, but only goes to US ports! It was still on the website this morning. 

On 11/7/2020 at 3:43 PM, cb at sea said:

Just hold onto that "teens" card....NO ONE can get off the ship without it!  Of course, they won't be able to access their cabin, either....but hey, you can get an "extra KEY CARD" just for them to use to get in and out of the cabin...no "charging" ability at all

.  If they are THAT untrustworthy,  that's probably the best option.

 

Not a bad idea!  I'll see once I meet her, I guess.

On 10/15/2020 at 7:55 AM, klfrodo said:

I think the assumption has to be that if she wants to and has concerns about the teen leaving the ship unaccompanied, that she can and will find a way.

Sure, there may be ship security protocols in place, but if a kid can get past TSA, boarding agent and get on planes without having a ticket, a teen can sure as heck get off a ship.

Yeah, I think my family is worried because we don't know the teen well, we feel very responsible for the entire family's trip, and the teen is way more rebellious than I was at that age.  My parents would have killed me for even thinking I could leave with someone else. (I was a good child!)  In addition, this poor kid is going to have me as the closest in age in the party, and I'm old and stogey and way more interested in taking photos than doing things on a shore excursion. The rest are her grandmother's age and aren't in good enough health to do much of a shore excursion either.  I'm also wondering if I could ask her what shore excursions she would be interested in.  But, of course, she alternates wanting to go and not wanting to go...

I mean honestly, I want to escape my family too 🙂 

Hi! We are going to try to do a family reunion cruise next year.  It will be my mom and dad, 3 more of my mom's siblings, myself and my aunt's grandchild that she has custody of.  I'm 37 and will be rooming with the grandchild who will be 15.  I feel like we will probably just never see her because she'll be in the teen club, but my mom is paranoid that she will try to go off the ship with another family at the ports.  We are cruising RCL. I assume that there are security systems in place- can you help me out?

Her grandma and another aunt are rooming together because they need an accessible room, and I didn't want to take up multiple rooms (and have 3 rooms with solo cruisers).

PS- I am really not looking forward to this cruise 🙂 my family doesn't even put the fun in dysfuncational....

Im pretty furious. I was on the Brilliance sailings that got switched to the Jewel for my family reunion cruise... 4 cabins and I had used up my OBC from a last minute cancelled cruise to purchase shore excursions, drink packages, internet, etc...

All of it cancelled. All of it higher priced now- I estimate (although shore excursions aren't in yet) I would have to spend an extra $400 to get the same stuff. I called. Supervisor "yeah i mean I can't offer to match the price you paid, and i can't give you onboard credit to make you even, maybe thanksgiving will have the same price". Um. No. $40 pppd drink package is rare, and is mostly because rcl isn't running. Yes $43 pppd is good, but with 8 people thats an extra $250.... On a switch that they did! I can't even get a full accounting because they don't have the shore excursions in yet. 

And they totally messed up our rooms- it's a f'ing sister ship. Why did they not give the exact same room assignments??? And they gave 2 couples 2 rooms we had, but not the same 2 couples. (My parents got my uncle's room?)

I have the number for corporate and will be calling Monday. 

9 minutes ago, lovelife said:

Just got notice that our 5/16 and 5/22/21 Brilliance sailings have been moved to Indie for same dates and itineraries from POM.  We have the option to cancel of course.

I just got notice that my October 2021 Brilliance cruise switched to the Jewel- this actually makes my family happy (except for me, I want to try new ships, but my Dad loves the Jewel!).  I guess it's not a 1:1 swap on ships.

1 hour ago, cruisegirl1 said:

Simply tell them what is paid for and what would be their financial responsibility.   
 

Perhaps I am naïve,  I can’t imagine that anyone would expect you to pay for their on board spending wishes. If so, what would stop them from going into a store and buying an expensive necklace, having 10 spa treatments, going wild in the casino, ordering drinks for everyone in the bar etc. 
 

I don’t understand all the conversation. We are not talking about kids, we’re talking about adults.

 

Simply tell them what is paid for and what is not. 
 

I don’t understand the issue.  Am I missing something? 
m

yeah, I would say that she's not malicious, but has no idea of spending.  Plus the cruise ships are really good about getting you to forget about the little stuff adding up to a lot.  Throw in my mother saying "this is being paid for by [another aunt's estate]" and the two aunts didn't get along really well (with money being a MAJOR component of that), and an addictive personality... I just worry.  Like I can see her having a drink or two a day, play some bingo, get a coffee, oh look the tshirt sales and gifts for the grandkids, and be at $300 for a week.  That's a lot of money for this aunt who is living on social security only and has a lot of medical bills.  Could Mom or I cover it if needed? Sure, easily, and without a lot of irritation, but if that added up to $800 it would be a lot more irritation!   

3 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Could you pay for those things pre cruise, and then have the aunts or whomever they are sign in for their own onboard expenses with their own credit or debit cards? Without hurting feelings. 1 idea

 

My sister is lower IQ and I set it up so she cant charge. If she wants something she just asks me and I charge it to my account. 2nd option

 

I do think you can set it up for a limit, but have heard of times it's not cut off at the set limit. I would do #1 or #2 above. 

We are hoping to do idea 1.  That's my mom's hope (it's all of her siblings we are going with).  I just don't want my poor aunt to have a heart attack after a week of "oh this is so much fun, yeah let's do bingo, oh those drinks, etc".  A complication is that I don't think she even knows her own finances as her daughter does it.  

There's also a lot of underlying family drama, mostly about money, that I think is stupid.  Of course, I'm on the "you have it so easy side" of that drama, so I guess I really can't talk.  But I am going to try not to exacerbate it...

I know we aren't cruising soon, but I was just wondering.  We are doing an extended family cruise next year where my family is paying for the extended family (it's a whole thing, but we are by far the better off family).  We are paying for room, gratuities, some specialty dining, internet, shore excursions and soda packages for the kids.  We will also book the scooters for the 2 people who will need them.  Oh and we are getting them to the port.  

Now my family has been on cruises before and that covers everything but a couple (5ish max) alcoholic drinks and some shopping.  We are pretty frugal.  

The other 2 aunts, well they have never been on a cruise, so we don't know their style.  One is pretty frugal, one is....less so.  She also probably doesn't have the financial backing to not be frugal on the cruise (she relys only on her ex husbands social security).  And I don't really know her that well- that's part of the reason why we are taking the cruise.

So a couple questions.  If it was a cruise paid for by other people, would you assume that they were paying for onboard spending? If not, how could we communicate how to keep track of spending? Is there a way to give them like $100, and have the card cut off if they exceed it? I know you could do something like that for kids, but this woman is 78, so she passed "kid" age at least 5 years ago 🙂  

Thanks for your help! I figure a year to figure it out might be needed!!

3 hours ago, zekekelso said:

Some of the love boat plots are tough to watch these days, but I’ll never get tired of the opening theme song, the shots of the ship, pier, loading, etc. The guests walking on the ship and being told their cabin number (is that really how it worked?)... it’s all so fun. 

It still happens on smaller ships! 

I've taken 2 different expedition cruises and i have gotten told where my cabin is when I am on the ship- and who my roommates are! They are so different than big cruise ships although i like both. 

7 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

@celoplyr

 

I assume that this is just for your personal amusement, and will only be used within your family?

 

The name is trademarked.

 

🙂  

 

Just FYI.

YUP! Also, to be perfectly honest, I'll probably print it at Fed Ex, but just a copy.

1 hour ago, cruisefan0110 said:

I do like the countdown option. Everyone starts with $20,000.  Each ‘property’ has a booking value. From inside guarantee up through the suite levels. Once ‘booked’, then the various properties become cruising costs. Start with something like drinks and bingo up through ship tours and high end dining. Instead of collecting $200 for passing go, you pay the daily gratuity. Last person with money wins. 

I like it too, but I was going to do a "how many days cruise are you going on" and do like $500/day. Each trip around the board would be a day so for a 7 day cruise, you would do 7 trips around the board, starting with $3500, and then tally up the money.  THe railroads can be shore excursions (I was thinking a deck of each type, with a random cost amount), and maybe at the end everyone gets to see what kinda of cruise they would have had.  I think you would need to have some incentive for spending money so people aren't just passing on everything, etc.

Ok CLEARLY I'm way bored.

AND I could make the typical monopoly property cards as well.  The idea of having activities on the properties is what the Arizona edition has, so it fits within the theme I think. That way you get 2 games in 1 board!

2 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Great idea, but its really not Monopoly anymore,  it's just a bored game

Let's think of it as a monopoly board with 2 variations. One, monopoly, and then another board game using the same board. I had a lot of ideas last night!! The variation may need to be tested to see if it works. That's the risk with making a new game. 

1 minute ago, sassyshar said:

Is there no Casino?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was going to do casino as part of the chance deck. 

3 hours ago, Eddie Wilson said:

 

Celoplyr,  

How much time do you have?  Here is a difficult challenge.  Reverse the logic of monopoly, that being buying properties and collecting $$ for passing go, to each player starting with a bunch of $$$ and pay them out as you play. 

 

Sort of like paying gratuities each time you pass go.  Or buying a drink package, costs $75 per day, but with a 33% discount it’s only $65 per day (fuzzy math).  

 

And you will need better tokens on your game board? They all can’t be ships.  How about a slot machine, a mini towel animal, a valuable prize keychain.....?

 

The game would NOT be won by the player with the most money, it would have to always end in a tie, because some can spend big bucks, some go frugally, and all win because.....well....most people disembark feel like winners for going. 

 

Eddie

 

This....this is the brilliance I was looking for. I'm wondering, maybe a straight monopoly, maybe a variant. I have a while and a lot of brain power. 

What if I did it basically where each time you landed on something you paid for the experience... And then you get experience points for each thing you do. Experience points could be decided each game (bar drinks are 1 point for one game but the next game they could be 5). Hmmmm.  Challenge would be making the same board work for both. I now have a project!!

I do like the idea of Labadee and Coco Cay (I looked at the official one).  We haven't been, but we are scheduled (last year it got cancelled). I was going to do captain and cruise director, but didn't want to "buy" a position.  

I will post when I'm done.  🙂

So I made Windjammer the biggest because my father LOVES the windjammer.  It's an unhealthy obsession.  We don't do suites, so I was hoping to stick to stuff we have actually done.  Where did the actual monopoly come from? Is that real???

OK, you know I'm bored when I'm considering making a cruise themed monopoly for my parents (we are big board game people and I've gotten them into cruising RCL, and our cruise was canceled so I want to give them something to do).

We've been on Radiance, Jewel, Harmony and upcoming on Brilliance (they like the same ships).

What "properties" would you make? I have a list, but it's not that great and I'd love to crowd source. What I have is below:

Brown (Dark Purple)

§  ?

§  ?

Light Blue

§  Solarium

§  Central Park

§  Whirlpool

Pink

§  Raspberry Collins

§  Nutty Scotchman

§  Drink of the Day

Orange

§  Balcony

§  Promenade

§  Bar

Red

§  Bridge

§  Galley

§  Engine Rooms

Yellow

§  SeaPlex

§  North Star

§  Carousel

Green

§  Main Theater

§  Aqua Theater

§  Studio B Ice Skating

Dark Blue

§  Main Dining Room

§  Windjammer

Stations

§  Harmony of the Seas

§  Jewel of the Seas

§  Radiance of the Seas

§  Brilliance of the Seas

Utilities

§  Embarkation

§  Debarkation

My bright side is that I don't have to be the one making the decisions on this.  I'm currently arguing with my (elderly) (slightly compromised) parents about the measures that they are going to be doing during this outbreak. As long as they can't go on the cruise, it's a battle I don't have to fight.  Off to another discussion on how "stay out of stores, I will do your shopping for you" does not go away if you're "anxious and want to get showerheads".  Especially since they are for my house!

I didn't read the whole thread but... if you don't have passports, you can get home from Mexico JUST FINE.  You don't need a passport to go through a land border.  You can get from Cozumel to Texas in like 30 hours of driving time, they have buses I'm sure.  

Although I think this mother only cared about doing things the way she wanted, not finding solutions so that this didn't get this bad!

I really like the Raspberry Collins.  It doesn't feel so sugary, just like a really good tasting drink.  

They are a PIA but you need to follow the instructions on the gift card (it should have an email).  Send them in AT LEAST 4 weeks early.  I usually get mine for 10% off, and I can go through a lot of hassle for 10% of a cruise cost.