Spike2000

Thank you :) That certainly helps.

Just off the RCCL Jewel and had a great time. Also LOVED the convenience of the RCCL Beer/Wine drink package (1st time buying one)...

Anyhow, I am more than likely going to cancel our Independence cruise in order to book the Glory for the same date. Just a decision based on a lacking E.Carrib itinerary (Independance) vs a solid W.Carrib itinerary (Glory) on that date.

I just noticed however that Carnival has very weak options for all inclusive drink packages. My wife is more-less a non drinker whereas I would love a few cocktails here and there.

Is it accurate that Both people in the stateroom must be on the Cheers Program? Is there any way around this?

I am also traveling with my 3 kids linked up with grandparents in other rooms so I wouldn't get too carried away regardless. (ha) :o

Thanks!

 

 

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Anytime. ;)

Huh?

 

 

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Great response. It really adds to the thread.

I do this itinerary in July and you motivated/scared me into booking the bio bay tour, so I did it before it sells out on ours. I was just procrastinating. It is the first time I am ever doing a ship's excursion, but I am concerned to do an independent with the 3 hour round trip drive to the bay. We (as well as you, it's the same itinerary) are actually in port from 4-11, not 4-10, so we would probably make it, but probably isn't good enough when it comes to possibly missing the ship if a van breaks down. It's too long of an excursion to risk it.

 

Again, I've never been to San Juan and am super excited about this Bio Bay tour. Really not a "fort person", and neither is hubby or kids, so not sure that I would want to go to this port over and over again, like is the case with you. I would love to go there once during the day to check it out, but that 7-2 time sounds horrible....I don't want to wake up at the crack of dawn on vacation, especially when I'm sure nothing is open, then rush back to the ship by 1:30. That would stink.

 

Hope you find an itinerary that you like!!!:):)

Thank you :) ...I am sure that you will have a wonderful time on your visit. I have always had a nice time in San Juan. Probably would have been better though if the stops had been from say....8am-6pm. (just a thought...but i had better start keeping my opinions to myself :D:D) Have a great trip.

I think what you're saying is that it feels like a wasted stop because of the time allotted to be there? I can see that. A 4-10pm stop doesn't allow for beach time and gets in the way of dinner and bedtime for kids. When I was looking at cruises I saw this and scratched cruises with this stop off my list because I didn't like that it got there that late in the day. I read somewhere that it has something to do with having to pay more money to Puerto Rico in port fees for the length of time docked and that it costs more than other islands. I don't know if this is true but it could be. I ended up booking a cruise that sails from San Juan instead of going on one that stops there at night and I found that if booked early enough, the airfare is actually cheaper than it is to Florida. San Juan is beautiful and there's a lot to do there, perhaps next time you should look into a cruise that leaves from San Juan instead of one that stops there and basically eliminates a beach day.

Thank you:) ...essentially, this is what I was wondering about. It must be (like you read) some strange port fees like that. Thanks again.

Don't confuse your personal preferences with universal truth. Of course there's not a requirement to stop in San Juan, that's silly. Sorry you've been to a cruise port so much you're bored of it (first world problem for sure), but for plenty of people SJ is one of their favorite stops. Keep in mind there are thousands of others on the ship who aren't you.

It was a simple question dude....lighten up. Sorry it was 'Silly' to you. It seems like a valid question considering the 'Silly' or 'Stupid' (or whatever the other words that seem to be flying around here) hours that the ships port here. 7-2, 4-10 etc.

That's not typical from my experience and it generally sucks for many people. Look, it's just my opinion and I am allowed to have one. (Are opinions allowed here?) Sorry if there are people that take offense to the fact that I don't care much for the OSJ stop. My bad.

In all fairness, I have always enjoyed the time(s) (for instance, 2 weeks ago) when I have stayed on the beach in Condado. We had a nice dinner and our stay at the Marriott was great. It seemed much safer that when I stayed there ~10 yrs ago.

Regardless, now that Kayaking is not a guarantee at this point (full at the moment), I will more that likely to cancel this cruise for a different route. Having only 2 truly effective stops (St Kitts & Martin) for a 7 night cruise doesn't cut it with me.

Scratch kayaking...just called and excursion is full. :( Fort time i guess.:(

BTW...Coki Beach was awesome on Sunday because there was only 1 ship in St Thomas that day. Very quiet and enjoyable day.

I assume that St Thomas has an 'Off Day' on Sunday's typically. I just wanted to mention this because I have heard that Coki becomes way too crowed on days when many ships are in port.

Hello,

San Juan is OK...but there must be some requirement/necessity that I am not aware of. (is there a requirement?)

I have been to San Juan quite a few times (Just back a couple of weeks ago). We are taking our 3 kids (ages 8,9 & 11) on their 1st cruise in May.

For the 7 night (Independence of the Seas) cruise we have booked, the only ports are San Juan, St Kitts & St Martin. :confused: San Juan always feels like a somewhat wasted stop to me and I have always wondered why they stop there. Does Puerto Rico require that the ships stop there or something similar?

We didn't quite think it over when we booked this itinerary for our kids 1st cruise. I think that we will do the bio kayak tour but with that said, it's quite a bit of work to do with 3 kids. (I hope they like it) I sure wish they would have given us at least 1 more port but oh well...

Even a generic stop like St Thomas would be far more fun compared to San Juan. (just my opinion)

:( Just back from St.Kitts and we are planning on taking our 3 kids to St Kitts in May. I just now received an email from Javin saying that he doesn't have room for us on his tour. (There is a total of 5 in our immediate family and space allowing, up to 14-15 in a group traveling with us)

We are soooo disappointed. Are there any other tours that do the same stuff that Javin does? His itinerary is Exactly what we wanted to do with our kids. We took a basic island tour when we were there a couple of weeks ago and I know that our kids would be so bored with something like that.

I'm bummed. :(

Thanks for any recommendations that you could offer. :)

We were burned as well. (I was NOT happy about it either)

My sail date was 1/31/15 on the Jewel out of PR. I made my last payment on 12/24 and also ironically enough booked an excursion to Jost with the RC REP on the phone that day.

My docs were emailed to me that afternoon (again 12/24) and St Thomas replaced Tortola. I was never notified of the change. (Believe me, I scoured through all my emails)

Sorry for the Tortola loss. :(

Yes it was unfortunate. In our case, the employee did not even mention there was a fee etc. to us. I may have paid it. He just said that this is a private property and that we needed to go. It was extremely strange. We were simply walking up to the interior of The Boathouse towards the bar. If we would have actually made it to the bar, I can only hope that a Bartender would have politely explained it to us. We never once used any of their facilities, sat in a chair etc.

This is the first time that I have ever been kicked out of a beach bar. ...and completely sober at that. :eek:(ha) I am joking about this at this point, however it was very strange and irritating at the moment.

Sorry to sound negative but I was very disappointed with a visit to Boatyard about a week and a half ago.

The cab driver dropped us off at a different spot (a common restaurant down the road - I can't remember the name) for some Carlisle snorkeling. We spent some time with the turtles and visited the wreck as well. No diving for us this time (just snorkeling) ...and had an excellent time in the water.

When we were finished snorkeling, I wanted to go see The Boatyard, have a drink or two & get a cab back to the ship. After trekking all the way down the beach with our dive bag, we finally made it to The Boatyard. (it looked like a fun place to visit while we were there) As we were walking (from the beach) toward the bar to get a drink, a Boatyard employee stopped my wife and I. He asked if he could help us. I said that "My wife and I are going to need a taxi and" ...He immediately interrupted me and rudely said "Sorry sir, this is private property and you will have to go down there for taxi service"...I said "Fine, we were going to have a few drinks here but whatever..." and walked off. He heard me say we wanted a couple of drinks and he couldn't care less that I wanted to have some cocktails there. We walked all the way down the beach SO we could have a few drinks there.

As a business owner myself, it boggles my mind that they have no problem turning away people that want to come enjoy a few drinks on the beach while visiting Barbados. Oh well, we were happy to spend our money in other island establishments. The Boatyard will certainly NOT be on our to-do list for future trips to Barbados. It's a shame because my 3 children are just now old enough to start cruising with us & it looked like it could have been a fun place for them. Oh well...there are plenty of other options I suppose.:cool:

Just a quick word of advice. Beware of being taken advantage of by the local Barbados cab drivers. My wife and I typically like to book a cab to give us a general tour of the islands we visit. After quickly snorkeling w turtles in Carlisle that am, we decided that we wanted to see Barbados in more detail. At around noon at the port, we agreed to take a 'private' tour with a cab for 30pp. He said that he would be our driver and it was 60 total for a private tour. While walking to his car, he ran into another driver and had a short (whisper) convo with him and then handed us over to him. The tour was horrible.

1) We didn't stop ANY of the beautiful beaches that we saw along the way. (I assumed that we eventually might stop)

2) He did stop at an old church that had something going on where we couldn't even go inside.

3) At about hour one, he received a phone call where he stated 'Yes, I am just about there to pick them up' ...We then pulled up to the 'Caves' where he said "This is where the caves are for your next visit to Barbados" ...then he picked up another couple. (so much for our private tour:mad::eek:)

4) The only other stop (besides the lame church stop) was a nice looking overlook on the way to the caves and we were out of the car for like 5 minutes.

5) when we were 2.5 hours into our 2 hour tour, we PASSED the cruise terminal to go to the Carlisle bay pick up spot where we (the 4 of us now) stopped and he went inside for 10+ minutes. He then came out with a family of 6 coming back from the beach.:eek:

6) after dropping the beach people off downtown, we FINALLY made it back to the cruise terminal. It was clear that he was just making his runs and wanted to soak stupid tourists for an additional $60.

We usually have great luck with this method however, this rotten cab driver ruined Barbados for us. We rushed through our am beach time so we could see the island. I ended up giving him only 50 of the 60 bucks that I originally agreed upon and he didn't say a word to me about that. I am sure that he didn't because he knew that his tour was terrible and we were taken advantage of.

If I were giving advice to anyone in regards to Barbados based on my experience, I'd say SKIP any island tour (Unless there is something very specific that you want to see) and spend the day on any of the beautiful beaches. DO NOT BITE on the cab drivers telling you that they will give you a great private tour.:mad: I was very unimpressed with the "This is where the local people get their cars serviced" and "That company makes building supplies for homes that are build in Barbados". Yes, those are some of the dynamic phrases that he used on the tour. :confused:

Go to the beach and find some turtles to swim with. :D

Hello all,

Just back from Cruise and had a great time. In St Martin port we did a day at Little Bay/Divi. Very nice but the artificial reef was 'OK' as far as reefs are concerned.

In May we take out kids on their 1st cruise and wish to find a place similar to little bay but would prefer a better (natural) reef to snorkel at. Any recommendations? I would prefer (if possible) to not have to travel to the French side of the island. Our kids are on the younger side so I would like find a nice calm area w/ limited chance of currents & rough sea.

Thanks in advance.

haha...Thank you. I am hoping that all is the case. I just (like everyone) really look forward to these vacations & I NEED some nice weather to keep me sane. haha :D:D

Darn,

I thought that this was the dry time in the Caribbean? Looks like I am bringing the crummy Atlanta rain with me! :( I am usually down there in the summer (& even peak hurricane seasons) and have typically had great weather.

It looks like I have will have peak rain on the days that we will be in San Juan (70% rain) & St. Thomas.(50%) :eek:

I hope mother nature cuts us some slack! haha. Sorry for the whining. :D

Thanks...I didn't think so. I was just confused that their Radiance Class video referred to 'watching movies by the sea'. Must just be the ROS in the video.

Thank you.

I actually have been talking with someone on Trip Ad-visor and she said that getting out there is no big deal. She said to consider setting up by the yellow lifeguard post and swim out toward that left. Supposedly the spots will be obvious to me. Will give you my opinion when I get back.:)

I know, silly question. I do not actually see the large monitor in any of the Jewel's pictures online however the RCCL Radiance class video refers to a outside monitor.(??)

While thinking about the Superbowl next week, does the JOS actually have a monitor out by the pool that I am missing? (maybe I am just blind -haha):eek:

Thanks.

I am curious about The Boatyard as well. I have seen 3 different prices as well to use their facilities. $50pp (Adventure Beach link I believe), $40 pp per a reviewer on Trip Advisor & $20 pp cover that you can redeem in food and drink.

Is there someone that has recently visited that could tell me the accurate pricing?

Thanks

Hello all,

I am very excited to finally get down to Barbados. I believe we are going to try Carlisle due to the sea turtles that appear to commonly reside there.

Where exactly are the reefs/wrecks/turtles located from the beach? (yes I know, in the water -haha) For instance, "Most Wrecks are straight out in the water behind XX Bar".

What I am getting at is where I should set up my stuff? (behind which restaurant/bar?)

Can these locations be swam out to from beach or must I hire a boat? (Is it reasonable to snorkel out? My wife and I are both divers so we feel comfortable in the water unless there is too much boat traffic etc)

Would you recommend we spend the whole day here or should we (hopefully) get a turtle/wreck snorkel in and explore other beaches later for some 'cock-tailing' in the afternoon.

Again, we are looking forward to seeing Barbados since we have very much enjoyed Curacao and Aruba in the past.

Thank you

Thank you. Ironically, we had planned on renting a home on Cane Garden Bay for the week (for our anniversary). Instead we decided to book a cruise instead since it stopped in Tortola. (our main goal was to get to Tortola again) It was on Dec. 24th that I found out Tortola was cancelled. Yes, we are bummed but will still have a good time. ...and I have never seen St.Kitts or Barbados before so that will be cool. Definitely would like to find some turtles to swim with.

Maybe next year will yield a trip to Myett's & the Soggy Dollar!!?? :D

Thank you...It's been quite a few years since I have been to Sapphire. I am looking forward to hanging there again.

They cancelled the Tortola port on our upcoming Jewel cruise :(:(:( but I do enjoy St.Thomas as well. (I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to visit Jost this time but oh well...)