publicpersona

It absolutely is related to CocoCay. Perfect Day® is registered intellectual property of RCL. No one at RCL would keep their job if they misused that marketing term in any other way.

I'm hesitant about booking through an unaffiliated third party site, although I know that ValueTrips is mentioned by many in this forum and nobody has posted anything negative. How long was it between the time you requested a reservation through VT and you had a Hyatt reservation that shows on the Hyatt website?

Although the ship is offering a day pass to Resorts World, I understand there are day passes including all-inclusive food/drinks. Mention also of a VIP pass. Anyone have details?

About 15 minutes according to Google Maps, depending on which terminal and any port congestion maybe a few minutes more.

The quoted text isn't on their website. It's what they emailed me today. I note also that their app provides a way to tell it that you want to move your VTP from one vehicle to another.

I didn't have the same result. According to VTP ... Unfortunately, the Visitor Toll Pass program is intended for airline travelers who are picking up and returning their rental vehicle onsite at the Orlando International Airport. Per our FAQ section, Visitor Toll Pass will not be held liable for any additional costs that may arise from off-site car agencies. Their website (at least the part of it that hasn't been down for several days) says only that you must pick up and return the VTP at MCO. It doesn't say anything about being restricted to a vehicle you rent at MCO. Of course, the FAQ may say that but that's part of the website that has been down for days. Lesson learned: Don't use VTP if you are doing two one-way rentals between MCO and a port.

We've used them many times. No issues to report.

Yes, that was one option I mentioned in my original post. My concerns about that approach (which may or may not be valid) are difficulties in registering a rental car, and also not wanting to carry a full-sized transponder on the trip. VTP was an excellent solution as far as I'm concerned, except when it didn't work. 😞 By the way, their website is still down. But like they've been saying for 3-4 days, it will be back up in 30 minutes.

At this point, I don't think Avis was at fault. They were billed the tolls based on pay by plate because the transponder I was using wasn't valid. I want to find out why VTP didn't work. By the way, VTP's website is still down.

Following up. I tried VTP and have mixed reviews. For someone doing a one-way rental MCO => PC and then PC -> MCO a week later, I don't think it is worth the hassle. Picking up and returning the VTP at MCO was a breeze for me since I flew into Terminal A (where the lone pickup kiosk is), and return out of Terminal B where there is a return drop also. One issue is that there isn't an elegant way to do multiple "trips" with one transponder. I couldn't leave the outbound rental car's license plate engaged all week while others were driving the same car, but there's no way to temporarily deactivate it without ending the trip, which would invalidate the VTP for the return. As a workaround I "changed vehicles" to a fictitious license plate for during the week. I did not get charged with anyone else's tolls. They do prefund the account with $10, and say they do refund any unused portion, but they haven't yet. I did register the return's rental car plate, hung the VTP from the rear-view, and made sure the Avis toll box was closed. Yet, I subsequently received a bill from Avis for the tolls on the return trip. Since it was just one day, the $4.95 charge in addition to higher tolls wasn't outrageous. Still .. I don't know why VTP didn't work on the return. I had read someone else had that issue and VTP reimbursed the charge. Great. So I was going to their website to see what that process was, but their website has been down for at least a couple days. They are disingenuously saying that the outage was planned (no it wasn't) and that the site would be back up within 30 minutes. Then they post the same message saying it will be 30 more minutes. That's been going on for days.

Yes, there was always a nice list but what they actually were pouring varied tremendously. I had previously found the Mondavi chard quite serviceable, but was unable to get any in many attempts over three days at just about every bar. Mirassou was frequently poured instead, as was La Terre. I like the Ravenswood Zin and tried to get it in the MDR but they poured something call Zin de Zin or some such instead. Not even close.

Just like Seashore, there is a "wine cellar" near the specialty restaurants but it is mostly just decoration. It wasn't staffed and you couldn't buy wine or anything there. I imagine they might have the occasional wine tasting event there, but I've not seen that venue used on two Sea* sailings. MSC isn't wine-lover friendly. Any time I ordered a chard on Easy Plus, even though specifically asking for the "Robert Mondavi Special Reserve" that was on the menu, what they actually poured was whatever random white wine was open. This was sometimes Mirassou, sometimes La Terre(ible), and on several occasions a sauvignon blanc. White wine is white wine. Even Saturday night when the Robert Mondavi was the recommended white wine on MDR menu, what they poured was some generic table wine. To be fair, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity aren't much better, except that in the MDR there generally was better selection than at other bars.

I'm a little confused. Odd numbered cabins are on the port side. Even are on the starboard side. With the bow of the ship nearest the lighthouse, that would not be 10033 as labelled.

We sail Thursday on Seaside and because it's only a 3nt cruise, we figured we could tolerate any stateroom as long as it was a balcony, so we took Bella GTY for the first time. I've only done MSC five times, but have over 70 cruises total, so it is not stressing me out that we still have no stateroom assignment 3 days prior to sailing. Of course, cannot print boarding pass for reason shown below. I plan to print out my booking confirmation and show up at embarkation if for some reason it still hasn't been assigned. Or should I be freaking out? I will call if necessary, but I am familiar with the quality of MSC's shoreside services and IT systems, so I wasn't looking forward to it.

Compared with Celebrity, I think you may be disappointed in Seashore balconies. Looking straight down from the balcony it is likely you will see a deck and perhaps extended stateroom outdoor areas, not the sea.

Nor does Aurea, although at one time it did.

Probably right. Maybe if we hang around a YC suite someone will let us crash on their couch for a few nights.

Same here. It demands immediate action, but you really can't fill it out yet. Our next sailing next week is a guarantee and we haven't been assigned a stateroom yet.

OK. You would know. That must have been a very recent change. And a good one.

On MSC, you'd pay full price unfortunately. On Royal/Celebrity, you pay the difference.

Marketing people have no moral compass. Even worse than "Free drinks & wi-fi" (for an added charge) was Celebrity's "Always Included" campaign that they stuck with for far too long. The thing that made it especially bad was their going out of their way to say "Every booking. Every sailing. Every stateroom." to make it sound like it was without exception. There were, of course, plenty of exceptions.

We'll be on Seaside next Thursday, so enjoying your review. Where is the best place to enjoy a specialty coffee (e.g., Latte with a shot of Bailey's) that is covered by drink package. I see that Venchi has them but that's a 3rd party not covered by drink package. Similar question for a good selection of wines by the glass.

[Talking traditional elevators, not the ones on Sea* ships] If every person got onto an elevator when it was heading in the opposite direction there would be twice as many bodies on the elevator. There would be twice as many incidents of the elevator door opening to a crowd of people who would have to say "I guess we'll have to wait." It's a study in queueing theory.

My pet peeve is people who get on an elevator that is going in the opposite direction of where they are going. As they board, they say (as if no one has ever thought to say it before), "Well, it has to go down(up) sometime" ha ha ha. What these people have managed to do is to double the load on the elevator during an already crowded time, making everyone wait twice as long.

For what it's worth, she had not set up an MSC account but once she did, found that she had indeed received points for the prior sailings even though her Voyager's Club number did not appear on the booking. Nevertheless, I sent off a request to add her number to the booking and I'll see how that goes.