bptex

I've got a payment due to uplift on the first, hopefully they get it sorted out by then. I'll call and bug them Friday I guess. Yeah I spent over $1000 last week on a road trip to the coast, it was either that or a staycation. I'd much rather have been on the cruise I booked a year and a half ago. 

Just curious, has anyone affected actually seen their refund yet? I got a gift card immediately for Cheers but nothing about the other two excursions, my deposit and I had a good part of the rest paid off through uplift. Before I sit on hold for half an hour I figured I'd ask. The original notice said it could take 3-4 weeks to process so I can't really complain yet.

Their website does not care. However if/when something you purchased with one gets canceled it's a little nerve racking wondering how/when you'll get the money back. Policy says it's in gift cards, ideally you get an egift card e-mailed but I'm still waiting on one from 3 weeks ago and now my entire cruise is cancelled which most of which was paid for with cards. 

1 hour ago, Jzx1103 said:

Bigger question is what are they planning to do about the upcoming sailings now that the ship can only do 10 knts. Are they just gonna keep sailing the Panorama 7 nts with only a stop at Cabo without doing anything else about it?

I really hope not since we've got an 8 day booked over Thanksgiving. 

Another selling point I haven't seen mentioned is that you really never need to leave the area if you don't want. We've stayed in one of the 5200 inside cabins on the Vista last time and they served regular meals in the ocean lounge as well as the BBQ place for lunch on seadays. 

You're within a couple of hundred feet of multiple dining options, bars, coffee places and your own area's pool and hot tubs. There is also nightly live music in the ocean lounge and Havana bar. Then you're one flight of stairs above the main dining room.

It's only accessible to passengers staying in Havana cabins and most of them will be either on their own patio/balcony or poolside. Yes stray passengers might walk by initially but there isn't any reason to go back once you figure out it's a dead end.

I don't think I saw it mentioned but our favorite part of these cabins on the Vista was the proximity to the Ocean Plaza. They setup a breakfast area here almost every morning so we didn't need to go to the lido deck and then for lunch there was the BBQ on sea days. Then at night time after dinner we could watch the shows in the Ocean Plaza or the Havana bar and then be just a few steps from our cabin. Also being beer people we're pretty close to the pub. 

On 11/20/2019 at 10:40 AM, NotTooCritical said:

Hello. Other than the buffet and Guys, what food locations were available upon embarkation? Thanks!

The easy answer is pretty much everything on the Lido deck and the Cucina Del Capitano on deck 11 but it's pasta only for lunch. The schedule posted shows Guy's Pig and Anchor but in my experience it's usually only open on sea days, could be wrong though since I've never been on the Vista. 

Did you visit the Imax theater? I see Joker on the list and it came out a couple of weeks before you cruised, I'm really hoping The Rise of Skywalker makes it to the Vista on launch date. 

I paid my next one off with paypal credit, 6 months with zero interest. I'm guessing Uplift is like Affirm, they are very friendly with their approval rates and the vendor pays them some kind of spiff when you take out the loan. 

53 minutes ago, wms99 said:

My cruise tradition, is first I buy a big mug in the fun shop. Then every morning I have pre-dawn coffee as far aft on Lido as I can be. Just watch the wake and listen to the water. There is a group of the same people, every day, with me. Then we take out our camera's and get great shots of the sunrise. I always make a few friends every cruise like that.

 

One thing I really loved about the Fantasy class ships is the aft dining areas. The larger ships have a pool and bars there but the smaller ones have regular tables. 

If you plan on cruising again in the future I'd do Chichen Itza from Progreso. It is definitely worth a visit but not from Cozumel. 

It's not really about the speed as much as it is the ping time. Under ideal conditions at sea you might be seeing 600+ milliseconds, you are communicating through a satellite link after all. You can certainly get alerts but it'll probably timeout before you get connected to the camera for a live feed. Assuming you have a monitoring package though you shouldn't have a problem reviewing videos but don't expect to be able to talk to someone at your door in real time. 

There is also a street car stop fairly close to the cruise terminal. Very cheap, sort of reliable. They do get pretty busy at night time though, I've watched 3 of them go by me at full capacity before ordering a lyft.

Galveston's water clarity can vary depending on the season. I look at it more like the beaches in New Jersey, Delaware and New York. They are a whole lot nicer than not having one and it's very functional but it's nothing like the clear blue water and white sands in the eastern gulf cities.

On 9/17/2019 at 8:53 AM, crewsweeper said:

No more Fosters either!!  And BTW Aussies don't let friends drink Fosters.  Stuff is rotgut to them.

It's made in Fort Worth, TX by Miller so that makes sense. I bought one on the Staten Island ferry one time, went 1400 miles to have a beer made 5 miles from home. 

On 10/5/2019 at 11:02 AM, ontheweb said:

You also must cross out your identification number from your stock broker.

I did a print to PDF of the single page that shows the stock and pasted asterisks over the id# then faxed it with my booking info. We use ringcentral at work so I didn't have to really print anything. 

USS Texas and the San Jacinto monument are pretty cool and I'd also consider visiting the Johnson Space Center. 

Correct, they never have. On that same note they can only serve alcohol purchased through Texas licensed distributors while in Texas waters and there is a sales tax on it. Once the ship gets about 12 miles out and the casino opens they switch to internationally sourced booze that's obviously way cheaper for them. If you do the behind the fun tour they'll show you the warehousing area with a separate section for Texas sourced/taxed booze. 

Legally speaking you are supposed to pay duty on anything over the duty free amount but other states don't have revenue collectors in the ports, instead they rely on the CBP officers to collect. Which if you've ever really paid attention they generally don't have cash registers nearby. They are looking for narcotics, kidnapped children and anything dangerous that might be coming into the country and really don't care about getting an extra $4 out of every passenger.

Now the TABC on the other hand wants their cut, even for passengers getting on a shuttle and heading straight to the airport and flying to Canada. They also get their tax revenue for any alcohol purchased on board while still in Texas waters which is why Carnival doesn't offer Cheers until the second day.

I just got back Sunday from a cruise on the Breeze and they were way more thorough than on previous cruises. One of my wine bottles was a gift and the foil had some damage. They cut the foil and made sure the cork matched the bottle. Not something I'd normally expect them to do.

I live in Fort Worth and have always driven. It's an 8-9 drive for me and I usually find a hotel with a cruise parking package. Last time we stayed in the Garden District at the Prytania Park and loved it. Parking was free with two nights hotel stay. So I think it ended up being just shy of $300 for two nights. Port parking would have been $17 a day (so $120) and Uber/Lyft work very well but expect $8-10 each way for the quarter or the port. During the day the street cars work okay so you can save a little money but they are borderline useless at night because they get so packed.

We spent a couple of hours sitting in traffic in Mobay, not a good experience. Definitely do the ship sponsored excursions there. Grand Cayman is very easy to navigate on your own though. The tenders drop you off right in the middle of downtown where lots of buses and cabs are waiting.

So a note about the buses. They aren't like the buses you are probably used to. They are more like van taxi cabs and they run a regular route that's very affordable. However there are also people driving the same types of vans that are "tour guides" but not official city buses. We went to Caybrew and were quoted $15 per person by one of the port authority workers that flagged down a van for us. Once we actually got into the van though the driver took us there for the bus price and it was $5 for us both. For the ride back we waited at the bus stop outside of the brewery for 15-20 minutes and it was less than $10 for the ride back.

I've woken up with standing water in my cabin at 4am. The maintenance folks were vacuuming it up as fast as they could but there was water everywhere and I was booted out until it was deemed safe. There wasn't much going on at that hour but the stars were nice to look at. Ended up getting a Canape tray, fruit basket and $100 credit.

It depends on what might be going on in town at the time. You can take the Harborside drive exit right after crossing the causeway assuming you are early enough or keep going straight on 45 which turns into Broadway then take a left at 25th or 22nd st. It's an extremely easy city to navigate as all left turns lead to the port and rights lead to the gulf. If you see a ferry you went too far.