chellebell91987

I jinxed myself today was on hold an hour trying to change my dining.  Guess they get you thru quicker whwn you're trying to book a new reservation. 

I called yesterday around noon and surprised I wasn't on hold like 2 minutes before connecting but man booking the cruise took forever like almost 1 hr! I tried for 2 days to book online and it wouldn't go thru.  I was dreading calling in. I always use the crown and anchor phone number not sure if that really helps or not.

I opted to cancel my cruise on the day I got the email I hate to and wanted to cruise so bad but explorer isnt comparable with freedom being revamped.  Well just now I receive an updated booking confirmation. They put us in a different room and say we owe money. Our previous cruise on freedom was a lift and shift from 2021 that we were fully paid for. So much for not having to wait on hold. This cruise has been booked since 2017 and been changed so many times either by us or them with drydocks etc that I'm just ready to start over I feel like this booking is cursed! 

I don't even want to get too excited about my july cruise now with the way everything is! 

So now when you re-book you will have to find another kids sail free cruise or will have to pay for the kids because your certificate is only good for you and your bf only bf? Is that correct? Guess I am glad my cruise never had a kids sail free promotion, yet. Ours is in July, final payment Apr 20 so will have to see what happens in the next month. 

good to know thanks. 

I had a day 1 lunch for chops in my cruise planner, but now it is not there. We are cruising in July so I highly doubt it is sold out this early, only the day 7 is showing which is now no longer a sea day. Is anyone else able to reserve a day 1 chops lunch for freedom? I see Izumi looks to have lunch on day 1, but its so much more money. I would rather not fight over a table for lunch  at WJ its always so crazy on the first day.  

I'm looking at the post cruise excursions with airport drop off like san juan on your own, etc. The ages listed are 3-99. Why not under 3? Will my 2.5 year old really not be allowed? 

We are booked on the freedom with no sea days. I am excited I don't care for sea days! We have been to all of the islands before so we can take it easier than normal. 

On 3/9/2020 at 6:24 PM, MightyMike said:

I like San Juan. You get a 1000 mile head start to Southern Caribbean islands. Since I always fly in a day early, it's like adding an extra port day to the cruise. 

this is what we are doing. We fly in Fri (for our Sunday cruise) after work at a VRBO rental in Old San Juan right next to Barachinas. Its like 2 vacations in 1. Also the ships leave later in PR than FL. We still get to the port at 11-noon time tho not missing out on my ship time! 

We live in S Florida nothing too exciting for us here except we would save on flights. For us It is actually cheaper to fly to SJU from Ft Lauderdale and cruise from there than it is to go out of the Florida ports even with paying for the flight. We prefer San Juan even before we lived here. Southwest has good deals if booked at right time. The port taxes are usually cheaper on the PR cruises. We also love that you see more islands than on the normal eastern or western. Our cruise in July is all port days I am so excited. I do not care for sea days. This is our 4th Puerto Rico cruise. When we lived in Charlotte plane tickets were so expensive even though it was direct to SJU that we ended up booking MCO (orlando) to SJU using jet blue there and spirit back and were going to drive to orlando, but then got a good delta deal from charlotte to mco and still was cheaper than the original flight out of charlotte. (Crazy I know but thats what I do!) 

The one is st thomas allows for tandem riding but its so much more money! Maybe I'll leave the kids on the ship at kids club and just my husband and I go. Thank you. 

Looking at doing the zipline with my 6 year old son. It looks terrifying and fun at the same time. Anyone ever take their 6 year old and how did they do? I don't think this one offers tandem like the one is St Thomas but its about half the price! 

do not like the blue! yuck

I saw the email last week and got so excited. I don't care for sea days but after such a port intensive trip its nice to have one at the end. But we've been to all these ports before so we can take it easy at some. Check too for your barbados day and st lucia being switched. Mine is July 19 cruise not only did the time in Barbados change but the date was switched. Luckily I noticed and was able to change our private tour.

Weve done Giovannis twice for embarkation lunch. Made the mistake on our last cruise with 8 of us having to find a table in WJ with all our crap, never again! Booking chops lunch for our cruise in July. 

I thought having the dock was going to help lessen the misses. I am 1 for 2. We missed once when we were on a 7 night eastern and our only other port days were st thomas and st marten. That was a lot of sea days! 

we rented a minivan since we had 6 of us. It was cheaper to keep the car for the week and pay parking at the offsite lots than to do 2 one way rental cars. Worked out so we could keep the stuff we did not need in the car like the kids carseats. We flew in 2 days prior. When we went 2 years ago I thought uber or lyft couldn't operate on a part of the trip either on the island to airport or airport to island, but maybe it has changed. 

Barbados  look up calabaza sailing cruises. Nice limited size catamaran trip to turtles and snorkeling and food and drinks are provided. We went Thanksgiving a few years ago and will go back in july. 

St thomas we did an excursion private I believe sunny listen. Open vehicle. Loud music! Second time we took ship sponsored tour to st John's island andbeach there was super rough. We tend to book ship tours when going to other islands like ruins in cozumel and st John at st thomas so we are covered in case getting back to boat is taking longer. (Ruins in cozumel the ship had to wait for us that was an all day tour!) 

St marten we did Bernard's but he's gotten so big it wasn't as personal the second time.  The next time we rented joyce I believe was her name private and she took us all around and to a nice restaurant. 

Dominica I think it was Levi with bumping tours we went to pirate of caribbean cave.

This sat will be our second cruise on adventure and third cruise from puerto rico. We just were on adventure in january. I love going out of San juan it's like another port day to me. We have been on both navigator and adventure. I love the more port intensive itineraries. I also think the time you are in pr isn't very long with the navigator right? Labadee it's nice but I really don't need to spend all day at the beach.

Love this! Our same itinerary for Sept. Can't wait!

So true!! We got knocked down by a wave on our last cruise off went my glasses sure was lucky that my husband found them thanks to the help of a guy standing nearby helping us point them out in the water.

I think I am going to bring 2 pairs for now on!

If you wear glasses, an extra pair of your prescription glasses are good to have along. ;)

 

LuLu

I tried to do this last time I was on board. Had a reservation already made on a previous ship that I wanted to change and also book another cruise to do a back to back. They wouldn't help me with the existing reservation, which doesn't make sense because I booked with a loyalty ambassador onboard! They gave me a number to call to royal and would let me use their phone for free, but I ended up not doing it.

Maybe it was just the person at the desk at that time

exactly what I was looking for...we are on this sailing in just a few weeks!

Side note: A couple of nights we just told our stateroom attendant it was okay for the room not to be turned down just to give us the papers. But there were times we would put out the card for him to come in and we would come back from dinner or breakfast and it wasn’t done or he was in the middle of doing it. The first night my husband asked if we could have ice it took a while for the ice to come. My husband also wanted a pillow for Levi and at first he wouldn’t give us one because of it being a liability so my husband said it was for him and then he gave it to us. All of the stateroom attendants working the hall were super friendly to Levi and us and would always so hi when we walked by. We were so tired from the sun that we decided another early night was in store so off to bed we went.

Side note: I purchased to soda package. I loved the convenience of the freestyle machines. No more going up to the bars asking for just a soda. Plus they tasted better than the bar soda. The last day I asked for a coke at breakfast it was horrible too much syrup I think and not enough carbonation. So at dinner when she put my coke down it looked dark just like the one at breakfast. Yep same nastiness! Didn’t drink that. The other nights it was okay. While I just drank coke or cherry coke I did see several people doing the flavored water also the Pibb products were a big hit. The first machine we used was in the arcade and they were out of everything except the diet/zero products so I had to settle for a cherry coke zero. The last day I did notice one of the other machines out of Pibb. When I would put my cup up there it would say unlimited refills until 6/1/14. I wonder if they will eventually fix this. If you go on a b2b do you need to buy 2 packages??

Next up St. Martin