NewSalt

I was going to wait to respond to your question until I saw the previous post.

No to Disney - absolutely, positively NO. NO. NO. NO.

We have sailed on four cruises, two with Royal, with my DGSs who have multiple allergies: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish.

The cruise line does a fantastic job with handling allergies. There is a separate kitchen in which they prepare that food, limiting the possibility of cross-contamination. It does limit you to eating in the MDR, but, considering all the other difficulties parents of children with allergies face, that's a minor one. On days when the MDR is not open, we simply asked for the maitre d' of the venue in which we were eating (even at Labadee) and he obtained the pre-ordered meals. I can't really vouch for the taste of the food, but then my tastes are not those of a small child either.

The wait staff and kitchen are fully knowledgeable about handling allergies. I heard a waiter in the WJ mention the possibility of cross-contamination due to utensils to another diner.

There's a reason we've vacationed on cruises since we saw how well they handled allergies on our older DGS's first cruise.

However, the worst day of my life was at Disney World. Although we had fully explained DGS's allergies to the chef, he was mistakenly given gluten-free bread instead of dairy-free. He went into anaphylactic shock, and the restaurant staff had no idea how to handle it. Fortunately, my DD and DSIL used the Epi Pen (they always have several with them), but the ambulance was very slow in responding. Because the ambulance had no means of transporting DGS2, who was about three months old, DD could not ride with her older son. It took almost an hour for Disney to provide transportation for her, but the worst part was that, to spare the other restaurant customers the sight of a distraught mother, they had her wait outside, next to the dumpsters, in 90-degree-plus heat, with her infant. Disney also left us stranded at the hospital, after having told us they would provide transportation back to our Disney hotel. They never called to check on his condition. I've heard so much about the Disney efficiency. We saw nothing but chaos and lack of compassion.

Sorry for the rant. I've asked my DD to tell you about our very positive experiences on cruising on Royal.

Thanks for taking time to do this review. I'm enjoying it very much.

Re the driver stopping for gas - things are just different in the islands. We've had a taxi driver stop and buy produce from a roadside vendor and another drop something off at his mother's house. Our last driver on St. Martin picked up her DD at school while we were at Le Galion and drove back to the ship with her in the car. On the trip to the mother's house, I could tell from the look on my DH's face that he was half convinced that we were being abducted.

(However, in the U. S. we once had a tour bus driver stop for gas only 15 minutes or so after we boarded the bus. I thought that was bizarre. It takes quite a while to gas up a large bus.)

We prefer early traditional dining.

DH has difficulty sleeping if we eat dinner after 8:00 p.m., especially the richer, heavier food we might have on a cruise as opposed to our normal meals. (Why, yes, thank you. I would like some dessert.)

We had MTD on the Legend last winter, and booked a 5:45 table for the entire week. I'm very glad we did because several evenings there was a huge crowd waiting outside the MDR waiting to be seated when we left. People were not happy.

We had MTD on our Princess Alaska cruise this summer because we wanted the freedom to stay in the ports later if we wished, and did not like it at all. On two nights we had over a 45-minute wait for dinner.

We had the best wait staff we have ever encountered (out of many very, very good ones) on our Liberty cruise this summer. After our second meal, they were very familiar with our likes and dislikes and made great suggestions and brought us little treats to try. That's one of my favorite things about cruising and one of the main reasons I don't care for MTD.

When we cruise with our DGSs in the summer, we prefer a table without other diners. The boys (2 and 5 now) have always been well-behaved at dinner, but I wouldn't want to chance a melt-down and annoy others at the table.

Our Alaska cruise was the first time our travel companions had been on board a ship and they were somewhat taken aback when they learned that we would occasionally be sharing a table with other cruisers. However, after five minutes at the first meal, they were deep in conversation with our table mates and loved it after that.

I'd like to go to see her arrival. This way, I can familiarize myself with the port, and the area itself, before I need to travel to the port for our cruise.

 

However, how long with the Anthem be home ported in NJ? Is this permanent, or will it be moved somewhere else, like they've done with the other Quantum class ships?

We'll be sailing on her in July. If we really, really love her, I can guarantee she'll be moved to East Gabib in short order.:(

We've cruised with both our DGSs from the time they were about 15 months old until now. DGS1 is 5 and DGS2 is 2.5.

The wait staff have been terrific with pacing for boys. They would generally bring something small to keep them occupied when we first sat down (usually fruit since they have allergies and are extremely limited in what they can eat). DD does as a PP does and brings along new trinkets to keep them occupied. On only a couple of occasions, DH or I would take them for a short walk before dessert so we could linger over coffee, but that was not often necessary.

There's a lot to keep them interested in the DR, and, when the meal lasted over 90 minutes, we resorted to the hated electronic solution. No one died because of it.

Especially with DGS1, having 4/6 adults paying attention and keeping him occupied made dinner very easy.

I would insist on a table without other guests. In the first place, you're already a large group; adding people would only drag out the meal even more. Secondly, for some unfathomable reason, other people fail to recognize the absolute adorableness of every act of our DGSs and would prefer not to sit with little ones. On one of our cruises, RCCI placed other people at our table. The first night they chose to dine at one of the specialty restaurants, and we waited fifteen minutes before the waiter took our order. You don't need to extend the dining hour like that with a toddler. We asked to be switched to a table for just our family.

Our July, 2016, Anthem sailing is $500 higher, with the 30% sale, for a room for DH and me.

For my DD, DSIL, and 2 DGSs' room the price is $1300 than we paid in August.

We pay through the nose to sail during the summer from Cape Liberty, but don't have much choice since DSIL is a teacher and can't take vacation at any other time.

If I'm traveling to a destination with a climate that's in the opposite of the one I'm leaving (Caribbean in January, Alaska in August), I choose the clothing I want to take with me when I put that season's clothes away. Everything goes in a bin marked "Cruise."

I also have another bin marked "Travel" that contains the things I only use on vacation: over-the-door cosmetic bag, travel curling iron, detergent sheets, travel journal, packing cubes. Only takes a few minutes to go through and determine what I'll need on this trip.

I also have a very comprehensive check list for both of us to ensure we don't forget anything.

Actual packing is done the day before we leave. DH, OTOH, starts laying out his choices 2-3 weeks ahead of time.

Guess who invariably forgets something.

Your pictures are great, but they're making me a little melancholy. We were on the Liberty in August, and it was our best cruise ever. In one of your pictures I can see the big red dog that was at our elevator stop. My two grandsons ran over to pet him whenever we waited for the elevator. We really loved this ship and are sorry that she won't be sailing out of Cape Liberty any more.

I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise on this beautiful ship.

We've traveled twice with our grandsons when they were your DD's age, and it was a great, stress-free trip.

Airlines are used to having children on board and will have milk available. Get a small, soft-sided cooler and a couple of cooler ice packs. You can put them them to in your ice bucket overnight, put them in the cooler along with some ice, zip it up and head to the beach. On board, it's easy to stop by the buffet and pick up milk at any time of the day and much of the evening. You could also put out the room service hang tag for breakfast and request as many containers of milk as you'll need.

Strollers are just about useless at the beach; you can't push them in the sand. Unless you and your DH want to carry the stroller with the baby in it, you're better off wearing your baby. We had something similar to these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1001300421. They were lightweight and easy to carry. Both boys slept very well in them when they were toddlers and we didn't have to worry about keeping them in the shade.

I don't mean to be critical and unkind, but please, please, please stop keeping your DD on your lap when you drive. You'll be driving her around for the next fifteen years or so, and she might as well get used to being restrained now. It's very well worth a few trips with a crying toddler to get her into the habit. My DH was a police officer, and he'll never forget looking into the beautiful blue eyes of a small child as she took her last breath after she had been thrown from a car during an accident.

On our cruise in August, we were very excited to book the same cruise for next July on Anthem.

We booked adjacent staterooms, one for my DD, DSIL and their two DSs, and one for DH and me.

I just tried to book similar rooms on line to see if the price had changed significantly.

I indicated that I wanted two staterooms, and when I filled in the information for the first stateroom for four people, the web site indicated that there were no staterooms available for four people. However, when I changed the information to two people, the site gave me the choice of cabins that slept two to four people; also, these were connecting cabins, something that wasn't available even when we booked last summer.

I'll be calling our TA in the morning to see what they can find out, but in the meantime, does anyone have any idea why I'm getting these conflicting answers?

Since when is accepting an offer of something that is free considered to be "screwing" those doing the offering?

When we began to take more expensive, European vacations, we began to take out trip insurance. Our third trip, the tour company (an older, well-established one) went bankrupt before we left. We got every penny back; those we were traveling with lost it all. That's not likely to happen with a cruise, but since that time I've felt that when I pay for trip insurance, it's still coming out of the money we didn't lose.

We planned a cruise with a group of friends two years ago. Two days before they were scheduled to leave to fly to FL, my friend fell and broke both her wrists very severely, requiring surgery. Trip insurance reimbursed them for their flights, hotel, and the cruise. They were able to do a make-up cruise this past winter.

Last year, DD's suitcase was damaged between their room and the pier. She didn't notice the damage until she returned home. Because she didn't report it immediately. Royal Caribbean declined liability. Travel Guard paid to replace the bag. That alone covered the cost of the policy.

Before we started taking cruises and would drive to locations that were approximately the same climate as ours, I would do laundry the night before and remove my clothes from the dryer and put them in the suitcase. DD, OTOH, would begin to select and fold his vacation clothes three weeks before we left. Guess who always forgot something. Hint: it was not I. (Once it was a belt, once hairbrush, once tee shirts for the beach, etc.)

I have a storage container that holds our travel needs, over-the-door cosmetic bags, travel journal, travel curling iron, luggage tag holders, etc. that comes out a day or so before we leave, and I select what I want to bring

For winter cruises to warm locations, I select what I want to pack as I'm putting my summer clothes away, and store them in one container marked "Cruise." The day before I only have to pack underwear, medications and cosmetics and the like.

For summer cruises, I pretty much follow the dryer-suitcase method I've always used. The exception is OTC meds, toiletries and prescriptions, which I line up a week or so ahead if time. It's much harder to get a cold or allergy pill on a ship than it is on a vacation on land in the States. One $20 bottle of $10 sun tan lotion taught me that.

If I pick up any items specific to our cruise, like a book or toy for our DGSs, that goes in the guest bedroom.

I have separate packing lists for DH and me so we can each check off items as we pack them. Clothes are grouped by categories, casual, formal, with the appropriate accessories in each, like the afore-mentioned belt. There are separate lists for toiletries, meds, electronics, and miscellaneous. It's up-dated after each cruise. I looked at several on-line lists and modified them to suit my needs.

Or maybe Dreamworks just didn't want to spend the money to have it in the UK. Don't they already have it on other ships over there.

 

I am so happy that little kids won't be bored out of their minds as they apparently would have been without Dreamworks activities being onboard (although it never seemed to be a problem on other ships before DW came onboard).

It doesn't take much to keep a three-year-old occupied.

Nor does it take much to tick off a parent who makes a decision about how to occupy said small child based on what a ship's advertising promises and, after spending his hard-earned money, learn that those promises mean nothing.

We just returned last week from a two-week Princess cruise tour. Like you, we left from the East Coast and flew in a day early. It was a last-minute change of plans, and I'm really glad we did it that way. It gave our bodies a chance to adapt to the four-hour time change and also provided time to see a little of Fairbanks, which you won't do on the tour. There's a shuttle from the Princess lodge for $5 pp for unlimited trips all day. I had suggested renting a car and driving up to the Arctic Circle, but DH didn't want to. Maybe when I return with my next DH. . .

We really enjoyed the riverboat. You see a demonstration by the late Susan Butcher's DH's with their dogs and there's a stop at a recreated Athabascan village. The tour guide was very good, with a great voice, and when we turned on the nightly news, there he was anchoring the news. That's not something you see here in the NY metropolitan area.

If you go to the Alaska board, they will tell you that the longer Denali Park tour is much, much better. It was the only disappointment of our trip. It seemed most of the animals we sighted were on the opposite side of the bus, and I got some fabulous pictures of the rear ends of the people on that side of the bus. We saw a couple of bears, but they were two or three football fields away. The ranger did have a video camera and broadcast the animals on the TV screen on the bus; it was almost as good as a show on the Animal Channel. I had some popcorn crumbs on my fleece that were as big as the Dall sheep on the hillside appeared.

There's a shuttle into Talkeetna from the Princess Lodge, which was, IIRC, $10 pp.

Be forewarned; food is fairly expensive in Alaska, and there are few opportunities to get fast food to save a few dollars.

We're glad we booked the land tour first because, after traipsing from one hotel to another and unpacking and packing, it felt nice to settle in on the ship. Glacier Bay was amazing. I was disappointed that we didn't have more time in Juneau. We took a Mendenhall Glacier/whale-watching excursion through the ship and only had one hour at Mendenhall. It was a one-hour hike to the glacier, so we only took pictures from the visitor's center. It seemed futile to hike out there only to have to turn around immediately and return to the bus. The whale-watching, however, was the highlight of our trip.

Vancouver Airport was very organized and efficient. Canadian Immigration and Customs was quick, and the personnel were very pleasant. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the U. S people. We had the Princess transfers and an 8:45 departure from the ship. We actually got off about 9:15 and had absolutely no problem making our 11:45 flight.

Jump on those air fares if you can. They are very, very good. We had a connection in Chicago, and paid extra for bulkhead seats. I'm so glad we did. It was a 7.5 hour trip, and we sat on the tarmac for an hour because a storm came in. Th e return flight was only 4.5 hours, so it was much easier.

I'm glad you decided to do AK first. Hawaii will look much the same in a few years as it does now, but the way climate change is affecting AK, that won't be true there.

It is a magnificent trip. I hope you have a great time.

We just returned from what looks to be the same tour, flying in from the East Coast. Originally, I looked at flights arriving the day the tour began, but at the last minute decided to get in the day before. We were so glad we did. We had a day for our bodies to adjust to the four-hour time change and did as a PP did and took the shuttle into Fairbanks and saw a bit of that city, which we really didn't get to see on the tours.

Personally, I would not fly into Seattle unless I planned to spend more than a day there before continuing on to Fairbanks. Other than the first two/three nights in Fairbanks, you are only spending one night in each lodge or hotel before you board the ship, and packing/unpacking got to be somewhat onerous. It really felt good to unpack on the ship and settle in. (Because of the unpredictable weather, we packed more than we usually would for a two-week trip, so we really appreciated having one bag go directly to the ship.) I would prefer not to schlep all those bags out of the airport and to the hotel and back again the next day.

We we're in Alaska from August 15 to the 29. Most glorious weather ever. Temps from fifties to the seventies, except on the days when we cruised the glaciers, when we wore windbreakers over out fleeces. Beautiful sunshine almost every day, except one when it was misty with the lightest of rain.

Last week I was quarantined for a day on the Grand Princess with what was diagnosed as Type A Influenza. My treatment was much the same. When I requested special foods, I was told I could only have what was on the room service menu--hot dog, hamburger, chili, lasagna. Or I was told that (both by room service and guest relations) until I told them that I would leave my room and get what I needed if they didn't deliver it to me.

But my experience was much better than that of our friend who was on the same cruise. His eye was injured while he was having his security picture taken. It was treated at the medical facility, and when he retuned home, his ophthalmologist told him the antibiotic he had been given was probably out of date and that he had a raging infection because the eye should have been patched and had not been.

I would have to be at death's door before I'd ever use a ship's medical facility.

Why would the rain prevent you from shopping?

Here's the key to Alaskan weather:

 

• hope for the best
  
• plan for the worse
  
• get out and have fun no matter what!!
  

No, no, no! Bad weather has never prevented me from shopping, but if it's raining as soon as we arrive, I'll need to get my jacket ASAP and will have to buy something immediately.

I agree that you can have as much fun wet as dry. :)

Thanks. That was the impression I had from the reviews that I read, but I wasn't sure.

Maybe I'll just hit the mall before tomorrow before I leave.

I planned to pick up a windbreaker-type jacket and also a fleece while we were in Alaska since I need new ones and they would make useful souvenirs. Some reviews have mentioned how plentiful they are.

But now I'm panicking. We arrive in Fairbanks Saturday night and have a free day on Sunday, but the forecast is for rain almost every day at the beginning of our trip, so I won't have time to shop around too much.

Any suggestions as to where I should look for these? (And I'm kicking myself for not biting that cute rain jacket I saw on Royal Caribbean last week.)

We always travel with our passports. However, on our cruise two weeks ago, they "disappeared" between our house and the port. We rushed home, and I grabbed our BC's and my marriage certificate. (I brought the MC because I had had to get a new BC, issued by the state, since the county in which I was born had issued so many fraudulent BC's, notably to the first WTC bombers, and needed to send in the MC to get the state-issued BC).

We had no problem using our DL's and the BC's. For peace of mind, I'd always take the passports, but it really wasn't necessary.

We'll be in Bermuda this Saturday on Liberty of the Seas. I know that the beaches will be crowded on Thursday and Friday for the Cup Match holiday, but I have also seen it referred to as a "four-day holiday."

Will it be any less crowded on Saturday?

I just read in the Bermuda paper on line that most of the stores and restaurants in St. George plan to stay open Thursday and Friday.

We have a 14-day cruise tour scheduled three weeks from today, and after reading your review, I told my DH we can cancel it.

I feel like I've already gone! ;)

Thanks for a great review c