familycruzinnewbie

Just bumping this up to see if I can get some input.

Thanks for the suggestions, we might just bring water/soda with us and pick up a snack at the beach vendors. I'm leaning towards Palm Beach too, there are so many varying reports where one person paid $5 for their chair and another $15. I'm guessing you can leave your chairs to go for a walk/swimming without someone trying to take it over.

I'm actually leaning towards getting a bus or taxi to Eagle Beach or Palm Beach. It seems the availability of chairs/washrooms can be hit and miss. Is there some where near the port or the beach that would be good to pick up some drinks/snacks for the beach.

Cheer407 what did your kids like/dislike about Sonny's tour?

It looks like both Seavis and Proexcursion run a pretty similar excursion for the same price. Seavis seems to have several boats full where Proexcursion just has the one. I'm just wondering what the differences are and does Seavis provide anything that Proexcursion does not? We will be travelling with our two kids 11 and 14.

Hi we are on the Breeze April 2014 with 2 kids 11 and 14. I'm trying to figure out our best options given the late arrival.

One option is the East Side tours with Irie tours which includes beverages and about an hour at Seaquarium beach. I know that there are no extra admission fees with the tour but is there normally an admission fee to this beach and if so what. I'm trying to figure out exactly what I would see on this tour given that at $25 pp it would be $100 for us.

Another option is to just go to a nearby beach. From reading on here, it sounds like we would be paying $20 each way for a nearby beach for a total of $40 plus any beach admission fees. What beach would you recommend, is there an admission fee/ chair rental fee etc? Also what about busses - I thought I read you could go to Seaquarium beach by bus what about others.

We could also consider a west side beach but that sounds like it would be about $50+ each way for the 4 of us.

Any suggestions as to what we should do. Also I guess we will head back to the boat for dinner - but what are out options after dinner, is there somewhere nice (and safe) to walk or shop. Thanks.

Thanks. I know I don't need an excursion for just the beach, I was just trying to decide if seeing the rest of the island was something I should do. We have Curacao the day before and if I do the East island tour with them then I don't know if the kiddos will be up for another tour or not. I know of the natural bridges in Aruba but also that the main one people went to look at collapsed 8 years ago. With the 4 ports, 4 days in a row I am trying to figure out a good balance of activities. Grand Turk is in the morning so probably just Margaritaville. If we get of the boat in the DR it will be for a Saona Island excursion , which would be a long day. If we stay put, then I don't mind a longer activity in Curaco or Aruba. Curaco is 2pm-11pm, so it's either the 3 hr east island tour or take an expensive taxi to a west side beach.

Hi, we are a family of 4, kids will be 11 and 14 on our cruise. We are on the Carnival Breeze April 2014 to Grand Turk, La Romana, Curacao and Aruba. Our stay in Aruba is from 8am-4pm. I'm trying to figure out our options and costs for the ports. For Aruba, I was thinking of either taking a taxi to a nearby beach or taking a tour with Sonny Binns. Though I am open to other suggestions. When we booked the cruise, it was supposed to go to 4 different ports, so I hadn't really done much homework on what to do. Though I know a lot of people really want to go to Aruba. Is there something special that we are supposed to be doing there or is it just that is a port not on many cruises. Thanks

Is the $35 per day fee, per person? Do they have a couple rate or any other day pass deals? I can't see us paying $249 for the week, considering we didn't even make it to the Serenity deck on the last cruise. But I wouldn't mind trying it out one day.

Thanks. It would currently be $500 more for me to upgrade to Spa OV, so I will wait, I have 18 months yet. The quad 4Js 10201, 10202, 10203 and 10204 look similar, though maybe a little bit smaller than what you had. The 2 person 10205 and 10206 look much smaller than the 3 person ones above. There are more 2 person 4Js on 6, 7 and 9 and they also look smaller with the exception of the accessible ones on 7.

I will be in a similar cabin on the Breeze but on the floor below, so it is a 4J and no spa access. I thought if you were offered some kind of upgrade to a spa cabin, you do not get free spa access, or is that just the people that end up there on a guarantee cabin. The next upgrade from a 4J is a 4S Spa Inside which might not work for us. And it looks like your cabin is the only spa Oceanview for 4, so chances of ending up there are small.

When we were on the Liberty we stayed on the spa deck in the family OV, which became a family balcony before sailing. I regularly used the accessible shower in the Spa area. If we are not in a Spa cabin, are there similar Spa showers available to the public?

Thanks. We are sailing in 2014.

Great review. I'm wondering cost of things at Roatan - Cabana VS beach chair rental. What is the cost of magic chair. It looks like you can walk to the beach without the Magic Chair, or am I missing something. Thanks

Hi. I've made my way through the 1st 7 pages and will continue. Great review. We were in Hawaii last summer, a week each in Waikiki, Oahu and Maui. We were coming from Newfoundland, Canada. The flight over was broken up by a few nights in Alberta as DH had business. The way back we flew Maui-Honolulu, with a few hours layover (just in case as flights were on different airlines and not connected), then red eye to Vancouver, Vancouver to Toronto only to find our flight to St. John's delayed a few hours and then to St. John's. OMG, I was destroyed. It took forever to recover and then there was the 7.5 hr time difference.

Anyway I've toyed with taking a round trip cruise there from California. But I am concerned that there is a not a lot of time actually in Hawaii. I wish there was more time in Hawaii as it is so beautiful.

Paul, we just returned from the Liberty April 28, Eastern. We stayed at the Savoy the 2 nights before. I had seen your pics from last year. We liked it, great location and price. Though our 1 BR ended up being in the left building, ground floor, so no separated bedroom, kitchen table, stove (just microwave on top of the fridge) or balcony (2 princess rails). I will have to try to request the main building next time.

I'm wondering about your time dining. We went with 6pm seating. Our service was hit and miss, with a few bad services. Dinner usually lasted until 7:45pm. The family comedy show went from 7:30-8pm, so we were only able to make it for the end. I was thinking about your time dining for next time but I don't know if that would help with the comedy show which was my kiddos (9 and 12) favourite entertainment. Would you recommend your time dining?

Also, since it seems your family has cruised a lot, I'm just wondering what ports, route or ship you would recommend for a 2nd cruise. We had the worst rain in HMC and our favourite port on this one was Grand Turk. We have to get expensive flights from Eastern Canada no matter what, so it could be another year or two.

Thanks. The problem with having a picky husband, is that I will like to try what he orders but he won't be interested in mine. Though I guess if I start stealing too much he could always order another. I love appetizers but rarely order them in restaurants as it's so $$ to order one each and DH won't eat cheesy or fishy things. So we end up getting wings or a salad or something. I'm sure we'd try to eat in the MDR as much as possible. I hear the coffee is better and I like breakfast fresh (it's also the easiest meal to satisfy the kiddos). The kids also like fancy desserts.

I may try most of the dija ever stuff, but that might be in addition to another appetizer. Desserts, I'm curious about bitter and blanc, cherries jubilee and creme brulee. Is there a regular non-diet cheesecake. Dinner- I'm not a huge lamb fan so it would have to be really good. I do like seafood, but not smoked, so not sure about the seafood platter thing. I also don't see the kids menu here. We are all so different, I am the most adventurous where everyone else is picky. DS could live on cereal and toast, DD may be difficult, but she'll eat chicken if it's good and DH doesn't like seafood, creamy sauces, cheese so he'll be limited but still have some choice. I may feed the kids (9 and 12, so not exactly small) early and just go to the MDR with DH if it becomes difficult. I also think the kids are interested in trying room service, so that's another option.

So I've saved all the new menus to my computer. But there are so many choices. And as we'll be on Liberty we have several non dining room choices to try at lunch. Is there anything I should make sure not to miss. I look at some days and I want to try 4 or five things. And then desserts - chocolate melting cake for sure, but are there any there I don't want to miss. Or are there things described as yummy that sucked. Thanks