FlamingJune1967

Thanks everyone,

Normally I would take a benzodiazepine to help me sleep, but my doctor has cut me off, even though I've been

extremely responsible about taking them. Someone in PA govt has decided they don't want doctors to prescribe

them any longer. I'm working on another plan now.

I also regularly take benzodiazapine to help me sleep (Xanax). Last month I switched to these gummies I found on Amazon:

Vitafusion Extra Strength Melatonin Blackberry, 5mg,

and found them to work nearly as well.

(Just thought I'd share since I had previously tried melatonin and it had not worked for me, but these do.)

LOL....I will never understand the busy bodies who think they have to interject themselves into the fine details of cruise line labor like some grand ambassador.

^^THIS^^

I wonder if they do this in every area of their life.

Do they query the grocery store checker to see if he/she feels overburdened by their workload? Is management compensating them for their daily commute to work?

Do they ask their dental hygenist if she feels happy in her job or if she does it because it's the only job she is trained to do? How many family members is she supporting with her job?

I actually get angry when cruise ship employees play the "whoa is me" card. Who in the world goes around telling strangers their troubles - unless it's to manipulate them into a bigger tip, of course.

VASOXFAN:

Have you sailed Celebrity before?

You are in for a real treat!

Good for you!!!

I'm more concerned with the 3 adults and 2 children in an Elation inside cabin. We cruised an inside cabin with 2 kids on Fascination (sister ship) and were shocked at how little space there was - and this was not our first cruise on this class of ship. I cannot even begin to imagine adding another adult. As it was we had to practically crawl over each other to get to anything. I know folks say you are not in your cabin long enough to care - but however you look at it you still have to sleep, shower, dress and poop - all in a room not much bigger than a standard walk in closet!

Thanks for all the tips, guys!

We did NOT prepay for this excursion - and the operator is one of the highest rated here and other sites, so I'm going to trust they know what they are talking about when they set the time.

I feel reassured and will not stress :)

It's a 5 min. trip. No worries!

Wow! That's a quick trip. Last time we were in Grand Cayman it was raining and we never went ashore. Sounds like everything will turn out fine!

Don't stress too much! The person you bought your excursion from will almost definitely not be a rookie and leave because you are running a few minutes late! These folks understand the process and will surely accommodate your getting off the ship!

thanks! I just looked and there are only 2 ships in port that day - both arrive at 8 - so anyone else on the excursion will be in the same predicament as we are! Gonna take your advice and just not stress.

sorry, but La Quinta, upscale?

Reread the comment. He said if you are NOT looking for upscale.

We stayed at La Quinta Miami Airport East this past December and were very happy with our room and the service. The free shuttle was nice, but next time we will just Uber. There was a bit of standing around waiting for the bus, and then we were crammed in with other folks. The Uber back to the hotel (they let us park our car there for free!) was reasonable (around $25)

We will be in Grand Cayman at the end of November on the Dream, scheduled to dock at 8AM (local time).

We have an independent excursion scheduled for 8:45.

I have been trying to get FTTF for a few months now, but have never seen it available.

My question is: Can we make the 8:45 meet up time if we don't have any kind of priority boarding privileges?

Do I need to keep trying to book FTTF, or can I reasonably expect to be able to catch a tender before 8:30?

Thanks cruisers!

We prefer twice a day because of the activities we participate in throughout the day. Also I want to point out when we first started cruising we had 4 in our room. Each day the two additional beds were folded away and the bed linens were removed from the couch. From the video and photos I see posted now this no longer occurs.

 

We are happy with the service but it is easy to see service was better when the staff to guest ratio was higher.

 

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Wait...what?

They no longer put away the beds during the day?

That is just NOT ok.

The cabin was great. It is close to the elevators but not loud. I liked being down low as I could feel more movement on the higher decks.

 

You can call Carnival or your booking agent to request a new cabin. I tried that but my sailing was fully sold it and there were no cabins available anywhere on the ship.

 

Here is a photo of the vents. They are circled.

 

And the view

 

 

 

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Thank you so much for these!

I am torn... looks like there is no way around the smell problem other than to move to another cabin higher up... and we were really looking forward to being closer to the water.

If the smell is mainly an issue when in port, then maybe we can live with it. We tend to use the balcony more at night and on sea days.

At least it's not tobacco smoke :)

You can change to a different Cove without a penalty. Try a mock booking of the same cruise and see what cabins show up as available. Just be careful about cabins under the galley too..

Thanks for the info. I did a mock booking, and apparently all the 4-person Cove balconies are sold out.

Oh Well - I'll pray for the best and deal with whatever. Just my luck to pick the one smelly cabin on the ship - lol!!

On the Dream Feb 19th sailing and there is a terrible smell on Cove Balcony 2279. I tried to switch before the cruise when I saw this thread but the cruise was sold out. I notified guest services and multiple people and departments came to the balcony to "smell" it. All left after experiencing it and promised they would work on it.

It seems they cleaned the vents over this cove at some point trying to help but until they shut off the exhaust the smell will still there.

 

Good news:

My mom had cabin 2275 and her cove was very pleasant.

The bigger the breeze the less the odor or the odor only appears ever 10 seconds or so and then is blown away. So when sailing you will notice it less and the same goes for tender ports like Belize.

 

Bad news:

The smell is bad obviously.

The cove was pretty wet on embarkation and first two days. Once we left our first port Roatan, it seemed to dry up. We did not have a drain anywhere on our balcony. It was wet again (which means standing water) on debarkation day. I think this is from run off from washing decks and not sea spray. I went out several times when we were at full speed and the water was not splashing or spraying up on me.

 

 

 

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Ugh! This just makes me sick since we are in this cabin (2279) in December. I hope whatever the problem is fixed before then. I booked Early Saver, so not sure it can be changed without penalty. Anyone know?? BTW, how was the cabin otherwise?

Sorry guys, I wrote out a whole post, then this new and improved website decided I was a robot and deleted it. Lesson learned, I'll just have to copy and past from MS Word, since our forum is now as clunky and broken as my last car. I'll try again tomorrow.

Oh! I know how frustrating that is!! Thanks for sticking with it!

If the wine has a screw cap do they still charge you the corkage fee? How;) much is corkage? Thank you!!!

No... they charge you a SCREWING fee.

;pSorry, couldn't resist!

 

and "The toilet water is cleaner than that water coming out of the faucet (as tested & proven on a few different news agencies).

 

 

Again, can you back up that with any specific citations?

 

 

These are pretty serious statements, I am doubtful of them both.

I have no info on this, just pointing out that I believe the poster was talking about Airplane Bathrooms and not Cabin Bathrooms

We are very much in a similar situation as you, but we have exclusively sailed RCCL 5 times. We are also taking our first cruise with Celebrity on the Equinox this summer.

 

We love RCCL, but are looking to try something new and different. The S-class ships get such stellar reviews that we are very much looking forward to our sailing. My primary concern is going to be the age of the fellow passengers. (kindly, no offense anyone!) We are in our early 40's, and are sailing with 4 other couples of similar age. We'll make our own fun, but I just hope the feel of the ship is not too sedated. The focus of this cruise is relaxation, and I'm sure we'll get that.

 

Dan

We are a little older than you - I just turned 50 - but we worried about the same thing before our cruise in Dec. (Eclipse)

Turned out to be absolutely TRUE - I'd say roughly 75% of the passengers were older than us. Most MUCH older.

You know what? We absolutely did not care! We met a nice young couple (much younger than us - lol) and spent the evenings with them just hanging out and having fun. We also met a couple who had been married for 70 years (!!!) who were one of the most interesting and compelling couples I have ever met.

Of course, if you are traveling in the summer or on a shorter cruise (ours was 10 days) then there will be more families. But even if 90% of the folks on board are over 50 that still leaves 200-300 younger folks!

We did notice that everything pretty much died at 11:15 (Not kidding... exactly that time. It's as if everyone looked at their watches simultaneously and thought "OMG it's after 11!")

However, this was the most relaxing and fun cruise we have ever taken - and most nights we did not go to bed before 3am :) As you said - "We make our own fun!"

We are relatively new to cruising and not loyal to any brand - but we absolutely LOVED our cruise on Eclipse in Dec. We felt pampered and special - and this was just in a regular old veranda :) I can find positives and negatives in all cruise lines, but as the number of children we still have left at home lessens and our disposable income increases, I can see opting for fewer cruises on "nicer" lines rather than more of the same (Royal and Carnival)

I would like to add that before we took our cruise on Eclipse, I heard a lot of talk about the "class" system on Celebrity, given the exclusive restaurants for Suite and Spa guests. However, we did not even notice this. In fact, would not have even known about Blu and Luminae had it not been for CC research beforehand.

This is really hit and miss for us. We love to meet new people, and are still friends with some folks we met at dinner on our first cruise. However, on 2 of our cruises we ended up miserable. In one case, the man was a bore who wouldn't shut up, and in another the couple wouldn't say a word.

So, we tried anytime dining on our last cruise (Celebrity) and while we asked to be seated with others every night, we usually ended up by ourselves. That was nice sometimes but we really missed interacting with others.

For this upcoming cruise on Dream with our kids we have selected early dining. This is a first for us since we are usually late diners, but I think it will make it easier to catch the comedy shows and nightly entertainment. However, my secondary reason for choosing early dining is that it is generally easy to switch from early to late, and if we end up stuck with folks we don't like, we can do that without embarrassment.

First time on Carnival, first time sailing out of Jax. If we have a noon check in time, what time can we come onto port property to park and get situated? Is 11:30 reasonable or will we be turned away from even parking until noon?

It will take you approx 90 seconds to park and get situated at JaxPort. Honestly, If it were me I would not arrive before 11:50. ;p This is a one cruise ship port and very small.

What a fantastic first cruise!

Jax is a perfect port for a cruise - the port is very straight forward and easy to navigate. Port parking is right out the front door! Plus, if you are going to Half Moon Cay - we love that port! Had the most relaxing day at a beach we have ever had on that beach - and we both grew up in Florida!

Make sure you are out on deck when she leaves port. The ship has to travel under the Dames Point Bridge, and every time it looks like there is no way it's gonna make it - until the last moment when it clears the bridge :)

And personally, I found the food a bit better tasting on the Fantasy Class Carnival ships then either Royal Caribbean or Celebrity.

You are going to have a great time!

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!

Others have posted on here that the construction started on the first day of the 2-11 sailing so the construction would not have been going on while John Heald was on the ship.

 

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I think that is the point.

no,,, that's all we use.

When we were planning our first cruise 6 years ago, everyone told us to take a shorter cruise - but I am so glad we didn't. Taking a week long cruise meant a nicer, newer ship and a little less "party" atmosphere. This meant that this shy, unassuming newbie felt much more comfortable letting go and just enjoying the experience.

However, this would depend on your friend. If they already like to party hard, then probably a shorter cruise would be fun.

And - my port suggestion is to include a private island. I Love Half Moon Cay (CCL) and Labadee (RCCL) and would prefer these to any other port.

Pre-Trip/ 48 hours in New Orleans:

 

First of all an apology: When I got back home, I found out that I was the only person at my job that didn't have the flu of death, and we provide emergency services to the county, so I've been on shift every day and on call every night since we got home. I also hope I didn't miss any questions, the forum got weird and didn't update for me. If I did miss any, please repost. I'm going to do a single post abbreviated recap of our time in New Orleans. While some of it is interesting, I don't have any pics of the city, and most of you aren't particularly interested in this part anyways:

 

.....

 

Up Next: Day 1 - First impressions of the Dream 2.0

I thought something like this must have happened! So happy that you are back - I've been checking like 3 times a day!

Looking forward to the rest of your recap

so good, so far!