gwsster

Jamaica, one of those places that after going once have NO desire to go back. If Jamaica was on the itinerary of another cruise I took, I would stay on the boat.

I don't have a loyalty to any cruise line. I go by itinerary, cost, experience and value for me. I have sailed Princess, NCL, Celebrity and Disney. I did book a British Isles cruise on Disney for 2018. I booked the first week the sailing was offered and got the room for $4480.00 for two of us for a Navigators Veranda. I added transfers from the airport to Dover for $190.00 and a hotel room for $286.00 so we are about at the $5000.00 mark right now. This particular cruise for the same room for 2 is about $7300.00 so it does help to book early. There isn't really a bad cruise for me, it is all about where I want to go and what I want to spend and value...

Thank you to Moki'smommy for all of your help and advice. I know that our vacation will be good with all of your help and suggestions that I have read about on this forum.

Clear your browser or try using another browser and see if you get price changes. I know when I don't clear the cookies I get price increases on cruises and airfares. It may not work, but worth a try.

It has been a few years since we had this 2 bedroom suite on the Jade. We sailed it from Barcelona and got full Suite privileges. Breakfast and Lunch in Cagney's at the time. I loved this suite, you don't get Haven privileges but the suite is so nice that you don't need those. The service was great as well.

I agree with Billowsky thoughts. This cruise is very port intensive and the ship is really used for sleeping and meals. The entertainment was good and there are ample places to lounge on the decks. I had a suite 2 years ago as we had 4 persons traveling together, but wouldn't pay the $$$ for a suite again, we were off the ship more than we were on the ship.

The rooms are much smaller....the inside rooms are very small, BUT if you are only sleeping and showering for the room this would be fine for me. It is all about your vacation plans and if you like to tour more than being on the ship then this is great. I like to go in February or March to see the whales but Hawaii is all good almost all year around.

We got a deal on the Tuscan Grill on the first night. I think it was $25.00 for that night. They had tables set up in front of the Buffet for reservations. We ate there twice. The first night was the best. The restaurant was not crowded and the service great. The food was the best for a specialty restaurant for this cruise line category. Palo on Disney was the best by far. The second visit it was crowded and the food was as good, but the service was thinned out due to the increased tables being filled. I don't know if I would pay $45.00 pp for this, but $25.00 pp was doable. I think adding $200.00 for a meal for 4 on top of the cost of food you paid for in the trip is a little high. Just my opinion. That being said we are not foodies and travel for the itinerary and not for the food.

They have this sign at my Costco too. I asked Bill who is the usual door greeter if it has helped and he just pointed to a scraggly dog on a long leash walking around Costco and said "NOPE". Bill says they clean up pee often enough that Costco made the signs, but it hasn't made a difference. People love their dogs, I don't get the need to take your pet shopping, I am not talking about service dogs....just the pets.

Seen at my local Costco this morning. More places need to do this AND enforce it.

There is still the issue of fake vs legitimate service animal permits however.

We chose second seating for 2 reasons. If the port times are long, it gives us more time to stay in port and visit. The other reason is that with late seating it generally is less crowded and fewer children who might not enjoy the sit down dining experience.

I checked the DCL website and didn't find that information. I did look, most likely in the wrong place. I will go log in and check again. Thanks everyone. Your advice is so valuable.

Also, FYI, if you log into the DCL website and check you reservation, it tells you when your booking window opens.

Thank you so much Disney CC members. Friends are also Silver and may even be Gold. I will have to check. I am now prepared to mark my calendar to get reservations. I am hoping to get them on a Sea Day.

We have a Disney Cruise scheduled for September 2018. We would like to dine at Palo with our friends on one night. This is our 3rd cruise with Disney and we are Silver.

How will I know when our window for making reservations opens up? Do we make the reservations or do we ask our TA? I know this group of people have great answers to questions. I tried looking this up on our reservation and there isn't any opportunity to even look. This could be that I am waaaayyyy too early, just excited to try this experience.:D

Thanks in advance for your help.

We ended up walking out of the first show with them. We tried them a second time and it was no better, just not entertaining. The third time I coaxed my DH into trying it again as there wasn't anything else going on.....Sat in the back in an aisle seat so we could escape if needed....It was needed. I hope they find fresh entertainment and not the Hokey stuff that some of the NCL production shows tend to lean to.

Good balanced report. Congratulations on the new family, lucky boys to find a home, lucky parents to find the boys.

I find that the food on NCL is generally good and always a hit or miss. Our first Celebrity cruise was OK but more alike to other lines that different. The food day by day was hit and miss. The food in the Tuscan Grill (specialty restaurant on Celebrity was excellent though)

I couldn't agree more. I have sailed Princess, Disney, Celebrity and NCL. Within each cruise line the ships differ so there is always a variable (crapshoot) on what your experience will be. I find that with the exception of Disney the cruise lines are more alike than different in terms of service and ammenities.

I look for the best price on the itinerary I want to sail within the mainstream cruise lines.

Perhaps with the exception of Celebrity (sort of a wannabe premium line), the rest you mentioned are all pretty much the same (not unlike the big three automakers).

 

 

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We were able to take bottled water on our Celebrity cruise last September. We put it in a small duffel bag with a cruise tag on the bag and a note on top of the water itself with our name and cabin number. You can check Celebrity website to see if they have a policy change for bringing on bottled water. Some cruise lines no longer allow bottled water to be brought on board.

am I permitted to bring bottled water onboard in my luggage -- or does it have to be in carryon? :cool:

Celebrity Silhouette

I found that Anytime dining was a joke for us. The smart passengers with "anytime" dining made reservations so they showed up and were seated at the reserved time. So to get a popular dining time you needed to make reservations for the main dining room. This sounds OK but the rest of us with anytime dining waited for up to 45 minutes for a table seating. Either make set dining times or if you choose anytime dining there shouldn't be reservations should be first come first served in a main dining room. Specialty restaurants always need a reservation so that was no big deal. It was chaotic between 6:00 and 8:00. Sheesh.

Uh oh ... don't let my wife read that quip about bingo cards! They have gone up more than anything else on board. I wish you could buy one for $3.58!

 

This wife quit playing Bingo when she did a calculation of what the ship makes and what the payout is. It was fun when the cards were $10.00 a card and a good way to kill an hour on a sea day. Now it is a choice between a Bingo card or 2 drinks....Hmmmm.

This is NO comparison at all. The photo you share is a 2 bedroom cabin with 2 bathrooms and one of them being the master suite with its own bathroom. The second bedroom and bath have a solid privacy door. I loved this cabin on the Jade. The Epic has a totally separate idea of privacy and a translucent toilet door is icky. I had a great cruise on the Epic, the entertainment was great. The smoke from the Casino horrible as it wafted throughout the Atrium and up to O' Sheehans. The air purifiers did help a little but not enough.

That is incorrect...just look at any Penthouse suite on the Star, Dawn, Jewel, Jade, Pearl or Gem.

 

Their main bathroom is separated from the main sleeping area by a cloth curtain.

Their toilet is in its own room with a glass door.

Their shower is in its own room with a glass door.

You have to leave either the shower or toilet room to find the sink on the opposite wall.

With the curtain open, a person sitting on the bed can watch everything happening in the bathroom.

 

Tinder is a location-based social search mobile app that facilitates communication between mutually interested users, allowing matched users to chat. The app is most commonly used as a dating app or hookup app,[1][2][3] but it also has services, making it a social media application too. Matching is based on Facebook and Spotify profiles.[4]

Originally incubated inside Hatch Labs, the app was launched in 2012. By 2014, it was registering about one billion "swipes" per day.[5]Tinder is among the first "swiping apps", whose users employ a swiping motion to choose photos of other users, swiping right for potentially good matches and swiping left on a photo to move to the next one.

What is Tinder???

 

Karen

We chat with the room steward every day so it is never a question of not seeing us. IF we need to empty the trash can we bring it out into the hall to the steward when we ask for more towels. It is never a problem and our cabin is NEVER hard to clean when we leave the ship.

We DO allow them in once on each cruise. We also leave the tips and even give them extra as it is not their fault that we don't need much attention.

We do the same in most hotels on land.

Good question. It would be interesting to know what your outcome was after your cruise. Every cruise is different in respect to policy so I hope you let us know what your outcome was for this particular cruise.

One reason why I skip the Specialty restaurants with NCL....Good heavens for the price of a .50 cent potato they tick off customers. I spend the specialty $$$ while in port at restaurants, then use the MDR or Buffet for other meals. Penny wise, pound foolish.

I use the wrinkle releaser, this helps a lot. When the wrinkles are tough, I spray the wrinkle releaser and then immediately use the hair dryer on the item and this helps a lot. Try to pack clothes that are wrinkle resistant.

1. If you choose to use a debit card, open a separate bank account just for cruising with a debit card with only the money you are going to spend on the cruise. Make sure that it is not associated with any other bank account. (Be aware if you don't have any access to $$$ and you have an emergency you are up a creek without a paddle).

2. Notify the bank that you will be traveling with debit card so that it doesn't get shut off because you are out of your spending area.

3. Add bank transaction alerts to your account to your email or cell phone so that you know if your card has been compromised. This will only help a little if you are at sea and don't have internet access. I have alerts set up for all charge cards and bank accounts and stopped fraud just last month on my Visa card with a phone call. They replaced my card with a new account number.

4. I choose to use a Credit Card because of the travel benefits and it much easier to dispute charges before you have to pay than to beg to get your $$$ back from the bank on a debit card.

5. Stuff happens when you least expect it. If you qualify for a credit card, I would carry one for emergency costs.

I had good expensive luggage broken by the cruise line or airport. I replaced the luggage with much cheaper luggage and use fabric paint and stencils to make the luggage very identifiable and UGLY! The warranty on the good luggage was USELESS, so it ended up in the trash.

On my last trip with friends, someone insisted their Skyway bag they took off of the carousel was theirs and walked off. We asked them to check please in a minute they were back,they did have the wrong bag (all dirty clothes) glad they checked, theirs showed up a minute later.

I know our friends thought we were bonkers for painting our bags with "NOT YOURS" on it in 6 " day-glo orange paint. Haven't had a mishap since doing this, nobody want to take or steal an ugly bag by mistake or on purpose.

We had Chelsea as our Butler in room 12000 18 months ago. She was very good. We had Thomas as the Concierge and he was USELESS. He showed up in Cagney's and interfered only to give us unwanted information while we were in the middle of our meal. Chelsea did anything we needed she got both tips for Concierge and for Butler. When we called, she would call back and always gave a time frame for services that we needed. I hope you have a great cruise.

Quote=merdon;54047070]Thanks for such an in depth review. We sail next month in an Owners Suite so hopefully we'll have a nice butler. :D