wenocancer2

Thinking of doing the Locked Inn Cayman Escape Room excursion in Grand Cayman, but on our own and not through the cruise line.  Apparently, it is within walking distance from the pier, so I figured we might as well save a few bucks.

Any words of wisdom on why we should or shouldn't do it on our own?  Or anyone who has done it before?

We will be traveling to Cozumel in January and my daughter is interested in a massage on the beach.  Does anyone know if this is offered on any particular beach?

It doesn't have to be in Grand Cayman.  I will be posting this same question in our other Ports of Call boards as well, but we are traveling to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Roatan, and Belize.

My daughter is an adult, just to clarify.

We will be traveling to Belize in January and my daughter is interested in a massage on the beach.  Does anyone know if this is offered on any particular beach?

It doesn't have to be in Grand Cayman.  I will be posting this same question in our other Ports of Call boards as well, but we are traveling to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Roatan, and Belize.

My daughter is an adult, just to clarify.

We will be traveling to Roatan in January and my daughter is interested in a massage on the beach.  Does anyone know if this is offered on any particular beach?

It doesn't have to be in Grand Cayman.  I will be posting this same question in our other Ports of Call boards as well, but we are traveling to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Roatan, and Belize.

My daughter is an adult, just to clarify.

We will be traveling to Grand Cayman in January and my daughter is interested in a massage on the beach.  Does anyone know if this is offered on any particular beach?

It doesn't have to be in Grand Cayman.  I will be posting this same question in our other Ports of Call boards as well, but we are traveling to Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Roatan, and Belize.

My daughter is an adult, just to clarify.

Haven't seen this posted in awhile...Does anyone use or recommend any particular app for a cruise countdown on my phone? I have an iphone, but I'm sure other phone users would be interested in the information as well.

Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just fun. But I'm happy to hear about different ones that might offer different things.

I'm searching for a beach bag to take on our cruise in January. I want something I can just take up to the deck to hold my Sail & Sign, books, earphones, sunglasses, sunscreen etc, etc. But I'd also like it to be something easy to carry off the ship.

Also, I think I would like waterproof (or at least resistant) as the deck is always wet from spilled drinks and wet swimsuits.

Anybody have one they love? We live in Wisconsin so we don't have a huge need for beach bags throughout the year so I'd rather not spend a fortune.

It's been a while since I sailed from Port Canaveral, so I can't comment on the timing of flights out. But I did want to chime in to recommend flying in the day before you sail. On our last cruise we were flying in January from Wisconsin and connecting in Atlanta to a flight to Fort Lauderdale. It just so happens that as we were pulling away from the gate in Atlanta, the news came in to the flight crew that the shooting was happening at the Fort Lauderdale airport and we returned to the gate. With no knowledge of when the airport would reopen (totally understandable), we tried to book a flight to another airport, however because of an approaching "snowstorm" in Atlanta, they were not able to book any further flights until after noon the next day. That meant we would miss our cruise departure. We made a mad dash to the car rental agency and rented two vans for 9 people and 13 pieces of luggage and had to drive from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale overnight. If we hadn't had that cushion of time, we would have had to catch our cruise in San Juan two days later.

I also highly recommend travel insurance. We were reimbursed for the van rentals and the airline reimbursed us for the second half of our flight.

All in all we still felt very lucky because we very well could have been at the Fort Lauderdale Airport during the shooting.

My point is, you just have no control over things that could impact your travel, so plan fro extra time.

Thanks for all the responses and great point cccer!

My family of 4 will be cruising in January 2019. DH and I are Platinum (first time), but our children (DD-21 and DS-18) are not. Right now we have two rooms booked, one for parents, one for kids. If I understand the platinum perks correctly, it might benefit us to change the booking to one parent and one kid per room, right? Then we would all get the perks? Could we switch rooms back once on board for room key and charging purposes only.

Is the fair reduced for the third person in a cabin.

I know it used to be, but on my quick search over my lunch break, that doesn't look like the case anymore. :confused:

All great pieces of information! Thank you.

Thinking of booking a cruise for June 2019 for our family of four but would like to include my daughters boyfriend as well. This relationship looks like "the one", but anything can happen before June 2019. If we booked with him and something would happen that he's no longer in the picture, how would we go about changing his booking to a friend or dropping it all together? What are the ramifications? :confused:

We would book two rooms...one for mom and dad and one for the other three.

My family of 9 (4 cabins) sailed on the Conquest in January and honestly, I don't know what we would have done without the Hub! With 9 people and all the choices of activities, other than for dinner each night, we were never all together. The Hub made it possible to keep tabs on everyone, at any time.

For instance: I would wake up every morning before my husband and find a message from my sister as simple as "Reading a book on the promenade across from the tasting bar" I would sneak out and join her. Or someone would say "going back to the cabin for a nap" and the best one "found four lounge chairs on the deck next to the slide". It was almost a necessity, I would say.

The next thing I loved about it was that I could look at the Funtimes and flag any activities I was interested in attending and 1) it would also show me if anyone else in my group had also marked it as an interest to them and 2) It would text me a message 15 minutes before that activity started so I wouldn't forgot.

I also want to add that as long as you leave the app open, you do get notifications of messages. At least we did. There area even sound alerts. Now, we did find that occasionally, maybe twice a day, it would be good to close it out and reopen it. Sometimes it just needed to be reset. I told me kids that if they did not see any activity on the app for more than an hour or 2, then should re-open it. Worked like a charm every time.

This was all used with the $5 for the entire cruise option. My niece and nephew and son all did the $5 a day option so they could connect with friends via facebook messenger. Of note, we were also able to use our son's service through that $5 a day plan to check in for our Southwest Airlines flight, which you need to do 24 hours before your flight.

Sorry this is so lengthy, but we really did think it was awesome. I have already marked done on my future cruise notes to make sure we always get this. We loved it!

My son LOVES strawberry soup! We are just off the Conquest 8 Day and they did not serve it. They had mango and bing cherry and maybe peach, but no strawberry. All delicious by the way.

I told him I would make it for him this week. We returned home on Sunday and he has already asked for it twice. I guess I better hop to it. :-)

Just got notification from Southwest airlines that flights may be affected going through Atlanta on Friday due to Winter Storm Helena. What are the local weather forecasters predicting? Should we try to change our flight? We are scheduled to land in Atlanta at about 6:30 PM.

I am traveling with my sister and my niece. Neither of them have ever cruised. I am encouraging no cell phone use for the week (we are on the Conquest--San Juan, St Kitts, St Maarten, Grand Turk) but my sister says her daughter won't be able to stand not texting and sharing pictures with her boyfriend back home in the States. I'm not sure they totally comprehend the cost of this. And truthfully, I don't really know either because I have never allowed my family to use their phones on cruises.

I'm hoping some of you might be able to share your costs from your cellphone carriers for when you used your cellphone while cruising. We just want to get a ballpark of what the potentials could be.

I am traveling with 9 people, four of which are my immediate family. I think I am going to get download the Hub App for my four family members, but the rest of the party isn't so sure they want it. I have two questions:

1) If I download the app now, when/how do I pay the $5 for the week? When I download it? or when I board?

2) If the others in my party seem to see that it is beneficial once on board, can they get it then?

Thanks!

There hasn't been any recent posts about this, I'm wondering if there shops or beaches or anything within walking distance from pier. I don't plan on doing an excursion here and am just wondering if a free "walk" or short taxi ride from the ship will be entertainment enough.

So you can be in Airplane Mode and still have WiFi on, as long as you turn WiFi on AFTER turning on Airplane Mode. Good to know!

Thanks!

I am a technology inept mother with an Iphone using family (including myself). What do we have to disable or install or uninstall or turn on or turn off or whatever it might be, in order to use our iphones for pictures and videos but not be charged any fees from our carrier (Sprint).

Same kind of question if we would purchase the Carnival Hub App? How do we prevent charges normally associated with having your cellphone on in the middle of the ocean roaming.

We are traveling with a group of 9 and would love to be able to keep in touch and we want to encourage the recording of memories throughout our cruise with everyone.

Thanks everyone!

We will be sailing the Conquest (leaving from Port Everglades) next year and we received this e-mail from Carnival regarding some “changes” to the online check-in. We have not used the on-line check in before so it’s all basically a change for us.

Based on these three bullets points from the e-mail, we are a bit confused.

• Guest must pre-register online and select a check-in window. A check-in time will automatically be assigned to guests who do not pre-select a window online.

• Due to limited space, guests who arrive prior to their check-in time will not be permitted to enter the cruise terminal and will be asked to return at their scheduled check-in time. This will be strictly enforced so we can achieve the desired guest experience.

• Although guests may access the terminal at 11:00 AM based on their window selection, boarding is scheduled to begin at approximately 1:30.

Does this mean if I select my window to be 12:30, I can’t even go into the terminal until 12:30 even though it opens at 11:00? And then I won’t be able to board until they start boarding at 1:30

I’m happy to comply with the process, I’m just wondering if my plane lands at 8:00 am, can I not even head over to the cruise terminal until my “window” time? I’d rather wait at the cruise port than in the airport, but if they won't let me in....

I was just reading the awesome post about cruising tips and read a section of Things You Need to Know and it listed "You need to ask for a top sheet if you want one".

WHAT???

Is this something new? I've cruised before and I don't ever remember not having a top sheet. And I'm pretty sure I would remember that!

Will be going on the Conquest for the first time and I have a couple questions.

How do the in room safes work on that ship. Credit card? Keypad?

Are there robes in each room?

Are there refrigerators in each room? If so, can we put things in them? Or are they stocked?

Thanks!