lajbec

Me and my husband have purchased the alcohol package. For my 2 daughters what drinks are available free of charge, just debating whether to get them the soda package or not?

I received a quote for 24 days. $478-yikes

Yes. We will fly from US to Rome. Then FLL to home.

The FLL airport and cruise terminal are nearly on top on one another, relatively speaking. No more than 10 minutes away from one another.

Car rentals in FL are also inexpensive (relatively). I have found FLL beaches to be horrible so if beaching is what you want, I would head to a different beach town for a day.

My very first cruise in 1991 I had a post cruise stay "ocean front," it was a cross a busy highway to a narrow strip of sand to the beach...

Flying down with my family some 20+ years later, we booked a Hampton (not on beach) with a shuttle to the pier. We felt completely stupid. We paid per person (there are 3 of us) to ride the shuttle. We had to wait to load our bags, wait until the shuttle was full, and slowly make our way to the pier stopping at the various different ships departing that day. For less than a half of what we paid for 3 of us, we could have gotten a taxi, thrown our bags in the trunk and been at our ship about an hour sooner.

Have a great a great trip!

Are mobility devices charged the same as luggage?

And there’s the sad possibility of having to cancel. [emoji22]

You can also find less expensive options for rollators/wheelchairs/scooters on sites like fb marketplace, letgo, craigslist, or nextdoor. I recently purchased a transport chair from a neighbor on nextdoor and used it on our Alaskan cruise. Worked like a charm. I was able to use it in the airport and our days in Seattle precruise too. Not a bad deal for $60. Interestingly enough, the wheel on the chair bent on a particularly bad transition piece our first night on board and HAL did have an "emergency" scooter that I was able to rent for 7 days.

I liked the independence the scooter provided me so much, I found a used one on FB marketplace for the same price I paid to rent it for the week. I figure if i can just use it for one cruise, it's paid for itself and I can use it if I need it for out and about activities more local.

Unfortunately cruise ships are still $6 per minute on T-Mobile (the highest cell phone calling rate I'm aware of) but at least T-Mobile doesn't have cruise ship data service (you can pick up a land-based cellular signal several miles out to sea). I've heard stories about cellular data charges after cruises and European trips with other carriers.

 

https://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/roaming?cruise=Cunard:%20Queen%20Mary%202

If that is how it went then I think that you are way out of line. It could very well have been that she dozed off and was embarrassed to have caused a problem. She corrected the situation without a problem. Had the flight attendants been there it should have been taken care of and your complaint should have been to their airline that their employees were sleeping on the job. It seems to me that YOU are the problem and trying to cause much more of a situation that was never there. Why do people like you persist to stir the pot and create problems that don't exist is beyond me.

How did the lady respond to your daughter's "shoulder dap"? Did she turn it off or tell her something else?

Some people just dont have any situational awareness and have to be politely asked to do something. A small shoulder tap with a polite, "ma'am, can you please turn the brightness down and turn off the volume? Thank you." Is sufficient, especially if it is from a sweet faced 12 year old girl.

It is all about the tone and manner in which it is delivered. Especially, when it is readily apparent that the person is completely unaware of their behavior's affect on those around them. The affect being awakening their surrounding passengers.

She was not sensitive. The entire cabin was giving this lady the "eyes." My point was, it was loud enough for my half deaf daughter to hear it. And yes, the entire cabin. We were in the back of first class and could see every passenger. The lady was oblivious. And it was not falling asleep as this was from the instant she turned it on. As I awoke first and was giving her a moment to rectify the situation as everyone has those "oh crap, how do I turn this thing off moments" nope. Not this lady. My daughter just beat me to the shoulder tap.

The flight attendant was no where to be found to deal with the situation.

The brightness of that ipad could have landed a plane.

'Parents' who don't follow common sense (increasingly an oxymoron, as sense is getting less and less common)

My 12 year old daughter softly whispers to me, I quote, "common sense is not a flower that blooms in everybody's garden." [emoji4]

This after my daughter had just tapped the shoulder of the adult lady sitting in front of us on our overnight flight to politely ask this lady to dim her tablet and use headphones on her ipad. The adult lady was easily in her 30s and was sitting next to her own child. It's midnight. The cabin is dark and most people are asleep or resting. Geesh!

Obviously, that lady needed some "gardening" from my 12 year old as her flowers were definitely not blooming.

My point was about leaving mine outside an excursion was that I can take the key with me. Itxwas between not going off the ship ever or staying on board. I chose to take my chances. It worked. If i just wanted to stay on board without ever leaving, i could save myself a lot of hassle and expense and stay at home. Everything can get stolen, even a locked car. If someone steals my 8 year old scooter while it is parked outside the embarkation site for my duck tour on a tropical island that has limited resources, they obviously must have needed it more than I do. My cellphone is worth more than that. Obviously YMMV.

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Are you sure your on the Vision?

 

I am sure they scrapped that ship a few years ago..

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I’m not sure that that is a “new” policy with the alcohol package, but regardless, they do not do the same with the soda package. I would say that’s because of the cost of alcohol (potentially very high) vs the cost of soda (really nominal). Frankly, they could just as easily give the sodas away (like they used to!) as someone, or two or three, can’t drink enough of it to make the package anything but a huge profit to the cruise line. The alcohol, however, could be doubled up by a couple in a cabin and make it much more worthwhile, for the passengers! I don’t think they really care much if people share sodas. It’s almost all profit anyway.

Originally posted by only way to vacay Just an update...I was just on the Freedom with my sisters. We had 2 cabins and the new policy is if one person gets a drink package then all in the same cabin must also get one. One of my sisters cannot drink but had to get a drink package anyway.

is this the policy for the soda package as well?

There is no requirement for purchasing soda or refreshment packages for multiples in the same cabin.

I'm usually a Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruiser but we did a cruise on HAL in May to Alaska. Holland is known for having the oldest passenger average age. I needed to use a mobility scooter and wheelchair on this cruise and could not believe how accommodating HAL was. We had a regular balcony (my health went down dramatically between booking and cruise). HAL assisted me with my scooter every day (helping store it us), staff helping move it when necessary for dining, helping get it on and off board, etc. Their excursions publications and shore excursion staff have explicit detail on tours that are able to accommodate chairs/scooters. We were truly impressed with them.

HAL also has a kids program but our 12 year old did not participate.

As a parent of a 12 year old I have raised my child to be respectful of herself, others, and other people's property. I have no qualms whatsoever of telling kids to quite down or settle down.

It irks the crud of of me to hear the phrase kids will be kids. Yes, they will. But there is a time and a place for it. The problem is kids will be kids is used as an excuse for lazy parenting.

As I tell my daughter, this is not your house or the playground. It is a privilege, not a right. She learned before she was 2 how to act in public.

As for parents telling me not to correct their kids, my response is generally, I wouldn't have to if you were doing your job.

Most kids act up either to get attention from an adult or they never been taught any better.

Although I may differ otherwise, it does take a village to raise a child unfortunately, some parents are trying to win the prize for village idiot.

I've been trying to figure the whole wi-fi/cell phone thing for the past day or so. I read that your smart phone can be used to make wi-fi calls without using cell towers. We tried it at home and it worked calling cell to cell. My question is does it work if you call a land line? Our dog is going to be neutered while we're on our cruise and we'll want to check on him after the procedure. We'll be at Harvest Caye the day of and Roatan the next day. I know we will have access to wi fi while at Harvest Caye and where we're going in Roatan (Infinity Bay). Will we be able to make a call from either of those places, or while on board the ship, to a land line to check on our boy?

 

Also related, we got the 250 minute perk and I see varying answers as to whether we can upgrade to unlimited when on the ship. If not, we can use the 250 minutes on one device and purchase the unlimited on the other device. How do you know when you've reached your 250 minute limit?

Not all mobile phones have wifi calling, in case you should have a different device. If your phone does not, utilize an app like WhatsApp or the like to make calls over wifi rather than cellular towers and incurring $$ from your mobile carrier.

Thanks everyone. I was expecting photo shop editing classes, and not beginner classes. However ... this old gal loves learning new tricks.

Thanks for the advice and quick response.

I think ours was the 6 seater not on the cliffs. I want to say it was 200 ish. We split it with a couple we met on our roll call (since they were party of 2 and us party of 3). Our biggest problem was even getting a cabana. The couple we shared with were diamond so had priority on the wait list. You can always book 2 if they are available and cancel after you board and ask the excursion desk once you board about wristbands.

Just because it says 8. just means there us seating for that many. If you have kids, the odds of all of you being in there seated is pretty slim. We had 5 in ours one time and could have easily sat more. You dont get extra drinks or anything anyway. YMMV

I am younger and always learn from classes eventhough I certainly do things on my own. One thing that I have certainly learned is that just because something is intuitive doesnt mean it is the most efficient or the best use of the application.

If you want Apple, head over to Celebrity.