Jiminy1955

Thanks to this thread, we changed a Panama cruise to this one. We are trying to avoid air travel and we live in the LA area. Our Panama cruise was in an ocean view and we had booked on our last cruise, so we had the classic beverage package and a refundable $200 deposit. (total cost was appx $4200) Plus the Panama was San Diego to Ft Lauderdale, which meant two one way tickets home.

called our big box TA and we wanted a Sunset Veranda - we are paying appox $6500 (with port taxes included in that price). = we still get our classic beverage, plus they added pre-paid gratuities and OBC $250 and TA is giving $545.

Everyone has their own preference on travel locations to see, but living on the west coast, we love Hawaii. We have done the Caribbean three times and we are not impressed. So we are very happy to have Celebrity offering this cruise.

I changed our PC transit to this cruise yesterday! We also had an OV with prepaid gratuities and OBC and refundable $200 deposit! Everything transferred over. How do I go about transferring the booking to a TA?

Our first cruise on Celebrity was this past March and we fell in love with the Equinox! In fact we selected the same cabin as the layout is the same.

Super excited as this trip celebrates my husbands retirement and 70th Birthday! And no airfare needed since it’s only about a 6 hr drive for us. Will spend one night precruise in hotel, hopefully a park and cruise package, and drive home day of disembarkation.

It was not on Carnival, but one of our best ever cruise line provided excursions was a cruise line debarkation excursion. It was with Princess from Dover to Heathrow airport in London.

Thank you!

Good idea to take one of the ships tours.

 

As mentioned your luggage will be stored in the luggage compartment on the bus.

 

Keith

Thank you!

luggage stays on the bus while you are on your excursion. any excursion you find interesting will be fine.

 

First timer? Do the Everglades tour. Leaning towards this one.

Bus will get you back to FLL about 3PM. Perfect!

 

ADVISORY:

Bus driver doesn't give a damn about who takes what luggage when he gets to the airport. He just starts unloading whatever people say to unload at each airline stop. YOU need to make sure you get ALL your luggage at YOUR airline stop.

Thanks for all the info, appreciate it!

Luggage is on the bus you are taking.

 

 

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Thank you, makes things pretty easy then.

Has anyone done one of the ship excursions on debarkation? We will be debarking in Miami but fly out of Fort Lauderdale on a 5:30 pm flight. We are considering one of the excursions since part of the cost is transportation to the Fort Lauderdale airport. What do they do with the luggage? And which excursion you did and if you would do it again?

Thank you. I've been wanting to know as well.

I’ve not had time to read the entire thread so if this has been asked and answered I apologize. While onboard in March of this year we booked a future cruise with the $100 deposit for September 2018 which was as far out as we could get. We actually wanted a date a full year later than that. The representative recommended we go ahead and book and call when those dates become available and move the cruise to a different date. I wonder if when we change the date if we will be required to pay the higher/usual non refundable deposit?

Ok First time Cruiser here. So when I'm chilling around the pool and go to the bar and get a drink and I want to tip extra, do I need cash there or can I add additional tip to my Sign and Sail card?

Both will work. See post #9.

To address the Havana being booked 12 months out, about 3 weeks ago, I booked a Havana for the Nov 11, 2017 sailing. As of earlier today, there was one inside Havana cabin open. My purpose of this post if for people who really want the Havana experience, keep 'dummy booking' on the Carnival website to see if any open up. When I booked again, mid October, there were 3 open. Maybe we were lucky, but food for thought. Happy sailings.

I had a Spa interior cabin booked many months ago for the December 2, 2017 sailing and then a Havana interior came available about a month ago and was able to snag it! So like stated above keep doing dummie bookings and you may get what you want.

One doesn't need an excursion as the port and the beaches are easy to get to.

 

However, when we were last there, we took a bus ride which went all around the island- to the Aloe Factory, the baby bridge, and the Casibiri Rocks- plus we saw about 2/3 of the island from the bus. Highly recommended with port and beach breaks afterwards.

Was that a ship excursion? I am looking at doing a Carnival excursion either Best of Aruba Island Tour or Top 10 Best of Aruba.

Thank you for doing this review! I loved it! Such great, concise details and clear pictures and videos. I’m ready to go back and read some of your other reviews.

My BFF and I will be sailing on the Vista December 2, 2017 in a Havana Inside! Very excited!!!

I have a question about drink prices. I’m looking for a list of drink prices such as wine, beer, cocktails, other mixed drinks, specialty coffees and bottled water. Do you know where I can find such a list or just some general/average prices?

Can anyone tell me or has a list of what beers are served on the ships? My DH doesn’t care for domestic beer, he prefers craft IPA’s and or international beers. We will be on Splendor in March 2018.

I’m not finding any reports or pictures on these 1A Porthole cabins on the Vista. On other ships, the cabins have a sofa bed. However, on the Vista it looks like they have changed them to now have the bunk bed above. I don’t think I could have my niece above my head like that. Does anyone have any confirmation that this is the case? I can not find real pictures or videos on utube. Does anyone have any news about these cabins? Please and Thank You.

Check out cruise deck plans dot com. Lots of pictures and room floor plans some with links to YouTube. You need to be a member to get the best access to pictures, cost is about $8. I joined several years ago and only paid that once not yearly. Love their site!

My 11 year old son spent $73 in half an hour the one morning on his S&S card !!!!!! I marched him straight up to reception :mad: and made him pay the cash in from his holiday fund, then I froze his S&S account. He did not need further access as he did have a soda package anyway.

:eek: Oh my goodness! I will definitely tell my son about this. Thanks for sharing.

Watch the Fun Times for "Power Hour" at the arcade. They had it several days on our recent cruise. All games are half price during this hour!!!

 

 

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Thank you! That will help their parents a lot since those kids love arcades.

Between 1$ and 2$ per game

Thank you.

Can anyone tell me what the price range is for the different arcade games? We will have 3 kids on Splendor in March and they will definitely be playing the games.

Celebrity Equinox would be my recommendation, a teen that especially wants a library will have plenty to do & enjoy. The library had a jigsaw puzzle sitting out for passengers to do, my dh worked on it several times. We sailed on the Equinox for the first time in March and will definitely cruise on her again. Food was great! Glass blowing awesome to watch.

Oh I just read your post that you booked the Equinox! Excellent choice.

thanks. This is from the eastern itinerary, different ports.

 

 

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I just noticed that. Sorry.

The menus are here.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2474611

Maybe try Amazon and they have a good return policy 30 days. I am in the same position as you, have already had to buy new clothes. Also hoping to lose more weight before my December Caribbean cruise out of Miami. Here in the Arizona desert even some of our stores are moving summer out and bringing in the light weight winter clothes :(

Allow me to do a little comparison for you...

 

First, you will read suggestions for hotels like the Golden Sails, the Hotel Current and the Best Western Long Beach--largely because they are cheaper and offer "Park and Cruise" packages. The Golden Sails and the Current are in nice parts of Long Beach--but nowhere near the cruise port or the touristy section of Long Beach. They are okay if you are just looking for a place to stay the night, you have a car so you can drive everywhere and you are willing to take a long hotel shuttle ride to the ship and back. The Best Western Long Beach is in a "not very good" neighborhood of Long Beach, a little closer to the port, but still a bit away.

 

The Queen Mary is in a somewhat convenient location-right next to the Carnival Terminal. You have the free Passport shuttle to take you to restaurants across the channel in the downtown area. But I've never liked the QM--found it a little old and musty-smelling and below standards for a first class hotel nowadays--and I stayed there almost 39 years ago! Of late, there have been reports of it needing almost $300 million in repairs or face the immediate danger of springing leaks and/or sinking. So, I am not sure I would stay there. The Maya Doubletree is in that area as well, walking distance of the terminal (but they offer shuttles as well) and you can take the Passport across the bridge for restaurants. And the Maya usually offers a "Carnival Rate" on a park and ride that's a pretty good deal (you may have to call and ask for it).

 

Which brings me to my "A" list of the top hotels: Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Centric at the Pike, Renaissance, Westin. First of all, these four are the nicest hotels in town. First Class, luxurious. Second, google "hotels, long beach" and focus in on the downtown area where these four are located. Then google "restaurants". What you will discover is that these four hotels are in the prime tourist area of Long Beach. When I was a young kid, this area was pretty scuzzy--dive bars, tattoo parlors (in the days when tattoos weren't stylish and trendy and only sailors, criminals and convicts had tattoos), drunks, drug addicts, etc. Several years ago, the City of Long Beach built its convention center and spent a great deal of money redeveloping this area. They brought in first class hotels and restaurants, redeveloped theme shopping areas, bought and brought in the Queen Mary, built the world-class Aquarium of the Pacific...and they instituted the free Passport shuttle to allow visitors easy access around this area from attraction to attraction. The City has dedicated a larger portion of its police force to protect this area.

 

Those top four hotels put you in the heart of this area. You can walk (or take the shuttle) to a large number of nice restaurants, to the Aquarium or to nice little tourist shopping areas like the Pike or Shoreline Village...and through parks and yacht marinas. OTOH, if you want a "park and cruise" option, it will likely be a little on the pricey side...

 

And yes, your alternative is to stay wherever you want and pay $19 a day to park your car right at the terminal.

Great info! Thank you so much for posting, we will be there in March 2018. Do you know if full size SUV's pay more than $19 for parking.

Tiffany, Robin, Debra and Lynn,

 

You all should have mail.

 

Doug

Got it all! Thanks Doug.

Doug I would appreciate it if you would email it to me too. lynnspire55@gmail.com

Thank you!