carolyn22

Loving your report!!  I have to say those daily activities don’t look that interesting, maybe because it was a port day?

Please bring back some good entertainment options in the evening and ramp up things to do during the day that don’t have extra costs associated with them. I’m not saying you need Royal Caribbean level of activities and entertainment,, but on my last cruise on HAL I actually got bored. I’ve never had that happen on a cruise. 

My cousin sent this to me last night and I was suitably impressed. His living quarters are much nicer than I expected them to be. Not that I expected it to be a hole in the wall type cabin, but he has the penthouse suite on steroids. 

14 minutes ago, CruisinNole said:

That's it! I couldn't remember Cruise Connection. We live just south of your cousin in North Port.

I love to visit them and that area is so nice!  We all like to hunt for shark teeth and there are so many good beaches there where we can find them. And no visit is complete without a visit to Abbe’s Donuts in NP and Yoder’s in Sarasota!

I checked the Cruise Connection website that Bottomfeeder mentioned earlier, and I think it’s going to work well for me. They pick up in Venice (only a few miles from my cousin’s house) and the round trip cost is only $120. So much cheaper than driving there and parking!

I’m wondering if the same service you’re thinking of?
 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, and apologies to the OP for hijacking your thread!

1 hour ago, bottomfeeder said:

If the schedule works for your cruise (and they are still in business--I know someone who was using them for a transatlantic I went on this spring but know nothing beyond that) you might also consider  https://www.cruiseconnection.travel/ as they have pickup/dropoff near where your cousin is and it seems like maybe it wouldn't be too much to ask to be driven to the pickup location.  🙂  I think there may be one or two other similar services as well.  (I live in the same area and so I bookmarked the company's site for possible future use on my solo cruises!)

I will definitely check it out. Thank you!!

3 hours ago, cangelmd said:

We considered driving once and I was floored at how much parking was. I would at least price out what off site Park and Fly is at the airport, just to compare. The airport is certainly close enough for an Uber from the Park and Fly to be fairly cheap. We also do a one way car rental on certain trips - I would price those out too, especially if you can use a company like Enterprise that will pick you up and drop you off at home - 28 days is a LONG time to pay for parking!

I’ve looked into the park and cruise hotels, but most of them are north of $300 in January (high season for Florida) and for the ones I’ve found you can only park 7-10 days for free. After that they are charging around $10 day. So it’s actually cheaper for me just to pay $15 a day in a garage. 
 

The parking lots near the airport start at $10 a day, and I’d still have to pay Uber fees to and from the port. In the long run, I’m just not sure it’s worth the hassle to me. 
 

I’m driving from Virginia and will first be visiting my cousin and his wife who live a little south of Sarasota. I actually thought about doing the one car way rental, but everything I was looking at was around $90 or so going to Fort Lauderdale. Coming back the one way rental was over $100. While it would save me a few hundred bucks, again, I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle. 
 

I’d love to ask my cousin and his wife to take me and pick me up (using my car), but it’s a 3 hour drive from their house to the port - resulting in two 6 hour drives - and that is just too much to ask of them. 
 

So I guess I’m going to have to suck it up and pay for the garage. At least it’s covered, hopefully secured, and very close to the ship. 
 

Having said all of that, thank you so much for your suggestions!  I hadn’t thought about the off-site lots at the airport so I was happy to explore that option. 

A stupid question - I’m on the Equinox traveling solo for 28 days starting 1/21. I plan to park in the deck (ouch on the cost) but am worried about my luggage when I get off the ship. I’m sure I won’t be able to get all of that luggage to my car by myself. Will the porters take luggage to the garage for you if you tip them nicely?

I am on a B2B2B in Jan/Feb, of 9 nights, 10 nights, and 9 nights. According to today’s rules, I shouldn’t have to test for the first cruise. I guess if the same rules are in effect for the second one, Celebrity will be the one testing any back to backers. 
 

And since these cruises are 5 months away, who knows what the rules will be then? 😁

I looked to see if they had any Summit cruises from the 12th-19th in any month this year with a Boston round trip and couldn’t find anything. The mystery continues. 

So, this says you can’t bring non-alcoholic beverages onboard the day of embarkation. Does this mean I can get a pack of canned soda while in port and bring it onboard?

Celebrity must think they are a movie theater. 

Can you find out if any time during your cruise they offer some sort of laundry deal?  I’m on a B2B2B in January and am trying to estimate my laundry costs. Thank you!

I just saw that!  Hope those darn pre-cruise tests are eliminated. 

3 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

I never did find any fares where the single supplement was completely waived.  The max I found was 60%.  I certainly expect to get double points for paying any single supplement.  Will see what happens this fall.

I booked a B2B2B (28 days total) on the Equinox starting January 21, 2023. The single supplement was waived on all of the cruises and I just had to pay the 100%. It was still available about 2 days ago when I looked.  I doubt if I’ll get double points, but I am thrilled with the deal I got. And I’ll be out of the cold weather for about a month!

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Unfortunately I’m just at the Classic level, so no free laundry for me. If they offer some type of deal during the cruises I’ll take advantage of that. I’ll plan to bring some Woolite along, washing what I can in the cabin and sending the rest to the laundry. I don’t feel like schlepping around any of the ports (including Fort Lauderdale) looking for a laundromat. And I definitely won’t try drying my clothes on the balcony!

GenX, I’ve been loving your live report!  You’ve convinced me that it’s time to get back cruising sooner rather than later. So, because of you and the fact that some cruises I’ve been looking at have no single supplement (thanks for the heads up from a poster on this board!), I just booked a B2B2B on the Equinox (28 days total) leaving on January 21st!

Can’t wait!

I just booked a B2B2B on the Equinox for Jan/Feb.  28 days of sailing in the Caribbean when I would otherwise be freezing my rear end off in Virginia!  Not having to pay that solo supplement is amazing. Thank you, OP!

Thanks!  That would be helpful if they offer such a deal. 

I’m debating on booking a B2B2B cruise in January (28 days total), and obviously I don’t want to take 28 days of clothes!  Dies Celebrity have any type of laundry package, or us everything charged by the piece?

I did a western Med cruise out of Barcelona several years ago - Toulon (Marseille), Villefranche Sur Mer, Rome, La Spezia, and Naples.  We booked private excursions for all but La Spezia.  There we took the train to Cinque Terra and was able to visit 4 of the towns. We loved it there. My least favorite stop was Toulon, but some of that was our tour guide. We went to Aix En Provence, but didn’t get any time to look around the city and do a little bit of shopping. It was essentially all history. We also went to Marseilles, but the city just didn’t impress me for some reason. Our tour guide also made that stop all history. 
 

We loved every other stop and private excursion that we did. Our cruise also had one sea day at the end, and I can tell you that we were all exhausted by that after day after day of 8 hour excursions. 😂. But everything really was fabulous. I would do the whole cruise again. 

I got 3 added. Must be from something previous because I thought the last one was for 5?

15 hours ago, canadarocks said:

Just wanted to let everyone know that, at least in our case, Future Cruise Credits that supposedly HAD to be used by December 31 2022 can indeed be extended. For those that don't know, we had to cancel two HAL cruises earlier this year due to COVID. No issues with refunds and FCCs, but we encountered some "pushback" with the December 31 2022 mandate for using those FCCs. 

 

My TA managed to convince HAL to extend the date to January 4 2023. We have just changed our cruising plans and those same FCCs are now being applied to a January 25 2023 cruise. 

 

Of course YMMV ..... but if this helps someone else in the same situation.... paying it forward is always my "go to" here. 

I’m a little confused.  Your original use by date was December 31, 2022 and your TA got it extended to January 4, 2023 - so it was extended by 4 days? 

OP, I hope your husband did well with his procedure yesterday and that you’re able to fly to Rome today so that you can enjoy your cruise!

Jamie, you may have just changed my life with the words “Grand Mimosa”. That sounds delicious and is definitely something I’m going to get on my next cruise. 
 

Thank you for taking us along on your cruise!