May 2012- Not thrilled with my options, what would you do?

[yahootelemundo]

soooo... what would you do and why?

 

I doooooo feel ur pain. We r in the same situation. They had the "smart" idea to send the liberty of the sea to spain or something like that, n yes , I dont have any plan in renting a car to get to cape canaveral. So , this is what I did , I booked during the wow sale with pre paid gratuities from my TA and I also have a reservation for carnival on the freedom ( way cheaper). Which one am I going to cancel in the future , IDK yet but the schedules for 2012 r terrible , at least when it comes to royal.

[sailawayjack]

So I'm kinda bummed that there realy arn't very many options for Caribbean cruises come May 2012. DH and I try to take two big trips/cruises a year. One in May and the other in Oct. Seems like a vast majority of RCI's and other cruislines (NCL's) ships are in Alaska (May) or Europe (May-Oct).

 

So we've been waiting, hoping that they are just keeping some stuff "hidden" but no luck.. anyways here are my options and Im sorry if I am a little long winded but basically none of it thrills me, so what would you do? Also what's important to us in order of importance is ports, price, Food & entertainment options, The ship itself, & service... (Service is important to me but honestly I've sailed NCL, Carnival and RCI and really havnt seen that big of a difference between lines)

 

There are only 3 RCI ships doing Caribbean in May Freedom, Oasis, and Allure (as a side note, we are doing a western caribbean on NCL in October with friends and the ports are Ocho, grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Great Stirup Cay Bahamas so we do not want to repeat ports and would only be interested in Eastern Caribbean routes for May)

Price breakdown:

Allure- starts at $949/person

Oasis- Starts at $915/person

Freedom- Starts at $749/person plus we'd have to pay for gas/tolls/and parking to drive up to Port Canaveral from Boynton Beach, where we live. (If we sailed out of Miami or Fort Lauderdale my dad would just drop us off and pick us up from the port.)

 

The other option Ive been kicking around is Bermuda. If we did Bermuda we'd do a 7 nighter out of NY on NCL Star and make it a NYC/Bermuda combo trip as DH has never been to the big city. This starts at $549/person plus we'd have to pay for airfare and a hotel to overnight in NYC. So it would be comparable to Allure.

 

And then our last option is to explore Carnival as I see that they have many ships out of Fort Lauderdale, San Juan, and Miami doing Eastern, Western, and Southern Caribbean cruises. This would be our least expensive option (if we did FLL or MIA) as the cruise prices start at $539/person.

 

And then just to throw it out there we're also considering 7 nights at an AI in either Jamaica or Cancun. :rolleyes:

 

soooo... what would you do and why?

 

:cool:Transatlantic. Miami to Rome as low as $1504.00 per couple for 15 night cruise. If only I had the time LOL:cool: $50.00 pp per day

[khm1]

That sounds like it would be perfect and I thank you for the suggestion. Time wise though it wouldn't work. My company will not allow me to take off more then 5 buisness days in a row. I see that those leave on a Thursday and don't return till the following Saturday and I wouldn't be able to take off Thursday and Friday and then the whole following week. This is also what is stopping me from doing Europe, Alaska, and Hawaii cause I would need to arrive on a Friday to make a Saturday sailing. Legistics suck!!

 

Bummer! I am self-employed and can take off when I want. DH has built up several weeks of vacation per year. We are pretty lucky. Good luck finding something that works for you!

[Whitnee1]

Why not try a different cruise line and maybe they will get the hint? The Rome is OK till you have to fly back.:(

[05mak05]

Yes, we're in the same boat ... couldn't resist. The past April we did a 5-day family cruise out of Tampa and decided we'd make it a yearly event. The college-age grandkids want to join us in 2012 and asked that we find a cruise for mid-May. I couldn't find anything affordable on the Allure, Oasis or Freedom so I booked the Jewel for April 23, 2012. There are other threads concerning that date as it's a charter. At least that's what I've heard through the roll call. Our booking number still does not pull up and we've not rec'd the "call out." I've looked at Carnival but there are so many loopholes that I don't think I have the patience to figure out their pricing policy. Yes, it's cheaper ... IF you book Early Saver which is nonrefundable. We have way too many people involved to take that kind of chance. I guess we can't have what we want ... a 5-day cruise in May out of Florida. Or a 7 day that isn't going to break the bank.