Nickelodeon charter - Freedom

[mattie920]

I have the mexican riviera cruise booked - when do they plan to tell me (i.e. kick me off????)? I was getting ready to book plane tickets in the next 2 weeks. Do you think they'll inform me before then?

[dogbone7]

I would like to address who from Nick was on board. Basically all of the Nick cartoon characters, from icarly there was Fred and Sam, the Nick 6 from Dance on Sunset, and the voice of Sponge Bob. Also we never attened one of the Nick Jr shows, but there was a singer for the Nick Jr songs.

 

Everyday there was Nick games at the main pool, evening shows of Slime Time Live, Fred and Sam would show icarly during their sessions, voice of Sponge Bob showed new Sponge Bob cartoon during his set, Nick games during beach day at Labadee. This is where we all got slimed. And during the last at sea day was the Nick Olympics. I was very happy that my family came in 17th out of 150 families participating.

[wrp96]

I have the mexican riviera cruise booked - when do they plan to tell me (i.e. kick me off????)? I was getting ready to book plane tickets in the next 2 weeks. Do you think they'll inform me before then?

 

Who knows when you will be notified, but unless something happens and the Nick charter backs out, you won't be on the Mariner that week unless you book directly with Nick. I would look for alternative weeks or alternative sailings now.

[Porterhouse248]

Nick still decorating while passengers boarded did not offend me. I actually thought it was pretty neat to see the painters painting the huge Nick Splat logo on the FOS while we were boarding

 

I managed to snap this picture while security was telling someone else not to!

[Dem920]

I have the mexican riviera cruise booked - when do they plan to tell me (i.e. kick me off????)? I was getting ready to book plane tickets in the next 2 weeks. Do you think they'll inform me before then?

 

Mattie:

 

We are on that sailing too andsomeone just booked with our group ion it yesterday, so as of yesterday they were still allowing some bookings. We had cabins left in our group, which is why we may have been able to still book. Wait on your air fare until they straighten this out. We are going to see what they offer before we do anything.

 

dem920

[hansolosmom]

Just saw this & had to pop in & make a comment - we were on this trip, we had fun, but we were also disappointed in it. I'm sure Nick/RC had no idea what they were really getting into when they started. Granted the Freedom is a beautiful ship, but with the large number of kids on it, trying to do anything was ridiculous - the flowrider line was huge constantly, I think they added extra time to try & accommodate. The pool was always packed & when they did the pool shows you couldn't even move. The slime time live show was a lot of fun. But way to many of the activities were geared toward the Nick Jr set - every morning there was a Dora/Diego show in the Arcadia. I have 10 & 12 yo boys - there was really nothing geared toward that age group. Yeah Sam & Freddy from iCarly were there making appearances (we were in the elevator with Jeanette (Sam) one time) & they showed iCarly marathons just about daily in the one lounge - I couldn't see why they didn't mix it up with other Nick characters - Kappa Mikey, Speed Racer, Avatar, FOP - anyone! They also did character breakfasts, again really nice & my 10yo wanted to go, but we couldn't get tickets - even with our 'exclusive American Express privledges' (AmEx was a sponsor & if you tied their card to your Sea Pass acct, you were supposed to have extras, but so many people did that, that they ran out of everything super fast).

I know this was a learning experience on all sides & hopefully they'll get honest answers on the surveys they sent out so they can improve on the next trips.

 

Also if you look under the meet & greets, there was a thread for this trip & several people wrote reveiws at the end of it. I'll try & link that one here

here's the link from the Rolll Call forum - I think it's the last 2 pages that have reviews

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=730954

[hansolosmom]

I've thought of this cruise as a trial for Nick to see if the cruise industry would be able to handle a Nick cruise line. So how did it compare to a Disney cruise. Were the kid to adult ratios equivalent? Were the activities similar and plentiful to keep all the kids entertained all week? Could you see Nick partnering with RCCL for an official Nick ship (ala The Big Red Boat)? We went from 1 to 2 sailings already, maybe in 2011 (after Genesis 1+2) RCCL will build a special Voyager class ship sailing half year from each coast exclusively on Nick cruises.

IMO there's no comparison to Disney - of course we did Disney on the Magic & not the big red boat. So I don't know if its a fair comparison at all. On DCL you're immersed in Disney. On this it was more like trying to cook in someone else's kitchen - you're comfortable since you can cook, but something's missing since it's not your own place. You could tell Nick was trying to make there presence everywhere from the giant splat on the side of the ship to splats all around the ship including the spotlights on the Promenade. Also having their own shows replace some of the RC shows. In the kids clubs, it seemed like most of the activities we the standard RC things. I'm sure they have something in mind for partnership since I can imagine the response was pretty good for this trip.

 

On the kid/adult ratio thing, I have no idea what DCL's is, but there were almost 2000 kids aboard & it really seemed like there were that many. Dh & I were talking about it because on DCL I'm sure there were alot of kids, but it didn't seem like there were that many (does that make sense)

 

on a totally diff topic, I saw you're from Kutztown, my MIL went to Kutztown State, she lives in Berks Co. & we're in Chester Co

[paidndade]

My sister (5) asked everyday ot go on this cruise and she'll probably ask everyday until the next one. Me and my parents would probably enjoy a Disney Cruise more but I guess it's about the kids.

[franncos]

In comparsion to Disney and other ships how expensive was this sailing? I am trying to judge if this is worth it ir take the plundge and pay for Disney

[franncos]

Can anyone tell me around the cost of this trip?

 

Thanks

[crusinmama06]

In comparsion to Disney and other ships how expensive was this sailing? I am trying to judge if this is worth it ir take the plundge and pay for Disney

 

 

I have said this a few times, probably once on this thread...lol. We love the Freedom ships. The price of the Nick cruise was TWO TIMES - 2.5x's the price of a normal Freedom sailing.

 

My kids LOVE Nick...and all Nick characters, but it would take alot for me to trade in a normal Freedom cruise to do a Nick one.

 

And in comparison, our Disney Magic sailing (Cat 6 balcony cabin) was the price of us doing a Grand Suite on a normal Freedom of the Seas sailing. And Grand Suites come with perks, Cat 6 on Disney, no perks.

 

So to compare the price of a Nick Freedom cruise verses Disney Magic 7 day cruise, they would be similiar.

 

But honestly, I think the Nick cruise was a nice way to introduce family cruising for those who aren't used to sailing with their kids. But I don't think it's for my family, who is used to sailing Freedom without the slime. ;)

 

I found the prices still posted on CC...so read it and weep...lol

 

INSIDE for 2 people - $2,699 to start

 

INSIDE for 4 people - $3,999 to start

[rosebud1g]

Mattie920 and Dem920

About the upcoming Nick chartered cruises July 2009..

You should both call RCCL ASAP.. they will bump you, in fact

it most likely already happened.

This exact same thing

happened to our party of 9 last summer. We were booked on FOS

for Aug 8 and got BUMPED. I found out about this on CC. RCCL did

not notify us first. They appologized and said it "leaked" out before

they could contact us to change our sailing date.

I knew something was wrong, because our reservation did not

exist on their web site.

They DID honor our price for any other sailing/ship/date, and got

a $200 OBC per cabin. We stayed on FOS, but moved to a sailing

2 wks prior.

They explained that Nickelodeon was handling all the bookings and

they had nothing to do with it.

Cruisinmama is right, the price was 2X more $$ than what we originally

pd RCCl. So we did not elect to stay on the Nick sailing.

So my advise is call RCCL -- asap and start looking for an alternative.

[Cruiserccl]

IS there a link to pictures from the first cruise? It sounds like Nick did a GREAT job!

[franncos]

By the way thnaks for your info. So far I can not find any reservation for the Nick cruise. Does anyone have any idea when it will be available for price and booking?

[vavasmom]

 

And in comparison, our Disney Magic sailing (Cat 6 balcony cabin) was the price of us doing a Grand Suite on a normal Freedom of the Seas sailing. And Grand Suites come with perks, Cat 6 on Disney, no perks.

 

 

Just wanted to agree with Michele on this point. Spring Break week April 07 we (at the time 2 adults and an 11 yo) had initially booked a cat 6 on the Magic for the week. We changed to the Freedom in a Grand Suite (much larger than the cat 6 and with nice suite perks) for $240 less. Even after paying for my soda card and DD's Late Night Party Zone we were still $200 dollars less for a lot more space.

 

I love Freedom but could not image paying the Nick prices.

[lauritagoddess]

Does anyone know when Nick is going release the prices for the 2009 cruises?

[franncos]

My understanding for the 2009 prices will by on Nov 1st.

[lauritagoddess]

Thanks!! :)