mbk999

Luckily (knock on wood) I don't tend to be affected but my wife is very susceptible to motion sickness.  We board with Dramamine and a prescription nausea medication and she's always got the sea bands on.  That is usually enough.   Only once did we lose her and that was on the Freedom when it cut across the tail of a TS/Hurricane in the Bahamas (lots of people were affected that night).   That was for about 7-8 hours. 

She won't use the patch.    A long time ago, we had a very bad experience with the patch where all the sensations that it deadens at sea came back to her on land.  Walking through EPCOT made her feel nauseous and she felt as she was on a rocking boat and it lasted for several days.    However, that was from the first generation of the patch which I believe they subsequently pulled from the market for a while so I don't think that will be the case now.  But she's still gun-shy after that experience.   

I've gone with Allianz in the past (no claim) and just purchased another Allianz policy for my October trip.  (I was unaware of the annual insurance so I will investigate that next time).   Given last year's hurricane season and some things going on in life, I went with the "cancel for any reason" insurance and I've got the dates of coverage starting prior to the cruise to cover travel to and from the cruise port.  

Another vote for just driving, for me it has to be >10-12 hours of driving before I fly.  I have no personal experience w/ Spirit but none of my friends that have flown with them have any positive things to say.   Most just say "never again".   

On 12/18/2017 at 7:17 PM, twangster said:

As a frequent business traveler over the years I used to often come down with something after a business trip.  A 'common' cold or whatever.  Taking time to wipe down my hotel room or airplane seat area has reduced my post-trip maladies.  Nothing that I can quantify in data, but I do feel it has cut down on them.  

A big motivator for me was seeing how many men walk out of the bathroom stalls in the airport and head straight into the terminal.  I saw this on Anthem last week too. Just wow.    

The hotel room / cabin remote control can be a germ factory....

It was either on the Mariner or Freedom, using the pool deck/Windjammer men's room, and watching an older gentleman cup his hands under the faucet to drink from the sink, right in front of the non-potable water sign.   All I could do was shake my head.

4 hours ago, toodle68 said:

My humble advice is to take your passport anytime you are leaving the country

Agreed, much simpler with less stress.   I know getting a passport(s) at the last minute isn't the cheapest option but it's best in the long run (imo).

St Thomas we did the swim with the Sea Lion at Coral World, with a follow-up island tour 

No experience with Tampa but I know at Miami and Canaveral, the rental car shuttle buses are always running between the port and car station.  Car rentals in FL are fairly cheap (all things considered).  

33 minutes ago, Sabrinaklai said:

Every time we sail out of Port Canaveral this is exactly what we do.  It is such a seamless way to start the vacation. You basically get off the plane.  Head down to baggage claim and grab your luggage and up the escalators and the Hyatt is right there.  So convenient.  No taxi, Uber, etc.  And it is not much more expensive than a regular hotel elsewhere.  There's a really good restaurant right in the Hyatt (McCoy's) for a nice dinner and drinks or you can eat in back in the terminal if you want something fast.  Then the next morning, you head down to baggage claim/transportation area and hop on the shuttles. So easy.

we've done this at least 3x for Disney trips.  Either due to work schedule/airfare $/frequent flyer availability, we'd find ourselves landing at MCO around midnight and it was just very convenient.  The hotel rate usually included breakfast the next morning and you're right, the room rate isn't ridiculous, the extra $ is cheaper than the additional day for the rental car.   And the hotel itself is quiet and very comfortable.     

1 hour ago, kitkat said:

Thank you for the amazing advice. Flying a day earlier never occurred to us because we never travelled in the winter. I called Air Canada, they said I would better to purchase new tickets because the cost of changing flight is $200 per person plus the difference. >_<

I guess this would impact the other thread about transportation to and from the port.  If you fly in early enough the day before, do the car rental and explore Orlando (City Walk at Universal, Disney Springs at Disney) or head over to Port Canaveral and stay over there.    If you fly in later in the afternoon/early evening, there's a Hyatt Regency in the Orlando airport is actually a nice hotel.  If you arrive at a time where you would be simply driving to a hotel to sleep anyway, staying directly at the airport is an option.    That puts the Royal Caribbean shuttle back into play the next morning.   

21 hours ago, twangster said:

 

I've been to Cozumel several times and the color of the water amazes me every time.

 

Agreed.  Our first time in Cozumel we did an excursion to Passion Island and the water was aqua green.  It was beautiful  

23 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

Lol!  That and purse sales!  It's a madhouse!  You can always get the designer purses cheaper on land than on the ship.

I haven't warn a watch since smart phones and don't need a purse so I'm clearly not the target audience......

2 hours ago, Diane S said:

We had never heard of Invicta.  It does work and has a nice magnified date area.    We did not purchase the internet package on board.  When we went on the cruise, we agree we would lock our phones in the safe.  We wanted to disconnect from the world.  

Thumbs up on the disconnect from the world comment.  I think that's one of the best parts of cruising.

Not to hijack the thread, but it's still watch related.   What is it with cruises and watch sales?  Granted it had been awhile for us between cruises but when we were on the Enchantment, ads for watches were everywhere, watch sales abound, etc.  It just puzzled us.  

Great posts, enjoy the cruise!

22 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

And it's got a kick like a mule! 

Yeah, that's why it was usually saved more for the later part of the evening.  

9 minutes ago, rjac said:

Now, why would you want to go and ruin a good mug of beer like that?

It's a good way to get rid of the Bud/Coors light that's on board.   The flaming Dr Pepper, now that takes me back.....  and it does taste like Dr Pepper or Mr. Pibb

Check Twangster's Blog entry on the Freedom.  There is a picture of the Beer/Cider selection at the pub.  It may give you some indication of what will be available (at least at the pub).  I was very underwhelmed by the selection on the Enchantment (yes I'm a beer snob guy), but the blog picture showed some ok options.

On 11/8/2017 at 9:27 AM, WAAAYTOOO said:

When you get on the ship on the first day, I recommend that you go to the dining room where you will be dining (it will be printed on your seapass card) and arrange for a specific table.  After your first night's dining is complete, and if you re HAPPY with your location and your wait staff, let the maitre'd know, on the way out, that you would like to keep that same table and time for the rest of your cruise.  If you are NOT happy with your wait staff then let the maitre'd know that as well and they will assign you another table.

If you are not going to be able to make it at your assigned time just let them know ahead of time so that they don't "save" your table for that night...and then you can resume your regular schedule for the other nights that you will be there.

They are remarkably good about allowing you to have the same table on consecutive nights.  We have only had a problem with this once, and one other time, we did not care for our staff on night #1 (rare, as we are usually pretty easy to please !) so we changed tables but after that, we were happy.

They absolutely WILL seat you all together (without any other "strangers") if that's what you want.

This was our experience on the Enchantment (albeit it was only for 2).  I made reservations 3 of the 4 nights, requested a table for two.  On embarkation, we went to the MDR to confirm times, table for two and said we'd prefer the same wait staff and a table by the window.  At the end of dinner on the first night, we let the waiter know we would be at Chops for Day 2, but back for days 3 & 4.   Showed up for Day 3 and the waiter and made notes or our previous drink order and just verified it, on Day 4 he just went and got them.  And we had the same table every night.   There was some variation on the people around us but we saw the same people at the adjacent tables on Days 3 and 4 

Thanks to all for the information.  My plan to sneak away for a quick cruise was scuttled by wife's pre MLK holiday work schedule that wasn't as flexible as I had hoped (the downside of being in the education field).  Sailing out of Tampa is still on my list, but sadly it will still remain for now.   

48 minutes ago, kitkat said:

Thank you for all the great advice. We will fly from Toronto at 6am in the morning and arrive by 9. 

For the rental car, we are not sure if it comes with a car seat upon request given we aren't bring any car seat from home. It's only 3 of us, so I guess shutter bus will be our best option. Does anyone else have experience with travelling with a toddler in a rental car?

There's usually an option to add a car seat (though it would be a "community" car seat of questionable cleanliness!).   If you needed a mini-van, they would almost for sure have an integrated car seat.   It's been a very long time since we traveled with a toddler but we were always the ones lugging the car seat around.

20 hours ago, kitkat said:

Our family booked the very first cruise trip in February, and we have a few questions to ask people have done cruise for more than once:

• We need to travel from the Orlando airport to Port Canaveral, is baby under 2 sitting on a parent on the Royal Caribbean coach bus?
• Is there more than one shutter bus travelling between airport and the port?
• Beside Royal Caribbean coach bus, what transportation will you recommend us? 
• On the Embarkation date, will we have any accommodation get on ship earlier than others given we travel with a baby?
• We ordered gift from the website, and they mistakenly charged us twice. How do we cancel the wrong order?
• If I order the drink package, is there really water bottles available or just bottled water dispersed at the water station?

Many thanks in advance. We try to figure out as many details as possible with our 18-month old coming along.

As BrianAlt mentioned, there are multiple transportation options from MCO to Port Canaveral.  We've done one way rental cars in the past, most of the major car co have small locations in Cocoa Beach.  It's a pretty well honed process, drop the party and luggage off at the pier, drop your car off at the rental car location and hop on the shuttle back to the pier (continually running).  Repeat when the ship gets back to port.  It's one option that we've used.  A lot of folks will just use Uber and Lyft.  There's private transportation (limo, shuttles) as well which I'm sure work fine.  

You can get bottled water from any bar with the drink package.

On 10/30/2017 at 10:40 AM, DocLC said:

I want to say it was $4-$5. Orange juice is available without charge, it's just not fresh squeezed. 

I think it was $3 on the Enchantment back in April ($3 or $5 all about the same in the end).   They couldn't make it fast enough in the Windjammer.  The conops was to walk around with pitchers and ask people if they'd like some but people were just lining up at the juicer station.  I'm not a huge OJ guy but it was really good.

On 10/29/2017 at 1:17 PM, WAAAYTOOO said:

Unfortunately, not for us.  We fly American and there are no nonstop flights to FLL from DCA. If we were willing to fly Jet Blue (which I do like, BTW) we could nonstop but both itin and price are much better to Miami than FLL.  It used to be the opposite but now MIA is cheaper than FLL

I can see the American to MIA.  I used to fly United a lot out of IAD but got so fed up with the prices that I switched to Southwest even for business trips.   Between BWI and IAD, that works well for us.   I do like Jet Blue out of DCA into Orlando or Lauderdale.  

3 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Freeport...UGH.  What a DUMP !  The worst cruise port I've ever been to.  REALLY unattractive, commercial...a real working port...and I recall that we tried to take a cab to find something but there just wasn't ANYTHING.  If Freeport was on my itin I would just stay on the ship for SURE.

THat was my impression, but I was hoping things had changed in 25 years.  I also remember not being thrilled about Nassau in 1993 and I would say it was better than I remembered but not a favorite.  But that's a good point, if there's a stop at both Nassau and Freeport, turn the later into a "sea day" and do something (even a walking tour) at Nassau.

I know the public beaches are cab/bus ride away but we've never done them.   The British Colonial isn't free but it's nowhere near Atlantis pricing.   The walking "tour" we did was about 2-3 hours and then we just did some window shopping so to speak.  We were back on the ship by 1:00ish.   We didn't have the ship to ourselves but it wasn't very crowded (the ship was actually docked until midnight that day so a lot of folks were off ship for awhile).   

My only time in Freeport was 1993 and I don't remember much at all and anything I did remember would be long gone and changed (at least I hope).  

11 minutes ago, KLAconQueso said:

Yes - there's just SO much to do, and it takes a lot of planning to make sure you can get to everything. The two weeks allowed us to really take things slow and at our own pace, and even allowed for a night or two where we rented movies in the room and ordered room service junk food. It was great! 

I'm definitely glad we had the ocean view balcony - I feel like that's the only time we saw the ocean. We were aft near the entrance to the boardwalk on deck 6, and that was an amazing location. 

Planning I can handle (lots of years planning personal Disney vacations).  We're more mid-ship but a view is a view...