KWong

According to the cruise planner gratuities were included in the cost of the UDP. Anyway, I will probably end up not touching the gratuities, but I have time to sort everything out.

So the wife and I decided to the UDP for our 6 night on Explorer. Obviously, that means that we are unlikely to eat in the MDR. So the question then is - how should we deal with the server gratuities that are automatically added to the onboard account? I'm not sure if we should be giving a tip to servers that we'll never see in the MDR?

Guess we'll see. Not particularly concerned either way - wife and I will find chairs if we need them.

Same. Although my next cruise is in the Mediterranean in late October, so I'm not anticipating too many chair issues at that time.

There is a yt channel called Greece Explained that does a good breakdown of areas to stay in Athens. That might help you decide.

I can't really recommend anything in terms of that because we're probably doing hiking in Tofino (again, a land trip), which is way too far away for a cruise excursion. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I didn't do any hiking research for the Victoria area.

It is a website and an app.

I've found Get Your Guide to be another decent broker. Might also be worth checking out.

I was looking at the Skywalk for my (non-cruise) trip to BC this summer since we saw it on The Amazing Race Canada and were curious about it. My conclusion is that it's a purpose-built tourist attraction with appeal as an accessible hike with an elevated view and a dry slide (ugh) as it's major selling points. At $37 CDN pp (not including transport over), it could get pricey. But it does get you out of the city and nature-adjacent, so there is that. I think that, with 10 hours to play with, it's not a bad way to spend a few hours. But it's not something that screams "must do" to me.

This is probably a better solution. Especially if you can get connecting rooms (assuming it's not too late). Bonus - you get an extra full bathroom.

I've definitely had worse drip coffee on a ship. To be honest, I find cruises to be a good time to cut down on the caffeine.

when I go a la carte, I pace myself, drink in moderation on board and spend more on cheaper drinks in port. That might work for your husband.

Thanks for the tips. Going in late October, I don't know that we'll get a true taste of the Greek Islands, but maybe that's a blessing in disguise since Mykonos won't have near as many tourists. But yeah, looking forward to Sicily and Mallorca. We're also gonna hit Lisbon for a day and a half before heading home. Apparently at that time of year there's about one direct flight to Toronto and that got booked up long before we got the conference details... so might as well hit another city and country in Europe, right? I like your thinking. I know some of the tickets allow you to visit over multiple days so I was already thinking about doing that anyway. Whether we make it or not depends on how jet lagged my wife is.

So, in the world of first world problems, I seem to have one, and am looking for advice. I am sailing Explorer of the Seas in late October from Piraeus to Barcelona. We were originally taking the cruise that sailed out of Ravenna but for whatever reason that was canceled and replaced with a 6 nighter out of Greece. We rebooked on that because my wife has a conference in Barcelona, so the endpoint and time was actually of more importance than the starting point. But that shifted our plans from doing a couple of days in Venice and taking a train to Ravenna to Athens and the much closer port of Piraeus. We are getting in to Athens around noon on Friday. Not too hard to plan things to do for the 1.5 days prior to the cruise. But here's the big question - should we board the cruise early, or spend a little more time in Athens before making our way to port?

Man, there's an upcharge for everything on that airline, no?

It depends on the ship. If it's one of the newer ships (I want to say Quantum Class, Icon Class, Harmony and Symphony but please correct me if I'm wrong), they have RFID cards so you'd have no problems there. I believe all the other ships use magstripe cards, which may or may not be an issue. It's been so long since I've relied on the magstripe on a card that I don't know if a cellphone will mess up a magstripe.

I've used Euro adapters for things like my laptop. But of course a laptop has it's own converter so no issues on that front. Also used an adapter for my Anker USB Powerport with no issues, apart from the flimsiness of having an adapter and a USB multiport attached to it. For my trip to France last year, I ended up buying some Euro-specific USB multiports and ended up using those on my last cruise as well.

Thanks. I play a bit but not enough to get comps, so not that worried about it. And I hate slots. But I do like to know what I'm getting into before I get there. Bad house odds will probably limit my casino time a bit more than I planned.

Hi everyone, Just curious on a few things about CR on Explorer... or Royal in general since I haven't been on since Indy in early 2020. Wanted to know the following: - Craps - is it still the same odds as before? - Roulette - double or triple zero? Wanted to play when I was on Regal Princess, but they had triple zero and that was the end of that. - Blackjack - what is the payout for a blackjack? And I assume it's a shuffle master and not a hand shuffled shoe? Thanks in advance.

Has anyone tried ordering a Caesar on board?

I went on Regal Princess over New Year's. Skews older, not that many bells and whistles in terms of activities. Really nice ship if one of your main goals is to relax and not do too much. Not a good ship if you like waterslides, rock walls etc. You definitely have to make your own fun. But if you're ok with that, it is quite enjoyable.

@DublinFC please let us know which hotel you settled on and how your stay was. For me, I like staying at Hyatt Place 17th street. There are a large cluster of hotels in the area but the combination of free breakfast, large rooms and consistently competitive prices make this my choice. I'm not that fussed with pools though so ymmv with this. But the reason I like this area is that everything you need is within walking distance. Even Port Everglades if you wanted to save $10-15. There are various restaurants, a Publix/Dollar Tree for sundries, wine shops, and a TJ Maxx/Ross for "I forgot to pack this item of clothing".

We've also traditionally tipped over and above (and I build it into our travel budget), but to reiterate everyone else it's not necessary to do so. As for how much over and above... I don't know that there's a "correct" way to do this. For the stateroom attendant, it ends up being slightly more than what I would tip housekeeping at a hotel. For the servers, it's a few dollars, per person, per day, and rounding to the nearest 10. For us, a family of four, it works out to a decent amount.

I've brought beach toys onboard in the past. Actually we went to the dollar store after we landed in FLL and got beach toys there.

I always use the dodgy-looking-yet-legit valuetrips site for Fort Lauderdale. Haven't really found any other site that can provide that value for FLL area. This is like searching for Vancouver and getting Montreal hotels.