Zacharius

Do yourself a favor - get a water with every alcoholic drink, and keep on one-for-one. Sip of alcohol, sip of water, back and forth. When your alcohol drink is gone, so too should you water...then refresh both. They have no problem giving you a water with your alcoholic drink if you ask (I've never been told no). Yes, you'll have to use the facilities more, but it really is a game changer as far as how you feel the next day, since the biggest culprit of a hangover is dehydration.

The "city" is right next to the dock. You basically empty from the ship right in to the city center. There's plenty of shops, if that's what you're interested in. You can also check out a couple of government buildings if that interests you (since it's the national capital), take the stroll over the Queen's Staircase, grab a drink at the Pirate Republic Brewery if that interests you, have some local seafood (conch fritters are recommended). Other than that, I just kinda head back to the ship and enjoy it being a little quieter.

Grit and hashbrowns together would be an extra charge on the All Star. Let's not go crazy here, money bags. Though admittedly, I waver between grits and hashbrowns depending on my mood on that particular day.

All-Star, pecan waffle, hashbrown capped and peppered, bacon light, raisin toast, eggs over medium. Get it right.

I'll put my frequent plug in, which is to look beyond just the port area. Often times, you can rent a car at the airport, have full access to the metro area (for sightseeing, meals, lodging options of all budgets), and drop your car at the port the next morning (with a free shuttle from there to the ship) for less than a hotel + uber/lyft. We have never actually stayed at a place that has a shuttle to the port, because we often prefer the flexibility of having our own car at the same, or sometimes lower, total price. Just one more option to look in to if it interests you.

Newark is not only the best airport for the port, it's often the best airport for Manhattan as well. Keep in mind, all three area NYC airports are trash...but Newark is pretty much the least trash. If you're staying in Manhattan, I usually still would pick Newark. If you're staying east (Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island City), JFK might be better. You could always take a different airline and fly in to EWR. Even if you like Southwest, the pain of flying in to LGA and having to get all the way across the city to the port must simply be worse than just flying a different airline for a couple hours from wherever you are in Illinois...

I really didn't enjoy my first cruise, which was with Royal Caribbean. Why? Expectations were set too high...people kept saying how good the food was, how good the shows were, etc. etc. Got onboard and found the food just okay, and the entertainment just okay. Decided to give cruising one more try, after about five years, and again went with Royal Caribbean. Went with lower expectations, did more specialty dining (but aside from that just viewed the food as a way to get full, not a culinary experience), and skipped the shows. Have had a much better experience since then, and really look forward to my next one. People may say cruising isn't for everyone, and that's true. But also, cruising may be for you but your expectations were set too high, as mine were at first.

It might be worth grabbing an appointment/consultation with a travel doctor. He/she will have a better, realistic understanding of where, geographically, the risks may be compared to (a) random Internet sites (this one included), or (b) most other types of medical specialists.

I'm not saying that. Australia probably does. But my point is that China will have the definitive rules as to immigration policies of China. The Australian government will do the best they can, and they very well may have it right, but when push comes to shove and Chinese authorities are questioning your immigration status, it's better to have a Chinese government answer than an Australian (or British or American or Sudanese or whomever else's) answer.

The Australian government is not the best source for rules about Chinese immigration requirements. A Chinese embassy/consulate in Australia would be. But much like you wouldn't go to the Chinese government to ask about entry requirements for Australia, nor should you go to the Australian government to ask about entry requirements to China.

I don't actually work for Boeing, but I do a lot of consulting with various aerospace companies and suppliers in the Seattle area.

$297 really seems fair to me for a roundtrip. It could come down, yes. It's just as likely, if not more so, to go up. If you're comfortable paying $297, do it...if it's more than you want to pay, wait, but be prepared to pay $397.

Where are you departing from? That makes a big difference. If you're flying from Spokane, it's an okay price. If you're flying from Boston, it's a really good price. I fly to Seattle a lot for work (work in aerospace) and Seattle flights tend to be surprisingly cheap.

Makes sense. Just wanted to make sure. There are a shockingly high number of people who still think Puerto Rico is a foreign country ?

Just to clarify, "overseas" is usually meant as a foreign country, and San Juan is in the exact same country as Jacksonville... As far as "good deals" go, you'll just have to do your own search. Airline prices change all of the time, and unless you have a solid date picked, the best you can do is search for current fares in a similar time of year...but even that's no guarantee that they will remain the same. You have no nonstops, but the easiest would probably be to go via MIA (on AA), FLL (on B6; WN is stopping JAX-FLL service before your trip), CLT (on AA), or ATL (on DL or WN), as everything else would result in an even more drastic backtrack. You may also want to look at driving to Orlando and flying a nonstop from there on either Frontier, Spirit, Soutwest, or JetBlue. Could end up being a good savings and a chance to get a nonstop.

If you're already willing to go to Hamilton, keep an eye out for Buffalo too. That extra drive can save a good chunk, so even if it's not the shortest of drives (plus border crossing), it may be worth it. BUF has nonstop JetBlue to FLL, and seasonal nonstop Southwest to FLL. No nonstops to MIA.

People say this all the time, so it's believable, but it's not a good way to look at things. Airlines and cruise lines operate on completely different economic principles, and to compare them isn't fair. Airlines basically offer two things - seats and cargo space. Taking out the cargo space, which regular passengers don't have any access to, that just leaves the seat for purchase. Sure, some airlines may have other things to spend money on such as bags, seat assignments, early boarding, food...but in the end, it's mostly just the seat, so they need to get the bulk of their passenger revenue from that itself. Compare that to a cruise line where the base fare you pay is only one (sometimes small) part of the what they can get out of your pocket - excursions, drinks, additional meals, casino, etc. etc. For a cruiseline, the fare is basically a way to get you on the ship to spend more money; for an airline, the fare is basically all they're going to get from you. So, very different economics and expecting airfare to always be less than the cruise fare is not a good way to look at it. My recommendation is to always book directly with the airline when possible, unless there are huge reasons not to. I don't like having a middleman. Air2Sea often offers lower fares on one-way international flights, but rarely offers any deals on domestic US or US/Canada flights from what I have seen and heard, so unless you're flying in the day of your cruise and wanting that protection (which may or may not actually happen), you're basically putting a middleman between you and the airline for little to no savings.

Heck yeah, Alaska is a fantastic airline. My favorite North American-based airline, personally, and I've flown on a lot of them.

Sea-Tac to Downtown Seattle is 13-15 miles, depending on what part of downtown. So let's just call it 14. To compare to others, it's not that far out: Lower Manhattan to JFK is 20 miles; LGA is 11 miles, EWR is 14-15 miles. YYZ to Downtown Toronto is 16-17 miles. O'Hare to Downtown Chicago is 17-19 miles. LAX to Downtown LA is 18-20 miles, and Burbank to Downtown LA is 16-17 miles. DEN to Downtown Denver is 24-25 miles. Houston Bush to Downtown Houston is 20-22 miles. I'll stop there, but with the exception of some ridiculously convenient exceptions (Boston, Washington Reagan, things like that) SEA is relatively close to downtown, and has a good rail link between the airport and city center.

There's an Alamo located at Port Everglades. It's very convenient. I have never picked it up AT the pier, but I have certainly dropped it there (flown in the day before, picked up an Alamo car at FLL airport, dropped it next day at port, and they shuttled us to the ship). They may be the only one actually at the port, I am not sure. But it's really very convenient.

Well, then you'll need to determine how high it is up on your bucket list. A weekend cruise is a weekend away...it'll be nice, but will you remember it the rest of your life? How about a trip through the entirety of the Panama Canal?

Last time I flew out of SJU (last year) it was absolutely dirt cheap...like $180 each way, each person from SJU-CLT-MCI. Yes, we did spend a night after the cruise, but it still came out ahead. Definitely can be worth doing the math of flights on one day, versus flights + hotel + meal on the next day. In our case, we still saved like $50 and justified an extra night of vacation, so it was worth it.

Gotcha. I do it when schedules aren't good on the same airline out or back, or there's a substantial savings versus a roundtrip on the same airline (for example, Southwest charging $100 out and $300 back, but AA charges $100 back...I'll fly Southwest out, AA back, all other things equal...just an example).