Zacharius

28 minutes ago, Mike6453 said:

we just took odyssey for greek isles out of rome, we flew to rome from NY family of six (all economy) on delta came out to 9500. i was shocked when i booked, i even watched the prices for six months (the prices never dropped below 8500 and went as high as 15,000). 

One thing to consider when booking groups - it can sometimes be cheaper to break the group up in to smaller groups, and it's worth checking that out for future trips. An example of why (with hypothetical numbers and such): There are 3 tickets available in Fare Bucket A, and 10 seats tickets in the more expensive Fare Bucket B. If you're pricing six together, it's going to bypass the Fare Bucket A (because there are only three tickets available) and book all six in to the higher Fare Bucket B. If you split is up three and three, it would book three of you in to Fare Bucket A, and the other three in Fare Bucket B, resulting in a lower grand total. This isn't going to happen every time, but it's worth pricing out. The risk is that something happens during travel and three get re-booked on one route, and three on another route, because you're technically separate groups...but most flights do make it, and the risk still may be worth it depending on the savings. 

18 hours ago, Ryan79 said:

Chops is highly overrated. It’s about on par with Applebees as far as the quality (or lack there of) of the meat. I would choose Izumi because of the entertainment factor as well. It’s a much more enjoyable experience than Chops. My kids are 100% carnivores when it comes to steak and didn’t care for it either.

Maybe I've had unusually good experiences on my five or so visits to Chops...but I have always found my steaks fairly good. I get the opportunity to visit a LOT of really high end steakhouses around the world for business dinners/meetings, which are of course much, much better than Chops, but that's my way of say that I am no stranger to phenomenal steaks but have always enjoyed by Chops steaks. Of course, being on vacation tends to skew tastes a bit (most things seem to taste a bit better on vacation). 

On 9/25/2023 at 1:42 PM, smokeybandit said:

Not if you're moving from California.

I guess it kind of depends where in California. Even in So Cal (where it appears OP is from), there's a big difference between LA, San Diego, and...Calexico

5 hours ago, Happy Cruisers said:

Most people are looking for some secret handshake/book at 2:52 am on a Tuesday kind-of-trick to save money on airfare in a way that involves minimal action, but if someone is actually willing to try to help themselves, good standard advice for overseas travel is to search all available international airports, and then as-needed book a positioning flight to get there.

Just a caveat to be careful with something like this. Very careful. If you're booking separate tickets, you are not protected. Example - you want to fly Denver to London, but it's cheaper to fly Chicago to London. No problem, let me just book a separate, cheaper ticket on, say, Southwest or Frontier from Denver to Chicago, and then United/BA/AA from Chicago to London. 

Well, you're now on two separate origin/destination tickets - Denver to Chicago, and Chicago to London. Southwest/Frontier is only responsible to get you from Denver to Chicago; United/BA/AA is only responsible to get you from Chicago to London. If your DEN-CHI (be it MDW or ORD) is delayed, and you miss the ORD-LHR flight, you're in trouble and will probably have to buy a new, last-minute ticket to get yourself to London...and and subsequent flights on that registration are likely to be cancelled as you're now a no-show. 

So, if you do decide to book positioning flights, be smart and book BIG layovers (preferably overnight), and make sure it's really worth it (factoring in things like hotels, meals, ground transportation if needed (such as between Midway and O'Hare in my example), cost of your time, etc. etc.) 

Another vote for downtown. Although I am a Hilton loyalist, I absolutely love the Hyatt Regency Seattle Downtown (on Howell St.) and usually stay there if I am staying downtown (versus suburbs). 

3 hours ago, Indygo said:

You’ll actually find some places that only takes cards (including a restroom we visited - was a bit strange tapping for the loo!)

That's becoming increasingly common in the US, especially with smaller local shops in urban areas. 

Definitely, please, for your own good, avoid the ATMs on the ship when at all possible. Most ports will have ATMs with lower fees...and even better if you can get just a bit away from the port to get the cash from a non-port ATM. 

14 minutes ago, CanHardlyWait said:

OK, so Mariner leaves Saturday. Sunday at sea. Monday is supposed to be Labadee. The hurricane will be super close to Haiti on Monday. Tuesday is supposed to be Jamaica. Now they are talking about bad waves hitting the shore lines as storm passes. Making sailing, swimming on board, and docking all potentially difficult. What do you think the odds are we will get switched? Maybe the gulf and Mexico for calmer waters? 

This storm appears to be particularly tricky. It speeds up, it slows down, it goes one way and then goes another, and then slows down again. I'm sure people at the various cruise lines are keeping an eye on it and throwing out contingencies, but with this one, it may all be fairly last minute. Nobody on here is going to have any real insight at this point, that might be the only guarantee

2 hours ago, TXcruzer said:

If you talk frankly to any professional waitstaff here in the states, or any forward facing crew on cruise ships, they will agree with you 100%.  They all do better in a cash based gratuity system (not the Royal Caribbean scam of auto daily gratuity)

I fill in occasionally at a brewery near my house in the US (on the rare occasions I'm not traveling for work)...it's just kind of my fun thing to do a couple times a month, and a way to get some free beer Anyways, I will preface this by saying that our owner pays us a pretty good base pay of $12 to $16/hour (most of us fall at $14), and then tips on top of that (split evenly on a per hour basis for the tips made that day). I usually end up making about $35/hour on a Friday or Saturday, and maybe $27-$30/hour on a week day. I'm honestly shocked at how much I get paid just to pour beer/wine and make some cocktails. 

I also have a buddy who works as a sever at a very high-end steakhouse chain (I won't name it, but it rhymes with Smakital Trill) and he easily clears $100k/year in a pretty affordable mid-sized midwestern city. 

3 hours ago, Kiwi said:

There were some activities strictly in Mandarin -- we didn't think we'd have much luck in the "finish the song lyric" game with songs in Mandarin, for example, haha.

I have kind of a funny story about this. I lived in China for two years and still go back regularly for work, but I am a black guy who is a dual US/Namibian citizen and speaks English with a midwest American accent. My spoken Mandarin is good, but not great. Anyways, I was in Hangzhou, ended up at a karaoke bar, and overheard people (who didn't know I understood them) questioning why I was there since most everything was in Mandarin. 

So of course I went up on stage, belted out a pretty damn good Mandarin cover of "Friday" by Rebecca Black (because it was Friday, and I was drunk), looked a them, and dropped the mic. We spent the rest of the night together bar hopping. 

Two words: Frankie. MacDonald. 

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I've never heard of a revenue fare bucket that wouldn't accumulate miles. 

It's rare, but I have heard of them. More often than that are airlines whose super discounted fares earn some miles but not 100% miles (such as AA, who specifically note cruise lines as the origin of some fares that result in reduced miles). 

1 hour ago, VillainsGin said:

@Zacharius speaking on booking through Air2Sea, how does the loyalty points with flying through specific airlines work in this case? I know booking directly gives you travel points when you can use to redeem for rewards with airline but if you book through a 3rd party are you still rewards airline points?

There may be cases in which the fare they book you on doesn't earn points (or doesn't earn the full amount of points). To be fair, that can also be the case with certain fares on the airlines themselves. But I have never used Air2Sea so I don't have experience personally. 

16 hours ago, VillainsGin said:

I was leaning a bit towards the nonstop option as I pondered more about it. It makes sense to go with ONT if both airports required stops. I think nonstop helps decreases your chances of problems, with less moving parts.

 

I've decided to suck it up and uber to LAX to save myself the drive and self parking? Actually how is the self parking in LAX? do they have a indoor parking structure to protect my vehicle from the elements?

I've never done self parking at LAX, but my friends in LA who do often use the garage(s) inside the terminal loop...they feel it's worth the extra money. If you book ahead for the cheaper parking (that requires a shuttle), they sometimes throw you a deal to upgrade to the terminal parking. 

14 hours ago, WannaCruise said:

I think it must depend on the airline.  We are trying Air2Sea for the first time in December.  The airline is WestJet but we are not able to book our seats until we pay off the flight. It's a chance we are taking, but like the fact that we don't have to pay the flight off when booking.

Yes, it depends on the airline AND the fare. And you often won't know the real fare ahead of time, if at all. Many of the fares Air2Sea uses are specially negotiated, so even on the same airline and same route, two people may have very different experiences. 

1 hour ago, VillainsGin said:

What do you think personally when going from ONT or LAX to MIA?

I have to make this decision pretty frequently because I do a lot of work up in the Palmdale area and need to decide if I want to connect through ONT (easier drive down, quieter, easier, rental cars right there) or go nonstop through LAX (crazier, busier, rental cars halfway to Pasadena, but better hotel choices if I need to spend the night). I also do BUR sometimes, of course, but there's no point in you going there so I'll leave it out of the discussion. 

If my destination requires a stop no matter where I come out of, I'll usually choose ONT over LAX. If it's a case of LAX being nonstop and ONT being one-stop, I'll usually (but not always) choose LAX. A lot of times it just depends on my mood when I am booking. In your case, I would probably do LAX. 

19 hours ago, VillainsGin said:

Thank you for this valuable insight! I am flying domestically from ONT airport in California to MIA in Florida.

Have you considered LAX? A little extra time up front (on the road) can result in a myriad of nonstop options that could save time in the long run versus the necessary connection coming out of ONT. 

59 minutes ago, Psycho and Barb said:

Go to your local bank and get you some $2 dollar bills to take with ya...We have found the bartenders really like the $2 bills for some reason.

I really dislike this idea myself. As someone who spends their life and career bouncing around the world, I can assure you that the $2 bill is very much unknown outside of the US (and even inside the US by a shockingly high number of people). It can be exceedingly difficult to convert $2 bills outside of the US. 

2 hours ago, AlmondFarmer said:

I sense the Force will be strong on this sailing. 
To infinity and beyond! 

1 hour ago, Larry Muster said:

The usual Royal Cruise Director staff are non-existent

Sounds like a perfect cruise to me 

2 hours ago, octaviocloss said:

I've seen several footages of Leo Messi on HOTS, did he actually sail for a full itinerary? 

I can't imagine the hottest name in the sports world right now taking a three night Bahamas cruise on a mid-tier cruise line. If it truly was out to sea (versus some kind of...digital enhancement), probably just flew him out and back really quick.

5 minutes ago, Cakemeister said:

Who's that?

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Who+the+heck+is+Leo+Messi%3F

(I'm just givin' you a hard time) 

On 8/7/2023 at 6:56 PM, Heymarco said:

But why? Makes no sense for a large mob to travel to a remote part of the island. 

I'm not saying it's likely to happen; what I am saying is that it's likely to be a very strong barrier should a group actually (for whatever reason) decide to. Unlikely. 

I'd also like to say that Labadee is far from remote. Cap-Haitien, a metro area of over 250,000 people, is barely 10km by road from Labadee. 

3 hours ago, Va4fam said:

We flew Alaska Airlines to Anchorage with a return from Vancouver.   Plenty of flight options.  Seattle is one of their bigger hubs if you choose to fly there.

Seattle is by far Alaska's biggest hub, and their headquarters. They operate hub-ish operations at a few other airlines, but Seattle is without a doubt their largest. 

13 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

JetBlue has only 1 direct flight from JFK   and it seems decent enough price wise, but of course, if that one flight cancels that's the end of that. (will fly in 2 days early

I think you're worrying more than you need to. Yes, they may only have one nonstop (which is different than direct) flight a day. But if you're flying in two days in advance, it would take something quite dramatic to happen for you to miss your cruise. Could it happen? Sure...but the odds are on your side. I would take the Jetblue nonstop, hands down. 

11 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

I think another question I should ask  in case I book flights with a stop….airports to avoid making transfers?!

Not really. Maybe something like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, LA, or Phoenix, because they are quite a bit out of the way, but that's really the only reason. Something like Minneapolis or Detroit (on Delta) would be most convenient. But I still would vote for Jetblue. 

4 hours ago, Biaggio said:

You can fly to Seattle and take The Amtrak Cascades train to Vancouver. It may give you more flight options and it’s one of the most picturesque rides in the world. Fare is reasonable. 

There's also a bus between SEA and Vancouver. Or OP could fly Alaska or Delta and just connect JFK-SEA-YVR. 

1 hour ago, Jay66 said:

Thank you.  They said everybody on the flight would be on the cruise .  I'm just trying to work out our travel day which is difficult without a flight time  

Ah, so it's a charter specifically for the cruise? That actually makes it event trickier to predict, so it might be best just to reach out to them. I definitely understand the scheduling part!