mom2mybugs

I’m still heartbroken over our majesty cruise. We picked it just for cuba and that port was literally cancelled less than a month before. It was too late to change flights, the weather was awful and they substituted naussau. Not a great cruise…we shouldn’t have risked it and just did oasis. Jane

We are sailing Vancouver to Seward July 25! Our first. Alaska cruise so will be watching for cruise compasses and any advice! Jane

Thanks so much everyone! I’ve been stressing because thats what I do at new ports and this would be the first time I’ve ever driven to a cruise! Jane

Me! We sail March 31 on navigator out of LA! Jane

Congrats on the anniversary and retirement! My husband has announced his from HF (southern suburbs) after the 2027-28 school year. Can't wait to cruise when it's not crowded! Jane

We are doing Italy/Croatia on Voyager in June. Probably won't live blog but will post some pics, etc. Let me know if you have any questions about the ports, etc, after we've gone! Jane

We are getting on the ship the day you get off for an Italy and Croatia cruise to celebrate my daughter's college graduation! Can't wait...our first aft balcony! This will be our first time on Voyager though we've been on adventure and will be going on navigator in April. Which Greek ports are you going to? We did Athens, mykenos and Santorini on our last Mediterranean cruise and they were fantastic. Hope you have a wonderful cruise! Jane

We had issues with an aft balcony on Voyager. We booked for 3 and then before final payment, one person dropped out. Originally you had to book 3, not 2 anyway. We turned it over to our travel agent, because we needed to know whether to leave it as a no-show, or could we get her off the reservation so we could fully insure our share. The first rc agent she talked to said you couldn't remove, the 2nd agent when she called back was immediately able to get the 3rd person off the reservation. Go with the travel agent to handle this!!! Jane

I love the southern Caribbean, and if you have 8 days and time to do it, it's almost always worth doing and often cheaper per day. Jane

Hi! We are planning a short 4 night cruise out of LA on navigator this April. We will be going with friends and staying at their house pre/post cruise in mission Viejo. We may or may not drive up the night before for convenience. Can anybody tell me if there's a convenient to the port hotel that offers parking? Or probably more likely, can anyone tell me how they port parking works? It looks like you don't have to reserve or pay ahead? Do you shuttle from the parking? Overall, how is the port in terms of delays, walking distances, etc? Jane

I'm a teacher married to a teacher in suburban Chicago. It kills me that they only do the calendar in January for the next school year.... You never know when they are going to move spring break. My husband's district went ahead two years and then promptly changed spring break and said they won't ever go more than a year ahead. This year my college student had March 17-21 off, I'm off the next week and then my husband is off the next week. I finally decided screw it and took a week unpaid off from my preschool so we can take a cruise over his spring break. It's a mess so I feel your pain for sure. The start date for him is usually mid August, and then I'm a week later so that shortens that end, and his end date is usually a week off from mine. I've given up trying to book our cruises together more than 12 months in advance, and I delay final payment until I have to! Jane

Thanks everyone. We ended up postponing this, but now I know some names to look for if we try again another time! Jane

Hi... We are planning a last minute long weekend trip over MLK weekend. Although we have 3 cruises planned this year, I don't think we can manage one here, so I just want to get outta Chicago and someplace warm. We are looking at Travelocity at all-inclusives. It's just my hubby and I for 3 nights, 3 ish days. Breezes is by far the cheapest, but they also talk about Hotel Riu and the Royal at Atlantis. Has anyone done any of these and are there any we must do/avoid? There are also non-inclusives at Atlantis as well as the grand Hyatt if these are significantly better. I just need to decide in the next couple days so any advice is greatly appreciated! We mostly want to be warm, read and sip nice drinks by the ocean. Not worried about water parks, or really touring Nassau. Jane

We also saw "interior cabin sale price" and "senior drink price". Lot of sales this pre-black Friday sale. We saved a ton on excursions and drink pkgs on all 3 cruises planned for 2025. Jane

Bumping this up. I posted in the main discussion about where to stay pre-cruise. Trying to figure out the around the cruise logistics!! Jane

Hi everyone! I'm back and planning 3 cruises this year :). The one I'm focusing on planning right now is our Alaska northbound from Vancouver to Seward. Jeff and I and our youngest are planning on flying in Monday and remaining until Friday when we board the cruise. Our daughter, her husband, my son and possibly my daughter's in-laws will come in Thursday afternoon or evening. My question is where do people stay? If we get a place near the cruise port, is it easy to get to downtown Vancouver by Uber? What about getting to Victoria? I'd rather not rent a car if we can uber from the airport to a hotel or Airbnb and function. I'd love any and all advice on hotels, VRBO and Airbnb. On the way back, is it walkable from the port to hotels in seward? Are there easy ubers? Anyone have a good hotel? Is it easy to store luggage and get to the Alaska train to Anchorage? And once in Anchorage, is one mostly full day enough? What is downtown Anchorage like.... Any museums etc? We won't go exploring outside of shows, restaurants, etc. Thanks in advance! I know there are blog posts on what to do cruise wise, and we are good on that, but planning the beginning and end is a bit overwhelming! Jane

Yes and it's fantastic! Jane

Formal night this cruise is day 3. We got dressed up and again had a really good dinner in the main dining room. The food has been very hot and mostly good flavor. The desserts have been mostly soso, but I'm drinking so many sweet drinks it doesn't matter! It was also 70s night. I don't have a lot of pictures, because I was too busy dancing! Part of the fun of being on this smaller ship though is that there are fewer people shoving to get the rings, and I finally got two! We finished our night with an amazing mudslide and finally got to bed. Three late nights with early excursions is just about killing us!

Yesterday was St. Thomas. We booked "St John on your own" which gave us a small boat ride to Cruz on St John's. From there they put us right on a taxi (round trip was 18/person) and then $5 a person to get into trunk bay, which is part of the national Park. It is truly my favorite beach in the Caribbean. Just gorgeous and not overly crowded like some of Aruba's beaches or magen's Bay in St Thomas. We had about 2 hours before we had to get back on the taxi. Back on the ship we got to the pool where we had an hour before, yes, more rain! It didn't last long, but we decided to go round 2 of progressive trivia. I ended up leaving Jeff so I could get the numbers at the top tier event. He didn't do great, but everybody said the last ones were hard and I certainly didn't have any better answers lol! We got the park Cafe pizza and it was very good! I forgot to take a pic until the end!

This every day port thing is exhausting! End of St Croix day involved dinner and me finally getting to do silent disco. I think it would be more fun in something like a viking crown lounge where it's darker. On Rhapsody they do it in the centrum.

Not sure why it repeated that last quote! Today was St Croix. We decided to do the rainforest hike and beach. It was a really great excursion! It says strenuous and I would say that's accurate. The first part of the walk is very uphill, and the last part is very up and down rocky with lots of tree roots. We could do it (I'm 55, my husband has MS and fell once), so it's totally ok to do, but you will home about 3 miles and huff and puff a bit. It was beautiful! It's private property, and the guide is actually building the trails! If you look above, you can see hermit crabs on the tree. I took a picture with the guide... He was fun to listen to and reminds me of a good friend of mine! We finished at the beach after a rum punch. We finally got a little sun, and then the rain came... Epically. No pics but the windjammer was busy, but there were tables. The food was very very good!!!! We had a drink and had a 20 minute nap on the pool deck before heading to schooner. We hung in the schooner playing trivia and we are happy to announce WE FREAKING WON Disney name that tune trivia!!! I got my key chain and I can now rest assured my cruise joy is complete!!! Jane

Yes I took it... Jeff wasn't happy

Last night was a blur! We enjoyed trivia, got all unpacked and moved out table. Fyi... They didn't honor our request and all and we got seated at a 4-top right in the middle of the restaurant! But I went back and asked to move, and I'm not sure if being a key member helped (she wrote it down that we were) but we were moved to a two table right next to the door. It's perfect. We did the welcome aboard show, dinner (which we thought was amazingly good!), Name that tune and then spent hours closing down schooner. He played "your song" by Elton John which was our first dance at our wedding and we danced away! More drink pics!