stevendom57

I am looking at shore excursions for my March 2022 cruise out of Miami on Symphony OTS. While in the Cruise Planner I see some banner-like indicators over some of the shore excursion thumbnails that advertise "25% Off Onboard Prices", "50% Off Onboard Prices" and "Pre Cruise Deal". The first two are obviously self-explanatory, but what type of discount is the vague "Pre Cruise Deal"? I have not been tracking prices so I do not know if these are actually discounted at all. Does anybody out there in RCB land have any insight into what type of discount these may indicate or if it is just hy

I have to differ with most people responding. While in Grand Cayman my wife and I did the dolphin swim and turtle farm. Let me preface this with a disclaimer that I am not a "tree hugger" or fanatic. But visiting the turtle farm was quite disturbing. There were dozens of huge sea turtles in a relatively small swimming pool. They were swimming over each other and constantly bumping into each other. These are huge, old turtles that deserve a much larger place to roam. Having said that I am going to contradict myself with my comment about the dolphins. My wife and I enjoyed swimmi

My bad, I didn't realize it was $26 a day. Nope, not worth it.

I went to the Cruise Planner for my Mar 2022 cruise saw that the Key was $25.99pp. I jumped on that deal, added it to my cart and saw that the price in my cart was $183pp. RC would not honor the lower price. They said it was an error. Darn. Steven

Let's say I am sailing from Miami and want to pick up some fifths of rum. I assume I can buy up to five, declare them to customs and not pay anything, duties or taxes?

I am thinking that embarking at 11:00am and disembarking at 8:00am is technically a little less than seven 24 hour time intervals. The whole reason I brought this up is that I looked at my Mar 2022 cruise and realized the itinerary listed days one through eight. It just got me thinking. I try to do as little of that as possible.

Wow. It is not worth saving a few bucks by intentionally skipping the tax table. What a hassle.

According to the CDC document, "The cruise ship operator must not sail or offer to sail on an itinerary longer than 7 days." A 7 night cruise actually spans 8 days, e.g. Sunday - Sunday inclusive. Does this length of cruise meet the CDC guidelines?

Dang. That IS pricey.

My second cruise with RC was out of Galveston. Now that I was an experienced (haha) cruiser I decided to expand my experience and bring home some duty free banana cream rum from Jamaica. Of course, while disembarking I was barraged with warnings about paying the tax on liquor on pain of incarceration, even though it was duty free. Upon seeing the sign directing me to the right I, as a law abiding citizen, went to the table and duly paid my taxes. I was the only one there!! I don't know how many people I saw carrying the cardboard boxes that obviously had liquor bottles in them turn left and ex

My "driving threshold" is lower than yours. More like 6-7 hours

Would it be possible for you to post the locations of the blogs that you write? I am very interested in getting unbiased information about COVID.

Oh, yea

As cruising is poised to resume in the US, I wonder how cruise ports will be treated. I know that, for quite a while in the beginning, passengers will only be able to take shore excursions run by the cruise company. Thinking back on my very few cruises, I remember one very nice cruise port in Falmouth, Jamaica. The port itself is a triangular piece of property, sandwiched between two cruise ships, that contains 20-30 shops. It is very isolated from the rest of the island. It seems that it would be possible to create a ‘social bubble” in this area where everything is sanitized, social dist

Is it because the bugs are still stuck to your windshield?