karl_nj

I'm really impressed by the quality of the ones that Billy over at CruiseHabit sells, but I don't know how much shipping to Canada would be.

I just got back from a long weekend trip to Boston. We stayed at the Residence Inn in the Seaport area https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bosfp-residence-inn-boston-downtown-seaport/. We really liked the hotel. It's built in a old renovated building, so the architecture is interesting. It will be close to where the cruise ships dock, but you can also walk a mile and get to Boston Common or Faneuil Hall There is a Trader Joes down the street, a liquor store across the street, and a CVS around the corner. There are several interesting bars and restaurants in the immediate area, including a great microbrewery down the street (next to the Trader Joes), and a bunch of seafood restaurants within walking distance. I would certainly stay there again.

I was on anthem for spring break this year. Went to Bermuda and Boston, which was sort of an odd itinerary. There were some complaints in the cruise critic message board and the facebook group for my cruise by other passengers about not being able to bring the pastries onboard. The Boston cruise port was doing security screening, not the ship. It was apparently port security that intercepted the cannolis. might be safest to eat them on land and not bring back to the ship. Cannolis get soggy quickly anyway.

There is a Holland America Captain that has a blog. Recently he has been taking on more of a floating advisory/training role, and moving from ship to ship. He mentioned that when he is in this role, US Customs classifies him as a non-revenue passenger and not a crew member, and they make him get on and off the ship too! https://www.captainalbert.com/15-april-2018-tampa-florida/

It really depends on the room. I think it has something to do with speaker locations and direction. We had two connecting rooms. My kids room was much more quiet then my room.

Which ship?

They usually have a few Sauvignon Blanc's available. Kim Crawford is usually available, and there is usually a Robert Mondavi from California. Sometimes there is also a less expensive Chilean one. But if you have the drink package you might as well go out of our comfort zone and try whatever is available. If you hate it you can try something else.

RCL generally refers to a miami vice as a lava flow, i don't think they actually will make a true lava flow. Usually a miami vice is half frozen pina colada and half frozen strawberry daiquiri, whereas a lava flow is a pina colada with liquid strawberry swirled in. In the end it doesn't really matter, both are tasty and vacation-type drinks.

We are usually sailing with our children, so we pick early dining. My wife and I did go on one cruise w/o them, so we went with the late seating.

Ah, that is unfortunate. I was hoping it would just need to be applied to a cruise by then, not depart by then. Because of the BOGO nonsense, according to royal my mother paid much more for our last cruise then my son. So her FCC is for much more then him. In reality, I split the cost 50/50 with her. And she is not going on our April cruise, so we can’t use it there. She is traveling elsewhere that week. And we were planning on a land trip to Paris for next summer. Not a cruise. I guess we may just end up losing the credit.

Ever find out what the mysterious $90 charge was for? You booked directly with Celebrity?

Yes, but from what I've read, even with the limited number of passes, as the day goes on the lines for the slides get worse. So however many passes they sell, it still might be "too many". That's my concern, at least. For this sailing, only 4 of us. And they just updated the price for the water park again, right now its down to $75. So $300 for 4, so the net price of the cabana would be $700. Yeah, i've only done bungalows so far. We did one at Coco Cay (pre perfect day) and we just did one at Labadee. Quite nice, and a more reasonable price I think that is part of my hesitation around going with a cabana at perfect day. Sounds great though, even better than the service at DCL's Castaway Cay Cabanas. Interesting. I guess that makes sense, where you might have 2 ships that day. At Labadee for the bungalows, they just let me pick whatever I wanted. We were the first ones there, so they were all available. I picked the one at the end. Yeah, I figured I'd get my towels the night before and have our bag packed and be sunscreen and ready go as soon as the captain gives the go ahead. So this was a really good point you brought up. I was getting the arrival/departure times from that cruisett website. I figured I should go to the source and look at the Royal Carribean website, and see what the times looked like there. So I did, and I am feeling *way* better about the situation. Matt recently posted about how Navigator (and some other ship) are doing Coco Cay "double dips" where they stop at the island twice. Guess what -- now, according to the Royal Carribean website, that sailing Navigator is not arriving at Coco Cay on Wed April 8, but on Tues the 7th and Thu the 9th. cruisett must be out of date. So now i'm not sure if any other ship will be at Coco Cay that day. It might just be Anthem. Not sure the best way to know for sure though, other then looking at every possible sailing in April. Good point, that should spread out people a bit more too. Yup, it's the old standard NY/NJ 7 night to Cape Canaveral, Nassau, Private Island that all the cruise lines have been doing forever. I'm sure there will be some NCL ship that will be doing the same itinerary, the same week. I do want to check out Atlantis one of these days, but I figure that Atlantis might also be a zoo since it's the week before Easter. So if there is truly only one ship at Coco Cay, that might turn out to be my best bet. Thanks for your detailed response, it's been very helpful. Gives me some more things to ponder.

Thanks for the info -- yeah, that is what I was worried about. I figured that if I could get an early start... what the disney folks would call a "rope drop", then we would be able to hit a bunch of slides at first, then do the wave pool, and eventually abandon the water park area completely. But if it's already a mob scene when I get there, then i'm not sure that would work.

In April, I will be sailing on Anthem of the Seas. We arrive at Coco cay at 9:30am, so I figured the earliest I can get off the ship will be 10am. From what I've read, "rope dropping" the Coco Cay water park is a great strategy. Unfortunatley, according to Cruise TT, that day Navigator will also be in Coco Cay. They leave at the same time (5pm), but they arrive earlier, at 7am. Even if I'm the first person off the ship, I figure everyone that buys Water Park admission on Navigator will already be on line for all the water slides. Should I just skip paying $79/person for the water park, since the lines for the water slides may already be crazy at that point? Do you think the rest of Coco Cay is also going to be crazy with 8015 people there? Is it going to be a pain to find a chair near the pool? Just trying to set my expectations. Not sure I want to pay $1k for a cabana.

It's easy to find very similar anti RCL items on that lawyers website too: https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/02/articles/rough-weather/anthem-of-the-seas-lawsuits-royal-caribbean-recklessly-sailed-into-storm/ https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/02/articles/rough-weather/is-the-anthem-of-seas-more-unseaworthy-than-it-looks/ https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2019/07/articles/rape/appellate-court-royal-caribbean-knew-of-serious-problem-of-crime-including-rape-on-its-cruise-ships/ https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2019/01/articles/public-relations/no-ac-minimal-obc-anthem-seas-leaves-passengers-hot/