AshleyDillo

We stayed at the Doubletree Suites in Jersey City which was a reasonable Uber/Lyft in both cost and distance from both the port and the airport. It was walking distance to the PATH so you could easily venture into NYC and it was also walking distance to a lot of shops, restaurants, and even a grocery store.

If this is something that you are seriously sweating for any/all of the reasons you mentioned, that's where Cruise with Confidence comes into play. Take the FCC and use it on a future sailing when things are more certain and there is less of a chance that you will be inconvenienced by last minute changes, restrictions, or cancellations.

There isn't a beach right at the port, just a really nice pool that you can use. If you want to visit a beach, you can take the tram out to the boardwalk at Mahahual and visit one of the places along the boardwalk to rent chairs and hang out at the beach. The tram is $4/person and then you catch a cab back to the port. That may or may not be an option for you with any potential new restrictions. However the port area in Costa Maya is pretty massive and there is a lot explore. There is shopping and some cultural displays and some for-a-fee items like the aviary and chocolate making dem

My fave memory from my last cruise was also from the Royal Caribbean Blog NYE cruise on Freedom -- the Sunset Catamaran excursion. It was just our entire group on the short sailing but it was such a fun time!

Yeah I nabbed that one for my January sailing. We have the Villa Suite and may end up with 8 people sailing, so it makes it pretty darn reasonable to try out.

Cabanas max out at 8 people so you may be in a situation where not everyone will be able to access your cabana. The Chill Island cabanas, Oasis Lagoon cabanas and South Beach cabanas do have an option where you can add extra people for $50 each. However it appears that the Beach Club cabanas don't have this option. I would say go for the South Beach cabana and add the extra two people once you get onboard for $50 each. That way your entire party will be able to meet up at the cabana. You will have food/drink service and South Beach is a bit calmer than the Oasis Lagoon and Chill Isla

I was nervous about my original birth certificate getting lost in the mail, so I made sure to order an officially certified copy and I used that to send off for my passport. It was a small price to pay for the peace of mind that I still had a birth certificate on hand in case i needed it while they were processing my passport.

There's an Anthem cruise for October 30, 2021 that is an 8-night Bahamas sailing. That may be pushing the 4-week window by a few days but they may consider it.

This is basically my life. I have tons of cards and keep an updated list of which kinds of charges to use on which card. I actually don't make too many purchases so it tends to not be too difficult for me to keep up with. I'm not loyal enough to any specific airline to chase which travel card works the best for my situation. I just try to go for whatever gives me the most cash back since that's not tied to only be used one any specific thing. i got the lowest level Delta Amex because it was offering a great introductory points offer (70,000) and no fee for the first year and a $100

I would suggest that you also consider itineraries that leave out of Tampa in the future. I know that you can find sailings that leave from Tampa that will go Western Caribbean, which can give you a bit of a different taste. The shorter itineraries visit Cozumel and the week-long ones will go to Cozumel, Roatan, Belize, Costa Maya. There are even a couple of Panama Canal sailings and Southern Caribbean ones to choose from. The Tampa sailings will also be on your preferred smaller ships as the big ones can't fit under the bridge. Tampa is a quick drive from the Orlando area.

Apparently it's some sort of a bot as it added some odd links to the end of your copied post. I've removed the copied post and then merged the two topics together so the new responses didn't get lost.

Food options are the same for all non-beach club cabanas.

I would say go ahead and order the plan if you are interested. Contact special needs beforehand and see if they can get you in touch with the specialty restaurants to see what is possible. They've stated it won't be a problem in the MDR, but that's because there's enough room in the MDR kitchen for them to have an area to prepare meals without worry of cross-contamination. The Windjammer can accommodate as well if you speak to a chef when you are in there. The specialty restaurant galleys are often smaller, so they may not do as well with avoiding cross-contamination as they might not

No problem. If you can rack up 2400 points on a sailing you earn a free cruise. You'll also qualify to earn a annual free cruise for hitting Casino Royale prime level (2400 points in the casino year April-March). Points on slots is $5 = 1 point. So at a maximum that's $12,000 if you win nothing at all. But typically you're winning and then playing the winnings which still counts as money played.

You get points for both but the accounting for points on table games is very subjective and not straightforward like the slots.