Firefly

I have officially announced and decided that this will be my last ever contract as a crew member for Royal Caribbean.
After a long career with this company, it is now time to move on to the next phase of my life.
I am excited and nervous for what is to come, but just wanted to thank Matt and this community for allowing me to share my life on this platform.
 
 

Not sure if it was coincidence or not, but within ten minutes of making final payment on a cruise that included a stop at Costa Maya, I got an email from Royal canceling my reservations for the Aviary. My son will be bummed, but I guess that means now we will spend the entire day in Mahahual. I feel really bad for all the people there that depend on tourism now that Perfect Day Mexico looks to take over everything. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love PDCC, but don’t want to just cruise from private cruise beach club to private cruise beach club. 

Not sure if it was coincidence or not, but within ten minutes of making final payment on a cruise that included a stop at Costa Maya, I got an email from Royal canceling my reservations for the Aviary. My son will be bummed, but I guess that means now we will spend the entire day in Mahahual. I feel really bad for all the people there that depend on tourism now that Perfect Day Mexico looks to take over everything. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love PDCC, but don’t want to just cruise from private cruise beach club to private cruise beach club. 

I will looking for updates as we move into and through the summer.  We’re going to be at Costa Maya in late August and are looking forward to walking through the Aviary before enjoing the day in Mahaual itself. I booked the Aviary for my bird enthusiast son via the cruise planner because the price was $10 vs $14 on site. So far, my reservation is still showing, so I will be watching for that to possibly be cancelled. I can’t help but wonder how they can handle all the cruise passengers (Both Royal and other lines) if the entire current port area is under heavy construction. You currently have no choice but to navigate that maze to get to the taxis if you want to head into town. For the sake of all the people In Mahahual whose jobs depend on cruise tourism, I hope it isn’t to devastating an impact as construction takes place. 

It could be, I really dont know.
My understanding is the entire port area as we know it will be demolished and replaced with new things

I believe you will be getting on as I am getting off.  Since we both have GTY, it will be interesting to see who gets an assignment first LOL  I've been playing around with the bookings.  I'm assuming it is the ships size and room availability, but I can't believe I snagged a suite GTY cheaper than a balcony! 😮
 

I typically like to choose my cabin location, but have done GTY a few times when it was the only available option, or in one case where it saved over $100pp on a cruise I am trying to keep costs down on. On Oasis back in 2019, I got my OVB GTY assignment about 2 months before the sail date. Most recently my OVB GTY for Star was assigned about three weeks after booking, seven months before sail date. In both of those cases my TA said the sailing is quite full. My other current GTY booking is for a relatively empty sailing on Enchanment. Booked a few weeks ago, sails in August and no assignment yet. Many, many rooms of all types available. Literally booked this one because I wanted the cheapest way to earn a few Crown & Anchor nights before my Star cruise so that I receive my first crystal block on Star. 

Same for me except I did mine on Freedom and needed 12 points…so I booked the cruise solo until my best friend decided to tag along 😂 which meant upgrading to a JS (only cost me an extra $100!) so I could still get the double points!  Tada 🎉 

I'm too frugal for that but we did the exact same thing with Enchantment a long time ago when we needed 4 pts for Diamond and wanted to get there before our next 7N cruise on a bigger ship.

I typically like to choose my cabin location, but have done GTY a few times when it was the only available option, or in one case where it saved over $100pp on a cruise I am trying to keep costs down on. On Oasis back in 2019, I got my OVB GTY assignment about 2 months before the sail date. Most recently my OVB GTY for Star was assigned about three weeks after booking, seven months before sail date. In both of those cases my TA said the sailing is quite full. My other current GTY booking is for a relatively empty sailing on Enchanment. Booked a few weeks ago, sails in August and no assignment yet. Many, many rooms of all types available. Literally booked this one because I wanted the cheapest way to earn a few Crown & Anchor nights before my Star cruise so that I receive my first crystal block on Star. 

I typically like to choose my cabin location, but have done GTY a few times when it was the only available option, or in one case where it saved over $100pp on a cruise I am trying to keep costs down on. On Oasis back in 2019, I got my OVB GTY assignment about 2 months before the sail date. Most recently my OVB GTY for Star was assigned about three weeks after booking, seven months before sail date. In both of those cases my TA said the sailing is quite full. My other current GTY booking is for a relatively empty sailing on Enchanment. Booked a few weeks ago, sails in August and no assignment yet. Many, many rooms of all types available. Literally booked this one because I wanted the cheapest way to earn a few Crown & Anchor nights before my Star cruise so that I receive my first crystal block on Star. 

I typically like to choose my cabin location, but have done GTY a few times when it was the only available option, or in one case where it saved over $100pp on a cruise I am trying to keep costs down on. On Oasis back in 2019, I got my OVB GTY assignment about 2 months before the sail date. Most recently my OVB GTY for Star was assigned about three weeks after booking, seven months before sail date. In both of those cases my TA said the sailing is quite full. My other current GTY booking is for a relatively empty sailing on Enchanment. Booked a few weeks ago, sails in August and no assignment yet. Many, many rooms of all types available. Literally booked this one because I wanted the cheapest way to earn a few Crown & Anchor nights before my Star cruise so that I receive my first crystal block on Star. 

My check in date is this week! I don’t hate my room assignment for the Icon yet. 

Change of plans on Serenade. We are now heading to Costa Maya. The sunset tonight while sailing between Cozumel and the mainland was memorable with Milton looming on the horizon. Weather on the ship is still fine. 

Currently on board Serenade. We left Tampa yesterday at 4:30pm and are currently just off the coast of Mexico already - I can see the beach high rises in Cancún from my balcony. We are docking in Cozumel overnight tonight. The cruise has been relatively smooth so far and sunny all afternoon. Captain Stig said we might have bad weather overnight. Feeling I made the right decision to leave my car with family north of Orlando instead of parking it in Tampa. Wondering how long this 5 night cruise will actually be…

Change of plans on Serenade. We are now heading to Costa Maya. The sunset tonight while sailing between Cozumel and the mainland was memorable with Milton looming on the horizon. Weather on the ship is still fine. 

Currently on board Serenade. We left Tampa yesterday at 4:30pm and are currently just off the coast of Mexico already - I can see the beach high rises in Cancún from my balcony. We are docking in Cozumel overnight tonight. The cruise has been relatively smooth so far and sunny all afternoon. Captain Stig said we might have bad weather overnight. Feeling I made the right decision to leave my car with family north of Orlando instead of parking it in Tampa. Wondering how long this 5 night cruise will actually be…

Change of plans on Serenade. We are now heading to Costa Maya. The sunset tonight while sailing between Cozumel and the mainland was memorable with Milton looming on the horizon. Weather on the ship is still fine. 

Change of plans on Serenade. We are now heading to Costa Maya. The sunset tonight while sailing between Cozumel and the mainland was memorable with Milton looming on the horizon. Weather on the ship is still fine. 

Currently on board Serenade. We left Tampa yesterday at 4:30pm and are currently just off the coast of Mexico already - I can see the beach high rises in Cancún from my balcony. We are docking in Cozumel overnight tonight. The cruise has been relatively smooth so far and sunny all afternoon. Captain Stig said we might have bad weather overnight. Feeling I made the right decision to leave my car with family north of Orlando instead of parking it in Tampa. Wondering how long this 5 night cruise will actually be…

i would love elite drink vouchers on celebrity 😂 

I’ve done this excursion booked through Royal twice, once with each of my teenage sons on separate cruises. We really enjoyed it and thought it was worth the price we paid which was about $50pp on sale. The ruins are smaller, but still interesting considering we haven’t visited the larger ruins on the mainland. The tour at the Mayan Coco Company was also very interesting, you learn the history of the cocoa bean and how the Mayans made chocolate. Overall the tour lasted about 4 to 4.5 hours so there was time after the tour to explore the port a bit. Not sure what the are doing now, but the first time I took the tour we also stopped at El Mirador beach for 20 minutes or so. The second time I took the tour we stopped at the  Mayan Bee Sanctuary. Both of these places offered bathrooms and beverages/snacks for purchase. 

We did one in 2022 at Coco Cay. We didn’t purchase ahead of time, but the night before our day at Coco Cay they called our room asking if we would be interested in a private photo session while at our cabana, no pressure to buy anything. (Guess they were desperate for family sessions in hopes someone would buy pictures afterwards) The pictures actually turned out really nice when we went to view them at the photo gallery. They were rediculously overpriced and as much as we liked them, we left the photo gallery without purchasing. Later that evening my husband returned and chatted with the photographer/salesman (same person in our case) and offered a much lower price for a 13x17 metal print (shipped to us) and several other digital prints with the permission to print wherever we wished. They accepted and we got the photos we loved for a price no more than what we pay at home. Don’t be affraid to bargin. My advice would be to talk to someone on the ship personally instead of purchasing ahead online. 

I looked at this tour last year but ended up just visiting the Pirate Museum. Interested to hear about your tour, we might consider the tour next time we are in Nassau. (We usually stay on the ship)

Cruise prices these days are insane, and not just for Star. We will definitely NOT be booking. All of the sudden college tuition prices are looking like a deal. ( We have a high school senior this year making his college decision) I’m really bummed that after our upcoming Christmas cruise we have nothing at all booked. We prefer the smaller ships and cruising out of Port Canaveral so who knows when we will sail again.