DDaley

On 4/21/2023 at 6:57 PM, Jill said:

I’m expecting total shock lol. 190 passengers. We had to bring along 3 other couples as our emotional support cruise buddies. 

I am jealous you’ll have table mates for the dinner seating! I am traveling with my husband on our first river cruise in August 2024 (we chose AMAWaterways, Rhine from Amsterdam - Basel) but our ship only has 150 guests and I am nervous to have to sit with different people each night/be more easily recognized by other cruisers. Usually we are easily lost in a sea of 4000+ guests! 

I’ll be interested to hear how you like Viking, the only reasons I chose AMA over them were for the all-included excursions (instead of just one per day) and not having to adhere to Viking’s absolutely WILD payment timeline. They wanted all $10k over a year in advance! What! I am happy to have all year to scrape it together and make final payment 3 months ahead like usual, haha. 

9 minutes ago, asquared17 said:

i vaguely remember liking the deviled eggs too

I was so jealous of people around us being served the deviled eggs! Our server chose the weirdest apps to bring us. Please Royal, let the people choose their own appetizers!

On 11/11/2023 at 11:16 AM, JohnK6404 said:

Oh, another website quick question! Is there a way to get rid of the column to the right of the post?

"Top Posters in this Topic", "Popular Days", "Posted Images", etc?

That sidebar only appears in blogs longer than 2 pages! So your old blog doesn’t have it since apparently it was not as FLUUUSHHH with content and replies!  I always try and get there but have yet to make it, myself. haha

1 hour ago, Ampurp85 said:

I want to know do you ride it just one way or is there a return trip? 

It's good for both ways! I verrrry nearly bought this one too, but wasn’t sure if the sun would still be up when we got back from seeing Mendenhall. Turns out it was and we missed out on a nice view. There are only two tram cars and they move in unison (one up while the other goes down) so the line gets pretty long at the base when all the ships get in. If your ship is docking mid-day, I would gather the vintages and go straight here, if possible! 

Edited to add - it’s not just good for both ways, it’s good all day. So you could venture up twice if you wanted! Also, the line was non-existent when we returned from our excursion so waiting till later in the day would also be a good option. 

In Southern California we have a huge stretch of time where the thick marine layer almost never clears at the beach and extends pretty far inland. We call this May Gray and June Gloom, but in the past few years this terrible weather has started in March and lasted through July. This spring we had a stretch of 107 consecutive days with no sunshine! @asquared17 will tell you it rained every day of her vacation in April (atmospheric rivers!) when it really should've been perfectly temperate. 

That said, if you’re looking at the 7-night itineraries this foul weather will only affect the first and last days of the voyage but any of the 3 and 4 night itineraries will be affected the entire length of the cruise. If I was looking for a warm, beach experience on the 3-4 night runs, I would only sail this ship from July-September for the best weather. I sailed a 3-night last October and I had to wrap several beach towels around me while hanging on the cloudy pool deck (certainly no swimming!). 

For the 7-night, I agree with others that the spring/fall months will have the best weather in Cabo/PV/Maz. I’ve been in December and February and it was a bit chilly for ocean swimming when you’re used to the Caribbean! 

18 minutes ago, asquared17 said:

special truffle pasta

OMG that looks amazing!! 

I’d like to think you could just sneak us a baby recap right here in the blog!  I feel like as long as it’s a comparison to what you’ve previously experienced on RCCL, it’s still valid content! 

15 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

Wait this is a 4 port sailing? 

That's what I was thinking, what a luxurious rarity for O-class. Port days are far superior to me than sea so this itinerary sounds amazing! Our 2025 on NCL has 6 ports on a normal 7-nighter from SJ and I couldn’t be more pleased!  

Pleeeease come and tell us all about the Wind Star cruise before you head off on Oasis! I stalked the Nov itineraries for that ship on cruisemapper and those potential ports are all bucket listers, Tortola! Jost Van Dyke! Virgin Gorda?! We wanna hear!! 

1 minute ago, Ampurp85 said:

Well, she has continued to talk to him. He said she was a good person and he enjoyed her, so they are still friends. 

I wonder if she get his name right when she greets him on future video calls! 

Can’t wait to hear about Alaska! Do your two sailings have any alternating ports? 

1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said:

My wife and I were actually wondering since it's coming from Galveston with no passengers and will be sitting there waiting for us at PC with no one disembarking how the logistics worked as far as cleaning the cabins and when they would be ready

I sailed Oasis from Miami on it’s first sailing after leaving Bayonne in 2021 and we were allowed in the cabins as soon as we boarded at 11am! 

12 minutes ago, Zacharius said:

Still not completely true. In fact, it's often the case that prices are higher on the day they get released. The reason is that airlines are trying to judge demand and often throw out high prices to see if people bite. If they don't, it's common for them to come down as airlines try to find that sweet spot. It really is a crap shoot...I fly about 130,000 BIS miles each year and book flights for others that total another 500,000 BIS miles each year, if not more, and we see everything. A few weeks ago we were booking a couple of tickets between Kansas City and Accra, and the prices changed five times in seven days while we waited on the contract to be signed...up, down, up, down, and down some more (yay) before we booked. 

Yep, this is how it used to be for me as a travel booking assistant for a major company when I was in my early twenties, we never booked on release and sometimes waited till weeks before to score the best deals! Unfortunately this has not been he case for any of my travels since Covid. Every trip we’ve been on (to Cancun, Jamaica, Miami, Tampa, Greece, Canada, Seattle, SF, Michigan and San Juan PR) since then has the lowest prices on release day and then never went down again!! For 4 of these we booked Air2Sea so I checked almost every day for reprice eligibility and not one of them ever was lower than release day, sadly. I did love that I got our most recent flight to Seattle at $127 each on release day and it was up to $585 a few months before we left! 

The way I RAN with my navigational trackpad finger to this blog when I realized it was TRAVEL DAAAAYY! 

Love your new glasses! I’ve been wearing the same pair for 5 years so I need to go so badly, if only because the protective coatings on the lenses are scratched all to hell 

Best of luck on the train voyage and the much-anticipated stern talking-to for the vintages!! hahah 

17 hours ago, SarahBarah said:

My cruise is still 8 months away so I am in no rush.

Yes but the flight prices are rising every single day you wait to book! I always book the day the date becomes available for booking, prices only go up from there these days. 

Ship sponsored excursion in Mykonos; we took a bus to Kalafatis Beach for about a 15 min stop and a second stop in Ano Mera to see the church and square. While it was cool to see where people actually live on the island, the excursion wasn’t worth it when Chora, the old town, is right where the tender or shuttle boat drops you off and is easily navigable on your own. 

Snorkel excursions in Cabo. We’ve done these twice and while it’s fun on the boat, there’s just not that much to see when you’re actually snorkeling. We’ve snorkeled just about everywhere, and there is certainly no need to do it on the Pacific coast (unless, of course, its going to be your only chance to do so anywhere). 

Zipline tour in Victoria, BC when they ship doesn’t dock til 5pm. It gets dark while you’re going through the zip course and you’ll need to use a headlamp and miss all the spectacular mountain/basin views. 

Where’s the thread for excursion must-tries?! If you’re ever docked long enough in Falmouth or Montego Bay, Jamaica, you absolutely MUST go on Rastasafari in Roaring River (near Petersfield in Saint James Parish). Absolute best shore excursion I’ve ever been on!! We drove our own 4-wheeler through the countryside, stopping to swim in crystal clear rivers and jump from bridges! Amazing. 

Somehow getting a LIMO is a preferable price to pay over $28.75 each!? These wild and reckless vintages! 

2 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

That cruise was a Sunday to Sunday. On Tuesday evening, we were sitting in the pub and Batman turns to look at me with a huge smile across his face and puts his hand on my knee. 

I'm giddy over the thought of him declaring his undying love for me. 

What did he say?

"I KEEP WAITING FOR THIS TO SUCK AND IT DOESN'T!"

I cackled! You both got me! I sooo can’t wait to try for myself. Unfortunately there’s still 524 days to wait 

I AM going to truly live my Unfrugal life next summer though, I apparently will need to sell a kidney of my own for a normal European river cruise balcony cabin, who knew?!?!

19 hours ago, SweetPea said:

There are things NCL does better (off the top of my head, Cruise Next beats Next Cruise by a mile).

I can already say I agree with this, I bought a Cruise Next $500 certificate for only $250 and paid my full deposit with that! Amazing!!!  I thought there had to be a catch but turns out my sailing was valid usage!

19 hours ago, SweetPea said:

Doesn't Celebrity give you extra points for The Retreat? And onboard spend? It's ridiculous that i sold a kidney to sail in Star Class and all i got was a lousy 2 points per night. 

I can’t believe they don’t! Holland America does this too so even though I’ve cruised on HAL only twice (and one of those was as a freeloading daughter in ’05) I am already a 2-Star Mariner because we bought our drink package onboard. So that $800 or so dollars translated to me getting like 30+ cruise points on one little 7-night to Cabo. 

11 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Yes, Vibe Beach Club is the adults only area that you need a pass for. I think it's worth it. Many call that Haven-Lite .

Haven Lite sounds perrrrfect for my low rung on the Unfrugal ladder! 

1 hour ago, SweetPea said:

So i know this is sacrilege in these here parts, but give me the Waterfront on Norwegian any day. 

My next Caribbean cruise is branching out to try Norwegian on the new Viva and I am most excited about the waterfront infinity pools area! I certainly can’t afford the Haven but may try their Vibe Beach Club (I think equivalent of Spice2o?) if it can guarantee me a lounge chair and a spot by a bar! 

18 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

IDK why we thought this was funny. We haven't every cracked the Vueve yet..

Agreed!! My watch warns me every time we leave the stateroom to walk the ship - Your luggage was last seen in the Pacific Ocean. I think it’s funny every time! 

So did you not need a shuttle ticket to get off the ship and go to town in Sitka? We didn’t find out we needed one until we got there (we sailed two weeks ago on Quantum) and had to wait 3 hours waiting for our number to come up. 

We sailed Quantum two weeks ago and stayed at the Holiday Inn Downtown near the Space Needle. I chose this hotel because everything else was mostly sold out a year+ in advance due to a huge convention taking place the Monday we sailed out. This hotel was perfectly fine, the room was huge and had a nice view. We walked absolutely everywhere from here (Pike Place, waterfront, Olympic sculpture garden) and encountered exactly one sleeping homeless person the entire time. The city was perfectly safe and didn’t even have any trash on the streets; they have the fancy 3 cans for every trash can (trash, recycling, compost) like San Francisco. 

Where I actually saw a homeless encampment was in Victoria, BC where they supposedly have “no crime.” 

16 hours ago, SweetPea said:

First of all, do any of you know the effort it takes to live blog while sailing with your better half and only one of you knows about said blog? 

This was me!! I have never told my husband about any of my live blogs and he is prominently featured in them all. Every time you guys posted some funny comment I relayed back, I said it was from the FB group from our sailing. Don’t ask me why I didn’t tell him - easier not to??? I have no idea! haha There’s no way he’d mind! 

18 hours ago, SweetPea said:

This is the photo i used for the WhatsApp profile pic to comm with Sweet Leticia tmw. I should've photoshopped the garbage can out ... if only this vintage knew how to photoshop ... sadly, any mad skills end at changing from color to B&W.

Easy! I left in the pigeon because it just felt right. Happy cruise day!!

15 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

There are both roundtrip cruises in and out of Vancouver, as well as finishing there.  Either better than the other? Other than inner passage, what are unmissable ports/better ones?

Having just gotten back from our roundtrip from Seattle, you gotta do the one-way! Round trip spends half the time getting to and from the origin port when you could be adding 1-2 Alaskan ports + full day in Juneau vs half day/half at the glacier + getting to see Seward. We went to Sitka, Icy Strait Point and Juneau as our Alaskan ports and if I had to choose, Sitka was my least favorite. There were huge crowds from two ships in port and you could really feel it. I so wish we could’ve seen Skagway, so it would be on my list for any future sailing I go on to Alaska! We were scheduled to go but had an itinerary change to ISP instead, which was simply gorgeous. 

15 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

Finally, quantum or radiance class?

We did Quantum because we’d never been on that class of ship before and wanted to try it. I would 100% choose Radiance class next time, Quantum was fun for the new shows/plentiful activities/specialty venues but that’s better left for a sailing with a lot of ocean-view sea days, in my opinion. Radiance class has so many outward facing venues, the views sailing through Alaska would be way more spectacular, especially if you won’t have your own balconies. 

I had to do some Googling because I didn’t even know what a Taylor ham/pork roll IS, but how could the "Taylor ham" people be right when this is the packaging! Is it like calling a tissue a Kleenex even if it’s the store brand? PS does it taste like bologna?