CruiseGus

41 minutes ago, Matt said:

You'd be surprised how many people will not book something if it costs money.

I can see that.  Guess it has to do with the value the individual places on the activity.  Wife and I have done a few escape rooms on land, of course they have a cost, the one thing i can say is they are a lot more fun in my opinion if you are with a whole group of people you know.

As recommended, in Europe and Asia I would take your full passport booklet with you on ports of call.  Having your passport card there is no better than having your DL with you.

I was excited to see the upcoming changes.  Good luck to those on the first cruise out of dry dock, please comeback and update us at that time.

never thought of trying to order a whole pizza, I just normally look like a glutton and order 5 or 6 slices

Thanks for the new info on Fresh Eggs.  Also enjoying all the Pics, due to our normal cruise out of San Juan in Jan and Feb time frame interrupted by the Freedom Amplification this coming winter, we booked a Majesty cruise from NOLA.  This is a chance to show the DW what a good idea I had.

based off my 3 Christmas cruises, just expect a lot of kids also

Just looked at a cruise compass for Allure w/in last year and one pool was open every night till 11pm, on some nights a few others were open till 9pm in addition.

Sports deck was listed as open till 11pm every night.  There are no separate listings for mini-golf or table tennis.

Hope that helps a little

Specialty restaurants have the same dress code as you'd find in MDR and WJ.  Go enjoy your meal and don't worry about what other wear.

6 hours ago, ellcee said:

I'll echo what just about everyone else has said. Besides a little loudness here or there I've never seen anything.

that's about the extent of it on our 25+ cruises.  Never have seen anything exciting happen, but maybe that's a good thing

14 hours ago, Rob&Ana said:

Also they like to wait until the end of the cruise to offer them.

absolutely on a 7 night cruise if lucky enough to have it offered it will most likely be the last 3 nights

3 hours ago, FManke said:

..... I think like this and other things with kids, even if the rules say one thing, as long as they are behaving themselves and acting appropriately, nobody will have a problem with him.

no truer statement needs be made, at a certain point its all about behavior.

I have run into some 20 year olds that should be asked to leave the Gym.

Good luck to him with his workouts, enjoy your cruise

Carlisle Bay is right by the boat house mentioned above and is a marine sanctuary with ship wrecks.  this is where most tours stop to swim with turtles, of course you may have to swim out from the beach a few hundred yards

Was there, but on a private tour company,   Cosol St. Lucia Tours we toured the whole island.

while the drive in volcano was neat, I myself would not make a point to just go see that

I personally was more impressed with Petit Piton and Gros Piton which are twin volcanic spires majestically soaring out of the sea

Yes the new technology is starting to be very common, those that freak out about it are soon going to relegate themselves to just not going anywhere.  Myself i have always realized that since i was 17 the government has had my fingerprint based on serving in the military.  Then a little later they started collecting dental scan for the records, now if you have served in the military, at least in the US, they also have your DNA on file.  Have a passport ? government has your facial recondition data.

this was one of the disappointments with the oasis class, the charging for steam room priviliges

You never know, even on ships where I have seen it, it is not offered on every sailing.  I think some of the decision is up to Bar manager and may be dependent on the current revenue stream for that particular sailing and whether they are hitting their revenue goal.

It is not anything you can count on seeing

yes lots of 3rd party sites have better search features, I like Vacations-To-Go as it list the cruises in date order and i can quickly see the ones I'm interested in on leaving on a week end.

I am not supporting the mentioned site just using their search feature.

Have to keep an eye on these new out of the ordinary boarding day sales.  It is like the 10 drink card, which have never been something you can count on.  I have in fact seen a few 10 drink card sales, but only on a low percentage of cruises, maybe 20%.   I do not ever remember a drink package "sale" with any type of discount on any  previous sailing.

looks like current pricing pre-cruise (which is always cheaper) seems to be you are never going to see it below $50-$51 pppd before gratuity again.

Just to be clear

I was under the impression to transfer a booking from one agent to another, the original agent has to agree to release the booking?

So an agent that charged you $xx up front to book is not in my opinion going to easily release a booking because then the will also lose out on the Comm/
Admin Rate proceeds they receive.

If you know the answer for sure tell us please

Also I agree you need a new and much better agent.

We are those polo's and khakis guys every one refers to, other than my wedding years ago, dressing up mean wearing a Cubs, Cardinals, or Hawkeye polo.  DW wife wears a sun dress (at least that what i think they call them)

1 hour ago, Matt said:

I think you should book now.

Waiting until November may result in a price change that offsets any benefit NextCruise provides. 

a perfect example of the above is I was on a b2b Jan 2019 wanted to book 2b2 in Jan 2020, checked prices before I left home, planed on doing next cruise for both the lower deposit and $100 OBC.  Enjoying my first leg so I set my next cruise appt for the first day of 2nd leg, price increase of almost $400 per leg on future Jan 2020 b2b's, ouch what I would have saved paying immediately in deposits was gone anyway with the price increase.

Not sure if any juice is actually available in the MDR for dinner, what limited selections they do have is usually found in the WJ for the appropriate meal, i.e. concentrated from frozen OJ is available for breakfast in WJ and at sit-down breakfast, not always out all day on ship.  Of course some of this can very from ship to ship.  I think they have ice tea at dinner but we are water drinkers so unsure.

But as already stated all purchased soda is per can at around $4.50 automatic gratuity included.

I am pretty sure the requirement for all in room to purchase a package applies to adult beverage alcohol packages only.

Popular excursion can and do sell out early,  Along with the advice given by @Skid and @markm I would add it you see something your interested in book it now and then research that port of call and if you find a private tour you like better you can always cancel and get your money back.

I do know that when I was new to cruising i was hesitant of booking a 3rd party shore excursion. 

But I have since done a lot of research, Cruise Critic has "Port of Call" forum for most ports and I have never gone wrong on a highly recommended 3rd party from those forums.  Also verify them using Trip Advisor and seeing what is said there.  In addition i find many knowledgeable people on this forum and would not hesitate to ask here on someone I was considering.

Remember you can always cancel a ships tour for a full refund up to ? 48 hours before, verify that but I believe I'm correct as they just changed it recently from 24 hours.

I have also seen a number of tours through the ship go up after i booked them.

On 8/9/2019 at 12:23 PM, nyold said:

So what's preventing you from grabbing a plate and eating the 2nd dinner there? 

my waist line