Momof4crazytocruise

I think it would probably be tight. But because it's Sunday, you hopefully won't have to deal with much traffic. IAH is probably about 1.5-2 hours drive (I live about 35 minutes from the port, in between the port and IAH. It takes me about 60-65 minutes to get to IAH. If you want to adhere to the "be there 2 hours in advance" you need to be off the boat and enroute no later than 9:00. That is probably doable with self-carry, as long as you have reliable transportation arranged.

If the rumor that Allure is coming to Galveston is true... this will be well received!🤣

Call and ask what the deal is. And keep your purchase confirmation email. If they can't explain it, tell them they need to rebook and match the price you already paid for it. Don't take no for an answer.

I wouldn't bat an eye if I saw a teenager watching karaoke. My guess is the age restriction is for actual participants. As with most things on a cruise, I would do it until someone told me not too.

And add 18% gratuity on drinks and food purchases on board.

I watch it pretty religiously and see really no correlation to "percent off" and what the price actually is. I think it honestly follows an algorithm based on sales. So you just have to keep watching it. However, I haven't looked on a Black Friday day, but hearing the feed back on this blog - I definitely will this time around. The best price I have seen it in 6 months was $46. It was when it was a '30%' off "sale". However other times it was listed as 30% off - the price was higher, $49, and $52 that I saw. And the $46 price was only there for a few hours. So I can't make any rhyme or reason of it. Don't be fooled by the 'buy one, get one' either - the price that is listed is what you will pay for both packages. It says 'discount reflected in price'. Then add 18% gratuity on top of that. For your 2nd question - you buy it based on the number of nights. It's good for the moment you walk on board to the moment you walk off (but not many bars will be open debarkation morning - but I have gotten a fresh juice at breakfast on debarkation day, and a spiked coffee from the coffee bar).

I always look here: https://www.travelinsurance.com/ They give you lots of options for policies and you can choose which best fits your needs. For example, I don't really care about coverage for airfare or luggage, as we usually cruise out of Galveston, which is 35 minutes from our house. But, we DO care about medical coverage and medical evacuation, so I pick a policy that is heavy on that side, but lighter on the travel cancellation/ lost luggage side. I find the policies to be very reasonably priced on this page.

So. This is tricky. We got into a sparkling clean, gloriously refreshing pool on Enchantment at about 10 am on the first sea day. We came back at 4pm, and OH MAN - between sunscreen, spilled drinks, and let's be real - urine - it was pretty cloudy and scummy. It was emptied and refilled over night. Again, gloriously clean water, and by the afternoon, eh, not so much. If I was post op, I wouldn't go anywhere near that pool after about 11am.

We took $60 in 1's for a 5 night for the 2 of us, and that wasn't nearly enough. So I would take at least 100 (or as suggested above, just go get more when you need them!)

Try 'buying it' - or completing the transaction and see what it does. If you can add it to your cart, and you can complete the transaction, you're set.

Gosh, solo cruising sounds AMAZING. As a college student I backpacked around Europe multiple time all by myself - and loved it! I met so many people and tried so many things and did it all by my schedule and my preferences. As an actual adult with a family, that isn't in the cards anymore, but I could see the husband endorsing a short 3-4-nighter cruise for me to get some "me time". Of course, he loves to cruise, too - so he would probably more likely want to tag a long. Some day though!

Honestly, I don't see this happening. They would lose a huge customer base, and a majority chunk of their Casino business. No way they implement this. More restrictions on smoking areas? Maybe. Perhaps installation of better ventilation systems in the Casino - that would be a better investment, in my opinion. And this is coming from someone with a severe allergy to smoke. If I can walk through a Casino in Vegas, I know there are filtration systems that are pretty advanced. Why not implement that?

I have plastic zip up file folder I got at Office Depot that I keep our travel documents and identification all together. After check in, everything goes back into the folder, zipped up, into the backpack or tote until we get to the room, then it's transferred to the safe until departure morning.

The beaches in Grand Cayman are beautiful. But in principle, I am not a fan of tendering, and I was not happy with how they rushed us off the ship based on our excursion times, but neglected to tell us that we arrived early, and ended up rushing to get on the tender boats, only to find our excursion didn't adjust, and we were 2 hours early for it. As first time cruisers, we didn't know any better. I would much rather have a docked port. I didn't mind Falmouth, but we planned from the get go just to go to a private beach club. It was lovely.

I find an extra buck or 2 thrown at the bartender or the pool servers gets me exceptional and expedited service. Shoot, last cruise I didn't even have to get out of the pool, they came to me! We simply look at it like this: that $1 extra a drink makes a way bigger difference to these guys than it does to us. We had nothing but exceptional service from our bar servers. They took care of us, we took care of them. And we did it fully realizing that we had already paid 18% gratuity into the pot.