Crown&AnchorEsq

Most ships have bookings through April 1 2026, we are actually on Odyssey out of NJ in Feb of 26, for whatever reason they did not open up March. Here's hoping they're not dry docking or something during that period. Would seem silly to have nothing out of the NE for a month but that will be right around the 5 year mark.

3 person rooms in generally are tough to track, particularly connecting. A good travel agent can be key there. Other consideration, if your kids are amenable to bunks, would be a "ultra spacious" f/k/a "family" stateroom (Cat 1A (balcony), 1K (OV) and 1R (interior). You lose the extra bathroom, but you get a lot of space and they can even be cheaper depending upon the promotion and ages of the kids. Then depending on budget you always have the suites. I would probably stay away from the Juniors even if they say they can hold 5 because they do not really have enough space and unfortunately Utopia does not have GT suites. That means you are looking at A2 or the UFS but a great get if you have the cash.

For Cape Liberty, traffic is, unfortunately, not its strength. Depending on which way you come in there is a stop sign at one spot where you need to take a left and it is virtually impossible to actually make the turn without straight darting into traffic. I can be very aggressive at lights/stop signs and even I sat for a bit. We must have been at that stop sign for for at least 15 minutes. Then you get in and the lines start up. Two notes on that, if you have an ultra-early time you are usually still arriving while others are departing so that does not help. Check in time does not necessarily correspond to arrival time either. Many people show up as early as possible and NY/NJ does not really seem to enforce check in time too strictly. The holding area discrepancy does seem a bit weird, any chance that one area was for pinnacle/suite/the key guests? They get priority boarding elsewhere. I do not remember the set up in NJ but we were also there when COVID protocols were in full swing. For the teen club, my only experience is now 15-20 years old but direct personal experience. The times I went as a teenager the teen club was really there for the introductions on the first day and then we ran around on our own anyways. I tend to think that is why you are seeing the "hangout lounge" model on some of the new ships, rather than organized activities. We have had a similar experience with AO for the younger kids as you have. My general feeling is that behaviors are poorly managed at AO, my kids are far from shrinking violets but they generally dont like AO "because the other kids are mean." The AO staff has a tough job trying to manage behaviors but not upset guests so, like Matt says, seems to be luck of the draw.

We too went in December and found the weather to be perfectly pleasant for Thrill Water Park, paddling around in the pool and even the splash pad for the kids. With that said, I am noticing a trend that everyone encouraging winter months tends to be from colder weather to start with so this very much may be a ymmv situation. If you consider 70 chilly and put on a coat at 60, you might not like Coco Cay in January. For those of us who see water temp peaks of 67 in August, Cococay is great year-round.

If I am not mistaken, your check in time is the earliest you are allowed to check in but it is not a requirement. Most scenarios you can embark as late as 90 minutes before the published departure time. So as long as that time has adjusted with your itinerary change you could always just check in later. If you are looking to drop bags keep in mind that rooms are usually not ready until 2pm regardless of when you check in. I do not actually know the answer to your board/disembark/reboard question but I believe b2b cruisers are allowed to leave the ship so there must be a mechanism to accomplish this. Maybe they can weigh in? Shops are controlled by port agreements and local regulation but most likely they will not be open unless you are at sea.

@loki007's position is sort of like a chicken and the egg argument. Right now he is making an effort to get up and actively use a chair in the morning but is afraid to go to lunch for fear of losing the ability to enjoy the pool deck. However, if no one is hogging chairs except for those actively enjoying them then the need for chair reserving is diminished. Obviously there will still be peak times where there are not as many chairs (which also coincides with lunch) so that answer may become adjusting your lunch schedule to make sure you are back on the pool deck for peak time. Stated another way, the chair hog conundrum will only worsen if it is allowed to continue because the need to reserve a chair increases directly proportionally with the number of people reserving chairs.

Things learned after cruising with a 1yo (alone), a 3.5yo +1yo and 4yo+18mo. Mom of 4 covered many of the major points but a few additional considerations: As a starting point, I would recommend verifying the ship you are on has a nursery and baby splash pad. It is important to note that not all of the ships have the baby splash pad even if they have a splash pad. Vision and Radiance Class ships plus Voyager, Explorer and Mariner are missing the baby diaper/splash pad. With 4 adults the nursery may not be a necessity as long as everyone is willing to help with naps/bedtime. If you anticipate wanting to do something with all 4 adults you will need the nursery which is not available on Jewel, Adventure and Explorer. Make sure you use your nursery reservations to cover the time for your adult-only adventures, otherwise schedule for earlier in the week and try to add additional reservations as the week goes on. If your child absolutely will not shower also make sure you book a suite with a bathtub and/or bring an inflatable tub/pool. If your child is not up to sleeping in a bed you can reserve a pack and play for your cabin ahead of time though you may want to bring your own pack and play sheet since they just use larger sheets for the packnplays

They do, sort of a cubby with stacked bunks, similar to what can be found in the 1A and 1K cabins, but the OP asked about 2 bedroom Grand Suites.

Didn't Harmony start in UK and Symphony start in the Mediterranean? To @twangster's point it probably just comes down to whether they think that the ship is ready enough to launch from Europe or whether the transatlantic time can be better used to finish shake-down of systems. Icon obviously spent awhile getting up to speed but Star will probably be faster and Icon 3 could potentially launch from Europe (and then the transatlantic can be revenue-generating). Though if memory serves Harmony was not really done and there was a lot of construction ongoing.

@Toobrowneyes I believe most of the ships have the pull-down style berths in the GT/OT suites rather than the old fold-down style. Depending upon your room configuration request they can be up or down. If they are up they are essentially in the ceiling and out of the way. You can ask for it to be changed to your liking in the first day or so, though I do not believe they will open/close repeatedly like they do with the sofa beds if that is what you are asking. In other words, if you do not want them at all you can request that they be left up for the duration of your cruise, or you can ask that they be left down for the duration of your cruise.

The biggest head scratcher for me with Odyssey is the removal of the indoor pool. The "resort style pool" might be why Odyssey ended up spending so much time in the Caribbean. For a ship that was designed to be cooler weather it feels like an odd choice. Anyone remember why that change was made? There is also a dearth of 5+ person cabins, pretty much just the Loft and the two GT suites. We're booked for Feb of 26 but I privately wish it was still Anthem running the winter NY/NJ route.

I hope you were able to move Forward from your Stern Warning and enjoy your cruise.

As noted, you are not likely to have much foot traffic by your door but you may have a fair bit of noise above your room. If you are four doors down that seems to put you pretty much right under the bar/possibly the solarium bistro. You are likely to hear people sliding chairs and moving about. If possible you may want to drop down to deck 12. With that said, these are small considerations and while deck 13 is "one to avoid" if you can, you will likely have a great time regardless of where you end up.

Might be a one and done, but Enchantment is definitely looking rough. We sailed nearly 8+ years ago and I said never again (because of a whole host of reasons, not just cabin condition). I know a its still a lot of people's favorites so we had family on her recently and I told them to report back, heard the same thing. Rooms like that posted here are not representative of the entire ship but I would say that are representative of the range of conditions you can expect on enchantment. It is probably the worst of the range but I was not surprised to see it. Now if someone said this was Oasis or Freedom I would have my doubts. We even found other vision class ships (Rhapsody) to be in better condition Some ships just seem to live slightly rougher lives (here's looking at you Adventure). My suspicion is that the ships, like Enchantment, that see shorter cruises more often get beat up a bit more.

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