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Patriots, Bruins, Cruising
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PatsFanBrian's Achievements
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Magoody reacted to a post in a topic: Southern and Eastern Caribbean cruises- ship, port, and itinerary questions???
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teddy reacted to a post in a topic: Boston on your own excursion?
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WAAAYTOOO reacted to a post in a topic: Southern and Eastern Caribbean cruises- ship, port, and itinerary questions???
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Regarding the Cheers bar (Bull & Finch), you've been warned. Other than the outside facade, it is nothing like the show and is well known locally as a tourist trap. But I get the desire to go once and say you've been there.
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When we were on the ship in late January, the pool closed on one of the sea days for that reason (not a massive amount, but any amount is too much). WTF is up with that?? Once they realized what they were dealing with, they cleared the pool and hot tub, drained it, sanitized it and finally refilled it. But by that time, it was evening and very few were by the pool.
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Agree about Aruba and Curacao. We just did the Odyssey 8 day Southern in late January and chose it specifically for the stops (along with Coco Cay). Both island ports are easy access to the downtown areas with plenty of shopping and food/drinks. We were in Aruba until 11 PM. We did Baby Beach during the 1st half of the day. Then we walked the town, went back to the ship to eat, then went back on the town for a couple of night cap beverages at one of the local establishments. Curacao is our favorite stop. The walk from the ship to the town is great, lots of shopping, vendors and places to stop along the way. The floating bridge is a quirky enjoyable experience. And we love the town. All we did was walk, shop, eat and stop for a beverage or two along the way. We would never hesitate to go back there.
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PatsFanBrian reacted to a post in a topic: Southern and Eastern Caribbean cruises- ship, port, and itinerary questions???
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michaelp1446 reacted to a post in a topic: Canada New England shore excursions
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PPPJJ-GCVAB reacted to a post in a topic: Canada New England shore excursions
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Nantucket is a long way from Maine
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Don’t rule out Baby Beach. We enjoyed it last month.
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mscinmia reacted to a post in a topic: Port Everglades Hotels, Parking, and Dining Suggestions
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Va4fam reacted to a post in a topic: Port Everglades Hotels, Parking, and Dining Suggestions
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Port Everglades Hotels, Parking, and Dining Suggestions
PatsFanBrian replied to Va4fam's topic in Royal Caribbean Discussion
We recently stayed at Marriot at Dania Pointe. A bit more expensive, but Dania Pointe is an area built for social activities with several bars and numerous restaurants ranging from cheap to pricey. Walk out of the hotel and it’s all within a few minutes walk. We’ll stay there again if we go out of Fort Lauderdale again. -
Eyeonhevn reacted to a post in a topic: New service SOTS? Luggage taken to airport for us
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Maggie M reacted to a post in a topic: New service SOTS? Luggage taken to airport for us
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WAAAYTOOO reacted to a post in a topic: New service SOTS? Luggage taken to airport for us
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New service SOTS? Luggage taken to airport for us
PatsFanBrian replied to Eyeonhevn's topic in Royal Caribbean Discussion
This was offered on my Odyssey sailing last week, first time I ever recall it being offered. The big caveat is that your flight must be after 11AM (ours was exactly at 11AM), otherwise I may have considered it, especially since we were self-assisting and it can be challenging with multiple large suitcases. -
PatsFanBrian reacted to a post in a topic: What is going on with RCL food??
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We just finished sailing as Diamond for the first time. Because of this thread, I paid extra attention to the slips when they were given to us. The printout at the bottom regarding gratuities is boiler plate printing that is on every receipt you receive whether it's at a bar or at a restaurant. The computer just spits it out as part of the programming. For the vouchers, the gratuity line was always blank. We asked around a few times and we were consistently told that they do not get gratuities on vouchers. We always left a cash tip when we used vouchers (many times, we never got a receipt if we had wanted to add one on the slip.
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As others have pointed out, it's a math problem as well as a matter of convenience. We used to always get the DBP for both reasons. We just got of Odyssey and this was our first sail as Diamond cruisers, so we did not get it. One thing we noticed about halfway through was that we were not drinking as much because we were tracking our four daily vouchers. Not to say we didn't go above 4 on some days. We were also carefully considering what we were going to have for our drinks. We saved the vouchers for the pricier mixed cocktails and and used them on beer when we were out of them or we knew that we wouldn't be getting any further mixed drinks. We also didn't miss the fresh squeezed OJ or specialty coffees as much as we thought we would. And for water, we just preordered a 12 pack of Evian and paid less than if we kept ordering smaller bottles.
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Giovanni’s Table vs Italian Kitchen
PatsFanBrian replied to Doug_Texas's topic in Royal Caribbean Dining
I found this thread after trying to find an explanation for why Giovanni's on Odyssey was so different from our past experiences on other ships. We just got off Odyssey and Giovanni's Kitchen was one of the bigger disappointments. We are accustomed to Giovanni's Table and didn't realize the difference until we sat and looked at the menu. We managed to find items that were a bit closer to what we wanted, but very few. I didn't try the pizza because the ones I saw did not look very good. I didn't want to use what is supposed to be a higher end experience on generic looking pizza. I guess it's a live and learn experience. I now know that there's a difference between Table vs Kitchen and we will not do Kitchen again. It may have stuck out to us a bit more if they didn't reuse the name Giovanni's. Next time, if we're on a ship where it's Kitchen, we'll pass and go to one of the others. -
Aruba and Curacao excursions and currency
PatsFanBrian replied to RebN's topic in Royal Caribbean Discussion
We'll be there next week (1/24, 1/25). This will be the 2nd time to those islands. Aruba will be a long day, not departing until 11PM. We'll do the beach during the day, get in some shopping in the afternoon, back to the ship for an early specialty dining reservation, then back out to the town to take in the night. Curacao is great. We are there until 6PM. We are going relaxed mode for the day. The walk into town is nice. We'll shop, explore, find a local place to have lunch and a few drinks. You may be warned about the pontoon bridge. It opens to let ships pass through and there's no predicting when that could happen. So the suggestion is to leave yourself plenty of time to get back to the ship because if you wait and the bridge is open, you may not make it back in time. On most of the tourist islands, all currency is accepted. If you use a credit card, the CC company will do the conversion for you. Many places have prices listed in local and US currency. Most should accept US currency. -
I’ll be doing this tomorrow, getting a batch of 5’s as well.
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My wife and I had the same question as we will be sailing this Saturday for the first time as Diamond. Thanks for all the answers.