PatsFanBrian

They did 7 nighters in 2019, I didn’t know that wasn’t a thing anymore. We did a 7 night out of Boston in September, 2019, on Serenade. Two days at sea, 3 in Bermuda, 2 days back.

We stayed there in January based on your recommendation. It was a great choice. The Dania Pointe shopping area was a great way to spend an afternoon and evening and all accessible just by walking out the door. If we end up back in Ft Lauderdale again, we won’t hesitate to stay there.

My first cruise was on Freedom back in '06 when it was the largest cruise ship in the world. I recall being blown away by it's sheer size. Funny how our perspectives have changed over time. As others have said, it more than large enough for a 7 night sail.

We had our first sail as Diamond this past January on Odyssey. These are the perks we used: Four drink vouchers per day We passed on the DBP as we don't typically drink more than 5-6 per day. When we ordered a drink, we specified when we wanted to use the vouchers. We always saved them for the cocktails and paid for beer. We received 20% off our first beer (specified not to use the voucher on them). Free day of internet We knew we didn't want to be connected much, so we used our vouchers on different sea days and shared the connection. We had no issue finding free Wi-Fi on port days when we chose (except Coco Cay). Diamond/Crown Lounge We typically stopped by once per afternoon on sea days to get coffee, a snack if they were still out and just relax in a quiet environment. Picture discounts We used each of our discounts to purchase one picture each 15% Merchandise discounts (picked up a few trinkets and my Odyssey model ship) We may have missed a perk here and there, but overall, it added up to some nice savings for us.

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.

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.

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.

Nantucket is a long way from Maine

Don’t rule out Baby Beach. We enjoyed it last month.

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.

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.

I just got off Odyssey. I had a boarding time of 12:00, got there at 11:20 and had no issues. They actually didn't begin any boarding until 11:30, so I had to sit in a waiting area for about 5 minutes. Once they started boarding, it went quick.

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.

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.

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.