PatsFanBrian

After my recent cruise on Serenade, my question is how often ships go in for general maintenance. There were a variety of signs that the ship needs work, from the large pool deck screen not operating to a general smell in the corridors indicating that the carpets are probably due for replacement. The annoyances were minor and did not impact my enjoyment, but some of these older ships certainly need some work, not necessarily amping.

Darwinism in it's full glory.

Boston is a great walking city, but you'll need to get a ride from the port. Get to the Boston Common and go from there. No matter which direction you head, you'll run into history. One day is not nearly enough to take everything in. I took a look at some of the excursions, the only one I'd highly recommend the Duck Tour. Whenever we have visitors from out of state, we take them on a Duck Tour. You can book it yourself, but the Duck Tours typically book way ahead and you are assigned a very specific time. A Fenway tour would be interesting as well, but there's no excursion that I can see. I would not recommend the tours outside of Boston such as Lexington & Concord, Cape Cod or Salem, etc. There's plenty to see in the city itself. You can walk the Freedom trail yourself, maps are available in many locations and you follow a red line to the various stops. The USS Constitution and the North End are great locations. You can cross the Charles River into Cambridge and walk around Harvard Square and Harvard Yard.

I've been on several excursions that sold photos, and most are far cheaper than the ship packages. We've purchased photos from horseback riding in St. Thomas, stingrays in Grand Cayman, zip lining in Belize, and zip lining in Jamaica. In all cases, we got a CD with all the photos they took (thumb drive in the more recent one) and the prices was under $50. We also bought photos doing a Dolphin swim in Cozumel, those were pricier, but too good to pass up. Not every excursion has photographer, mileage may vary.

I have never packed mine in checked luggage and have never been questioned about carrying it on to a plane. And as was stated above, fill out a form to request the distilled water and extension cord. You can find it on the RC site (I think it's a special request form). I had not known that on previous cruises, but requested it for me latest and they had everything set for me.

We were on Serenade a couple of weeks ago and had the same question. There were a couple of photos that we really liked, but the only option for single photo purchases was the print, no digital. Also, just as annoying, if you get one of the packages other than the most expensive, you have to choose either the print or digital. Makes no sense when they're just going to throw away the print if you choose the digital. I really can't understand why you can't get both (and we were not the only ones questioning the policy while we were on-board). RC's photo policies have always confounded me.

That I could order as many items as I wished off the menus.

I can't imagine what they were realistically expecting in that moment. The issues were not with the Captain and crew who's first priority is the safety of the ship and it's passengers/crew. But a mob does not exercise common sense, there's a reason why we have the term "mob mentality". It's a pretty sad display of human nature.

I will always prefer a good beer. But, unfortunately, the beer on RC typically sucks. You can find something decent at the pub, but even that place is just OK. All the other locations have Bud, Michelob, Miller, Heineken and Blue Moon. I'll drink the Blue Moon, but that gets old after a while. Last week, when we sailed out of Boston, I held out some hope that they'd stock up on some Sam Adams or Harpoon since the breweries are both with a couple of miles of the dock, but no such luck. I ended up drinking Stone IPA (pretty good), but they ran out halfway through the week.

That's quiet time for any type of vacation. The best Orlando visit we ever had was when we went the week prior to Christmas. All Disney parks as well as Universal (it was just the studio back then) were dead quiet. We hit all rides with little to no waits and went on our favorites multiple times. If T-Day and Christmas weren't such big holidays at our house, we'd look to book a sail that week.

I enjoy the Royal Gold Rita, all top shelf ingredients. If you find yourself at 150 Central Park, try the Cucumber Martini. We tried to replicate it at home with little success.

Hard to list all the things you can do on an Oasis class ship: Nightly shows in the main theater Water shows in the aqua theater Skating show Participation events such as Trivia, Love & Marriage, Quest, Karaoke and many more More food that you can possibly eat Multiple gathering venues with different themes Just relaxing by the pools. ...And much more And that's just on the ship. Each port of call will have numerous opportunities to explore, be adventurous, shop, or just relax. It's very difficult to be bored. Review your cruise planner and as already been mentioned, reserve show ahead of time. Read the Compass every night and pick out a few things you'd like to do. You can just wander the ship and you're bound to come across some activity that looks interesting.

In my wallet, my wife puts hers in whatever bag she's carrying at the time. If we're by the pool, I put my wallet in the backpack we bring with us.

Those are great, never saw them before. We just use heavy clear tape to hold the halves together.

For our cruise last week, we had taken our own picture. At check in, they looked at it and it was good enough. Saw others having their pics taken in the terminal and it only took a few seconds.

We cruised out of PR in March '17. At the time, flights from Logan (Boston) were $900/pp. I looked at Newark and the price was $550/pp. So we booked Newark, drove 3.5 hours the night before, stayed in a hotel that included 7 days of parking and saved over $400 overall. We're looking to take Freedom out of PR in March '21. We'll be looking at the same options when it comes time to book flights. It helps to have multiple choices of airports within a reasonable driving distance.

We just got off Serenade. We had the drink package (with 18% gratuity added). We also prepaid the gratuities. Our general rule of thumb is that the tips have already been added, but we'll give a cash tip for exceptional service. This most recent one, we had one server that we really enjoyed, she always had a smile, a simple thing which far too many servers don't do, learned our likes and would always get to us as soon as she saw us walk in. We gave her $20 in cash at the end. Our stateroom attendant was very good and we gave him an extra $20. Our MDR staff was average at best and we didn't give extra.

You shouldn't have any issue. I'd suggest that you book the other two nights as soon as you get on board so you'll have more times to choose from.

It really is a rough day. As good as it is to get onboard and enjoy that first day, it sucks when walking off at the end.

It is a nice town ,but one I'm already familiar with. It's less than a 3 hour drive for me and I have friends that live there. Maybe I'll have to call them to see if they're available for lunch. Not at all disappointed with the change, there's still lots of fun to be had. In fact, we're getting an early start sitting by a fire in our backyard with cocktail in hand. We head to the port tomorrow morning. Happy cruising everyone.

Nothing for your ship. Serenade out of Boston was supposed to be there Wed-Fri, but will now be Thurs-Fri. Day 1 at sea has been replaced with a stop in Portland. Day 3 in Bermuda is now at sea.

We finally got our official notification. The storm will be there on Tuesday. Can't see how they can be in port. Did you get a change email?

The storm is supposed to hit Tuesday night and be gone by Wednesday morning.

The Serenade cruise fromBoston to Bermuda is being modified. We will now stop in Portland on day 2 and Bermuda will be shortened from 3 days to 2 days (Thurs-Fri) We are only finding out by looking at our apps. There's been no notification from RC as of yet which is really poor communication on their part. At least we'll still get time there.

My cruise on Serenade (out of Boston) is 7 days with 3 days in Bermuda (Wed - Fri).