wannabecruiseexpert

I recently tried to get my boss to relocate our company to Florida. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. 

15 minutes ago, Pooch said:

I feel your pain.  We don’t book anything from Florida that isn’t non-stop and, like you, on Sunday’s that’s too early or very late. Our return flight is at 8:35pm.  My daughter who lives in Maitland will just have to put up with us.  Taking her on a free cruise so she owes us!!

Yeah I think we will just have to take a late flight and deal with being tired at work & the kids tired at school the next day. I suppose it's still better than the alternative of not cruising at all!

10 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Where are you flying out of/into ?

My local airport is GSP but I'm right between ATL and CLT. We usually drive to CLT and fly from there, only because driving in ATL intimidates me 

Sigh.  I apologize in advance for this rant.  I've been searching for MONTHS for a decent flight for our upcoming April sailing out of Miami. I've searched MIA, FLL and even PBI and am having NO luck finding a decent return flight. 99% of everything is either before 10 am or later in the evening. If the sailings would be Sat-Sat, an early evening flight would be fine because we wouldn't have to wake up early the next day for work/school. Why must they come back on Sundays?? I'm jealous of all of you who live close enough to drive and don't have to deal with this  Ok, rant over. 

On another note, my sailing is exactly 100 days away and it will be my first time on Oasis!

This is my dream cabin. By the time I'll be able to pull it off, it will be for my grandkids instead of my kids 

I'm noticing under the "what to bring" section on the excursion section that it states to bring local currency. This is listed on a lot of the different excursions. Is this specific to just Honduras? I assume this means the local vendors/restaurants/etc do not take USD or visa/mastercard. I have never had to exchange money before so this is new to me. 

35 minutes ago, CGTLH said:

I feel this has been a great enhancement for communication. I think Alan R on Allue in September had stated this was a fairly new rollout and the Genies were using company issued devices for it.

I've always felt silly calling in a request when a quick text message could do. Plus I feel text is easier, most of the time, to convey "list" type requests. 

I've only had 1 SC sailing and we had Smitha so also used whatsapp, but if I had to actually place a phone call to the genie, I would definitely not use their services as much. I HATE talking to people on the phone and there's no doubt in my mind that my trip wouldn't have been as amazing as it was if I had to call every time.  

I've enjoyed following along! When's the next one? 

On 12/21/2021 at 1:57 PM, nick_b said:

What's the vomit comet?

Thank you for asking this because I didn't know either!

I have yet to try playmakers! Everything always looks so delicious from there. Can’t wait to try it all in April!

I’ve wondered how the genies food deliveries were for 2. That looks like the same amount of food we had for 7 people and it was still too much! 

26 minutes ago, ChessE4 said:

Costa Maya offers access to Mayan ruins, so I'd use Cozumel for the beach day.  Most of the interesting excursions from Cozumel require a bumpy ride to the mainland.

We just did the ruins in October in Costa Maya. 

Very excited to follow along! Your blogs played a MAJOR part in me booking our first star class sailing. 

So happy to see you are soooo close to being back on deck 17!

On our upcoming sailing in April, we will go to Cozumel and Costa Maya. We will have a 6 yo and 14 yo, both will be fully vaccinated. I only want to do 1 beach day and am torn between Mr Sanchos and Maya Chan. We have never been to either one. I've read some really good comparisons on here, but none specifically with kids. I doubt either of the kids will care about the inflatable water park. Which stop would you pick for a beach day?

We eat a lot of hibachi type places at home. I personally think that the rice at Izumi is outstanding, way better than what we have locally. The meats weren't anything special, but the rice......AMAZING! 

Happy cruise day!! Excited to be following along!

I've always wanted to play table games but have no clue how to play any of them. People always look like they're having so much fun at the tables. I've heard reviews before of the lessons and they didn't seem great but reading your experience makes me want to do it. 

Glad to see you're off to a great start! 

Just curious - have you felt at any point the service you're receiving has been too much? My star class experience wasn't anything like what you've had, but curious if you've felt bothered. Well bothered isn't such a great word but maybe overbearing?  Don't get me wrong , we loved all of the attention that we received.  For us, it was the right balance of spoiling us versus leaving us alone to let us enjoy ourselves. 

3 hours ago, Ken s said:

I’m trying to price a cruise for 6, 4 adults and 2 children the 2 bedroom suite says it can sleep 8, but going through the website does not allow me to put in more than 4 people when choosing 1 room.  Any way to get more than 4?

If you are just trying to see prices, when we booked, the prices for the additional people were the same as 3rd and 4th passengers

When the summer '23 sailings come out, I will be booking our first (and probably only) Alaska sailing. I know we will choose a quantum class ship, which I understand that class doesn't necessarily do the best itineraries. Are there any pros/cons to book June versus July? Anything specific I should be looking for? 

Is Walgreens an option for you? I know you can't schedule 2 weeks ahead like CVS but if you have a local one doing rapid, it may be worth looking into.

Excited to follow along!

1 hour ago, Momof4crazytocruise said:

Thanks for this. However, after traveling last week without the kids on Liberty, we were pretty discouraged by what we saw as far as how the kids were being treated. We have a cruise scheduled for March, and our youngest will still be ineligible for vaccination - so we are likely to cancel unless protocols change. In addition to the perception of the 'dirty, dirty unvaccinated people' restrictions, in general the children on our cruise were looked on as lepers and with disgust by many of the other traveling guests - I will NOT be putting my children through that. We asked around to some of the moms on the ship with kids, and I was very disappointed to hear what the experience has been like for their kids. So, we'll wait. 

This makes me sad! Not something we experienced with our little one but for anyone - especially kids - to be ostracized makes me really sad!  

I read that as the local law now says either vaccinated or negative test but this specific tour operator is complying with the local law by requiring all to be vaccinated (and not giving an option for negative test). Hopefully you can find something on board like @Atlantix2000mentions