KevinJ

I heard that the passenger count was 6500. There were kids around but for the most part the Icon layout really seems to have worked for spreading everything out. Two places I felt had more teens, Playmakers is right next to the teen zone and there seemed to always be a bunch of teens in there playing all the games. The Swim & Tonic bar/pool seemed to have allot of kids in it which I didn't feel was appropriate as they tended to be splashing around quite a bit. If you're looking to avoid the kids at CocoCay  Hideaway beach was absolutely fabulous.

Icon on the 9th, the build up has been fantastic 

The last time I got the DBP, before making Diamond, I noticed something strange. I got a mimosa at breakfast in the Windjammer, later I saw that there were 3 charges for this. They are 0 dollar charges but I noticed that this happened in a couple other venues. I wondered at the time if they were padding their drink counts for DBP customers. 

We did Allure B2B 4/3 in January. We won't do it again. My wife found the party atmosphere on the 3 night to be too much. Also as stated before PDCC is getting really old. We're going to do Hideaway Beach in a couple weeks off Icon to see what that's like. The port upgrade in Nassau has also helped. Being from New Hampshire getting to Florida doesn't make sense to do anything less than a 7 night. I'm starting to eyeball the 11 or 12 nighters from Bayonne as they at least over a bit of diversity in the itineraries.

Update, two of the cancelled/refunded cruise planner items have now been recharged to me. Still nothing charged to my son. The orders list for the cruise still showed everything getting charged to my son, it will also make it difficult to cancel and rebook. However then only thing we've rebooked is Hideaway Beach at CocoCay which dropped in price twice. We're still along way from final payment so have to keep monitoring.

We're on Odyssey next November. On Feb 12th all my Cruise Planner purchases made under black Friday sale got mysteriously cancelled. Then they were all reapplied as a single transaction under my son's name, same sale prices. The refunds did show up on my card but so far there has been no charge to my son? I have my TA monitoring this as I also have had Cruise Planner issues affect final payment amount. From the previous experience I've learned to track and watch all these things very carefully.

Not available on the March 9th sailing. So looks like you'll get the first run.

Realized I didn't do an ice-cream update. Vanilla ice cream on Allure was back to just "normal" nothing special. We're on Icon in a couple weeks and I plan to give theirs a try. I have no idea why I've started to worry about ice cream . I've never even done the soft serve.

Yes, just booked all our shows. Was really starting to wonder.

We also got 11:30

Everyone has their own tastes, I’m also on Allure now’s. The MDR has been fine, tonight my Sole was so hot I had to wait for it to cool. We had a terrific lunch in Giovanni’s yesterday. Then, at the same meal tonight my wife didn’t care for her chicken parmigiana, but my son loved his. So everyone will experience different things, I just hope you’re able to enjoy your cruise. BTW the wheather in Nassau today s…coed

I've only gotten it twice, since we've reached D+ I let my wife use a voucher for her morning coffee

We had them this year on Odyssey and Wonder and had to pick it up both times. 

Just be aware that you have to go collect your card, usually from Café Promenade. If you order a venti they may check off the card twice. I was on a sailing and of day six I heard someone asking about their card, they had assumed is was loaded to their sea pass card similar to other drink packages.

When we cruise out of Bayonne we either stay at the Marriott Courtyard or Residence Inn near Newark airport. Matt's article mentions the Residence and the Courtyard is just across the driveway. We then park at the terminal which is only about 15min away. Not really much in the area for food, but it's a five hour drive for us so we usually just order something in.

I've been following this thread and another with interest as I had a similar situation a couple years ago and now watch all this stuff very carefully. I'm always learning things through this board. The "make payment" tab is interesting, however none of my cruises give me the option of selecting "payment details". I've booked through a TA so I suppose that is the difference.

@Parkhopper I've been there multiple times with my wife and she was using a scooter. I would recommend it. I'm also of the opinion that I wouldn't get it again for over $100, but the way prices have goner up, $125 looks pretty good. I would plan to get there as early as you can to have a good choice of seating, my wife also had to avoid sun so we would always be looking for the shaded areas. Another hint is that you should make your lunch reservation as soon as you can to get your preferred time.

@Vlad my TA tried several times, but couldn't get any sort of final answer. I did have a zero balance invoice though, but they were still saying there was something going on, my TA assured me that at worst they might not acknowledge that I had covered all the gratuities. It seemed to just resolve itself and not directly related to an interaction with them, although they kept saying that it was being worked on. The charges were in Feb, the cruise was in June, so it did take quite some time.

@Bowen strange I had  the same experience on the Symphony TA, about 5:30am, darn time changes, saw a fellow in just a bathing suit out cold in the elevator lobby and it was deck 10 as well! A crew member was on the phone so I kept going, then when I got down to Café Promenade there was another fellow wrapped in towels and barefoot who had spilled his coffee all over and seemed a bit unsteady, must have been quite a party.

Magnets, my wife put up a bunch of Halloween magnets. I never gave it a thought, but we had several children knock on the door on Halloween, I had a single piece of candy that I'd gotten someplace else for the first child, but the other was out of luck, took down the Halloween magnets after that. We don't get trick or treaters where we live so I never considered they would be doing on the ship.

For those concerned about cruise cancelled due to outstanding balance. Two years ago I cancelled and rebooked some items for a cruise. Never paid much attention to it. When I went to make final payment my TA told me that RC could not tell us what the final balance was as there was a cruise planner purchase that was somehow stuck in an indeterminate state. Since I always pre-pay gratuities my TA said that should cover any potential discrepancy in the balance as the disputed amount was less. There was finally a sequence of charges and refunds that hit my card only a couple weeks before we sailed. The end result to me looked like I got refunded twice. Since then I have been very careful about keeping track of all purchases, the dates when I cancel, and when I get refunds. I'm glad all my BF purchases were made later than first day.

Hope you all get resolutions as these sorts of things just add unnecessary stress.

@Pringle I'm sorry you had such an experience in Wonderland, I've only tried it once and didn't really find it something I'd do again. We were on the Symphony transatlantic and did three specialty lunches, Jamie's, Hibachi, and Hooked plus dinner in Chops. All were quite good experiences. We ate dinner in the MDR almost every other night. Early seating and all but one meal were quite good. I must say that I'm not a very picky eater and not overly concerned if some of the times we took most of an hour for our meals, but I did have quite a few meals that I thought were terrific. The one meal I had an issue with was the short ribs in the MDR, my serving was quite fatty, I've had it in the past and found it quite good. I didn't bother with trying to exchange it as I was already suffering from way too much food. One thing a noticed was that to me, the vanilla ice-cream seemed much better than what I had on previous cruises. Very creamy and lots of flavor. I'll be checking this out when I'm on Allure in January to see if it compares. I did notice lots of lines for the MDR My Time many nights as we left  and I am glad that I'll never choose my time again.

We couldn't book from the app either. The site finally let me in and I rebooked, didn't save a ton but every little bit helps.

Wanted to check this out as we have it booked for next week, but can't get into the site?

We're on the transatlantic this Sunday, to date I've not really had any issues with food so I guess we'll find out. 

When we checked in for out Symphony transatlantic I was able to take advantage of the 6 hour time difference and check-in at 6pm the day before. 11am was all that was available as soon as check-in opened. That was gone within an hour. Had the opposite when we did our Alaska check in, had to wait to 3am.

We're on Symphony for the transatlantic on Sunday and are planning to try and use our BOGO, but we don't want to eat either the 1st or 2nd night. We'd like to do night 5 and 10. Our plan is to hit Chops when we first board and see what we can work out. The way the benefit is worded it sys to buy a specially dinner on either the first or second night? It doesn't actually say you need to eat that night, perhaps it's implied. The other issue we have is that there are three of us. I've heard that a solo using the BOGO will just get 50% off.