GaryAA

If you have your heart set on visiting Key West, there is a Key West shuttle from Miami's airport that is running 3 times per day. They were running every couple hours before the pandemic. By the way, did you decide to get a Grand suite for this cruise? After reading your post about Grand suites, we changed our junior suite to a Grand suite.

We have cruised several times in junior suites on the Anthem and have liked them. You basically get priority boarding and Coastal kitchen access if space is available. Our future cruises on the Anthem and Ovation are also booked in junior suites but we are considering upgrading to the Grand Suite but the price difference is $2500-$3000 more. Part of that may be due high demand for future cruises.

I failed to mention in my previous post, we fly home from Key West so we don't have to drive back to Miami. Adding Key West to a cruise is enjoyable. We've done it several times.

Are you on the Symphony 2/5/21? We are on that cruise then drive down to Key West for the following week. It is a 3 hour drive.

I'm curious what the protocol will be like when the Adventure and Vision sail this summer as far as mask wearing and smoking in the casino.

Oh I agree with not having a 100% non-smoking ship. I’m sure Carnival had a hard time enforcing it, especially with crew members. I also understand why they don’t want guests leaving the casino to smoke, I just choose to avoid the casino.

We are still holding on to our August Ovation booking for now but will probably cancel soon. We have another one booked in August 22. I was really hoping the August 21 cruise would sail at half capacity, that would have been nice.

I really wish the casino was non-smoking. We cruised on the Carnival Paradise when it was 100% non-smoking ship which was great. As much as I like to play blackjack, I avoid the casinos when there is smoking allowed. Yes, I can smell it on the non-smoking side too.

My very first cruise on Carnival Ecstasy in 1992 had skeet shooting on the back of the ship with shotguns

I'm also booked on the Symphony December 4th. It is a backup to my 12-day Anthem cruise December 12th. It is possible to do both if they both sail ? At this point, I'll be happy with either one.

We had 5 cabins on the Freedom and opened up the dividers, it was great.

9 on the books. Ovation 8/21 (doubtful), Symphony 12/21, Anthem 12/21 (doubtful - 12 days) , Symphony 2/22, Odyssey 3/22, Ovation 8/22, Explorer 12/22, Voyager 12/22, Symphony 2/23

Make sure your name on the airline reservation matches the name on the TSA precheck.

We have stayed several times before cruises. Their shuttle service is we’ll organized. They sometimes have entertainment on the weekends at the pool bar. If you have a big family, some of their suites have two king beds and a pull out sofa.

If you like beer, the Florida Beer Company is behind the Homewood Suites. They have tours and beer sampling. Nice little brewery.

We actually hired a tour guide for the day. Look for the taxis with blue flags, they are certified tour guides. The guide we used drove us around in a minivan and tailored the trip to our interests. They can get into areas the tour bus can’t go. We set up our tour guide in advance. He was there at the dock when we arrived. We usually do ship excursions but this was way better.

St Maarten - You can catch a water taxi ($7) near the pier and go to Great Bay beach within sight of the cruise ship. They have beach chairs to rent with umbrellas for $20. The ship excursion we did to Orient Beach had umbrellas with the chairs too. Orient beach is a nicer beach but after being to St Maarten many times we just take the water taxi across the bay.

Homewood Suites (newer property) and Raddison (older property but nice pool & poolbar). Both have shuttles to the port.

That’s exactly how I feel. I may get the Johnson & Johnson if need be, but I’ll let the masses get theirs first.

I just booked a B2B on the Voyager from San Juan in December 2022. My first experience with Royal Caribbean was on the Mariner. Up until that point, we had been cruising on Carnival but the Voyager class swayed me to Royal only cruises.

I don’t like the prices either but then again we have not spent any money on cruises in the past year, that’s how I justify it anyway.

I’ve had a cabin switched after being booked for months with no explanation, can’t imagine the frustration of having your cruise canceled.

I've thought this as well. I've been on the Anthem and have trips scheduled on the Ovation & Odyssey but still prefer the Oasis Class and Freedom/Voyager class. I think the Freedom/Voyager class ships are most aesthetically pleasing in the fleet.

With the connecting balcony rooms you will also enjoy two "connected" balconies with the divider opened up.

That comes into play also. It depends on whether I'm scuba diving or doing more laid back things so it is route dependent for me.