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dmattinson

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Everything posted by dmattinson

  1. I did 12 nights on Serenade and I had no issues even with 5 or 6 sea days - Freedom is almost 75% larger than Serenade and there will be plenty to do Just for perspective, Freedom is still larger than Celebrity's largest ships. It's a big ship in the world of cruising despite its age.
  2. Agreed - resort casual should be the norm for your cruise vacation (most likely to the Caribbean) and suits and tuxes kept for the transatlantic and cold weather cruises. If a cruise ship has orange, pink, green, and blue ornamentation on the pool deck, don't expect anything more than a relaxed attire anywhere on the ship (and I know people do dress up, but some folks get huffy about others not dressing up too).
  3. The Cigar Emporium in Aruba I tried to stop at in September but they were taking a long lunch and I didn't get a chance to see what they actually have BUT it is close to the cruise pier in the shopping center with the pink buildings, even closer than the LCDH.
  4. if you stop in Grand Cayman, there is a LCDH there on the street where the tender ferries dock and they are fine, but there is another shop a block or so off the waterfront called Old Havana Cigars that are legit and priced well enough for the current conditions. They were cheaper than LCDH for the sticks I was looking for (Partagas Serie D No 4) by enough to be considerable. Also, while the selection was limited, the LCDH in Bonnaire had prices comparable to Old Havana In GC.
  5. When they build that station, they are likely going to have to provision "cruise express" train-sets to cover the volume of passengers from Cocoa to MCO - I could see them setting up a service like Disney used to have where after gathering your bags post-cruise, you tag them at a set of kiosks or service desks like you see at self-serve stations in the airport check-in lobby and load the bags up with Brightline porters on specialized carts who take your bags on trucks/cargo vans or load up luggage cars on the train itself and provide streamlined luggage transfers to TSA and onto the airlines to put on the flights - talk about a "value added service". If they coordinate with the cruise lines and get these kiosks set-up in an area of the ship, you might even be able to not worry about your bag before even getting off the ship (although the security logistics make me wonder how they will secure the chain of custody to ensure nothing gets placed inside someone's bag once the bag is set out in the hallway the night before).
  6. I'm curious, compared to guest areas, how are the crew prices for things like coffee and bottled/canned beverages?
  7. looks like there might be a light or speaker there above and below the balcony - also, the balcony has a slight reducing curve to it as it transitions to oceanview rooms in front of your room which may be part of the "obstruction"
  8. My last trip to NYC earlier this year had me take an Uber from LaGuardia to financial district and back the next day - $100 each trip. If I was near EWR airport, I'd likely try to find my way to the ferries and then take a subway up Broadway from there...but if not familiar with the transit system, it would be confusing, especially with a person who has sensory stimulation challenges.
  9. I have sailed on Harmony, Oasis, Independence, Odyssey, and Serenade in the last few years - all of them have had metal ceilings in the bathrooms. We hang our bathing suits in there across a few hooks to spread them out around the ceiling vent to promote airflow to dry them out - they fare better there than over the string clothesline
  10. Just look at the dollar amount - that is the price per person with all discounts baked in (it really doesn't matter on 2nd person or not as my wife doesn't drink alcohol due to medical reasons and I get the displayed price when I book it). My Wonder sailing has been $72.99 pretty consistently - hasn't gone lower (aside from targeted senior citizen sales which I don't qualify for) but does go up in the day or two when they aren't running a "sale". Its like Kohl's...always a sale aside from a couple days every month.
  11. Yes - cheap enough to leave behind if needed but has enough performance to move good amounts of air and be loud enough to provide that white noise that some of us require to sleep https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001R1RXUG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  12. I don't know if it made too many Diamond members but it sure helped people that knew how to game the "cruise with confidence" promos that were offering essentially a no-penalty of cruise fare postponement and was giving people double points for booking during specific times (that often coupled with the cruise with confidence forgiveness). I think it sped up the timeline for some cruisers that were able to take advantage of the lower fares and get the extra points while having a little flexibility in future cruise plans. Those folks have all met the tiers that they were going to meet by now or are getting close to meeting the next tier and their cruise with confidence bookings are all exhausted. I know I personally benefited from one of these double point promos getting 14 points for staying in a balcony room on a 7-night Harmony cruise in 2021 (after the original 3-night sailing offering that promo was COVID cancelled and FCC applied to a future sailing also carried the double points credit). I also benefited from a surprisingly cheap fare for a suite on a 12-night repo cruise netting me another 24 points (I mean, the fare for 2 in a 1BR Owner's Suite was cheaper than 1 person on Star in a Surfside family suite). But I'm still not at Diamond...16 more points to get there with a 7-nighter in a balcony in May and a 5-nighter in a JS in April 2024 which will get me Diamond with one extra point over prior to our Star sailing in Sep 2024. Prior to 2021, I sailed Royal 1 time and had only credit for 1 sailing from 2005 in the C&A account...since then, I will have sailed on 7 unique sailings with a mix of balcony and suite rooms to get to Diamond.
  13. If you park on the surface lot, stay away from the spaces with trees - I heard that some of the trees drop a sap-like substance that it brutal to get off and/or birds sit in the trees, eat, and do bird things on cars. We were directed to a lot in front of the ship when we sailed on Odyssey. My wife is disabled so we got a handicapped spot right along the fence (red Toyota hidden by palm). The walk was short along a sidewalk to the terminal but we had to walk up the side to the front doors to enter (she has a scooter, I walked and MIL walked but took many breaks) - the red line is the walk and the orange circle is where we parked. You can see the other lot shown too in the satellite image - the lot we would have prefered was the one across from the doors to the terminal but because we arrived early as people were still leaving, they wouldn't let us park there.
  14. Any terminal will be busy up to the 10:30 check-in arrival time. There are still many departing passengers waiting for pick-ups or Uber/Lyft rides up until 10:15-10:30 making the amount of cars coming in to the drop-off area significant as many are loading people up instead of dropping off. We did Miami last April for Oasis and took the tunnel in - it was backed up in the tunnel and down to the U-turn around 10:15-10:20 - once we dropped the bags off and made it back around for the garage, things had noticeably calmed as many of the pick-ups were done and the trucks that were bringing in re-supply items were in the load/unload areas and not backed up on the road. If I were leaving out of Miami, I wouldn't pick the 1st time slot now, I would pick 11:30 or so and have less traffic getting in to the terminal. Port Everglades was slightly less busy (and a little confusing on where they wanted us to park after the luggage drop off as we were there early), Port Canaveral seems to get people out quicker for some reason and Tampa seemed pretty well organized as well when we went out on Serenade.
  15. On our sailings in 2021, we heard the song on the ship and a couple times on the island. The last few cruises since, we did not hear the song at all.
  16. Just don't blindly go to an agent to book - get recommendations of specific agents from agencies before you decide to use one. Just because there is a prefered agency in the group, doesn't mean all the agents are stellar. The last thing you want to hear when messaging your agent is "I'll get to it later", "I'm working right now and don't have time", or "I was travelling and didn't have access to your booking" There are a lot of people out there that get affiliated with a larger travel agency because they want the commissions on their own sailings/bookings. They started helping out friends and opened their availability to outside bookings because that commission is decent as a side hustle. But they still have full-time day jobs, many professionally, where they aren't always available. Maybe its just me but anything longer than 4 hours during the day or 12 hours with a 8P or later inquiry/request is too long, especially when you find a sale price.
  17. just remember, the Euro plug puts out 240V - if you use that device you linked on that outlet and plug in something into the front that is only rated up to 120V, you will fry the plug and possibly the device you plug into it (and maybe even the adapter) - USBs should be OK on the bottom though I find a standard 4-port USB charger works well for my watch, phones for wife and I, and my GoPro, MacBook, or iPad all at the same time. I also use one of these to add more capacity and will plug in our room fan into it.
  18. I can't believe no one mentioned retractable and unclipable cruise lanyards. I like the linked set not only for the variety, but also because they have vertical and horizontal badge holders (great for tapping room entry or at point of sale), they include two other attachment types for the older mag-stripe card that you can punch a hole in, they don't have a clip around the neck portion which can be a breaking point or something that irritates the back of the neck, they have a retractable lead for the tap-type cards to reach the door while standing (you don't have to take it off or bend over to reach the door lock reader), and they allow you to leave the lanyard on and simply unbuckle the card portion for handing over your card for drink purchases with servers. The bit of matching lanyard material still attached to your card makes for easy identification when with a group.
  19. I'd pick the cheaper one AFTER taking into account airfare and transportation costs - I don't know where each of those ships are leaving from but a sailing from Miami in spring and accounting for a day in advance hotel stay may wipe out the cost savings over same time from Galveston even though your transportation costs are higher due to airport distance. I'd consider: cruise fare airfare pre and/or post stay hotel expenses transportation from airport to hotel to cruise terminal time (if it takes you 5 hours to fly to one spot but only 3 to another, is that time difference worth the savings) With Oasis being amplified, you aren't far off from Wonder aside from newness and a couple of venues. I wouldn't hesitate on either of them.
  20. I typically have the drink package and in the 1st day or two, I'm trying out the different bars to see where my "spot" will be during down times to grab a drink or two or hang out post dinner / show until bed time to enjoy the evening. I keep about $10 on me in singles plus a five and if someone goes out of their way and is engaging, they'll get a tip in cash above the included tip. If they ignored me or treated it as very transactional and didn't engage, I just take the drink and move on. Once I find my spot however, I will feed $5 to each server throughout the cruise 4-5 times ensuring that they get at least $20 in cash from me depending on how much they served me (vs. others that may have seen me on occasion in that location). Heck, on one sailing, my wife slept in, didn't read the note I left behind with my phone, and went looking around the ship for me (I was lounging at the pool). She went to the pub (which was my "spot" for that sailing) and they preemptively told her "we haven't seen Mr Dennis today!" She went to guest services to see where I was buying my drinks and found me pretty quickly after that.
  21. sorry, don't like it - the link requested has booking ID included No one is getting my booking ID
  22. if they get stuck together, I just screw in the hook to the base and pry them apart
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