Magoody

Just figured out this was offered to us on day 3 of our 7 night cruise. I came across the receipt for it mixed in with some paperwork from the last cruise. 

3 hours ago, CanHardlyWait said:

This would be the perfect package for me. 10 drinks in 7 days would be my absolute max. Wish it was an option .

Me too. However, I agree with smokeybandit on this one, they probably only offer this if the deluxe packages are not selling well for that particular sailing. 

Also something I forgot to mention is that this was a paper card they gave us and they just "X" off the drinks as you order them. There were no names assigned to the cards so you were able to buy multiple drinks at one time with this and they would just mark off the amount of drinks purchased. There were a few people in our group that bought 2 cards and ended up buying free drinks for others in the group because they were not able to drink them all before the end of the cruise. 

We were on Wonder last month and they had this special drink savings card. I am not sure if they were offering it from the first night or midway during our sailing. My husband and I just happened to notice it one night when we were ordering drinks at the bar and purchased it. 

We are fairly new to cruising, so I wanted to ask the more experienced cruisers if this is something new they started offering? Is it always offered on every sailing now?  I do not remember it being available on our ship last year (also on Wonder). I was curious if it is something they only provide as an alternative when a lot of people on the ship are not buying the deluxe drinking package. 

Thank you all for your help! I have some things to research now, based on your recommendations. I do think our group has decided to try and park at the Royal Caribbean port instead of messing with shuttles for our large group.  I did reach out to several hotels in the area by phone and online yesterday and they would not let me book yet because they said my date was too far out (more than a year) and their system would not allow it yet.  I was told to try again in a few weeks. 

I have searched through the message boards for some of my questions and read the blog article on best hotels to stay at in Ft. Lauderdale before your cruise and could not find answers to my questions. Just for clarity, we will be traveling in a group of 13 people with 4 vehicles. Thank you for taking time to respond. 

1.) If you are just coming in the day before your cruise and just want the closest hotel to port because you are driving and parking your cars at the port lot the morning of the cruise, are 17th street hotels the best for that reason or do you recommend something else?

2.) Are all hotels outside the security gates where they check your passport ID before coming into port area? If so can someone show me on a map picture or name the street location where you enter and they check your ID's at the gate? or show me the exact driving directions once ID is checked and direction to go to get in line with our vehicles. 

3.) This one kind of goes with #3.  No matter what our hotel location is, What is the best roads to take to get to our cruise terminal location to get in line easier, we will be leaving on the Oasis in April of 2025. Reason I ask is because we have only left from Port Canaveral in the past and this last time we entered the terminal at a different access point which we thought was better than the time before. Wondering if Port Everglades has different access points?

4.) Since we will be parking in the lot and leaving all 4 vehicles while we are on the cruise, is it easier to park first to make sure you get a spot in the lot and then just wheel luggage to drop off point or do you have to drive through drop off luggage point first before you can go park? 

5.) We have always had early check in times and noticed at Port Canaveral it is always super crazy with people trying to leave port while people are trying to arrive and drop off luggage. Our last time we dropped off luggage and my husband had to drive around the building to get in line again because they were not letting anyone up the parking garage at 10 when we were there.  Everyone is saying that Port Everglades doesn't really adhere to check in times, so I am wondering how early to get there with our crowd. Some say that if you are there too early you can't park in the normal lot because they are waiting for some people to get off the ship to leave that lot and they will sometimes put you in a lot further away. Is that the case? What is recommended?

6.) How much is daily parking at the lot, currently? What is the process, pay at the beginning or end? Cash or Card?

7.) Lastly, I was browsing hotel options yesterday and noticed when I typed in the dates we needed a few were saying sold out for those dates and other hotels were not letting me look at those dates at all. Is this because the time I need is just a little over a year away and they can't book that far out or are the rooms truly sold out for some of those hotels?

10 minutes ago, Reigert2008 said:

What amenities do you think they would miss and do they really use them?  Most ships have a Flowrider, Rock climbing wall, sports court, clubs, etc.  And the food is "nearly the same" you may need have to find it in a different spot (i.e no central park, so no Park Cafe)

 

That's the argument we used with the in-laws.  They kept wanting to do Oasis class ships, but we then "tricked" them in to a Voyager class ship and now they agree that they enjoyed the entertainment options better and all the activities they do were still there.  I'm not saying you drop down to a Vision class, but for us we enjoy the Freedom/Voyager class for the options we need and the price point.  

Good question! Some in my group loved the Music Hall, water slides, sports court, miniature golf and rock climbing on Wonder. My husband and I loved the Solarium, fitness center, and the walking track on deck 5 of Wonder. A lot of the adults in our group also liked the ambiance of Central Park, especially in the evening and the optional specialty dining venues. As long as there is free pizza and soft serve on every cruise most of my teens will survive, no matter what the ship has to offer.  I have been looking at the voyager class ship, Adventure which is offered for some of our itineraries we are interested in, along with Freedom of the seas. Also looked at Oasis which is pricey like Wonder, but people also complain about the solarium on it not being enclosed and not been able to enjoy in bad weather, if I remember correctly.  

25 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Common sense advantages are more to choose from in terms of ships, itineraries, dates, prices, etc.

Common sense disadvantages would mostly involve the longer drive and any associated costs and time.

I pretty much only sail from PC b/c I can drive there in an hour. I have no desire to drive to South Florida and Tampa only has smaller, older ships which I don't care for. That's all personal preference though.

I suggest researching each ship via YouTube, the RC website, this website, etc. Only you can determine what differences will matter to you. Other than Oasis, none will be similar to Wonder and Enchantment is so old and small that it might feel like a rusty lifeboat if you've only been on Wonder, lol. Pros and cons again depend on personal preference. I prefer Oasis class to any other by quite a bit but I would happily sail Freedom and could tolerate Adventure. I really don't care for anything smaller. Plenty of people enjoy smaller ships though.

Hope that helps get you started as far as the home ports and ships go. I'll let others chime in with destination port opinions (but, once again, there will be personal preference involved). I could tell you we love XYZ b/c it has great snorkeling but if you don't enjoy snorkeling that wouldn't make it a must-visit for you.

 

All great points to consider! We often "wonder" if we ruined ourselves by going on the largest cruise ship at the time for our first few cruises. My husband and I think we would appreciate a smaller ship at sometime in the future, but the teens/young adults in our group like the amenities the larger ship had to offer. 

As far as visiting ports go, for example, we visited Nassau on our first cruise and did not care for how crowded and run down the place was, not to mention all the pushy vendors we had to try to push our way through. I was wondering if there were places like that we need to avoid in the Southern/Eastern itineraries as well. Since we are new to cruising we try to do at least one excursion for each cruise. We went to the waterpark at CocoCay, did a bike cart ride in Jamaica (which made me a little uneasy as our group had to split up to do it), and on our most recent cruise we visited some Mayan ruins, which we all enjoyed. We do get off the ship at the other ports just to see what it is like and visit the local places right near the port and then get right back on the ship.  

Thank you in advance for anyone taking the time to help answer some of my questions. 

We are newbies to cruising and have done two Western Caribbean cruises so far with a group of friends and family with age ranges from 5-70 on the Wonder of the Seas, which visited the following ports:

Nassau, CocoCay, Falmouth, Labadee, Cozumel, Roatan, and Costa Maya.

Questions:

1.) Are there any other ports worth visiting on a Western cruise that we have missed and might need to consider? We were considering taking a break and now doing a Southern or Eastern Caribbean cruise for our next booking, which leads me to my next set of questions...

2.) We have been cruising out of Orlando because it was the closest port that had the ship we wanted at the time (9.5 hour drive).  Should we also consider Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, or Miami? Disadvantages/Advantages/pros/cons with leaving from any of these ports?

3.) Some ships that are sailing with southern/eastern itineraries right now that we have not been on are: Oasis, Freedom, Adventure, Serenade, and Enchantment. Disadvantages/Advantages/pros/cons with any of these ships?

4.) Last question...Are there any ports on the Southern/Eastern Caribbean cruises that are absolute must get off the ship to see or absolutely not worth going to? Any suggestions/critiques welcomed as we begin to plan for our next cruise. 

We will be staying 2 nights in a hotel after we get off our cruise and will need to get a couple rooms booked asap, at a reasonable price, for our group of 8. The rooms do not necessarily have to be the cheapest because as the saying goes, "You get what you pay for!")  We have to go to something in Jacksonville after our second night, but someone suggested we might want to try and stay in St. Augustine and tour nearby instead of Jacksonville. We are open to staying anywhere between Port Canaveral and Jacksonville, if someone has other suggestions. Any information would be greatly appreciate, thank you. 

3 minutes ago, loki007 said:

i have never seen a shared balcony I'm sure its just a graphic error. Those aren't even connecting rooms. The stars indicate the room sleep 4. You can ask your stateroom steward to open up your balcony to the room next to you if you know the occupants and want a joined balcony. 

Maybe it is a graphic error like you said. You would think that there is an option for 7182 to be closed off from 7184. 

Can someone explain to me the difference in the balconies of the attached image?
Example rooms 7182 and 7184 show a large balcony with no division. Does that mean they have to share the same balcony? The other staterooms on either side of these 2 rooms look like they have smaller individual balconies for each room. 

33 minutes ago, DoomSlayer said:

If you look on your receipt/invoice from booking, there is a section labeled "CRUISE ITINERARY".  It has the ports of call and scheduled times for arrival and departure.  This is from my March 31 sailing on Symphony for example:

Thank you for letting me know. I went into my receipt from my travel agent and it did not have that information listed like yours does. It only lists the ports we are traveling to for the itinerary information. I have reached out to my agent to see if he try and help me locate the info. 

I am trying to figure out exactly what hours we are at port for the different days of my cruise so I can determine what time to choose for booking other activities such as entertainment, etc. I know I have looked at it before on my previous cruise but can not remember where I found the information. 

On 3/5/2023 at 3:28 PM, Rackham said:

Just off of Anthem and WOW bands were available onboard. After using one for the week, I'd recommend spending on a quality lanyard for your Seapass card instead. The concept is interesting, but needing to take it off to use at most locations due to lack of mobile readers and still needing the Seapass to get off the ship at for CocoCay, makes it less useful than it could be. 

Interestingly enough, the way (as far as I can tell) the band works is the address of the NFC chip inside is added to your personal ship account. Your ship account number isn't added to the band or Seapass card either. Unless my NFC reader isn't picking up the encoded data. This is a good security practice as someone would need to read your card or band, then duplicate that, instead of just needing to know your account number aboard.

It might be different depending on what ship you are on. On Wonder almost all the bars, shops, and coffee bars had the little square pads you just place your wrist on to pay. I think I had to remove it once at one of the bars because there reader would not reach me.  I loved being able to open my room door with it and didn’t have to take it off to swim or do activities. A lot of places didn’t even ask to use my band, they just asked for my room number.  The only time I needed my sea pass was getting on and off the ship. 
 

Just returning home today from our first cruise on the Wonder. They had wow bands available but they were not really advertising it well. We happen to be walking on deck 5 in the promenade near Boleros on embarkation day and saw a tiny little table tucked away in a corner with some crew employees selling them. I did see some people later on during the cruise going to guest services and purchasing them there also. 

Will there be hangers on the cruise or do you need to bring your own?

20 hours ago, DoomSlayer said:

@smokeybanditis correct. Also, if it seems confusing in the app, you can go to guest services once on board and they can help with it. 

We have early boarding time of 10:30 so I think I will go straight to guest services to take care of it. I tried doing it through the app but for some reason every time I tried to put in a different card it was still trying to register one card for all three rooms. Maybe it is because I have all 3 rooms linked together in my app. I am not sure. Thanks for the advice. 

19 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

If it's Terminal 1, you pre-pay when you enter. The other terminal you pay when you leave.  You can't reserve parking in advance.

How do we  know which terminal we need to go to? We are leaving Port Canaveral Sunday on Wonder of the Seas. 

Does anyone know the cost of parking at  Port Canaveral  for 7 nights? Do you prepay or pay when you get there?

@smokeybanditDo you mean one guest from each room put their card on file for their room?

We have 3 rooms booked with 8 people traveling in total on an upcoming cruise. My card is the one on file for charges for all 3 rooms since I booked the reservations. Can people in each of the rooms go to guest services daily and pay on their rooms account for the charges they made and use their own cash/card to make payment. I don’t want there  to be a whole lot of holds on my card because of so many people purchasing things from the other rooms. 

Boarding first cruise on Wonder this Sunday. Will this souvenir shop be open on embarkation day and if so what time?

Do we have to take our vitamins and prescription meds in original bottles or can we already have them divided out into our daily pill box when boarding the cruise and leave bottles at home? 

18 hours ago, FireFishII said:

I usually stay up until midnight to grab the earliest check in time for everyone in my group.  Then I go to bed and finish the check in progress the next morning. 

I did this at midnight, it was super easy! Got an early time. Thanks