packercruising

Why would you not. It is their job to get you the best deal. If they are washy washy (oops, my mistake). If they are wishy washy, you probably need a different TA.

Bumpy ride! Feels like our plane has just landed, but we are on Adventure Of The Seas.  

We have sailed twice starting with a land tour in Fairbanks and cruising to Vancouver, and once rt from Seattle. We liked Seattle much better, but if you have never done the land portion, it is awesome, but you will want to do it first.

It used to be you got in a much shorter line. Not necessarily true these days.

Front pocket, same place I carry the wallet when we are in port.

23 hours ago, DublinFC said:

I didn't want to pay the fees or I would have.

Bummer. We have a no fee card, which is a good thing because we do not have a bank in our town anymore. We rely heavily on ATMs. It's not our fault most of them are in bars.

2 minutes ago, DublinFC said:

Great info.  I only brought a couple hundred dollars on my last cruise.  I wish I brought more at the time.

That is what ATMs are for.

For a 7 day or longer cruise, we take $200 each, because we spend a couple days in the port city before sailing. Once you are on the ship, everything but gambling and extra tips go on the sea pass and we don't gamble. We might spend some in ports. We have gotten past the Everybody back home gets a gift, stage. 

The ship gets in at 9:00 and sails at 6:30. We are planning time with the bros between 10:30 and 4:30. ID building is a really good idea!

21 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

If your brothers are driving in, they should be able to pick you right up at the port.  When you exit the ship you will filter out onto a road called Black Falcon and they can pick you up on that street.  Or if you want to get away a bit from the crowd, there's the ID building (Innovation and Design Building) at the corner of Black Falcon and Design Center Place.  It's a real easy port to navigate.

Thanks Ashley!

teddy- My brothers are very familiar with Boston, so no problem there. We want to see the USS Constitution. My brother has it planned out for the 6 hours we will be there.

22 hours ago, Matt said:

You mean the ports RC begins its cruises from? Canaveral, Miami, etc?

No, we are on the Snowbird cruise from Quebec City down to Ft. Lauderdale. I think it is like the one Nate is on now, except they disembark in NJ. Boston is a port we are in for the day.

Speaking of which, (I will start a new topic if you would like), Our Adventure Of The Seas cruise next month includes a stop in Boston. That is the largest port we have ever stopped at. It is separate from the terminal port, isn't it? Also, two of my brothers are meeting us there. Where is a good meeting spot?

Thanks!

10 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I happen to agree with you on this one.

No more than tipping your waiter/waitress at a restaurant back home. 

38 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Wait, so are you saying that even though it reflects only 1 point for the old cruises they will recalculate back to 7 points for an old 7-night cruise if you talk to the right person?  Or am I not understanding (cuz that would be a huge difference).

With mine, they automatically recalculated. When I added up all the points using 7 points instead of 1, it comes out the the number of points we have been credited for.

2 minutes ago, HeWhoWaits said:

When the system changed to points per night rather than points per cruise, you one point from 2008 became eight (7 for the "typical" cruise plus an extra point for up to three total cruises).

Your status accumulation reflects this even though it still shows up "wrong" in your previous cruises page.

You are right! Thanks!

We are 4 points away from Diamond and have a 13 day cruise coming up. I was looking at past cruises on the RCI site. Our first RCI cruise was March, 2008 Any thoughts on why we only got 1 point for it? There must be a logical reason for this, but it looks like we should already be Diamond.

Some entertainers aren't on the ship for the entire cruise, let alone multiple cruises. Staff might leave for their down time, so if someone posts You have to have (Name) for your waiter or bartender, they might not be there when you sail. But, by and large, the format stays the same and view some, especially recent ones, can be a big help.

I have never been disappointed in an RCI mattress. Hope that holds true next month on Adventure.

Terrific idea!

On 9/6/2019 at 10:23 AM, MaryS said:

I love going to the MDR for breakfast on every cruise everyday.  Oh I will graze at the Windjammer after the MDR breakfast for a little pastry or muffin.  I don't think I've ever had lunch in the MDR.  I'm not really a lunch person.  I always go the the MDR for dinner too.  I like getting to know the waitstaff.  

We never seem to get waiters that keep my coffee cup from getting empty. We do MDR for breakfast occasionally, though.

We used to do Specialty Dining a lot, but not much anymore. The MDR depends on several factors. One is the menu. I am not a gourmet food type person. Sometimes time is a factor and Windjammer always has something good and pretty quick. Otherwise, we like MTD.

I always figured the Schooner Bar was an escape room.  

On 8/29/2019 at 1:15 AM, KesTag said:

 I don't understand the above statement, I'm from Melbourne and I think someone is pulling your leg (probably someone from Sydney ). Shops are open Tuesday in Melbourne  - even the Victoria Market opens on a Tuesday (closed Mon&Wed).   It's the second (or could be the first now) largest city in Australia. It's a very beautiful city with wonderful architecture, great shopping district, and considered Australia's culture, food and cafe capital. Adelaide is a lovely city - the city of churches. Sydney is in a beautiful location.

Also - South Island New Zealand is on the cool side, even though it is the middle of summer (roughly 18C/64F). 

All I know is, somebody screwed up. This wasn't Melbourne. This was a much smaller town north of there. And yes, shops really were closed. They were scheduled to open later than our tour was going to be there. We never did get to actually see Melbourne, so it is no knock on your city. 

We started out in Perth for 2 days and it was 104 degrees. The day before we left for the cruise, we had 19" of snow. One constant on this cruise was that the people at every port were really friendly. Except maybe for a barista in Sydney that didn't want to give me a cup of black coffee.  

2 hours ago, Matt said:

During check in, there's an option in the app to do so via your phone's camera.

Not a pain, but 50% of the time they make me re-take the photo at the terminal anyway.

They don't already have yours on file?  

For us, flight home is usually determined by the airlines. We fly Delta out of Green Bay, WI and it is not often we get good flight times.

You have "best month" in the header. We have been twice in May and once in August. We much preferred May. We saw much more wildlife both times. Have not been on Ovation Or Rhapsody, but we  have been on Vision, which is the same class as Rhapsody. We loved that one.