JLMoran

I think you would find this article extremely helpful: http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2016/02/04/bringing-wine-your-royal-caribbean-cruise

 

Yes, that was very helpful! Also helped reading the comments as it confirmed that even though the kids have their own stateroom with no adult in there (connecting rooms), I can still take advantage of that to bring four bottles and not just two.

I'm currently booked for the early time slot (5:30 PM), which means that on most shore days my dining time is going to be before the ship is leaving port (6 PM departure from St. Kitts, 5 PM from St. Maarten, 9 PM from San Juan, and 5 PM from Labadee).

 

How does the ship's departure time compare to when we actually need to be back on the ship ("all aboard" time)? Will I typically be back early enough that making it to the 5:30 dinner won't generally be an issue? I remember someone on another thread I posted saying that with a 5:30 time slot, I'd actually need to be on line around 5:00, so I assume that means I'd want to be back on board by 4 to have enough time for everyone to shower, change for dinner, and walk to the MDR.

 

The only day I'm thinking this will be an issue is when we're in San Juan, since that day is from 3 to 9. I kind of figured we'd just find a nice local place for dinner that day and sample the local cuisine. But the other days, I'd prefer to have dinner in the MDR since we arrive at the islands early and I think can still get in a pretty full day. My wife isn't terribly interested in the specialty restaurants, and I saw the advice here for first-time cruisers to not worry about it anyway, so I was just figuring that at most we'd have lunch in Giovanni's Table one day, and lunch at Sabor one other day. Saves us money doing lunch instead of dinner, while letting us still sample the restaurants.

 

The other thing related to this is the experience of actually watching from the deck as the ship departs and seeing the island slowly disappearing from view. We'd obviously miss that by sticking to our dining time, since from what I saw the MDR has no windows, but is it a big deal? Apart from getting a few photographs of the islands, it doesn't seem like there's really a need to do that. Again, San Juan would be the exception; but I see it being a better thing there, because it would be full night time and all the city lights would be on for a more interesting view.

In addition to the tip money mentioned for your shore excursions and possible extras for the ship staff, don't forget tip money for the porters (both embarking and disembarking)! Common rule there is $1-2 per bag. I know for my cruise in 2018 I'm going to need about $20 just to cover that for my family of four. I'm assuming we want to leave some room in each suitcase for the souvenirs and trinkets we'll be bringing home.  :D

5 ways to save money on drinks if NOT buying a drink package: http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2016/08/18/5-ways-save-money-drinks-if-you-are-not-buying-royal-caribbean-drink-package

 

Regarding the point in that article about bringing your own bottles of wine, I read somewhere (maybe here) that you also need to remember to bring your own corkscrew and uncork the wine yourself before bringing it anywhere, or even drinking it in your room, or else you'll be charged a "corking fee" to have someone do you the favor. Is that still the case?

 

Also, when you say that they can store any unfinished bottle for you and bring it to another restaurant, how does that work? Do you need to know where you'll be dining the next night and tell them when they take the bottle from you? Can you go to whichever place you're having dinner and tell them when you sit down that you have a bottle in storage?

 

I typically drink 2 5-oz glasses of wine with dinner, and a 750ml wine bottle works out to about 4 glasses. Since I booked two rooms and can bring 4 bottles, that would get me through dinner for my entire 8-night cruise! Then I'd just have to figure out how much I expect to be drinking around the rest of the cruise as far as Labadoozies, trying out other wines at Vintages on a couple of nights, the odd beer at the pool or with lunch, or while listening to music at the pub, etc. Was pretty sure I'd be doing the drink package, but maybe I can keep that out of the picture. Would be nice to save $440 (with some of that savings going back into whatever drinks I still end up buying).

 

On the other hand, if I already know I'm going to have those two glasses of wine with dinner every night, and at least one specialty coffee each morning, that means I only need to buy three more drinks in the day to break even. I'm pretty sure I could do that without any difficulty, so maybe the package isn't such a bad idea. Decisions, decisions!!

 

Oh, I'm assuming that if you bring your own bottles, it would be better to buy them after flying into wherever you're departure port city is, to avoid any possible problems with your airline (or accidental breakage from being jammed into the overhead bins with all the other carry-on bags). Can anyone confirm that? I have no idea what hotel I'm staying at yet or if there will be a wine store close enough to let me do that, or if they'll even have the wines I typically like, but whatever I can plan for...

I liked how you said you have a big and a small concern, thinking to myself that the small concern must be country. Then you go on to say that the small concern is a possible lack of activities for teens and the big one was the music :) .

In my mind I found that hilarious, but in truth I would find the music a bigger deal too.

 

The lack of teen activities might have been the bigger issue if I hadn't heard Matt's podcasts that say how pretty much all the ships work to be good for families of all stripes, even if they don't all have the whiz-bang features like a Flow Rider or rock climbing wall, and that the refurbishments on Navigator did do a lot to make the ship more in line with the Freedom and Oasis class ships.

 

And I agree that you'd think music wouldn't be such a big deal, but I feel like it's one of those things that you're always aware of at least subconsciously, and it can really shape your mood for whatever you're doing in the place that it's playing.

So I've heard Matt say multiple times how Navigator is (or at least was, prior to an Oasis-class sailing ;) ) his favorite ship. I've heard others say that it's really good as well. My family and I were considering it as one of the few options available to us in our cruise window for 2018, as it had a nice 9-night Southern Caribbean cruise leaving the same weekend with what to us was a better set of ports. But we had two concerns, one smaller and one kind of huge:

 

The small one was that, compared to Freedom of the Seas, it seemed to have less for teens to do and looked geared more towards couples or older families. After hearing Matt's various podcasts about his experience with his family, I'm guessing that wasn't a fair assessment, although I have to keep in mind that Matt's kids are younger.

 

The bigger negative for us, though, was this line from the ship's review on CruiseCritic.com -- "Country music predominates on the sound systems, and many of the onboard musical entertainers also specialize in country offerings."

 

My family as a whole likes just about anything when it comes to music, but country is one of the few genres that does absolutely nothing for us. The idea of spending 9 nights hearing country as our background music in all the public spaces while on a vacation wasn't the least bit appealing.

 

The thing is, after booking our cruise on Freedom of the Seas, I re-read that statement in the review and saw that the reason they did that was because the ship was based in Galveston, TX and the theming was done based off of that. But it looks like Navigator is now based in Port Canaveral, Florida. When a ship is relocated like that, do they re-do the musical theming to match the new location (and presumably, the expected cruiser profile)? It would be nice to have Navigator as on option for our next cruise (and there WILL be a next cruise), especially after all the positives I've read and heard.

 

I know, kind of a silly reason to avoid sailing on a particular ship. But it's like my friend who's a Disney fan and loves going there at Christmas time, but can't stand that he has to hear the exact same soundtrack in all five parks at that time of year and told me it really drives him nuts after a few days.

I've read through 75% of the replies and wanted to chime in that the helipad is open 95% of the time. It may not be as dark as you would think as there are staterooms overlooking it and if they have their curtains open, there will be light coming out of their windows. I spent a lot of time out there in September. There are even benches to sit on. 

 

Agree with the motion of the ship causing you to not get great star photos. Eastern Caribbean though- do you get a late night in San Juan? Might be able to go somewhere aft on the boat and get a good shot. Or somewhere in town.

 

Our time slot in San Juan is 3 PM to 9 PM. Not sure that will be late enough for full dark in early April, but might still be. I'm guessing there will be too much light pollution from the city to really get a good night sky view, even all the way aft. But if all else fails while out in the middle of the ocean, I can certainly try that. Thanks for the suggestion!

Matt, I meant "excursion" in the formal sense, one of the offerings from RC like a snorkeling adventure in St. Kitts or horseback riding trip on St. Maarten.

 

The consensus is very strongly to just do one of those, and only one, per island. So I think there are going to be some rather heated discussions with the family. ;)  My wife is really keen on the dolphin swim option in St. Kitts, while I'm really looking for the rail train (due to my mobility limits). And my older daughter wants to do the horseback riding trip on St. Maarten while I'm looking at the schooner excursion. But I'd like to see each of them have those experiences and see their faces when it all happens, rather than be off doing my own thing and splitting up the family, so maybe we'll agree to just the dolphins in St. Kitts (with me taking the "watch from the boat" option), the horses in St. Maarten (IF I can confirm that it's a light enough ride that I won't kill my foot from the horses going into a trot / canter along the way), and I get the pick for San Juan. We're all in agreement on Labadee (zip line for them, alpine coaster and Labadoozies for me ;) ), so the only wrinkle might be the younger daughter's interests.

Here's a topic I haven't seen after searching around on this board: As we're planning our excursions for each island, is there a limit on how many we should try and fit in to a given island?

 

Obviously, we're limited by the hours the ship is there (9 hours on St. Kitts, 10 on St. Maarten, only 6 late in the day in San Juan, and 8 or 9 in Labadee). We're also limited by how the excursions may overlap with departure times and all. And we have to remember to eat lunch or dinner at some point. 😉

 

But let's say even after that we still find 2 excursions that we could fit into the day and just barely get us back to the ship on time. Should we try and fit them all in (assuming budget isn't an issue), or should we pare it down to just one, and leave the rest of the day for casual strolling, shopping for those who want that, and maybe beach time?

 

Most of the excursions we're considering so far have a listed time of 3 or 4 hours, and involve sailing or a train ride or snorkeling or riding a zip line. I don't know if those times include transportation to/from the port or if I need to factor that in as well. I'm just trying to get my expectations into realistic territory before we start booking and paying. As Matt said on his "Top 10 Mistakes New Cruisers Make" podcast, I have to remember that we can't possibly do it all. (as much as I want to!)

 

Thanks!

I had some questions about two of the excursion options on St. Kitts. I'm hoping some here have done one or both of these and can offer their feedback.

 

 

First, my wife is really looking forward to is the Dolphin Experience on St. Kitts. We saw after looking at the list of available excursions that there are actually four different options for this:

 

1. A bare-bones, ride the boat and look at the dolphins without getting in the water trip, for fairly cheap
2. A get-in-the-water option, where you'll be at standing depth and the dolphins come to you, for about double the cost of the first one
3. A swim option, where you're in the water but also get to grab a dolphin's dorsal fin and "ride" on it out into the water and back, for considerably more
4. An "I wanna be the SeaWorld performer" option, where you get all of the above and have two highly trained dolphins push you through the water by your feet until you're hydrofoiling and inevitably lose your balance and face-plant into the salty brine, for those with more money than sense (or concern for the dolphins' welfare)

If anyone has done one of these, please help confirm my suspicion that all four are really the same excursion that everyone gets on at once, and you just get a band indicating what level you paid for. Reason being that while we'd all like to go and see dolphins as a family, my wife and maybe one of my girls would like to do the second option, while I (mobility limited) and my other daughter would just as soon ride out on the boat and stay there, me possibly sipping a spiked fruity beverage. If everyone has to choose the same level at time of purchase, we'll either skip it entirely or I'll let my wife and one daughter do that while the other one and I find something else in the same time slot.

 

I guess a related question around this is: Is it worth it? St. Maarten also offers a dolphin experience (although the window for that shore day is from 7 AM to 5 PM, vs. 9 to 6 in St. Kitts, and may not work as well). We've also heard that these excursions involve animals that may not have been treated very well, and we'd rather not participate in something that directly or indirectly promotes animal cruelty.

 

 

 

The second excursion, which I am really interested in, is the "Rail and Sail", where you start off riding the historic train through the sugar fields and forests of St. Kitts, followed by a trip on a catamaran around the far side of the island. But the description notes that people doing that trip have to be able to walk into the water and climb a ladder onto the catamaran.

 

For context, I've had about six major and minor surgeries on my right foot, which among other things have fused the ankle, heel, and shin on that, along with making my right leg nearly an inch shorter than my left. I have to wear a modified shoe to level out my walk, and going barefoot is possible, but only for about the length to cross a room or walk down a short hallway (like bed to bathroom).

 

Climbing something like a pool ladder is basically impossible for me now from the pain that would cause due to strain on my achilles tendon in a foot that doesn't flex or bend and trying to lift myself on those narrow metal rungs. But I've seen some videos of people doing snorkeling trips on catamarans, and it seems like the "ladder" they use to get into and out of the water is really more of a stairway, with wider rungs you climb diagonally instead of straight up.

 

If that was the case, and I can carry my sneakers with me to put on as soon as I'm on the ship, I think I could manage. If not, I can at least do the train by itself and maybe follow that up with some other activity in town before boarding the ship again. And St. Maarten has two different schooner sailings that I'm also keen on, so I don't feel like I'd be missing out if I couldn't do the catamaran part on St. Kitts.

 

If anyone has been on this particular excursion and can let me know how easy or hard it was to get on the catamaran, that would be a huge help.

 

It kind of goes without saying, but beaches are no longer my friend due to the unstable footing, and trying to walk onto one and cross half of it in search of a lounger or cabana to sit in isn't really high on my list of preferred things to do. I know the rest of my family wants some beach time, but I figure when they do that I'll find something else. Unless there is a nice chair and umbrella with tropical drinks just off the sidewalk. Then maybe.  ;) 

^ This is true.  Way too much motion to get a good picture.

 

If not though you can get good pics at about 30 seconds exposure if it is a dark location.  Anything longer and you start getting the star trails.

 

BTW I am taking the same cruise leaving on the 20th of this month. If you need any specific information just ask and I'll try to accommodate.  I will bring back the Compasses and scan for Matt to put on the site.

 

WhiteSoxFan, that was a really cool photo. Good to know that only 30 seconds is needed to get what seems like a more than adequate exposure.

 

I appreciate the offer for info. Is your trip also departing from Fort Lauderdale / Port Everglades? I've never been there, and we're debating whether to fly in the day before or two days before to have a chance to look around; so any suggestions on things to do there the day before would be appreciated (besides going to the beach, I'm sure that on spring break week all of the beaches are crazy crowded). Also any advice about that port terminal and getting through it (besides arriving at 10:30 or 11; I've already told my family it's 10:30 or bust ;) ). And I'll definitely review those Cruise Compass copies!

 

Is your itinerary the one that starts or ends at Labadee? Ours starts at Basseterre, St. Kitts for the first port; then St. Maarten, San Juan, and finally Labadee. I can't imagine that the activities differ between that itinerary and the one that goes in the opposite order, but just in case...

Whilst you may use the hand rail for a Gorrilapod or a small tripod where would still be too much motion of the vessel to allow for a long exposure shot that you are talking about to allow any sort of sharpness in the stars.

 

Shoot, I hadn't even thought about that! I was just figuring on using my iPhone (most likely a 7 Plus I'm picking up in a couple months, which has the improved f1.8 wide-angle lens and optical image stabilzation, but possibly the model after that if the camera upgrade is compelling enough), plus an app I have called Slow Shutter that allows taking low light shots up to 60 seconds long, with manually controlled or automatic ISO to keep the noise down.

 

I was figuring on only trying a couple of 30- to 60-second exposures and seeing if they even came out, and otherwise just enjoying the view and taking it all in. If the exposure is that short, would the ship movement be slow / small enough to not matter? Or could the optical image stabilization that iPhone has on the wide-angle lens be enough to compensate for the movement? Probably just as importantly, would that relatively short an exposure produce a decent image that picked up enough detail to be worth keeping? I haven't tried a shot like this before, so I don't even know if the milky way or even most visible stars show up in photos with anything less than a minutes-long exposure.

As for the helipad, I often went out there at night on Navigator and yes, it is very dark....and windy (at least our cruise had a lot of wind).

Good to know. If it's likely to be windy then I probably should figure on a Gorillapod for mounting my camera, rather than trying to lug a regular tripod onto there and risking it being blown over. I'd imagine it's also easier to bring a Gorillapod on board.

 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's windy. It's the front of a vessel moving at 15- or 20-something miles an hour, I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least a little wind.  ;) 

 

As for your kids, all I can say is, you picked the right year to cruise with them being 14 and 17.  My two boys are 15 and the oldest had just turned 18 prior to our cruise.  Because he was 18, he was not allowed to participate in any of the teen activities (even though he is a sr. in high school and those are the kids he hangs out with anyway).  He and his brother are close, so his younger brother just hung out with the older one...so he didn't even experience the teen club/activities.  It was really a negative impact on our cruise as the 18 - 20 year olds on a cruise are kind of a forgotten population (too old for the teen stuff, too young for the adult stuff).  I think had we gone a month earlier and they had both been able to hang out in the teen club, play in the teen sporting events, etc. they would have had a much better time.  Anyway, just giving you this heads up in case you decide to book another cruise when your older one hits 18.  (I should note, we sailed out of a U.S port. I am not sure if there any different age restrictions from non-U.S. ports.)

Yeah, it's mostly luck that the older one will still be 17. She'll be a senior and graduating that June, but her birthday fell just before the district's cutoff and it's made her one of the youngest students in her class. If it wasn't for that, she'd be in the same limbo your older son was in.

 

That said, she's already rolling her eyes at the idea of all the "teen" activities, not sure how much she'll really care to go to those teen clubs or do the other items on the daily events list. She's more likely to want to see a jazz performer or other live entertainment at night. She's a budding performer herself, voice and learning piano, and has some eclectic tastes in hobbies (to give you an idea, she just asked for, and got, Cards Against Humanity as a Christmas gift), so I'm not necessarily expecting her to be the social butterfly of the teen scene.

 

Her younger sister, on the other hand, will probably want to be in the clubs every night and doing as many group activities as she can. And also finding a sushi making or other cooking class if one is available, along with evaluating the guacamole from Sabor against her own recipe.  ;)

Thanks, Matt and Jerel! All great information to learn!  :) 

 

There aren't really the kind of "celebrating" special events with buttons and what not. It is good to note you are celebrating on the cruise, because the staff won't know otherwise.  Surprises can happen, but I wouldn't expect anything. Essentially, it doesn't hurt to note it.

 

Is it enough that the events are noted on my reservation, or should I still make a point of mentioning it to the staff we meet (waiters, room attendants, etc.)?

Not sure I understand what this means. Are you saying the casino expects you to play 20 deals each time you start at a table? If so, my thought is that there is no minimum requirement. Once if you wish.

 

Hutcherl, it's a rule of gambling I read several years ago. You go into the casino with enough cash to make at least 20 losing bets, to allow for a likely bad streak and give you some chance to bounce back instead of losing all of your money really quickly. So with a $5 minimum, you need to have at least $100 on hand. For a game like craps, where you're not just playing the pass line for $5, but also taking your 2x odds after the point is established (for a total $15 bet each time), you need at least $300 on hand.

 

Basically you're trying to improve the odds that you won't lose everything to a handful or moderate streak of bad plays. That said, the very first time I played craps I joined a $5 table with all of $30 in my pocket, and walked away with $300 after about two hours of play (and some very lucky side bets that I really should have skipped as a newbie to the game).

So I'm taking my first cruise ever, on Freedom of the Seas (8-night Eastern Caribbean sailing in March/April of 2018). I have some general questions I haven't found answers for after listening to the podcast and searching the blog and these message boards. Apologies if these have actually been asked a million times already.

 

 

First question is about the main dining room. I'm looking at the deck plans for FOTS, and I see that there are three areas labeled "Dining Room" -- Leonardo Dining Room on Deck 3, Isaac Dining Room on Deck 4, and Galileo Dining Room on Deck 5. Are all three of these combined actually the "Main Dining Room"? Or are they distinct in terms of appearance, menu, any background music, etc.?

 

Related to this: I have the Early Dining assignment (5:30 PM) and my family's cabins (connecting balcony rooms) are on Deck 8. Will we be assigned to just one of these dining rooms for the entire week? Any way to predict which one based on our cabin deck?

 

Do we have to eat in that assigned room for all meals where we choose a dining room option, or can we go to, say, the Galileo room for breakfast even if we're assigned the Leonardo room for dinner? Does it even make a difference if we do?

 

 

Next question is about stargazing and taking photos of the night sky. I've read here that at least some of Royal Caribbean's ships have at least one planned stargazing event on the helipad. Are passengers allowed on the helipad at night when there is no planned event? Just want to know if I have to make sure to find that announcement in the Cruise Compass and tell my family that I'll be doing that no matter what else they might want; I live too close to bright cities to ever get a good view of the night sky, and being able to actually see the Milky Way and maybe take some long-exposure photos to capture it is something of a bucket list item of mine.

 

Related to that, are passengers allowed to bring a tripod onto the helipad in that situation? Long-exposure shots don't work when holding the camera, so at a minimum I'd want to bring a very small (I'm talking 6") folding mini-tripod I own that I could set up, or something like a Gorillapod that I could wrap around a railing or post.

 

 

Next question is about the Adventure Ocean program. Both my kids will be with me, and they'll be 14 and 17 at the time. Are they able to just go to the teen lounges without actually signing up for Adventure Ocean, or do they need to be signed up so it shows on their sea pass card that they're allowed in? Besides those teen clubs, does the ship staff typically do anything special for teens during the day on sea days? Or is the expectation that kids that age will just roam the ship on their own and do their own thing with or without their parents?

 

 

Last question is about what people's experiences have been with the staff when it came to special events. My TA has noted on our reservations that it will not only be our first ever cruise, but our 20th wedding anniversary and our daughter's graduation from high school. When we went to Disney the first time, we got big buttons to wear and the staff went out of their way to be extra helpful and make the stay even more enjoyable than it already was. I've heard / read multiple comparisons of Royal Caribbean to Disney in terms of their effort to "wow" their passengers, so I'm curious if anyone here has traveled under similar circumstances and gotten similar "TLC".

 

 

That's it for now, at least. Thanks in advance for whatever help you can give!

 

 

- Joe -

For the shower, the step is negligible, maybe an inch or two. However, there is a step up into the bathroom of a few inches.

 

Thanks, DocLC! The step in/out of the bathroom won't be an issue since I can wear my shoes for that, then take them off to get into the shower. My right shoe has a custom lift and rocker sole to level out my legs and make walking a lot more bearable, so I just wear my shoes all the time until I absolutely have to take them off. :)

Hutcherl and WAAAYTOOO, thanks for the info. Do either of you know if the table minimum tends to vary from ship to ship (or maybe based on traffic / time of day like in land casinos)? $10 a play is too rich for my blood (and budget, when you're supposed to allow at least 20 plays in any single visit).

I saw in one photo of Freedom of the Seas that they have a single deck blackjack table. Is that for real? They don't care so much if someone tries counting cards?

 

My preferred game is craps, and if the table minimum is $5 or less I'll definitely be trying that out on my cruise, but if they really have single deck blackjack then I may give that a shot as well.

 

 

- Joe -

- Sailing Freedom of the Seas in 2018 -

If I can ask a related question on this -- for non-accessible rooms, what is the step-in height for the shower? From looking at photos others have taken, it seems that all staterooms have the shower floor pretty much level with the main bathroom floor, and a very short step over the shower's sliding door rail. Can anyone confirm that?

 

My right leg is nearly an inch shorter than my left, and the ankle in that leg is fused, so stepping in/out of tubs or showers is difficult / painful if there's more than a half-inch or so in floor heights.

 

 

- Joe -

- Sailing on Freedom of the Seas in April 2018 -