WhiteSoxFan

thank you! ive been looking for it! we leave January 7th on the 8  night freedom!

Fabulous, if you can please bring back the compasses and share them.  We are on the January 21st sailing.

Here are some photos of the compasses that I got from a couple of live reviews on CC.  I will be sailing in 7 weeks and, as always, will be uploading the Compasses to Matt to post on this site.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_n-B8ozLmplZXpoWFdBdUJlWEU?usp=sharing

I can't help with hotels but am curious to see the responses.  We are going in January and we are flying in and out of Orlando and driving a rental car back and forth.  We have DVC so our stay is covered in Orlando.  My sister, who is also going, is looking at going in and out of Ft. Lauderdale and the hotel pricing is very high IMO.  

I am of the "there's no better form of ID than a passport" camp.  I would consider your future travel intentions with your child in making the decision.  If you think you will travel outside the country more in the future I would recommend going the passport route.  If this is a one off type of thing and you're comfortable with the birth certificate, go ahead and go that route.  Note that passports for children under 16 are only valid for 5 years.

A general tip for anyone flying and checking bags.  We always "cross pack" our bags.  Meaning that we spread our clothes out across our checked bags as opposed to each packing our own bags.  This way if one bag doesn't make the flight and you don't get it before your cruise (something that we came within about 5 minutes of having happen to us) You at least each have clothes for the trip.

Exactly, it's not like flying whereas you're limited to the number of carry-on's ..... In this case, since the rooms aren't available till 1:00 and you might not receive your luggage till later, the idea of a carry-on is designed to get you through till your luggage arrives (documents, prescription meds, change of clothes/bathing suit, etc.) -- but the real pain is having to lug it around with you till the rooms open up.  Although, I did see something new when I was on Grandeur, there is a area (the South Pacific Lounge) where you can check your carry-on till the rooms open up -- I didn't take advantage of this but I thought it was interesting, it acted similarly to a coat check at a restaurant.

In addition to the items listed above as items you want to carry-on I would include anything of value.  Jewelry, cameras, tablets, etc.  It may not be common but I have heard stories of items going "missing" when people received there bags.  Basically use common sense.

After the cruise, do you drive back to Orlando to fly home or do you fly out of FLL?  The prices that I'm seeing out of FLL are high, in my opinion, although I've cruised before during non-peak times so maybe I'm just not used to these prices.  Virgin America seems outrageous to me.

Once we flew back from FLL. Once drove back to MCO and in January we'll drive back to MCO.  

We were on the Allure the first two times and I booked an early flight from FLL, like 10:00AM.  I know they say not to but the Allure gets in so early we had no problem.  We were through security and at the gate before 8:00AM.  I think we had around a 2:00 flight last time, from MCO, again no problem there.  

 

This time we are on the Freedom and I do not know if we can disembark as early so we booked a later flight.  Which is fine because my daughters flight back to Seattle leaves later so we can spend a few more hours together.

 

I booked my rental cars through Costco and got prices under $70/day for a mini van.  

Someone feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but in the past I've never found really cheap airfare into or out of FLL for a cruise. I always fly in the day before and back right away which has always made it a Saturday flight down and Sunday back.  The airlines know this is the busy time for cruisers and adjust the pricing accordingly.

 

In the past, and for my next cruise in January, we fly into Orlando, spend the night there then take a rental car down to the port.  We have more options on flights and the reduced flight expense easily covers the rental car (although we always have 3 or 4 of us not just 2).  Plus I use my DVC points to stay at Disney so that is covered.  The drive early in the morning is pretty easy and, of course, getting up early is also since who can sleep in the day they leave on a cruise!!   :)

The past two times I have dropped rentals at FLL, Alamo/National renters could take a free shuttle bus to the port.  The frequency of the shuttle service did leave something to be desired, however.

As previously stated, the Indy wins the big ship/big feature race, but I've done the Brilliance 4 day and loved it.  Plus you get to leave from Tampa, a much more delightful sailaway and pre-cruise stop IMO.

My experience is that it depends on where you are flying and on what days. Flying to MIA and FLL on weekends during peak cruising season is the time that you will never see the price go down.  Way too much demand.  Lesser ports and flying in or out midweek may yield you a better chance of the price reduction in that 45-90 day range.

She's a huge ship.  Get her next to a "normal" (non-mega ship) ship to really be awed.  

 

This is beside the Eurodam, 86,700 GRT, just a bit smaller than the Radiance Class

As others have noted the MDR menus are the same fleet wide (at least in the US).

 

Here is a link to my Compasses from our 4 night sailing from a few weeks ago, I'm sure Matt will post his when he gets the chance.  http://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/brilliance-of-the-seas/thu-2015-11-12-0000

 

The Brilliance is a beautiful ship and the terminal in Tampa is one of the nicest I've been in.  The sail away from Tampa is beautiful also.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Hello-- My name is Bob and I DVR episodes of The Love Boat--all of them. Every single one of them.

There should be a support group for that.

 

I joined Matt's Periscope last night in the middle of bowling.  It's was little difficult to hear, plus I had to put down the phone, bowl, then come back and pick it.  But hey, we're addicts.  :)

SpeedNO!

I gotta say that the old minutes plan were terrible from a guest satisfaction perspective.

 

On slow internet (non-Voom), you can easily burn through many minutes without actually accomplishing anything.  It lead to a lot of frustrated guests and longer lines at Guest Services.  

 

By making it 24 hours or unlimited, RC solved an issue where guests were upset that they wasted 5, 10, 20 minutes that they paid for.

I agree from the perspective of someone who actually wants to use the internet in any meaningful way besides just checking email.  I used to just use it to check my email to make sure there was nothing important, from a work perspective, that needed my attention.

I find it interesting that you pay more, $20/day, for slow internet than VOOM at $15/day.

 

I preferred the ability to just use minutes.  C & A always gave you some free minutes and I could always jump on and check emails real quickly and not ever have to pay anything.

Aren't streaming style apps/programs blocked on the ships that do not have Voom internet?  I am sure that you cannot use skype (besides the bandwidth issues) but what about messaging programs that also perform phone style audio streaming like facebook messenger, google hangouts and probably a thousand others?

For a type Dx cabin all the sofa beds are by the balcony leaving the bed by the closet.  When the sofa bed is open navigating around it is very tight, I think that is why this is the case.  You can sneak past the sleeper sofa. For the Oasis class ships the wall between every other cabin is jogged with the bed being at the wider part.  Thus the alternating configurations.

 

There is not much room between the bed and the closet, enough to manage but only one person at a time.  I am also 6'-4" and we managed.  I did sail the Allure a second time and my daughter and her friend stayed in there own cabin.  We intentionally booked a cabin with the bed by the balcony and enjoyed it more.

 

May I ask what cabin # you have?

 

Edited to add:  Find a connecting pair of cabins, the left hand one, as you enter, has the bed by the closet, the right hand on has the bed by the balcony, each subsequent pair is the same as you work forward or aft.

 Also, make sure that the first thing you do at the airport is the agricultural screening; otherwise, you'll be sent there from the check in lines and will end up needing to stand in line all over again.

 

Definitely make sure you do this first.  The screening locations are right inside the doors.

 

The forts (San Cristobal and El Morro) are pretty darn cool.  Of course, there's always the beach (and there are plenty in Puerto Rico).

 

I suppose this depends on ages and gender as well.

  I agree about the Forts.

This is RC just trying to control the flow at check-in.  Those "not in the know" will probably go ahead and follow it but we cruise "experts" know better and show up nice and early to start our vacations.  :)

Our Radiance class E cabin on the Jewel had a sofa sleeper; we would have preferred the Pullmans. When we booked the Brilliance this past summer and the Serenade next summer, we were very careful to select cabins with Pullmans as the sofa sleeper simply took up too much space.

Good to know.  Although now that my kid is grown and on her own I think my 3 to a room days are over.  We have an E2 on the Brilliance in 10 days (I might be bragging a bit), but that only sleeps 2 anyway.

I think that if you go and add another person to your reservation the whole reservation gets re-priced at the current rate., It's not as simple as adding the current 3rd/4th person rates.  So if you got a good deal or got OBC with your reservationl, you may lose it.

If the Radiance class is like Voyager/Freedom, E cabins will have the third berth as a pullman bed out of the ceiling above the bed.  The type D will be sleeper sofas.

I would encourage everyone to save a copy of the compasses from their cruises.  When you return you can scan them and send them to Matt to get posted on this site.  It's a great way to pay it forward and may benefit you in the future.

 

Matt's going to get a nice preview of his Brilliance cruise since I'm going on the same sailing two weeks earlier and will sending him the ones from our cruise.