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Does everyone experience the week long depression when you come back from the cruise?  I couldn't even think about cruising for a week...I was so sad to be off the ship.  I am still missing someone making my bed every day and grocery shopping for me.  And where the heck is my deck chair and adult beverage lol???

I was reading about the royal amp on freedom (one of my favorite ships) and I'm starting to rethink spring break 2020.  Here's my dilemma... We are booked on rhapsody.  Pros:. Great embarkation City (Tampa), great itinerary (includes Belize and Roatan, both of which my husband hasnt done) and mostly amazing price.  We booked a year ago, and with 2 sales our price was close to 1900 for 3 of us (85 a day/pp at spring break!).  We won't get even close to this good a price is we book another ship.  Cons:. We just sailed the same ship basically (vision) and I'm wanting to try the new amped restaurants and bars (mostly playmakers and lime and coconut since I won't do the slides most likely).  Now to be fair, it's a 4 port cruise so not a ton of ship time anyway.  Cost...we are thinking about going to Europe again next summer to England, Scotland and Ireland and drink pkgs and crazy airfare will hike the cheap cruise anyway, though we just did all the restaurants so wouldn't likely do any specialty dining unless we got a great deal.   

  

Ugh.... So anyway I'm mostly brainstorming.  I know it's all subjective... You guys cant decide my budget etc for me lol!  But if we cancel, it will likely be another 2 years... Maybe summer 2021 at earliest... Till we cruise again because my 16 year old wants Disney for her senior year spring break 2021!!  I guess I raised her right but I hate having my obsessions at war!!!   

Anyway just wanted to post I'm alive back and that cruising is way more fun than work, toe surgery (my 16 year old) and the dentist!  Happy Sunday everyone!  Jane

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9 minutes ago, mom2mybugs said:

Does everyone experience the week long depression when you come back from the cruise?  I couldn't even think about cruising for a week...I was so sad to be off the ship.  I am still missing someone making my bed every day and grocery shopping for me.  And where the heck is my deck chair and adult beverage lol???

I was reading about the royal amp on freedom (one of my favorite ships) and I'm starting to rethink spring break 2020.  Here's my dilemma... We are booked on rhapsody.  Pros:. Great embarkation City (Tampa), great itinerary (includes Belize and Roatan, both of which my husband hasnt done) and mostly amazing price.  We booked a year ago, and with 2 sales our price was close to 1900 for 3 of us (85 a day/pp at spring break!).  We won't get even close to this good a price is we book another ship.  Cons:. We just sailed the same ship basically (vision) and I'm wanting to try the new amped restaurants and bars (mostly playmakers and lime and coconut since I won't do the slides most likely).  Now to be fair, it's a 4 port cruise so not a ton of ship time anyway.  Cost...we are thinking about going to Europe again next summer to England, Scotland and Ireland and drink pkgs and crazy airfare will hike the cheap cruise anyway, though we just did all the restaurants so wouldn't likely do any specialty dining unless we got a great deal.   

  

Ugh.... So anyway I'm mostly brainstorming.  I know it's all subjective... You guys cant decide my budget etc for me lol!  But if we cancel, it will likely be another 2 years... Maybe summer 2021 at earliest... Till we cruise again because my 16 year old wants Disney for her senior year spring break 2021!!  I guess I raised her right but I hate having my obsessions at war!!!   

Anyway just wanted to post I'm alive back and that cruising is way more fun than work, toe surgery (my 16 year old) and the dentist!  Happy Sunday everyone!  Jane

If you can afford it I would switch to Freedom.. Being on a vision class ship for Europe I think is fine because the focus is Europe, but when you're in the Caribbean in my opinion the focus is more the ship. But like you said I don't know your budget and maybe you need to stick with Rhapsody? 

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30 minutes ago, AGSLC5 said:

If you can afford it I would switch to Freedom.. Being on a vision class ship for Europe I think is fine because the focus is Europe, but when you're in the Caribbean in my opinion the focus is more the ship. But like you said I don't know your budget and maybe you need to stick with Rhapsody? 

I think freedom will be out of San Juan and those flights are incredibly high usual.  Ok.... Obviously I need to organize, because some of the bigger ships are only 300 or so total more.  Can someone give me a way to see exactly what ships have what?  Anyone done the research already and made a spread sheet of restaurants, amped etc?  I can take notes ship by ship but if this is already done it saves me the effort lol!

Ok.... Editing because I'm back.  Any bigger ship will cost me btw 600 and 1000 more so that just can't happen this trip.  the other thing that looks intriguing is empress.  It's a tiny ship, but an extra day and it's 200 cheaper on a different ship than vision class.  Problem is the itinerary isn't as good (only 1 new port) and 3 sea days on the very tiny ship   I will have to go back to @twangster's blog and look at more detail since I didnt read it closely (was too tired in Europe lol).  I also hate to give up Tampa so I have to count that as a  factor.  Jane

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9 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

Does everyone experience the week long depression when you come back from the cruise?  I couldn't even think about cruising for a week...I was so sad to be off the ship.  I am still missing someone making my bed every day and grocery shopping for me.  And where the heck is my deck chair and adult beverage lol???

 

I can relate,I get bummed thinking about the cruise being over before I even step foot on the ship! 

My solution to this is researching my next one so I can book while on board to help alleviate some of the sadness!

Good luck with your tough decision I hope you figure it out and are happy with your resolution ?

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If Freedom is too costly plus the higher airfare out of San Juan then Vision class has a lot going for it including Rhapsody.  

I love Empress but I'm not a solarium dweller on most days.  Empress is great but she has no solarium and cabins are smaller.  

If it comes down to Empress vs. Rhapsody and the itinerary is better for one that maybe be a big factor as you decide what to do.  

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3 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

Does everyone experience the week long depression when you come back from the cruise?  I couldn't even think about cruising for a week...I was so sad to be off the ship.  I am still missing someone making my bed every day and grocery shopping for me.  And where the heck is my deck chair and adult beverage lol???

I was reading about the royal amp on freedom (one of my favorite ships) and I'm starting to rethink spring break 2020.  Here's my dilemma... We are booked on rhapsody.  Pros:. Great embarkation City (Tampa), great itinerary (includes Belize and Roatan, both of which my husband hasnt done) and mostly amazing price.  We booked a year ago, and with 2 sales our price was close to 1900 for 3 of us (85 a day/pp at spring break!).  We won't get even close to this good a price is we book another ship.  Cons:. We just sailed the same ship basically (vision) and I'm wanting to try the new amped restaurants and bars (mostly playmakers and lime and coconut since I won't do the slides most likely).  Now to be fair, it's a 4 port cruise so not a ton of ship time anyway.  Cost...we are thinking about going to Europe again next summer to England, Scotland and Ireland and drink pkgs and crazy airfare will hike the cheap cruise anyway, though we just did all the restaurants so wouldn't likely do any specialty dining unless we got a great deal.   

  

Ugh.... So anyway I'm mostly brainstorming.  I know it's all subjective... You guys cant decide my budget etc for me lol!  But if we cancel, it will likely be another 2 years... Maybe summer 2021 at earliest... Till we cruise again because my 16 year old wants Disney for her senior year spring break 2021!!  I guess I raised her right but I hate having my obsessions at war!!!   

Anyway just wanted to post I'm alive back and that cruising is way more fun than work, toe surgery (my 16 year old) and the dentist!  Happy Sunday everyone!  Jane

If I were you, I'd think of the purpose of the cruise and what I'd want to remember.  I tend to remember destinations more than restaurants or bars, but overall, I remember the people I meet.  Have a great cruise, whatever you choose!  We did the Rhapsody itinerary you've mentioned out of Tampa in April 2017, and it was a great trip, although a little hot in Mexico.

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20 hours ago, ChessE4 said:

If I were you, I'd think of the purpose of the cruise and what I'd want to remember.  I tend to remember destinations more than restaurants or bars, but overall, I remember the people I meet.  Have a great cruise, whatever you choose!  We did the Rhapsody itinerary you've mentioned out of Tampa in April 2017, and it was a great trip, although a little hot in Mexico.

My daughter and I did this exact itinerary on vision our very first cruise, but my husband hasnt done it.  I really like the idea of 4 ports for him!  Jane

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22 hours ago, twangster said:

If Freedom is too costly plus the higher airfare out of San Juan then Vision class has a lot going for it including Rhapsody.  

I love Empress but I'm not a solarium dweller on most days.  Empress is great but she has no solarium and cabins are smaller.  

If it comes down to Empress vs. Rhapsody and the itinerary is better for one that maybe be a big factor as you decide what to do.  

Thanks!  We didn't do the solarium alot on vision because frankly the chair saving made me want to strangle people!  Did you find the pool deck and upper deck (does empress have a sky deck?) crazy crowded on sea days?  And we survived an ocean view on majesty... are the rooms significantly smaller than that on empress?  I could go look but you were just on!!! Jane

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4 minutes ago, mom2mybugs said:

 We didn't do the solarium alot on vision because frankly the chair saving made me want to strangle people! 

We enjoyed the solarium on Serenade quite a bit. Chair saving wasn't too bad. Maybe it was because of the cruise, time of year and median age? New England/Canada in Oct? We did have the deck pools and hot tubs to ourselves most of the time. Too chilly for most I guess.

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23 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

Does everyone experience the week long depression when you come back from the cruise?

Yes, that's my YOLO booking week.

23 hours ago, mom2mybugs said:

We booked a year ago, and with 2 sales our price was close to 1900 for 3 of us (85 a day/pp at spring break!).

You are considering many factors, but wow, that's a great price.  Me personally I would stay put with it.  If you need your AMPed ship fix is there anyway to squeeze in another cruise next year?  WIll any of the AMPed ships be in Europe when you plan to be there?

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Are you working with a travel agent?  I found that sometimes travel agents have better pricing because they are booking a block as "group" though it's not really a group cruise.  You might want to check in with a travel agent and see how these potential cruises are priced for you-you could be surprised.  But yes, only you can determine your budget.  Would you rather do more cruises or more paid things on one cruise or spread your money out to two cruises?  Also, keep checking the flights.  I was watching them like a hawk for our FOTS Jan 2020 cruise (yes, this is right before it's amped but the price was right so we booked it) and found our flights home (not round trip) to be amazingly cheap-about half the price I was expecting them to be.  I bought them the day they came out on southwest.com.  We were looking at our flights to be as much as our cruise and by stalking the website frequently, we were blessed to be spending half that.  You really just never know what you might find-just keep looking regularly.  And remember, sometimes depending on the airline you can cancel and rebook without a fee.

I'm all for YOLO but some of have to be honest with our budgets and what we are comfortable with spending/doing.  Good luck but know that you can be surprised with prices!

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On 8/26/2019 at 11:45 AM, YOLO said:

Yes, that's my YOLO booking week.

You are considering many factors, but wow, that's a great price.  Me personally I would stay put with it.  If you need your AMPed ship fix is there anyway to squeeze in another cruise next year?  WIll any of the AMPed ships be in Europe when you plan to be there?

Nope... Traveling with friends who don't seem to understand my obsession with cruising!  Jane

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On 8/26/2019 at 1:45 PM, CruisinUpinLife said:

Are you working with a travel agent? 

Not really on the research.. Usually I do a ton of looking up and then call Sharla say MEI and say yolo book it.  I haven't found her prices to ever be better than mine...  Jane

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On 8/25/2019 at 1:20 PM, mom2mybugs said:

Anyone done the research already and made a spread sheet of restaurants, amped etc?  I can take notes ship by ship but if this is already done it saves me the effort lol!

 

Here is an easy reference that I think that will help you. 

I say keep the upcoming cruise. Like you said, changing will cost way more, then that way you can YOLO and just book another cruise on an amped ship after your Disney stuff. This way you can book super early and get a great deal on that one. If its any help, I will be on Navigator in three weeks and can do some extensive research on Playmakers and Lime and Coconut for you!

2018-2019-Fleet_Guide.pdf

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On 8/31/2019 at 7:46 AM, emsff02 said:

Here is an easy reference that I think that will help you. 

I say keep the upcoming cruise. Like you said, changing will cost way more, then that way you can YOLO and just book another cruise on an amped ship after your Disney stuff. This way you can book super early and get a great deal on that one. If its any help, I will be on Navigator in three weeks and can do some extensive research on Playmakers and Lime and Coconut for you!

2018-2019-Fleet_Guide.pdf 1.82 MB · 2 downloads

Thank you!  That was awesome!  Jane

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My family and I are on this cruise (Rhapsody, Apr. 04) to celebrate my wife's 40th, and we chose an itinerary, not a ship.  My wife is from Honduras, and we really wanted our sons to see Roatan (as well as my parents, my brother and his wife). Weve done this itinerary before, on our honeymoon, and really enjoyed it. The only difference is, instead of Costa Maya we stopped in Grand Cayman. I will admit that after we decided on this itinerary, and I began looking at which ship it was, I wished it was a bigger ship....but still not sorry we made the decision we did.  As @Matt says....there isnt a bad ship in the fleet. 

Things to think about, and part of your equation....I am a bit curious, with this being Spring Break, will there be a ton of kids on the boat (thinking about how packed the smaller area for Adventure Ocean will be)? With it being Semana Santa in Latin America, what will the ports be like? I know in Honduras, Roatan (as well as the other Bay Islands and coastal towns) get VERY busy. I saw on Cruisemapper.com that the day were in Cozumel, there are 7 other ships there that day.  Ive booked Maya Chan, and Nachi Cocom in our Mexico ports so that the crowds are kept to a minimum. Its my first Holiday-esque cruise....so im very curious whats in store!  

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