Travel
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Royal Caribbean- Can you help me pick an itinerary?
DH and I booked a W. Caribbean cruise on the Liberty of the Seas (Falmouth Jamaica and Labadee Haiti) and with ongoing reading on cruise critic, we are re-thinking the ports. Labadee seems limited in the shore excursions, and if we go to Jamaica, we want to do Dunns River Falls but it sounds like the Falmouth port is far away from Dunns River.
We put a deposit down but can cancel with no penalty until mid-Sept. Here are what we are looking for:
- Itinerary is important- I have been to Cozumel 2x and do not care to go again (but am fine with other cities in Mexico). Have been to Grand Cayman Islands and did the sting ray tour (fun but DH has never been). Wouldn't mind going there again if need be.
- Fun ports with things to do- We want to do some active shore excursions (zip lining, shopping, Dunns River, etc) as long as we have a few days at sea where we can relax on the boat. If we have a few days at sea where we can relax on the boat, I know we will be antsy to check out the ports and do not want to spend another day relaxing on a beach with nothing to do (unless there is shopping or walking around the island/port). We would like some good on board activities since we are not into drinking...
- Weather & Price- We want to go somewhere warm/hot since it will be getting chilly where we live in the Midwest. We would like to go anytime Nov 2012-Jan 2013 and would like to keep airfare + cost of ship to around $2k. 5-7 night cruise sounds great for us.
- Good food- This is DH's first cruise and he loves to eat so good food (whether on the boat or ports) is a huge plus.
I have been doing a lot of reading on cruise critic and reading about the individual boats. I feel so overwhelmed!
Re: Royal Caribbean- Can you help me pick an itinerary?
what are the other options that fit your price and timeframe?
there are hundreds of cruises. the best food on a cruiseline that I've been on were cunard and carnival and disney. i was disappointed iwth princess.
i personally prefer the southern carib (usually these are the itineraries leaving from San Juan) but those cruises will be a little pricer due to flights. I have sailed on RCCL, Carnival and Princess and enjoyed the food on Princess the most. Carnival and Princess are owned by the same parent company.
We are going on a Carnival ship in May. It is hard to say which line is "best" because there are varying classes of ships. aka: Carnival Victory was a better boat/cruise than RCCL Monarch of the Seas b/c they are two different ships (Victory is much newer, bigger, better amenities) whereas RCCL is generally viewed as "better" than Carnival by cruisers.
it is hard to give a recommendation without you narrowing down the choices. Why not just keep the one you have?
I've been on 2 Carnival cruises (back in college and rigth after) and the food was so good!! I did go on a W. Caribbean cruises both times (though different ships) and I felt the shows were really very similar which was disappointing. It was also a really "party" atmosphere (granted, I did go both times during spring break time), and we're just not into drinking anymore.
I would love to go zip lining in Honduras, and wouldn't mind other Mexican cities. I've heard great things about Royal Caribbean, so eager to try that cruiseline.
I'm mainly thinking Caribbean (E, W, or So.) since it'll be far warmer during Nov 2012-Jan 2013 than the Bahamas.
Maybe I just need to give Carnival another chance. I've consistently heard it was a big party boat, (and granted, both times I went was during sprnig break), but it sounds like many people still enjoy it.
I feel the 2 ports are somewhat lackluster when it comes to activities available once on the ports... which is why I'm 2nd guessing my choice.
If you go on the cheaper, older Carnival ships you are going to have a Party Boat experience, especially in March. If you go on a newer, more $$ boat, especially during the school year, you are not. I was on a Carnival ship in Jan and was easily the youngest person on the boat (I was 30!) Definitely not "party" boat but we still managed to party it up pretty good and met lots of nice people
I have been eyeing the E. Caribbean itinerary, but not too familiar with what the islands offer. Are there any fun shore excursions you'd recommend, or does the island have enough to offer without doing an excursion?
While I appreciate nice beaches, I'd rather be up and doing something (even if it is shopping) than lounging on a beach at a port...
Ahh good call. I know my 2 cruises I went on were cheap. I'll look into Carnival.
I've done Eastern and those islands before. Here's what you can do:
St. Martin - Bike tours, hiking, snorkeling.
St. Thomas - We took a sea turtle snorkel that was really fun. The sea turtles weren't the giant ones, but they were really cool! Also decent shopping.
Thanks for the recommendations! Do you remember how much the shore excusrion was for St. Martin or St. Thomas (or through which vendor you went through)?
For St. Thomas we did the turtles with Doubloon. They have a pirate theme, and it was just plain fun. (Yay rum punch!) Website > http://www.doubloon.com/Doubloon.htm
In St. Maarten I forgot to say that I've also done the America's Cup challenge (now called the 12 metre challenge, I think) which was amazing! You get to work a 12-meter yacht during a race with another boat. Website > http://www.12metre.com/
For any tours, I recommend looking at ShoreTrips.com (used them multiple times) and also seeing what people recommend on CruiseCritic.com.
We did back to back Eastern and Western cruises on the carnival Glory last year and I was really pleasantly surprised. It's recently refurbished, and there were tons of food options, and I actually preferred it to Royal Carribean. I didn't really find it a party boat, but there was one large group that was always around the ship partying, but they were fun, not annoying! One thing you can do is check out the roll call section on cruise critic and you can usually find out if there's going to be a big group on there that could be loud or annoying.
If you go through St. Thomas I definately recommend Sunny Liston (his site will come up if you google that). We did shopping and an island tour and then got dropped at the beach and it was a blast. He blasts the music and everyone sings. And on St Thomas you HAVE to try a bushwakker there. Best drink ever lol.
I prefer Western for actually doing stuff, and I have found the ports in eastern to be more for relaxing.
Thanks for your suggestions. What did you enjoy doing on W. Caribb?
We're going on that exact same Western itinerary next week on Oasis of the Seas. We chose it because of our anniversary date and the ship.
I'm with you on the "meh" about Falmouth, but from what I've been reading, Dunns River isn't that far away - I believe it was estimated at 1 hr drive. I'd definitely do it if I could, but can't due to disability. We don't have a solid plan for Falmouth, but the current idea is to take a cab/bus to MoBay's Hip Strip and walk around. We're not beach people, but I've heard Doctor's Cave beach is really nice.
The thing is, there really isn't much right at Falmouth and it seems that RCCL strategically built this pier for its larger ships between Ocho Rios and MoBay to offer these pre-existing excursion options. Maybe in a few years when more of the pier area is developed (it's Phase 1 now), there will be more local options.
In Cozumel, we're doing a boat tour (semi-sub) and then have plans to go shopping/walk around downtown.
BTW, you should be able to see excursion pricing on the Royal Caribbean website. Just select the port you're interested in and it lists them.
Here are some things I've done and enjoyed
Jamaica - it was about 10 years ago so I don't remember how far the drive was, but I loved Dunn River Falls, and we also went tubing down the White River and I looooved it. I think there was a bit of time for shopping in there too
Roatan - We did ziplining, and there were monkeys at the zipline, and went to a beach, booked through Victor Bodden. I would highly recommend this company
Belize - We went Cave Tubing through cavetubing.bz. It was a really neat experience. I got the impression that you weren't supposed to leave the pier area here without a guide
Cozumel - We went on the Amazing Cozumel Race. At the time it could only be booked through the carnival cruise ship, but I think they were working on changing that to allow people to book with them directly
Grand Cayman we did Sting Rays, and it was alright but for some reason it's not nearly as fun the second time. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't book in advance. We ended up waiting really long for our scheduled tour to wait and I think it we hadn't made plans we could have just showed up and gone on one that was leaving right away. There were tons at the pier area.
Hope that helps!
We went on the Carnival Dream this past August and it stopped in Cozumel, Honduras, Belize, and Costa Maya. I had been to Cozumel before, but not the other stops, so I didn't mind repeating one port. We ziplined in Honduras and had a blast! We weren't a big fan of Belize because we didn't book an excursion, their port area is nothing to write home about, so if you stop here definitely book an excursion.
We loved the Dream more than any Royal Caribbean ships we've been on because it's one of their newest and biggest ships. Our favorite feature were the hot tubs on deck 5 overlooking the water. We relaxed in there before getting ready for dinner each night.
Green Fashionista Blog Updated 2/25
Planning bio with lots of DIY
Married Bio with For Sale
Thanks for all your suggestions.
I will look into the NCL Epic.
I just found out today that Carnival now has an age requirement, and it is guess trying to get away from their "party ship" image. I went on it back in 2002 and 2003 so it has been a long time! I will definitely look into the Carnival Dream
I see that this specific W. Caribb itinerary docks at Port Canaveral. Did you fly into Orlando and then take a shuttle or a cab to the Port? Do you remember how much this transfer cost? I've been reading it's around $80+tip per person one way...
we've used Space Port for a private transfer from MCO to the port. They were AWESOME to work with, and cheaper than any of the cattle call ship shuttles. Would definitely use them again. I think for 4 ppl it was $100 each way. A cab would be very pricey - it is about 45-60 mins to the port.