Woody14

generally speaking when you arrive in ports it will take about 30 minutes to get cleared and set up for you to get off the ship. Back on board time is also generally 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Out of curiosity what line have you sailed on that lists the time you will get off and back on with the itinerary? I ask as every cruise line I have sailed it is always the port arrival and departure times.

I am definitely in the no sing group. Generally it is just family I travel with but I am hoping to expand that but so far I have not found the right people to travel with. What the right people look like .... I am still trying to figure out. Ironically I am doing a cruise out of Rome this summer and after the trip we are spending a couple of weeks after the cruise touring part of euroupe which includes a bit of Germany/Austria time and my family has booked a sound of music tour.

no to karaoke for my crowd but sing along ABBA or Sound of Music and there is no holding them back. They are more the large group singers than the solo stuff that karaoke would bring.

The bigger ships are going to have to. With that size limit it will only be the smaller boutique cruises hitting Bar Harbor

Oooh! you are asking a loaded question. Me personally I am not really in to the theme nights so much, but the rest of my family who I travel with are more in to them. their favorites are silent disco and white night. If there is a sing along ABBA night they are in to that too.

try this website https://www.saintgregtravel.com/ he has one of the best lists of the comings and goings on carnival. he has all the shows, cruise directors, piano bar schedules so likely he would have the theme night parties too.

What are your thoughts on best cruise length? I am in the camp of 10-12 days although I have never tried longer than 12.

Would I, very interested. Budget might come in to play on that one. So far the longest cruise I have done is 12 days (really like the 10-12 day range)

Unfortunately for me I am married to a school teacher (who still has a few more years to work) so therefor we can really only travel at a few select times of year. This limits us in a few ways as well as impacts the budget. I would be very interested in a North America to Europe or Australia cruise but they go while school is in session. We are doing something out of the ordinary in we are doing a European Cruise in May but this took 2 years of planning to get the leave from work et all. As for cruise lines. Celebrity is our favourite but is not always budget friendly. Our past cruises have been on Celebrity, Carnival and Royal. The May one is also on Royal. For budget I enjoy MSC as well. As noted previously it is destinations that make the big decisions for us mostly. I generally try to get at least 1 new place on each cruise, must admit this is getting tougher now that I have been to about 50 different ports. There are still a few places left so we can probably do once a year until my wife retires from teaching and then try a few of the off peak times and places.

I am pretty much moving (maybe have moved) in the direction of an annual cruiser. Started cruising in the mid 90's and the first 4 were 5 years apart, then it moved to 2-3 yrs apart and now it is every year (last year actually more than 1). I enjoy cruising a lot but I don't really like going to the same places over and over again so it can be challenging to get the right cruise in the limited budget I am working with. It does not help being on the west coast of Canada so unless I am going to Alaska (done 2x) or Mexico out of LA (also done 2X), there are significant costs for flights to factor in. This years cruise is to Europe and man were the flights is expensive this year.

with the smart elevator you push the button outside the elevator and there are no buttons inside. so it pretty much deters the kids pushing the buttons thing. The big challange for many is that the just get in expecting to push a button and since they can't it causes them grief. they have to go to wherever the elevator is going and then get out go to the panel select where they want to go then wait for the elevator that it tells them to wait for which will go where they want.

I am not sure the 'Dutch way' is always the cheap one but it is definitely value oriented. That said it would not be the Scotsman cheap which several of the people I know of that are Scottish seem to be proud of that part of their heritage.

This is not a new policy there have been hours where it is open to kids since my first cruise on Celebrity in the 1990's

generally drinking ages vary by region you are sailing and cruiseline (to an extent). Sailing out of the US it is 21 but if you are sailing out of Europe, Australia or South America the age is different.

I might actually have to start spending money in the casino, there are some nice offers there.

it does say up to . . . being I never book at the suite class I wouldn't get that, but did you click on it to see what the OBC was for a balcony?

once you board go to the main dinning room and speak to them at the entrance. they can likely get you all fixed up. do this early don't wait till dinner time.

I agree with not going August as you still have a lot of kids out of school so many families on cruises at that time. I would recommend mid September to early Nov (definitely before US thanksgiving) as best chance for slightly better pricing.

fountains no except for in the gym (and maybe the kids area if I remember rightly). Yes to water stations, in the buffet and on the pool deck you will find them as well many of the bars (especially on deck) have water dispensers.

it is stated in the FAQ's on the move up page that you only get the points for your original booking. That said how many of us actually read all the details and FAQ's on these things? I know many have been burned by this.

the 30 minute walk was morning but it was till pretty warm. yes to the manual bikes - I think ebikes would be the way to go but this was my wife's idea and her dutch heritage came out (she wanted it to be cheap).

Galveston was a very nice place to visit. We were there in summer so it was very hot. Galveston was bigger than I expected but the main historical shopping area was what I expected. Using bikes was great we were there for 3 days it was perfect to do some exploring through some of the historical walking tours and get from our B&B to all the points of interest. We got off the ship and hauled our bags (we were traveling carryon) the 30 min walk to our B&B - we had made arrangements with them to drop off in the morning as check in was not till afternoon. We then had about a 5-10 min walk to the bike rental shop. We did that before 10 am on day 1. We spent all that day and the next 2 exploring the area (or as far as we could get on bikes in the heat). We dropped off the bikes on our last day, walked back to the B&B got our stuff and our uber to the airport.

I would agree with you that on the sizes just seem to be getting bigger and bigger and it is getting a bit over the top. Unfortunately I don't think they could build 3 smaller ships for the same price as 1 big one. it seems that the cost of a small one to build now is close to a billion on its own. But I do get your point and tend to agree.

every cruise line as a few little differences on what it is allowed to bring on board. That said gaming consoles are generally allowed. Your bigger problem generally is that unless they are self contained many ships have the connections to the TV covered up so you can't connect it to your TV.

Sorry we actually walked from the cruise terminal. We rented bikes in Galveston and used that as our local transportation. We stayed in Galveston for a few days after our cruise. We fly in to Houston the day before, took cruise line transport to the ship. Walked off to our B&B where we dropped our luggage (as it was morning and check in was the afternoon) we rented bikes and used that to expore Galveston for the next few days. That trip was a carnival cruise which docks right in town, being we passed the new RCL terminal on the ship, we decided when we were exploring to ride up to that area and see what it was like. We travel carry on for most cruises but even that might be a bit of a challenge on a bicycle. But you have me thinking.