Royal Carribean is launching a new Theme Cruise – Nickelodeon Family Cruise.
Can you take 7 days with Dora and SpongeBob?
7 days with Dora?
February 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Royal Carribean is launching a new Theme Cruise – Nickelodeon Family Cruise.
Smart Saving on Cruising
February 24, 2008 By 2 Comments
As our cruise vacation is approaching (Yeah!!!), I have learned so much during this process. A lot of people might wonder why since this is not our first cruise. True. But this is the first cruise that I handle all the booking and planning myself. Our Disney Cruise was handled by a friend so I didn’t have to worry about shopping for the cheapest one or learning other tips from other cruisers (much to my regret though). So this time, I determined to learn more and be a more educated traveler (or cruiser in this matter).
So here are some of the tips that I learned and did.
1) Book the cheapest stateroom available – This advice might not be for everyone since we all have different priority. For me, this trip my goal is to explore and enjoy ourselves outside our room. So room size or amenity is not my top priority. My budget on the other hand is on the top of my priority. For us, I went for the lowest catgeory which is IS. This is the Interior Stateroom – No Guarantee. It means we won’t know where our room will be yet. It’s a bit of the gamble at this point. I figure I will pack a lot of Bonnie and Dramamine.
2) Book your excursion yourself – The price of the excursion offering my the cruise company can be as high as 20% more than private tour at the port. However, I have to put a note here that I also book an excursion via cruiseline on certain port. It will depend on your comfort level. Some people just feel safer going with the cruise knowing that they will wait for you if there is any problem. For me, I book an excursion in Jamaica via the ship only because it’s cheaper than if I go directly with the resort.
3) Don’t try to do too much – Sometimes the best saving is to do nothing at the port. After all, the best way to explore is maybe wandering around. Again, make sure that you have good understanding on the safety in each port. I decided to forego any excursion in Mexico. We will take a cab to the park and enjoy a day on the beach.
4) Stay with friend before boarding the ship – If you like most cruisers who have to fly or drive to the port the day before, the hotel cost will add to your budget. We are lucky enough to have a few friends in FL so we will crash at their place instead of paying for a night in a hotel.
126 Days to go..
January 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Yup. That’s my countdown for our cruise this May to the Carribean on the Carnival Victory. Well, finally I have made up my mind on the excursion on Ocho Rios. One port down and 2 more to go…
In Orcho Rios, I decided to go with Carnival excursion to Bamboo Beach Club. As typical with my luck when I tried to do it online the system is not available. So I will have to wait till tomorrow to do so.. Gosh!!! Don’t they want my money. I hope I won’t change my mind till then.
The Bamboo Beach club seems to be a nice, low-key, all-inclusive beach club that we can spend the rest of the day after the Dunn’s River Falls. Plus it doesn’t hurt that we don’t have to worry about food and drink. The kids will get a chance to enjoy some beach time there. The price of this excursion is not bad for $45 if that price will remain the same after they upgrade the system. :)
The reason that we didn’t book Dunn’s River Falls because our son age doesn’t meet the minimum age so they won’t allow us to book that excursion. I guess on the bright side we will get to just have yet another relaxing day and save some money for more shopping. I know that most of the review for Jamaica says Dunn’s River Falls is a must but quite frankly I have seen prettier falls in Thailand. So I rather spend time on the beautiful beach which is what Jamaica is famous for and indulge in food and drink.. Just think about it already want me to push the fast forward button to our trip… 126 days to go!!!!!
Daydream…Hawaii cruising
January 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Hawaii has been one of the destination that I have been daydreaming about for years. I don’t know what with it. Might be all those travel shows and articles that talk about how beautiful it is or might be just something that might help me feel more like my homeland a little bit more. Thailand is a tropical country and where I grew up was in the South that we have beaches everywhere. So in the sense, Hawaii has that and more.
Thanks to the highspeed highway for the 21st century that allow me to daydreaming more effectively with photo and articles. There are too many things to do with so little money so I don’t even know where to start on planning when I go to Hawaii.
So my first choice is Hawaii Cruise with NCL America. I know.. cruising won’t give you justice what each island has to offer. But I consider this as the sample trip so that I will get a chance to explore Hawaii. And if God provides, I will have a chance to revisit each island again.
NCL America is the only cruise line that can cruise Hawaii islands without having to visit another island outside the State since they are registered as American ships. There are always negative and positive reviews about the ships. But I believe that you make your own fun for your trip. If you go on vacation with the negative attitude and expect everything to be perfect then why bother, mind as well stay at home and watch Travel channels.
Currently, there are 3 ships that cruise around Hawaii islands but I believe NCL America will retire one of the ship this Feb. Well, I sure hope that they will keep the other two ships till I can save enough money. :)
This cruise is actually the first one I considered for our vacation this year. But after looking at the price and tickets (since we can’t possibly drive from GA to HI, we will have to fly), I think this will be more long term project and need more funding.
Wait for me Hawaii.. I shall see you some days soon.
Bring back memory
January 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Planning the Carribean cruise for this May, bring back fond memory of our first cruise with Disney. It was our first cruise and we were so new to this cruising stuff. I don’t think we had planned it properly. But overall the trip went well hence we are back on the cruise planning again.
Amazingly enough, the timeframe for this cruise is almost the exact same time as our first cruise. It was in May. We booked the Disney Wonder – 4 night Bahamas cruise through our friend who handled everything. So the booking part was easy enough for us.
With the help from comprehensive online site, I got several tips from experience Mouse cruisers. For one, bring a white T-Shirt or pillow case and you can drop it off at the guest service. They will have all the characters sign the T-Shirt for you. Free souvenir!! The chase to get pictures with different characters was fun as well. It is one of the unique thing that you can’t get from other cruises especially if you are a big Mouse fan.
We didn’t book or plan any excursion in Bahamas. Just walked out to the port area and then got back on the ship. I would have done it differently next time. I will probably spend more time in researching on what else we can do in the Bahamas.
My favorite was a day at Castaway cay. The beach was crowd but the kids had so much fun in the Sun. Eventhough, we got a bit of overcast day in the beginning of the day and had to wait to dock for about an hour. Overall, we got our relaxing and fun day on the beach.
Then we got a full day at sea to explore and really enjoy what the Cruise has to offer. We walked to every corner of the ship just to see all little things they have hidden that make it truly magical. The pool is one of my favorite since at that time my son was still in diaper and this is the only cruiseline that has separate pool that allow kids with swimming diaper to enjoy the pool as well.
And don’t get me started on the food. With so many choices and so many snacks you can get, I didn’t even bother to check my weight when I got back. Why bother since I know that it will go up anyway! It’s a vacation so let it go!! Service is off the chart which is to be expected when you have Disney stamp on it. I loved the little touch of animal towel in our room every night. You never know what animal you will find in your room!
What can I say. If you don’t know it by now, we are a Disney fan family!
Watch out The Carribean – The Q is coming!
January 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment
After our first cruise experience with Disney, we were hooked. It was nice to be able to just enjoy a vacation without having to plan so much about what to eat and what to do. Well, we did have to plan a bit but not as extensive. Plus the idea of knowing exactly how much we will be spending for a vacation is a new concept for us. As we always ended up with more than we anticipate. So cruising seems to be a good vacation choice for us.
And since we are not going back to Thailand this year, we started looking for an affordable and fun vacation. We decided on at least 7 days cruise to anywhere that we have never been before. So the choices are down to somewhere in the Carribean. The bahamas cruise is out since we have been there twice already. Next we looked at port that we can drive there without flying. Even with that we still have a lot of choices. After that it comes down to price. We decide to go with Carnival as it’s the cheapest for all the family oriented cruise. We know that it probably won’t be able to compare to Disney but as long as we don’t set too high expectation and just enjoy our vacation we should be ok. We are pretty laid back people anyway.
So after looking and checking several days I found a really good deal during the promotion that Carnival gave. Free 6 level upgrades for the same price of Guarantee Stateroom. I kept going back and fort and didn’t make any decision till it’s too late. By the time I decided to book, the promotion had ended! Another lesson learn here, if you find good deal, go for it!!!
After beating myself up on my incisive decision, I booked the cruise. So Carnival here we come.
We will be sailing on Carnival Victory 7 days – Western Carribean. The ports will include Cozumel (Mexico), Grand Cayman (Cayman Island), and Orcho Rios (Jamaica).
Well, I have 136 days left till we set sail so I have a lot of planning to do for each port. Will keep you post!
The Q Family is a family of 4 with 2 school-aged kids who love to explore as much as their parent.
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