btate

I have had such a bad experience with Royal Caribbean that I will never consider sailing with them again even if the cruise was free. I have been pleased with Princess and all the perks I get with being elite. Free Laundry is nice.

I would like to hear more about this port if you see more information on it.

Thank you for your kindness in responding. This is exactly the kind of information I am looking for. I have contacted this shop and asked for information. You are great Jan!!!! I love that you took time for me. Very kind regards, Byron

You guys know that you can just go to the passenger services desk and ask that gratuities be removed from your portfolio. That way you don't have to tip people who you don't want to. We rarely go to the dining room, so we just get envelopes and tip who we want what we want on each cruise in cash. We do it away from where people wan see, so they get to keep it all instead of a tip going into a pool of several cruise ships. We also tip our room steward in cash as well. Stop paying the head waiter and mater de (yes I said mater. . .) They didn't do the work, your waiter and room steward did! Give them the money! My 2c. Now, back to your regularly scheduled program already in progress. . .

I am headed out on a back to back cruise in January and looking at shore excursions. We will be hitting Belize two times. The first stop we have booked cave tubing with cave-tubing.com (I highly recommend them! Lots of fun and for a fair price! Been with them 3 times now!) On our second stop, we would like to go scuba diving. I hear Belize is amazing for diving! We will have our own gear, we will just need tanks and weights. We are looking for a shop who will pick us up at the pier and take us on a dive or two that is manageable in the time we have for a cruise ship schedule. Looking for someone who has experience doing just this and advice that will help us stay on a tight budget and still have fun. Thanks for your help in advance.

I agree with the ship size. It seems like some of the new gigantic ships are getting mixed reviews. Bigger is not always better when it comes to cruise ships. I like the size of the 100k ton - 125k ton ships for the most part. I also have enjoyed the 75k ton ships I have been on. It seems like you don't have to walk as far to get where you are going. The good part about the big ships is that I can use the extra walking to walk off some of the food I eat!

The Sapphire is a beautiful ship! It was renovated a couple of years ago and the improvements are very noticeable. I was on it before it was renovated and they fixed a few issues with queues at the food lines. You will enjoy that ship very much!

I have sailed on the Carnival Valor. It was one of my favorite cruises! That is why I said to stay on a newer ship if you sail Carnival. Of the 27 cruises I have been on, this was the only negative experience I have had.

I will embark on my 18th and 19th Princess cruise in January (back to back) on the Caribbean Princess. So far, all of my Princess cruises have all been amazing. With Princess, I always know what I am going to get. . With Carnival. . .Well, lets just say that their name fits them well.

"Now I know why so many people jump overboard on Carnival" Click here to view the cruise review

Nice to hear that you love Princess. I will sail on the Caribbean Princess in January and appreciate the time you took to comment that it is a nice ship. I also love the Princess line and sail with them almost exclusively now. Royal Caribbean cheated me out of $2000 last month and I will never consider sailing with them again.

I received this ad from a recent email and wanted to know if anyone had purchased this and had the PDF emailed to them yet? I wanted to know if anyone has actually saved the kind of money this guide claims to save? Anyone had any upgrades? or even Free Cruises? I am happy to purchase it if it truely will save me money or get me an upgrade, but for a $37 dollar electronic download or email, this seems to be one of those too good to be true things. . . The site is at: http://www.intelligentcruiser.com I appreciate opinions from only those who know. . . If you don't know, it is okay not to comment. Thanks for your help. I am sure we would all love to know new secrets if they are really out there! Byron