We stayed at the Jacksonville Plaza Hotel in Jacksonville, FL and would not recommend it to anyone. The shuttle package was not what it was explained to be over the phone and the front desk person was a snot and that's putting it nicely. The bed was good, the room was clean but quite frankly hotels that offer the shuttle are a dime a dozen down there so nothing that is really going to draw me back there.
We went to Little Talbot Island and hunted seashells. Serena found a shark tooth and xander found a jellyfish (quite a few actually). He wanted to bring one back to his teacher but I talked him into a seashell instead.
We ate at Sticky Fingers which I would give 5 stars. We arrived there about 15 min before closing so I went in to see if it would be a problem to get food that late. The hostess said absolutely not so we went in. Everyone was very pleasant, the food was good, service was great and the price was not outrageous. I would definitely go back.
Faster to the Fun: Worth every penny. It's $50 per cabin. And gets you onboard faster. We arrived at 12:30 and were in our room by 1. It also gets your room available faster. You get priority guest services. If you go to tender ports, it gets you priority tender too.
Assigned Time Dining: We chose the 6 p.m. dining vs. 8:15 because we knew Xander would not last until 8:15. We did not choose the anytime dining because I wanted the experience of having the same family with us and same waiters. The dining experience was great. Food was phenomenal. Our only complaint was one family at our table showed up late one night so our food was held for 20 min. we were late getting out of dinner and late to a show we wanted to see and almost missed it entirely because they put up the capacity sign as we were walking in.
Punchliner Comedy Club - This is held in one of the other clubs (so don't look for a club called Punchliner when you board. On the Fascination, it was held in the Puttin on the Ritz. We saw one comedian, The Fryman, and he was awesome and from St. Louis. His humor was kind of crude but funny and we enjoyed it. He had a pg show but it was borderline.
Bubbles Package: We did not get this package. I think it's $6/day/person. However we brought our soda on and I don't drink Coke products so it was useless. Not to mention they had water, lemonade and tea accessible.
Cheers Program: $50/day/person for each 21 year old in the cabin. For us, light (social) drinkers it was not worth it. We would need to drink at least 8 drinks to break even. 10 in ryan's case. Neither one of us drink that much in a normal basis so it would have been stupid to try to do it on vacation. So we did not buy this program.
Sea Sick: I brought peppermint oil on the ship and applied it to Xander frequently. I used it the minute I felt queasy and we were both fine. Ryan never had an issue and well Serena said she felt fine until about 5 min before she got sick so it was too late to apply oil. Medicine from the front desk was useless but she wouldn't be able to keep it down. The seabands from the store on the ship worked until the last day (sea day) when the waters were really rough.
Circle C - This is the club for kids serena's age (12-14). They met usually starting around 4 p.m. each day and had activities planned until 1 a.m. It usually ended each night with pizza and/or ice cream social. They played board games (apples to apples), had wii dance off, digital scavenger hunts, and regular scavenger hunts.
Camp Carnival - This is the club for Xander's age (2-11, which was split into 2-5 and 6-11). They met from 9 a.m to 10 p.m. for free then Nightowl started at 10 p.m. for $7/hour/kid. Some nights they had special parties starting at 10 that cost $20 a person (glow in the dark). They did a movie one night in a conference room. They had two dance parties in a nightclub with soda. They also would serve the kids dinner in there if you didn't want them in the main dining room with you. The security was great. They knew our names but still requested to see our sail and sign cards before giving xander to us. He loved it there. So much we let him go there instead of off the ship with us in Freeport.
Hasbro Game Show - This was entertaining to watch. They get audience participation so sit down near the stage and get excited.
Pictures - They take your picture for everything! Getting onboard, getting off, getting back on, every night in the dining room, at about 8 different backdrops each night before dining, at Carnival excursions, so be prepared to spend a ton or be strong willed and don't even think about trying to take a picture of a picture. They will catch you. I didn't try it but saw people who did.
Sail and Sign - This is your ticket to EVERYTHING on the ship. It gets you in your room. Pays your bar tab. works on the arcade machines, bought our pictures, etc. While on the ship we left our cash and cards in the safe in the cabin. Our sail and signs were on lanyards like these. I got them from 5 and below. We had one that didn't have the detachable clip and Xander wore it. He rarely needed to swipe his (just when boarding and debarking). These made using your cards easier. You didn't have to take the whole lanyard off your neck, you unclipped, swiped and clipped.
Information on Sail and Sign cards: You can fund this with cash They give a suggested amount and don't recall what that was (I think like $100 per person). We only put $225 on it and we were fine until we bought our photos the last night. You can also link your debit or credit card to it, fund it with carnival cash or get carnival gift cards at Lowes and they add that to your account when you board. You can check your balance at kiosks. You can also turn off spending for kids and set limits from the kiosk
power strip. You have to bring one that does not say surge protector on it or have a surge butotn. However, we used this one and it wasn't taken. You have an outlet in the bathroom and one by the desk. The one in the bathroom is not even strong enough for a hair dryer. We were told by the steward to do our hair by the desk. Some say this is not necessary to bring one on. We were glad we did. While we didn't use our phones as phones for the week I did use mine as a clock, an alarm and a camera. The battery didn't drain that fast because of being in airplane mode but it was nice to charge every day. We also had our camera to charge, plus doing hair (dryer, curling iron, etc)
Over the door shoe hanger - These work perfectly over the bathroom door and are excellent storage. The rooms are tiny. These held all of our meds, bathroom supplies, first aid kit, room spray, etc. This is not my picture. I stole it from the net.
Room Spray: Yep. Your room is the size of a shoe box. Smells tend to linger so we brought a beachy smelly room mist from BBW.
Norwex Enviro cloth. I brought a travel size along. Cabins are known to be germy despite their cleaning between cruises. So just in case I wiped everything with one of these. And we were spared any gastro viruses, etc.
Peppermint oil - AWESOME for motion sickness. Worked for me and X.
water shoes- we used these to walk our first port. because we were doing the beach that day too. it's kind of rocky on some beaches.
Thirty One Slingback backpack - This was great on the ship and in ports. I used this and had camera, phone, first aid, peppermint. I used a black cross body purse for the dining room at night and our nights on the ship without the kids.
Jamberry wraps. These are super easy to apply even on a moving ship. Painting our nails in the room would have been a nightmare. Between the constant moving and the small confined spaces (again smells).
Cups with lids - These were great for the soda we brought onboard as well as for the water, lemonade and tea on lido.
Quarters if you wish to use the washers/dryers. I did this to avoid a ton of laundry on mother's day when we returned. Sea Days it is impossible to get a washer/dryer.
Bring a jacket or sweater. It's chilly in the dining room and on lido at night. They have shampoo and bodywash in the showers. However, we brought conditioner as the shampoo seems to be drying.
We also brought highlighters to mark the fun times with what wanted to do, a dry erase board and marker to communicate in the cabin with each other and the room steward, duct tape (this came in handy a few times).
Other tips would be to take a picture of your luggage. This helped us track ours down when it didn't show up with other priority luggage.
I brought baby powder (helps get sand off) and wet wipes (kept in bag at port). We didn't bring beach towels. We used the carnival ones. Just keep track of them because they got like $20 each if not returned. We also brought Xander's life jacket (puddle jumper), plastic bags for wet stuff and 2-3 swimsuits per person, plus tanks, shorts, etc for during the day and then nicer clothes for dinner. I wish I could pack lighter but i didn't want to be without anything and be forced to pay triple the price in their shops. Like for the seabands for Serena, which we didn't bring and will bring next time.
We had trip insurance through travelguard for $116 total. This covered medical in case something would happen (most US medical insurance is not valid outside the US).
We also prepaid our gratuities so that expense was taken care of.
Bring a "dead" gift card for the older ships that have the swipe type safe. The newer ships have keypads. The older ones have a swiper thing for your credit card or sail and sign. However, saw lots of review about it demagnetizing them so we used a gift card and hid in in the room so that the other person still had access to safe if you were not around.
No comments:
Post a Comment