<p>If you do second seating, you go to the show before dinner. We have done first and second seating. H and I prefer first, and then going to the show after dinner. The kids thought first seating was for old people, and liked second seating. It just depends how much of a night person you are.</p>
<p>We are booked for Xmas vacation this year on RC through the Panama Canal. The kids have been on 4 cruises so far and now ask to go on them. We did Carnival :iberty (no one got sick…) for Spring Break and it was great for the senior trip, the rest of us were longing for RC. We are doing a long trip this year- friends did a 4 day one out of Miami a few years ago and said it was rowdy- drunk and obnoxious people. I don’t know if you get people looking for cheap deals on shorter trips.
We have done early and late seating both. We chose early for this time because 8:30 gets awfully late to eat as it is a leisurely dining event. THe shows are early for the late seating and later for the earlier seating so you won’t miss either way. The seniors on the last trip ate late because they were up late at night and slept late in the day. You’ll have to know your own family schedule.
The screaming kids can be anywhere but they were mostly all well behaved on every ship we’ve been on- possibly because there is babysitting even during dinner time so the kids can eat somewhere else…
We’ve booked twice on cruises.com and have been very happy. It’s also a great place to compare.
Good luck on booking though, we booked in September for x-mas time.</p>
<p>MofWC, that’s funny. I guess there are exceptions and certainly a 21 year old woman is different than a 15 year old girl. If the girls I was traveling with had been 21 I would have been less concerned. My comments about alcohol in port still stand.</p>
<p>We’ve cruised on Carnival twice and Norwegian once, each time with our teenager. Carnival surprised us with the quality of its food (and we are NY foodies) and its service. The crew absolutely bent over backwards, and so many people were so rude to them. I think a lot of the perceived problem with cruise lines is that, for some reason, people think every thing every moment is going to be absolutely perfect. (cruisecritic.com calls this the “There’s a spot on the carpet & my vacation is RUINED” syndrome.)</p>
<p>Since you asked about specific ships, we cruised on the Destiny to the southern caribbean out of San Juan. Since we took that one, they’ve replaced Martinique (not popular) with (I think) Dominica, which is more popular. We also took the Paradise, on its last non-smoking cruise to the western caribbean. Loved that it was nonsmoking, sad that Carnival didn’t find it financially feasible to keep it that way. Both ships were generally very clean. The norovirus is capricious. Bring hand sanitizer. Use it. All the time.
We cruised on Norwegian Sun to Alaska last August as well, and have Celebrity booked for northern Europe (St. Petersburg at last!) for July 2007.</p>
<p>Feel free to pm if you have questions. Agree with previous poster that if you choose a less-expensive four or five-day cruise, you will be with a much younger, wilder, and less affluent crowd. We read endless reviews of each cruise before we took it, and found them to be both helpful and accurate, after weeding out the “my cruise was ruined” whiners.</p>
<p>We were able to do a Carnival 5 day last Christmas break (12/19 - 12/24) on the Inspiration out of Tampa. We found the staff to be friendly and attentive. My 17, 20, and 22 year olds mostly stayed together but had a blast. It was their (and my) first cruise. We opted for the early of the late dinings - 8 vs 8:30, and attended the early shows. Most of the families with young children ate earlier, at 6 or 6:30. </p>
<p>One additional comment- If you are choosing a cruise based on port destinations, stay away from the 4-5 day cruises. The port stays are shortened, and with disembarking via tender, visiting the ruins were not even an option for our boat in Cozumel.</p>
<p>One last q about seating-- I am hearing from some people tht earlier is better in order to see shows after dinner, but if we are on shore all day it may be harder to get back onboard, showered and ready for an earlier dinner. Help! Thoughts??
The ship I am currrently looking at (plans shifted a bit so the port we leave from is changing) has day trips that have the boaat leaving prots at 4-6 pm. Will this affect suggestions about dinner seating?
thanks for everytning! I’ll hopefully get this finalized inthe next few days. I was given a few names of people to call fot booking- but they are mon-fri folks, so cant finalize this today :(</p>
<p>Jym626,
There are usually 2 shows a night, each one for a specific seating. Mostly they were after your dinner, but I think there was one ‘sea’ day that had shows performed before dinner for the late diners and after dinner for the early diners.
It was recommended to us that if your kids were going to stay up late anyway, do the later dinner, no rush to freshen up after excursions and maybe a bit of a rest before the evening begins. We took that advice and it worked well for us.</p>
<p>thanks!
I am reading reviews of the RC ship I am currently loking at. Pepole seem to be complaining about the lack of toiletries and robes and such. This seems like no biggie to me. I am assuming these complainers are being a bit petty-- yes??</p>
<p>IMO yes, we pack our own preferred toiletries.</p>
<p>When our kids were younger (middle school years) we did the earlier seating. As they aged we preferred the later seating because as you pointed out it was nice to come back after excursions, shower, rest a little, and then go to dinner. If I remember correctly, we did the shows around 10pm then.</p>
<p>IMO, the people who are complaining about cushy bathrobes, etc.have done a LOT of cruising and have taken cruises where everything is a notch above. And there’s no doubt there is difference between the various cruise lines and also between the individual ships within a fleet. It’s important to see if there’s a pattern of more than one person with negative things to say or if the comments seem to apply across the board (ie poor attention to maintainence all over the boat, for example. </p>
<p>Anyone taking a cruise for the first time might want to get an Rx from their doctor for a scopolamine patch. I had been on many small boats (sailing, waterskiing etc) with no problem before, and had heard all about the wonderful “ship stabilizers”, but got very sick on my first cruise nevertheless. Not only was I sick as a dog for the first night or two, but even after I got adjusted to the ship I would be dizzy on the land! I even stayed dizzy for three weeks after the trip was over! </p>
<p>I don’t know what ever possessed me to take another shot at it, but we took another cruise (one of the newest Celebrity ships, and a very nice experience) and this time I put the patch on ahead of time. I was slightly queasy the first night, but that was it. Those pressure wrist bands seem to work also. H likes cruises , so for his sake I was glad I did much better the last time. And it really is an easy way to plan a last minute trip.</p>
<p>We have done both early and later seatings - with teenagers, I would opt for the late seating. There is always food available to “tide you over” if you get really hungry, On Celebrity they delivered a tray of appetizers to our cabins every evening at about 5PM, or you could go to one of the snack places.</p>
<p>I prefer second seating because it gives us more time. We always saw the show after dinner. We usually got a light snach around 5 or 6.
There is a shortage of the scopolamine patches, at least in CA. Hospices are always calling pharmacies about availablity. One of my pharmacy owner friends told me he could get a hospice acct if he could get the patches. My parents always used them. For them it was psychological and part of their trip rituals. When they couldn’t get them, they lived and my mom commented about not having dry eyes. They do work wonders if you really need them.</p>
<p>Some of us used Bonine (OTC) successfully, the others were fine without it.</p>
<p>I’ve gottten my prescription for the scopolamine patches, and will try to get them filled early, in case there is any shortage here. I hope to finalize travel plans next week, but just ran into a possible snag with the person who takes care of my dad up north. Hopefully this wont mess up the travel plans, but I am not sure. To be safe,though, I’ll wait til nest week to make these plans. Hopefully there will still be room. As of now it looks like availability is ok.</p>
<p>I know someone suggested it earlier but I want to second or third the idea of going to the cruise critic bulletin board. I got tons of helpful suggestions when we did our cruise to Europe on Celebrity and the Western Carribbean on NCL. We did some really nice private tours at a lower price then what the ship wanted to charge thanks to recommendations from other cruisers.</p>
<p>I would have the patches just in case. However, I am someone that if I ride in the back seat of a car, I’m sick within 5 miles. On the cruises, I never had a problem, even on the one night we hit fairly high seas and it was difficult to keep one’s balance walking. </p>
<p>When we took all the teenagers on the cruise, some started using the patches before they knew if they needed them (maybe that is the way you’re supposed to do it). Anyway, one girl came to me, crying, thought she was having a stroke because she couldn’t read anything. Her pupils were huge–she assured me that she wasn’t doing drugs. I did notice the patch and had her take it off—after 24 hours she could read again!</p>
<p>Another really good site to check out is cruise-addicts.com. We’ve only been on one short Carnival cruise a few years ago (it was OK but wouldn’t do it again), but I practically lived on that site ahead of time. You can get any question answered quickly. And lots of reviews and home pictures.</p>
<p>Just make sure there is at least one officer who graduated from Kings Point :)</p>
<p>Another great thing to do with cruisecritic is find the roll call for your trip, and chat with the others who are going. You can then go to a meet and greet on the ship. Your 20 and 16 yr old might well only see you for meals, so it’s good to meet other adults. Of course I missed up the time this past cruise. duh.
As far as meals - all ships have a buffet at the same time as the sit down dinner, even if not a free style dining ship. On HAL it was the same quality, on Princess I did find it semi-dreadful, but that’s me. So if the dining time messes up your dinner time, you can always eat when you want.</p>
<p>Is it worth getting a balcony vs ocean ciew? If so, what would be the amount of price difference that would make it worth while?</p>