Saturday, March 30, 2013

Just booked Oasis of the Seas!!

I am very excited because we just booked our first cruise on Royal Carribean. After our first cruise I was all about Carnival and loved the service we received. Since then, it has been declining every cruise and we were interested in trying a different line. A few months back my boyfriend and I watched a special on the Oasis and we were amazed at how big she was and all that the ship had to offer.

We have been looking for a while but decided to go ahead and book. We choose a superior ocean view balcony stateroom. OUR FIRST BALCONY!! This class of ship (there is also the Allure of the Seas) offers Central Park view and boardwalk view balconies as well which look over those areas inside the ship. 

We are doing the December 14 Eastern Caribbean sailing to Nassau, St Thomas, & St. Maarten. Yes, places we have already been. However, we didnt get to experience much in those places so we are very excited to revisit these islands. I am not thrilled with the time in Nassau and we may consider staying on board that day to see everything the ship has to offer us, with hopefully shorter lines. 

Our itinerary is

December 14- Fort Lauderdale
December 15- Nassau 7-2
December 16- Day at sea
December 17- St. Thomas 10-7
December 18- St. Maarten 8-5
December 19- day at sea
December 20- day at sea
December 21- Fort Lauderdale

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Upcoming Posts & Subscribing

Keep forgetting to check if From The Lido Deck has new posts? Subscribe by email so you stay current with my blog! Just add you email address to the box in the right column!

I will be out of town this weekend and will be posting a hotel review for anyone looking to sail out of Norfolk and stay pre or post cruise in VA Beach!

Also I will be doing a neat little giveaway post in the near future. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing!

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Trip Advisor

Just wanted to do a short post today about Trip Advisor, which is an awesome site I use when planning all of my trips. There are great reviews from fellow travelers on hotels, restaurants and attractions. This is my go to site before I book anything.


An important part of this site is to go back and leave a review of your own. They send you an email if  someone finds your review helpful or likes your picture and lets you know how many people are reading your reviews on a quarterly basis. I got an amazing email from them last week that I wanted to share.


I encourage everyone to check out the site before your next trip. You may come across a bar that only the locals know or find a cool place to get a bite to eat that is a little off the beaten path. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of trip advisor!

Check out my trip advisor profile :)
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Saturday, March 16, 2013

Carnival Glory:Debarking & Final Thoughts

Hey Guys! I know it has been a while since this cruise but I wanted to finish up on this post.

We had our couple days at sea with rough weather, lots of rain, nothing but rocking and they announced that we would be coming home a day early. They said the port was closing sunday due to flood warnings and the next weeks cruise was canceled. Honestly, it was such a relief to hear. We were in the dining room when they made the announcement and everyone clapped. After dinner we roamed for quite a bit and then headed back to our room to pack and head to the disco. Debarking was pretty easy, we waited a while since we had driven to the port and then headed out.

A couple of things we learned from this cruise:

- Never ever take a cruise before it goes in to be refurbished, they were out of a lot of knick knack type souvenirs, the shop was pretty bare, they were short on some food, the crew seemed to be ready for a break and didnt seem to mind expressing that

-Although the weather made a huge impact, it was clearly evident that we do not like sea days. A transatlantic cruise has been removed from my bucket list for sure!

- I don't think we will ever ever cruise during hurricane season again- although we didn't get sick, our travel mates were quite sick and it was a very unpleasant experience. It seemed to make a lot of people agitated. The staff were great (except for the front desk people) so that was a real help.

- I am also not sure we will ever cruise with people we know again.  It is so nice to do whatever we want to do when we want and that makes it difficult when others want to do other things. Maybe it will be different with people who are seasoned cruisers, who knows.

Once we returned we were quickly refunded a days fare to the account used to purchase the cruise which was great. We were also given 20% off a future cruise to be used on a 2-6 day cruise which expires in October 2014. There are some destination exclusions but I am sure we will be able to find something to apply it to. We are hoping to use it towards a 7 day cruise, I have been in contact with Carnival so that we can try to work that out. I don't want all 7 days discounted, I would just like to have the 6 days of discount applied. Hopefully it works out, we prefer longer cruises.

Even before the weather we didnt get the same experience we received on previous cruises so we may try to branch out in the future and try a couple of different lines. Our first cruise was AMAZING and I am really wanting to have another great experience like that.


Sorry for the distance since the beginning of this post! Hope you enjoy!

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