starvenger
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2015
I haven't been to the ABC Islands so I've not done much research on them. Are there less 3rd party excursions - or less data on 3rd party excursions - available there? Obviously when you go to the usual ports there's a lot of information out there so booking via the ship doesn't make sense unless you are, say, doing a trip in Cozumel which involve a ferry to Playa del Carmen and a bus ride.To help keep costs low we book shore excursions on sale, and use our OBC to help pay for them. Many lines run sales from time to time on excursions so it pays to book before boarding.
Good tip. I've not had any urge to buy jewellery in the Caribbean but will keep this in mind.After buying a lot of DCL gear on our first trips we have really limited what we buy on board. The shops being expensive on the Edge and RCCL not having anything that caught our eye helps. If you have any thoughts of buying something like a decent watch in port, the best way to do it is to get a piece of jewelry as well. Watches can only be discounted so much, but they tend to give you a better deal overall if you pair the two together. We don’t buy stuff like that often, but my Bulova has saved me money because my skin oils trash cheaper metal watches.
Don't forget that each person gets a 2-for-1 beer/wine/soda loaded onto the SeaPass. A chilled moscato can be just as refreshing as a pre-mixed cocktail. And probably more dangerous since that stuff goes down so easy.On RCCL we generally only get the drink of the day and hope for the 10 drink card allowing you to get ten drinks at a pretty good discount. The card can be shared but is not always available. Our first two RCCL cruises it was offered halfway through, unfortunately this last one it wasn’t. This year we each had two 8 buck drinks so with gratuities spent about 40 on drinks.
Drink card is generally good value, since you can get mixed drinks/mid-shelf drinks for the price of am on-board beer.
I think the Big Game disrupted your prices a bit. I've mentioned this before, but ValueTrips gives some great rates at Hyatt Place over the summer and you get a decent sized room (can sleep 6-8 comfortably) plus breakfast (if you sign up for the rewards program). My brother has actually booked them for 2 nights for my Symphony cruise out of Miami.Flights and hotels are tough nowadays. Southwest used to be the cheapest for us until this year. Hoping when the 737 maxes are back in service their prices go down and they add some more fights. In Ft Lauderdale we have 2 hotels we like, but they aren’t dirt cheap unfortunately. Port Canaveral we have a hotel that has been a great deal but we haven’t sailed from there in a while.