Our pre-cruise adventure (of sorts)
We live in Virginia, we are cruising out of Bayonne, NJ tomorrow on the Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas.
What normally should have been a 4-4.5 hr. drive took us 7 hrs.
Had we decided to drive up tomorrow, we would have missed our ship!
Tip 1
Plan to arrive the day before your cruise to make sure your travel time isn’t longer than expected or that flight reservations don’t get cancelled or changed.
We drove up I-95 where we encountered one accident & traffic jam after another plus it was raining!
We set up our tunes and just went with the flow because we weren’t rushing to catch our ship.
Tip 2
Have your travel agent ask about a hotels Park & Fly or Park and Cruise packages. This are very useful and typically less expensive than airport or cruise port parking.
I’m our case we are staying at a Springhill Suites by Marriott where we got our first 7 night parking for free and then we are paying $17.00 a day until we fly back into Newark Airport.
If we had planned to park at the cruise terminal for 16 days our cost would have been $400.00 plus tax. With our park & cruise package we are saving over $236.00!
That’s $236.00 my hubby can play with in the ships casino!
In our case, no hotel that we asked has transportation to the cruise port, so we will be taking a taxi. But when we fly back to Newark, our hotel does have an airport shuttle. So when we arrive back to the states we’ll have transportation back to the hotel & our car.
Tip 3
Have your travel agent check to see if there will be any construction going on during your stay.
I booked us on the Marriott Travel Agent portal only after I checked the actual hotels website. No references to any construction. It was a great big surprise to us when we drove up to the hotel and it looked closed. The entire front lobby, gym, pool and other areas are under construction here. Their set up was/ is really unacceptable for anyone. But I digress.
Tip 4
If you have hotel reservations before a cruise or for your whole trip don’t accept not being compensated for a property being under construction. DON’T be nasty, but ask for a discount or a day of free parking etc. Also don’t be greedy. Compensation should equal to what you are losing.
Such as I really needed the hot tub to sooth my aching back after a 7 hr. car ride! So no hot tub equaled 1 night free parking, they accepted my request.
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Well, so has gone our first day of this journey. I’m excited for this entire adventure we are embarking on but now it is time for rest.
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