2022 9-Night Southern

[anricat]

We are going to put a deposit down on this one as well, but I expect it will be expensive. Our first choice is to try for Greece (AGAIN) but if we're not ready for international travel by next summer, we'll just stick closer to home and do this one. For a once in a lifetime trip (the Greek cruise, that is) I want everything to be up and running and near normal but we love the Southern Caribbean itineraries. We've done a couple on the Wonder and they are fabulous.

 

[gatordoc]

Celebrity is doing a 9 or 10 night ABC out of Ft Lauderdale this summer. St Maarten and St Thomas are meh for me. We will probably stay on the ship for one of these. Haven't been to St John, so we might do that instead of staying in St Thomas. Dominica seems interesting. We did a 7 night Celebrity out of San Juan in 2018, only adults. We loved Antigua, St Kitts, and St Lucia. We had booked the DCL one this summer and loved the itinerary. I still think this one is pretty good and much more ideal for a kid than the Celebrity ones.

We did an ABC cruise on Celebrity a couple of years ago. The ports were great, but we were bored beyond belief on sea days. We’re two adults without kids, and love sea days on DCL. There’s always lots of fun stuff to do, and there are plenty of quiet places to relax. On the Celebrity cruise, finding a place to sit was nearly impossible, and everyplace on the ship seemed to be noisy or have really bad music playing. Most activities seemed to be related to gambling, shopping, or dancing - just not major interests of ours. Really hoping DCL starts back soon - it’s our one true cruising love of the five lines we’ve sailed on.

 

[soniam]

We did an ABC cruise on Celebrity a couple of years ago. The ports were great, but we were bored beyond belief on sea days. We’re two adults without kids, and love sea days on DCL. There’s always lots of fun stuff to do, and there are plenty of quiet places to relax. On the Celebrity cruise, finding a place to sit was nearly impossible, and everyplace on the ship seemed to be noisy or have really bad music playing. Most activities seemed to be related to gambling, shopping, or dancing - just not major interests of ours. Really hoping DCL starts back soon - it’s our one true cruising love of the five lines we’ve sailed on.

We actually really enjoyed sea days on the Summit and found it to be way more pleasant than DCL. There were a lot of quiet places to sit. We also had a balcony and would sit on it. Also, we had a suite and would sit it MIchael's, the suite lounge, which always had seating and was relaxing, even when it was full of people. Most of the guests in there were older couples, so that probably helped. Which ship were you on?

 

[Intr3pid]

Celebrity is doing a 9 or 10 night ABC out of Ft Lauderdale this summer. St Maarten and St Thomas are meh for me. We will probably stay on the ship for one of these. Haven't been to St John, so we might do that instead of staying in St Thomas. Dominica seems interesting. We did a 7 night Celebrity out of San Juan in 2018, only adults. We loved Antigua, St Kitts, and St Lucia. We had booked the DCL one this summer and loved the itinerary. I still think this one is pretty good and much more ideal for a kid than the Celebrity ones.



We were booked in a 5a (deluxe verandah (not family) on deck 9 aft) on the 9 Night SC for July 22, 2021. For 2 adults and a child, the total with insurance would have been $12,593.52 ($4500/adult, $2313/kid). We are now booked on the July 7 night WC for July 31, 2021. Same category/area (actually same exact cabin number) and people. The total, including insurance, is $9277.08 ($3255/adult, $1701/kid). Both of these were/are leaving from Port Canaveral. We did not book either of these on opening day. So, the 9 night is more expensive per night per person. The Southern Caribbean, especially summer, are kind of rare, so they can charge a bit more.

Yup, for the first timers, a Southern Caribbean itinerary should be built around either St Lucia/Pitons/Barbados or the ABC islands. If not, the Western or Eastern are a much better bang for your buck.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

We are going to put a deposit down on this one as well, but I expect it will be expensive. Our first choice is to try for Greece (AGAIN) but if we're not ready for international travel by next summer, we'll just stick closer to home and do this one. For a once in a lifetime trip (the Greek cruise, that is) I want everything to be up and running and near normal but we love the Southern Caribbean itineraries. We've done a couple on the Wonder and they are fabulous.

Did you do one of the 7 night Sailings from San Juan? I am so sad that we weren't able to do one of those before they stopped those itineraries.

 

[Luvmypetz]

Did you do one of the 7 night Sailings from San Juan? I am so sad that we weren't able to do one of those before they stopped those itineraries.

I did Southern Caribbean out of SJ. Why have they stopped, outside of Covid?

 

[anricat]

Did you do one of the 7 night Sailings from San Juan? I am so sad that we weren't able to do one of those before they stopped those itineraries.

Two of them, actually! We did one in Jan 2019 and one in Jan 2020. We almost didn't go on the Jan 2020 because we had Greece booked for June 2020 and I initially thought it was going to be too many cruises in one year. Boy am I glad I kept that Jan 2020!! The trip reports are in my signature if you're curious. We had an amazing times both years. 2020 may have a slight edge.

 

[anricat]

I did Southern Caribbean out of SJ. Why have they stopped, outside of Covid?

They didn't stop because of Covid. If I remember correctly, Southerns on the Wonder out of San Juan weren't on the schedule for 2021 or 2022 at all. First, the Wonder just sort of got it's ports shuffled around a bit, especially with adding New Orleans as an embarkation port. They only ever had a small handful of Southerns out of San Juan. I suspect the main reason was that they weren't super popular. The timing was weird (January) and it is really pretty expensive to fly to San Juan. We had airline sticker shock both times we went, but I saw people dropping out of our cruise group like flies when airline schedules began to open up and they saw the prices, and possibly also flight times. There are few direct flights (most flights go through Miami or Dallas) and it's a long day of travel. It was worth it though. Puerto Rico is beautiful and there are so many things to do before/after the cruise.

 

[KevinFL]

We like this one as well. Only hesitation aside from the premium on per night basis vs 7-night cruise is the chance that Wish will be sailing or debuting around this time and we want to be on the Wish when it starts sailing.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

I did Southern Caribbean out of SJ. Why have they stopped, outside of Covid?

It used to be like... 2 months sailing out of San Juan before they went to Canaveral for a few Sailings each year, then they started doing more sailings out of Galveston. It seemed like the San Juan sailings were always struggling for bookings because you could find some really great rates on them for a 7 night cruise and they were in Jan/Feb so not a real popular cruise time of the year anyway.

When they added NOLA as a home port, they did away with the Round trip San Juan sailings and the Canaveral sailings for the time being which is a bummer in my eyes. They filled the time with more NOLA/Galveston cruises.

If you ever get a chance to do it, the 4 night (although the 2 we did were 5 night) Magic repo's from San Juan to Miami were AMAZING. Definitely my favorite cruises we've done.

 

[anricat]

If you ever get a chance to do it, the 4 night (although the 2 we did were 5 night) Magic repo's from San Juan to Miami were AMAZING. Definitely my favorite cruises we've done.

I wish we had done that as a B2B after our last Southern. I just thought we had a summer of travel coming down the pipeline. If anything, the pandemic has taught me that when in doubt TAKE THE TRIP. Always just TAKE THE TRIP. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

 

[gatordoc]

We actually really enjoyed sea days on the Summit and found it to be way more pleasant than DCL. There were a lot of quiet places to sit. We also had a balcony and would sit on it. Also, we had a suite and would sit it MIchael's, the suite lounge, which always had seating and was relaxing, even when it was full of people. Most of the guests in there were older couples, so that probably helped. Which ship were you on?

We were on the Equinox. I posted a complete review/DCL comparison if anyone is interested:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/platinum-disney-cruisers-try-celebrity-long.3704753/I know lots of people like Celebrity, but it just wasn’t right for us.

 

[AquaDame]

I wish we had done that as a B2B after our last Southern. I just thought we had a summer of travel coming down the pipeline. If anything, the pandemic has taught me that when in doubt TAKE THE TRIP. Always just TAKE THE TRIP. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

I always wanted to do the same, but we never ended up on the sailing right before or after the repo so it just never worked out. If they bring these cruises back we'll be on them again even though we've already done four (one was on RCCL, but we did not enjoy that sailing).

 

[MEC004]

We are hoping for this one too. We were going to do a family veranda in 2019 and if I remember it was almost 12k for a family of 3. Sticker shock and not even seeing Mount Pelee has me wavering more towards an Alaska cruise.

 

[GigEmAgs]

We are hoping for this one too. We were going to do a family veranda in 2019 and if I remember it was almost 12k for a family of 3. Sticker shock and not even seeing Mount Pelee has me wavering more towards an Alaska cruise.

Looking at historical prices, I'm almost inclined to do a 4/5 or 5/4 on the Dream for potentially less than this southern. I would love Alaska this year, but want to wait until my kids (7/3) are a bit older so we can do some awesome excursions together.

 

[n2mm]

Saw the price for 2 adults this morning and wow. I can do a b2b, two 7 night Caribbean cruises in august/September for less. Which is what we are booking. Rather have 14 nights, with 2 castaway cay stops. We want to do the 9 night because of Antigua, but not in the cards.

 

[anricat]

Saw the price for 2 adults this morning and wow. I can do a b2b, two 7 night Caribbean cruises in august/September for less. Which is what we are booking. Rather have 14 nights, with 2 castaway cay stops. We want to do the 9 night because of Antigua, but not in the cards.

Antigua was one of our favorite ports last year. It's really too bad they don't do more Southerns.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Saw the price for 2 adults this morning and wow. I can do a b2b, two 7 night Caribbean cruises in august/September for less. Which is what we are booking. Rather have 14 nights, with 2 castaway cay stops. We want to do the 9 night because of Antigua, but not in the cards.

I'm on hold waiting for 9-night with DVC. What is the B2B you found (might need a Plan B)?

 

[tinkerone]

Here's the 9 night pricing for two adults, balcony, not including FCC.

Thursday - SaturdayJuly 21 - 30, 2022
Sailing on

Deck 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Aft. Lowest price is $9090 so not cheap.

�

Adult 1	4419 $4,419.00
stateroom-price-breakdown.table-header-label Adult 2	4419 $4,419.00
stateroom-price-breakdown.table-header-label Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses	252.44 $252.44

Total Stateroom Price

9090.44 $9,090.44

Price goes up from there.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Got the 9 night 4A. Had a gigzillion points from 4 canceled cruises.