Considering my first DCL cruise

[VS85]

My cousin and I are considering sailing the eastern itinerary B on the Fantasy in December 2014. I've gotten some great advice from reading the boards, but have some questions that hopefully someone can shed some light on.

1. We want to sail the week before Christmas - how busy will the crowd be the week before the holiday? I am hoping it will be a little calmer as people will want to sail when they have the time off of work and school.

2. What has been your experience with weather at this time of year? I have done a western Caribbean cruise at this time - is weather in the eastern Caribbean similar?

3. We are probably going to book a category 5D so we can be sure that we have a non whitewall verandah. Anyone stay in this category that has a preferred room I could look into? My cousin is prone to motion sickness, so I assume we should look for a room that is more mid-ship, correct?

4. In St. Thomas, we are considering the SeaTrek adventure at coral world (the one with the helmet). Has anyone done this who could tell me about their experience? In San Juan we are thinking about the horseback riding excursion and in Castaway Cay we will likely just relax on the beach.

5. Is pirate night normally on the 4th night of the cruise? We really want to go to Remy for dinner, and decided that we are ok with skipping the pirate menu in the MDRs and then just checking out the party on the decks later. Since we are new cruisers on DCL and not concierge, I would like to try to make the reservation on the night that is most likely pirate night without trying to rebook if its the wrong night.

Thanks for any help with these questions! Even though this trip is soooo far away, we are getting really excited and these boards have definitely helped to keep the excitement going. For those of you sailing soon, happy travels!

 

[su_A_ve]

1. We want to sail the week before Christmas - how busy will the crowd be the week before the holiday? I am hoping it will be a little calmer as people will want to sail when they have the time off of work and school.

Assuming you are looking at 12/31/14 sailing, more than likely busy. DCL will do whatever it takes to fill the ship up. Since it's right before xmas, some folks may take the kids out of school during that time, specially since the following week will be too expensive. Otherwise, DCL will throw out *GT rates to fill it up.

It will be interesting to see what happens then, as the Fantasy moves to weekly eastern routes, while the Wonder picks up the western... Also, the classic ships would both be out of dry docks...

If you look at this year's rates for the 12/14 sailing, some categories are completely gone, and all other rates have already gone up quite a bit, meaning they are selling already.

 

[woody73]

. . . We want to sail the week before Christmas - how busy will the crowd be . . .

Assuming you are looking at 12/31/14 sailing, more than likely busy. . .

Did you mean 12/13/14?

Woody