I've posted part of this on another thread comparing 3, 4 and 7 night cruises and pros and cons of Back-to-back cruises. Plus, I've added some stuff.
So the last night of the cruise, we got a note in our room and a call to let us know to meet at Guest Services at 9:15 a.m. the next day to get off the ship.
There was only one couple aside from us doing back-to-backs. We had to wait a little while to get off because for some reason they were a little slower clearing the boat. A lot of people seemed to be sitting around waiting for something. Not sure what. The
DCL folks seemed surprised by the delay. Not a big deal. We got off sometime after 9:30 a.m., Id say.
A DCL crew member walked with us through customs and back up to the port area. They told us wed be checked on in a little bit. But then I think they forgot us until the other couple asked about getting checked on (they already begun checking others on at this point.) As soon as they asked, DCL checked us in, took our pics and walked us back on board.
Some of the doors were locked down, I guess for testing, so we couldnt get back into our room right away. We went to Cove Café, as we were told to do on our note. They said kids could go there as well until others started to board the boat. But some crew members were enjoying the area, and the guy working there didnt seem to get the memo that we were supposed to come there. He said our daughter wasnt supposed to be there, and he didnt want to give us a couple glasses of water (instead, wanted to sell us drinks.) We explained we were doing back-to-backs, so he gave us the glasses of water. And then we decided to head out so our daughter wouldnt disturb anyone. Plus, we had heard by then that the test they were doing with the doors was over, so we figured we could get in our room.
A CM had to open the main door to our walkway, so then we were good to go. At about 11:45 we headed down to Parrot Cay for lunch. We were the first ones in there, and it was really nice.
And because we were Back-to-Back cruisers (at least thats what they told us) we had special gifts every day in our room.
We came back to a nice fruit bowl the first day:
ookies another day (though I forgot to take a pic before we ate them. We took them into a movie with us.)
A cheese platter:
And finally a chocolate, dessert platter:
It was just very thoughtful, and helped make our trip even more special.
Also, the last night of the 3-night cruise, we took our tips to the dining staff. We had only gone in one day. (we did Palo another day, and the CC day we went to an early show instead of early dining so we could get to bed earlier. We just had dinner out on deck 9 while our daughter swam and played with one of her friends.) So anyway, the head server seemed very worried that we hadnt returned since the first night. He said he could come eat breakfast at anytime the next morning, so we wouldnt have to get up so early. And when I asked if we could select our rotation and asked what our options were, he said, What would you like. And then he gave us that rotation (Tritons, Animators Palate, Animators Palate and Parrot Cay.) He was great the rest of the trip as well, and Ill mention him quite a bit in the dining part of this report.
If we had wanted to add or change a Palo reservation, we could have done that the last night of the cruise too. We wanted to cancel ours, since we had already gone on the first one. It was easy to change.
Pros of Back-to-Back
--You really get to know the crew, and they are some wonderful people. We enjoyed getting to know each of them better.
--DCL was very nice about giving us little treats. Not sure if they do it every time, but we loved it.
--Since you can see each show twice, you can also choose to do other things. So we saw the shows on our first cruise, and then on the second cruise we spent time swimming at night, going to other activities and just overall enjoying relaxing times.
--Two stops at
Castaway Cay, which we loved!
Cons
--Two life jacket drills
--You kind of lose a good portion of one day because all of the services are shut down as people are leaving the boat.