So, What's "The Catch?"

[Fern]

Paul, I would have made many mistakes on our cruise's after the 1st one(which was a "free" cruise from DH's company).

Thankfully, by the time we took our second cruise, I had found this site and was able to learn some very important things.

We've never been "caught" by anyone on board the ship (we don't do the Spa stuff), but we did spend $5.00 on a cab to a shopping center in Ocho Rios, Jamacia. After the driver dropped us off we found that at the end of the shopping area was the (very short) walk to the ship !

[OldFartCruiser]

Here are a few unexpected higher costs for your cruise.

1st - A ship transfer cost from the port to FLL is $15-$20 pp. A cab cost ~$15 for the ride. Cab goes directly to your airline, shuttle goes to everyones airline before yours.

2nd - Book your cruise then look for good airfare to & from FLL. You may be able to get a good airfare to FLL, but if your ship returns on a Saturday or Sunday be prepared to pay 50% or more for a flight home after 10:00am until 6:00pm. There will be 7 or 8 other ships (incl RCL's monsters) arriving and the airlines know that. To get around that, if you live w/i a days drive and it is a winter cruise, rent a car and drive it. The car rental agencies have an excess of cars in Florida and will charge a very norminal drop off fee.

I used Fort Lauderdale as an example, but other ports may be the similar.

OF C'er

[Paul Motter]

I was on Seabourn - Canada New England, and while in Canada I received a text message containing a picture of our dogs.

I looked at the picture on my cell phone - but it must have been 5 MB in size when attached. Even though I had "data roaming" turned OFF on my phone I was surprised to see a charge of $480 just for data on my next phone bill.

The amount of data they said I used was a mere 28 MB - but the charge is $25 per megabyte.

Now, I had data roaming turned off - so I wanted to know what kind of data I was being charged for (the bill did not specify it was the picture, this is just what I assume). Verizon actually told me I needed a court order to find out the exact type of data was I was charged for due to "privacy laws." Well, we are talking about my own phone.

Needless to say, I was told a lot of stupid, useless, incorrect information about that charge by Verizon. Finally I got a supervisor to retroactively reduce the charge to a mere $30 to reflect the cost a 50 MB data package had I pre-paid it.

Obviously, I didn't buy one in advance because 50 MB is nothing if one picture can use up 28 MB of data transfer. But in the end it was worth not having to fight over the $480 charge - so we just paid it.