[784caroline]

We have a cruise (Celebrity Millennium) planned leaving out of LA while making stops along the Mexican Riveria, Costa Rica, Transiting the Panama Canal, Colon, Cartagena COlumbia, Aruba and ending up in San Juan.

Anyone have any tips or must dos especially in ports such as Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, or Puntarenas Costa Rica. Plannning on just walking in Cabo, see the cliff divers in Acapulco and enjoying the canal transit. Open for suggestions from people who may have visited tehse ports of call in the past.

[Dayton]

No suggestions, sorry. But it sounds like a wonderful cruise. Would you mind giving a price estimate, length of cruise, other info??

[784caroline]

Its a 16 day cruise and that includes 7 sea days and 1 full day time transit of the canal. PLus I think you are getting the cream of the crop as far as ports of call are concerned along this route. As far as cost they had some great Florida rates with an inside cabin going for as little as $899 a person plus port taxes..up to a Concierge (CC)Veranda cabin for $1499 per person plus port tax. Suites on a guarantee basis were running from $!799 up. So for the inside cabin double occupancy with tax and everything included you were paying approx $70 per person per day while a CC veranda was running about $!08 per day (taxes incuded). Std Veranda was 1349 plus tax or $98 per day.

Believe it or not, on top of these rates, our agent gave us substantial ON-Board Credits (OBC) AND we are also eligible for a $250 shareholder OBC per cabin simply by owning at least 100 shares of RCCL stock. You could have bought RCCL stock for $5 plus per share (Approx $600/ 100) and you would get an immediate On Board Credit from the company of $250 for taking a 12 day or longer cruise. BTW the stock today is hovering around $23. Our Net Cost per day after considering the OBC is about $90/day per person for 16 days for a very nice CC cabin.

We have taken a similar trip out of San Diego and sailed to Miami. One thing I would pass on is that if you arrive in Costa Rica on Sunday do not take a van our your own with a group. The Van's are not allowed to run on Sunday's as the Gov't tries to protect Taxi's. We did not know that and 8 of us hired a van off the ship. On the way back it was stopped in a road block, the license plates taken off by the police and only because we had a spanish speaking person on the van were we able to convince the police to let it take us to the ship. Other than that slight divergence we had a very good cruise.

[784caroline]

WOW...Thanks for the insight Fortunately sunday will be a cruising day for us so we will not have the pronlems you encountered. We normally do. as you did, book a tour we like off the ship but I have not heard of this experience.

[RVRoadie]

In Costa Rica be careful about arranging your own transportation, particularly if you are going to San Jose. The highway is just two lanes and very conjested. Any accident can shut it down for hours.

We were there earlier this hear and took a ships tour to San Jose. An accident closed the main highway for the return trip and we took a two hour detour. Because it was a ships tour, they held the ship until we returned.

[784caroline]

Thanks for the info about getting to San Jose..Just curious is there anything to do near where the ship docks in Costa Rica????

[RVRoadie]

It is a relatively small village on a spit of land. Some people enjoyed just walking around, but we didn't get a chance to do that. The San Jose tour was well worth the $99. Had a nice meal at a hacienda, a tour of some of the museums of San Jose and stops at a couple of smaller villages. We usually arrange our own tours with others on the Cruise Critic forums. We were on RCL for 46 days around the horn, and this was one of two ships tours we did (the other was a bust).

[Ohiogirl]

Originally Posted by RVRoadie

It is a relatively small village on a spit of land. Some people enjoyed just walking around, but we didn't get a chance to do that. The San Jose tour was well worth the $99. Had a nice meal at a hacienda, a tour of some of the museums of San Jose and stops at a couple of smaller villages. We usually arrange our own tours with others on the Cruise Critic forums. We were on RCL for 46 days around the horn, and this was one of two ships tours we did (the other was a bust).

I was going to say "What was the bust tour"? but somehow that didn't look right once I typed it . Once we retire and move down to TV we plan to take a respositioning tour leaving or arriving from or to a Florida port. I'm a planner, so just want to know what is good to avoid. Have done 4 or 5 cruises, on in the western Mediterannean (which I highly recommend - great way to sample Europe without much hassle) and one in Hawaii (great way to see several islands, which is expensive by plane).

We mostly devised our own shore tours as well, both to save money and to have more fun. Sometimes getting there is the best part (city buses, taxi driver conversations, etc).

[emily]

Hi,

You will spend less days at sea if you go from Europe to the US.

Emily

[784caroline]

You may spend less days at sea cruising Europe to the US but you will appreciate the sea time travelling US to Europe to over come jet lag or the time zone change differences.