Carnival Paradise Advice

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 06:00:54 -0500, Fuzzy Melton
wrote:


Our family leaves in 2 weeks for our first cruise aboard Carnival
Paradise. Anyone out there with suggestions or hints or tips, I would
greatly appreciate your advice. Our family consists of 3 kids ages 15,
11, and 2. We have already booked X-stream tubing and are looking at
sting-ray city as a shore excursion in Grand Cayman and Tulum in
Cozumel.

Congratulations, the Paradise is a wonderful ship. We have been on it
twice and had great times.

Some questions I have a

How much are the soda cards?
They vary but I seem to remember around $20 for the kids.

Are there activities for my teenage son?
It depends. If there are other teenagers, they will be into
everything. My son was 14 the last time on the Paradise and had a
great time with just a few teenagers. Don't be suprised if he doesn't
hang out at Camp Carnival unless one of the other kids wants to.

If you went to Roatan what do you recommend to do there?
The scuba diving was very good. According to my wife, the beaches were
wonderful. There are also several sail & snorkel trips that are nice.
If you are feeling adventurous grab a cab, make sure the driver speaks
English and have him "show you around". There is not much on Roatan
except the beaches and watersports. It is not a shopping stop.

And anything else you can think of.
Stingray City is a wonderful experience. Don't take the ship tour
(it's not bad, it is just that there are better). Take the first
tender you can get on. Walk through the gazebo to the street. Walk
across the main street (right in front of the gazebo). Go left and
walk about 3 blocks and look for the Captain Marvin signs. He has a
little storefront shop (or search on Google for Captain Marvin) and
reserve a spot on the morning trip if you can. By the afternnon the
rays are pretty well fed and aren't as much fun. Captain Marvin's tour
stops at two other places to snorkel and was much cheaper than the
ship tour.

If you are going to Jamaica (the Paradise used to stop there) do your
shopping early. It is a Jamaican superstition that if the first
customer will buy, it will be a good day. Also bypass the Tourist trap
just off the pier until later. They will not haggle. The best place we
found was Suni's Plaza (the one a little further from the piers). My
wife got a Tanzanite ring, Tanzanite earrings and a Tanzanite bracelet
for $400. The bracelet alone was listed at $1200 and she had it
appraised for $1700 at a local jeweller. The funny thing is, she
wasn't haggling. She just kept walking in and out of the store while
my friend & I haggled over some dive watches. When the clerk told her
$400 for the set, she called over to me "How much are you spending?".
I said "$500", she bought the set. The watches were $250 each, but
list for $600 and normally sell for $325 on the Internet. It pays to
be the first customers.

Thanks very much for all your previous posts and advice and help. I
have read much of them and we are all excited.

Mark

If you hate Carnival please don't post here and start our vacation off
wrong.