Niles, Michigan: Holiday Inn Express

February 2024, weekday, one night

Platinum perks and arrival

I reserved a 2 queen bed suite at this location because the price was reasonable, and we wanted a room with a sitting area (there were no king suites available). We had an excellent arrival experience and received an upgrade to a family suite. Before the front desk agent gave us the upgrade, she asked if a room on the second floor was okay, since my profile request is for the top floor. 

Suite 213 in Holiday Inn Express in Niles, Michigan

Queen family suite #213

This guestroom is huge! We loved the sitting area, and the separate bedroom. The guestroom diagram, which shows that this guestroom has a connecting door is incorrect. This room does not have a connecting room door.

Suite 213 in Holiday Inn Express in Niles, Michigan

Plainfield, Indiana: Staybridge Suites

February 2024, weekdays, 2 nights

View from guestroom 418 in Staybridge Suites Plainfield, Indiana

Platinum perks and check in

I reserved a king studio, and received a nice upgrade to a one bedroom suite before arrival. Check-in was efficient, and I received my bonus points within a few hours of check-in.

Guestroom 418 in Staybridge Suites Plainfield, Indiana

King one bedroom suite 418

This guestroom is located on the top floor. The sunset both nights of our stay was amazing. The couple of photos I am sharing do not fully capture the beauty we witnessed.

Guestroom 418 in Staybridge Suites Plainfield, Indiana

Holland, Michigan: Marriott Courtyard, hiking, downtown

February 2024, weekday, one-night

View from guestroom 509 in Holland Marriott Courtyard
Above: sunset           Below: sunrise

Double queen guestroom 509 in Marriott Courtyard

Using points, I reserved a two queen bed guestroom with a balcony. We did not need two beds; however, a king bed guestroom with a balcony was not available. I was glad that we were able to reserve a balcony guestroom using points.

Guestroom 509 in Holland Marriott Courtyard

This guestroom is on the top floor, and overlooks downtown. It was clean, comfortable, quiet, and spacious. Refreshment amenities in the guestroom included a Keurig coffeemaker with supplies, ice bucket, and small fridge.

Guestroom 509 in Holland Marriott Courtyard

Ports of Call from Carnival Venezia: Princess Cay, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, San Juan, Miami, Nassau, Freeport

January and February 2024

Princess Cays on Carnival Venezia January 2024

Princess Cays, Bahamas: January 8AM - 4PM

Princess Cays is a tender port, and we received a printed paper with tender instructions the night before. The paper actually contained information about priority tender boarding for passengers with excursions. I presume they just used the same notice for platinum and diamond guests, too. After breakfast, we walked to the showroom boarding area, where boarding was already in process. We arrived on the island before 9AM.

Princess Cays January 2024

We walked to the right after getting off the tender boat, as we had heard this area is less crowded than the main side. It was definitely less crowded. In fact, we decided not to have lunch on the island after we saw how crowded and busy the main area was later in the day. The lines for lunch looked like utter chaos. Some in our group stayed; however, my husband and I returned to the ship.

Princess Cays January 2024 from the less visited side of the island

This was our first visit to Princess Cays. The water is beautiful; however, the island and beach area is much smaller than Half Moon Cay. If you just want to enjoy the beach and water, there are plenty of lounge chairs available on both sides of the port dock.

View from our pool chairs at Margaritaville in Grand Turk

Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos: 11AM - 6PM

We have been to Grand Turk several times, and you can find more information about this port by clicking on the label at the bottom of the post. We have previously done beach days at this port, as well as the Junkanoo Party Bus, Rum Mixology & Beach shore excursion. This time, we decided to just have margaritas at Margaritaville. 

Carnival Venezia at Amber Cove January 2024
Below: Amber Cove pricing - visible if you click on it to enlarge

Carnival Venezia Cruise: 10-day Eastern Caribbean and 9-day Bahamas from Manhattan

January and February 2024

There are literally hundreds of posts and comments about this new Carnival ship. I tried to focus this post on some of the less talked about things; however, it is still a bit lengthy. There is lots of info, if you are looking!

We added a second cruise to our original booking a bit after we had booked the first itinerary. The cabin we had for the first cruise was not available the second week, so we had to change rooms on our back-to-back cruise. You can find more info about B2B details near the end of this post.

Above: Manhattan pier 88 as Venezia is pulling away
Below: the walkway as we are boarding

Arrival and platinum check-in ~ Manhattan cruise terminal

We walked one mile to the cruise port from DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel New York Times Square West. This was pretty easy without many pedestrians until we got close to the port. Our check-in time was one of the earliest, 10AM - 10:30AM, and there were quite a few guests wheeling their luggage away from the port when we were trying to enter the port area. We felt a bit like fish swimming upstream.  😄

The check-in process and security screening went quickly, and then we took a seat in the general waiting area until boarding started. We did not hear any special groups board, like wedding parties; just handicap and diamond guests before platinum guests boarded. We were on board around 10:45 AM. Guests boarded later than this for our second cruise, because our B2B process had not been completed yet at 10:30 AM.

 

Balcony cabin 7209 on Carnival Venezia

Balcony cabin 7209 category 8G

We felt like this cabin should be listed as an obstructed view cabin with a lower price than an 8G balcony cabin. We would have chosen the cabin next door, #7215, if we had realized the information I am sharing here.

Balcony cabin category 8G #7209 on Carnival Venezia

The balcony in this cabin is about 1' shorter than the rest of the balconies because of the way it starts out since it is the first cabin. Also, since the bridge is on deck 8, we had an extreme overhead roof, and some obstructions from the navigation equipment. The overhead roof was not as much of a hinderance to us as the equipment. If you prefer sun, you will definitely not like this room.

Balcony cabin category 8G #7209 on Carnival Venezia