Vegas & Cruise in Oct 6 to 22, advice?

[blainehamilton]

My wife and I are driving down to Vegas to spend a week with my family this Oct, and then head down to LA to take a 4 day cruise out of long beach.

We haven't been down to vegas (well I haven't) since Sept 01 and I'm just curious what is new. I've read a bit on LVforums but wanted to get a canuck perspective.

More importantly, what should we keep in mind for the cruise, it's a cheaper cruise on the carnival paradise, 4 nights with 1 day at Catalina Island and 1 day in Ensednada. This one was close to free, so we figured we would take a short one with minimal cruising time because I seem to get motion sickness easily these days, and we couldn't afford to spend the farm. What sort of extra costs are we looking at once on board, and during shore excursions? What tips can you offer, what stuff should we see first?

Also, If you guys were going to rent a car for this trip, what would you look for? Bear in mind this is Edmonton to Long Beach and back. If we could rent one way from edmonton to vegas, then vegas to long beach, then long beach to edmonton, that would be awesome! Would save us 11 days of rental time...

[rockster]

More importantly, what should we keep in mind for the cruise, it's a cheaper cruise on the carnival paradise, 4 nights with 1 day at Catalina Island and 1 day in Ensednada. This one was close to free, so we figured we would take a short one with minimal cruising time because I seem to get motion sickness easily these days, and we couldn't afford to spend the farm. What sort of extra costs are we looking at once on board, and during shore excursions? What tips can you offer, what stuff should we see first?

Also, If you guys were going to rent a car for this trip, what would you look for? Bear in mind this is Edmonton to Long Beach and back. If we could rent one way from edmonton to vegas, then vegas to long beach, then long beach to edmonton, that would be awesome! Would save us 11 days of rental time...
I'm really prone to motion sickness. I got seabands which really made a huge difference. If you decide to get them, get the velcro kind cause the elastic kind are really tight. I hardly felt any motion sickness, and the ship is so big, it feels very stable. I think it's better to be in the middle than the front or back of the ship.

I would do a lot of research about the ports because the excursions the ship will offer will be expensive. I haven't gone to the ports you're going to, but by booking tour companies on my own we saved a lot of money, plus we met some people on board and ended up getting taxis together and splitting costs on stuff.

save money and time by,
-Bringing a small cooler, that way you can get some food from room service or one of the restaurants onboard and you can pack it for the excursions.
-Bring some bottled water, or a water bottle so you can fill up on the ship for excursions. Bring a six pack of pop if the pop isn't free onboard. Bring a bottle of alcohol if you plan on drinking and don't want to get a huge bill at the end of your cruise.
-getting a lanyard for the pass so you don't have to keep searching for it and risk it falling out of your pocket
-get a disposable waterproof cameras at a store like wal-mart if you're planning on water activities. It'll be really expensive to buy this onboard.
-generally they have a sale on the last day of the cruise so if you have your heart set on a sweatshirt or something and there's lots of them, I'd wait to buy it.

car rental: it might work out to be more expensive to drop off the car at a different location than to just have the same car for the whole time. There's a lot of promo codes out there, so definitely look into that. Personally, I would avoid a convertible because I got upgraded to a convertible once and it was a real inconvenience cause coudln't leave anything in the car and I had a lot of luggage..

Have a great trip. It sounds very exciting!