u/mALYficent

Hi everyone! I am a non-Croatian spouse of a Croatian descendent. His parents immigrated to Canada in 1967 and are Canadian citizens (unsure if they also kept their Croatian citizenship as well, but we'll find out). My husband, myself, and our kids (age 8 and 3) are all Canadian citizens. I have a couple of questions off the bat.

1. Can I, as the spouse, apply at the same time as he (along with our kids) does? Or do I have to wait until his/theirs is finished and approved before I am able to apply?

2. Do our kids also need to write letters of motivation? Or just him and I?

3. Have you found the third party lawyers/immigration services to be worth the cost for smaller family units? I could definitely see their value if working on a large family group, or having to go through multiple generations of documents. But in our case we'll be just two forms, and only one generation removed. Unsure if the value would be there, but I don't even know how much they cost.

4. We live in Alberta - can anyone who's gone through the process confirm if we would travel to Ottawa for the application? I've seen reference to a Croatian consulate in Vancouver but I can't seem to find any hard evidence that we could apply there.

5. After the application in person, what has been the approximate waiting time to be approved? After that, how long does it take to apply for/receive passports?

Thank you in advance!

WE BOOKED! The day after I made that post, the Dreams pricing shot up by a huge amount and Secrets came down a little bit, so they were only about a $200 difference from each other. Because of that, we booked the Secrets side, and we are SO EXCITED!! Can't wait to celebrate our anniversary in such a beautiful place <3 Would love any tips or recommendations you have for this resort! We are not staying preferred, just the basic garden view room :)

We sailed on Odyssey in the Greek Isles from May 3-10 (4 port days, 2 sea days). Since last June when we booked the trip, I purchased and subsequently cancelled both the DBP and the RP for us, as well as the Soda Pkg for our son. At the end, I decided to go out of pocket entirely. I mapped out estimates of how many drinks we would have per day based on the specific port schedule of that day, and just couldn't seem to commit to a package of any kind. Here's where we ended up.

Lowest price I saw on the DBP was $62.99 USD, which for me was around $79/day CAD, totaling $1312 for the duration of the cruise.

Lowest price I saw on the RP was either $26.99 or $28.99 USD (can't remember exactly), which for me was $37/day CAD, totaling $610.54 and I thought we'd maybe spend another $400 on alcohol on top of that, totaling $1010.54 for the duration of the cruise.

Lowest price I saw on the SP was $10 or $11 USD, which was $16.04/day CAD, totaling $132.44 for the duration of the cruise.

My husband and I had cocktails when we felt we wanted to and didn't restrict ourselves, had wine/drinks with dinner every night that we were in MDR, and he had a couple of specialty coffees. My son never ended up asking for a coke and was happy with milk, water, and lemonade, and one fruity non-alcoholic drink from the Bionic Bar. We filled our reusable water bottles for port days from the tap, and our drivers in the ports mostly provided us with additional water bottles as well. Our total beverage bill on the boat was $365.67 USD, which was $513.93 CAD.

We saved SO much by not getting any packages at all! If you're on a port heavy cruise, or are just a casual and not a heavy drinker, there is no reason to spend on a package. Hope this helps someone!

EDIT TO ADD: I added a screenshot in a comment below of my folio data breaking it down by day/location

My husband and I are looking at booking an AI for 5 nights for our 10 year wedding anniversary in October. We had basically landed on Secrets Playa Mujeres, but when looking at options on the Costco website, the Dreams side comes out SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper for the same entry-level Garden View junior suite. Has anyone stayed at Dreams, but spent their days at Secrets? Is there any downside to doing this?

Need to get from Barberini to Colosseo in an hour and a bit, will we be able to use the metro?