New Grandeur of the Seas Daily Vlog Series (Looking for tips for Quantum!)

Time for another video! Today we are taking a look at the final port of call, Labadee. We were in port along side the Explorer so their is a bonus horn battle included. While editing this video it was incredibly noticeable to me how much more relaxed I was in this one compared to the first few. Should be a good sign for Quantum, and shows that this test series really did make a difference!

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As always if you have any comments or suggestions please let me know so I can take them into consideration as I plan for Quantum of the Seas next month.

Just like Falmouth, for those that may not be aware their is also a port tour video for Labadee. I've got to admit though a lot of people think the pan is too quick in it, even I realized that. I actually slowed it by about 10 or 15 percent, the most I could do without it being noticeable. On Quantum I will be filming a Coco Cay tour in a similar style. I will try to slow the pans. I didn't receive these kinds of comments for the Grandeur or Falmouth tours so I think it was a result of longer viewing distances resulting in a faster perceived pan. I've never been to Coco Cay so if anyone that has wants to provide some tips on important things to make sure are covered please feel free to share.

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Wow, this is great! Thanks for doing this, Derek.:) DH and I were on the sailing after yours, January 21st to the Eastern Caribbean. I've come back to the RCI boards to start planning for booking our next Grandeur Cruise, doing the Western Itinerary, and I just discovered your videos today (have only watched the first one, so far). So I'm sure your videos are going to be very helpful in my research and planning. Keep up the good work.:)

Thanks for taking the time to post these videos. They are amazing. Having sailed the Grandeur several times, they brought back fond memories. Will be on her again next year. We like to get away from the cold weather and the Port of Baltimore is so convenient

Will be looking forward to your Quantum video review. We will not have the opportunity to cruise on the Quantum so I will have to enjoy the cruise thru your videos.

Again thanks.

Thanks for watching. It's great to see so much love for the Grandeur in the north east. She's a special little ship. Never expected to like her after always going bigger prior to her, but she pulled it off. Only ship I've sailed on more than once, and the port of Baltimore being so easy was a big help in that as well.

...DH and I were on the sailing after yours, January 21st to the Eastern Caribbean....

Hope you got to the port before the snow. I was hoping for a snowy departure for so long and never got it. Just wanted to get there and have a blizzard drop on us for the experience. Instead we got the rainy and icey departure and got back just in time for it to drop on us as we left the ship. Took about 4 hours to get home instead of 1. There's always Quantum, A B2B turnaround certainly feels like a nice day for some snow, lol.

Great job!, sailing on the Grandeur in a few weeks and doing the the same itinerary, thank you for the great information, it was very helpful.

Thank you!

Chris

...Hope you got to the port before the snow. I was hoping for a snowy departure for so long and never got it. Just wanted to get there and have a blizzard drop on us for the experience. Instead we got the rainy and icey departure and got back just in time for it to drop on us as we left the ship. Took about 4 hours to get home instead of 1. There's always Quantum, A B2B turnaround certainly feels like a nice day for some snow, lol.

We got to the port early. We were the first vehicle in the line, in the holding area to get into the parking lot. We had only been sitting there about 5 minutes before the first flake s started falling.

By the time we were onboard, an inch or two had accumulated on the Pool Deck and crew members were laughing and taking pictures of each other posing and playing in the snow. I may have gotten as much enjoyment out of watching them experience this weather novelty (for them) as they seemed to get out of it.:)

The next day, the crew really got to experience some snow as they shoveled it off the outer decks!:eek::p it was a little surreal being on a cruise headed to the Caribbean and watching snow being shoveled and dumped off of the ship!

We got to the port early. We were the first vehicle in the line, in the holding area to get into the parking lot. We had only been sitting there about 5 minutes before the first flake s started falling.

 

By the time we were onboard, an inch or two had accumulated on the Pool Deck and crew members were laughing and taking pictures of each other posing and playing in the snow. I may have gotten as much enjoyment out of watching them experience this weather novelty (for them) as they seemed to get out of it.:)

 

The next day, the crew really got to experience some snow as they shoveled it off the outer decks!:eek::p it was a little surreal being on a cruise headed to the Caribbean and watching snow being shoveled and dumped off of the ship!

I'm sure the crew had fun. I'm friends with one of them on FaceBook and they had a bunch of hilarious photos from that turn around day. In my day 10 video I'll have two photos from the very white drive home. I'm hoping to have that up next week, day 9 will be up in a few hours!

Time to start the journey home with Day 9, the first of the sea days headed back north. I hope everyone enjoys it. Without the ports the videos can get a bit shorter but I added an extended sunset sequence because it was truly beautiful that day. I've been refering to it as the devil sunset because I've never seen the seas and clouds look so black before while the skies were such a bright red color. It was incredible.

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Just to give you an idea, here is a picture of that devil sunset. The video shows it the same as the photo, no lighting tricks or effects.

Next will be day 10, the final episode of this beta sailing. We’ll take a look at some of the last activities onboard before reviewing the previous 10 days and then looking ahead to Quantum.

Great job with this video blog.

A really unique and professional liking review.

JKrise

Today is the tenth and final episode of theCruiseView beta sailing! Been a long journey to get to this point but I've figured out a lot of ways of improving things.

For this 10th episode we take a look at the fee venues as well as a look back over the previous 10 days and ahead to Quantum of the Seas. Hope you enjoy!

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If you are new to the series you can check out the entire 2 hour set with this playlist:

When combined with the rest of the Grandeur video series (6+ hours) and the May 2013 series (5+hours) there is more than 13 hours of Grandeur content to watch! That should keep someone busy for a while, lol.

I'm waiting to hear about one more detail, and then I'll be posting back with the Quantum plan! As always if you have and suggestions or comments please let me know so I can take it into consideration for Quantum.

I can share some details of what is coming for Quantum of the Seas! So the first thing that I should mention is the process involved in editing these videos, and this was refined during the previous series to get to this point. The original process is:

1. Synchronize the iPhone audio to the camera clip
   
2. Drop the clip into a new project
   
3. Watch through the whole video and create cuts so that I end up with a single perfect run through
   
4. Watch a second time and drop the basic elements (Intro, lower thirds, weather, compass, outro) and place gaps for the menu and venue tour
   
5. Watch a third time and place placeholders for video clips while looking up ones to match on my other computer as well as place the photos from iPhoto.
   
6. Reorganize the list of selected clips by date and time and select intro/outro clips.
   
7. Connect each camera backup and import the needed clips.
   
8. Drop the clips into their required spots.
   
9. Add photos from the menu and write a script for it.
   
10. Record the menu audio
    
11. Insert the menu audio
    
12. Type up compass summary in Notepad and then insert into graphics
    
13. Review venue clips and write script
    
14. Record venue audio
    
15. Insert venue audio and listen through cutting out issues to create a single good clip
    
16. Listen through venue audio a second time creating cuts and taking note of clips for each spot.
    
17. Import clips from the various camera archives
    
18. Drop clips into place
    
19. Export the video (about 2-3 hours)
    
20. Watch the video and take note of any issues
    
21. If there are issues correct them and loop back to step 19 until perfect (often takes 2-3 exports to get perfect)
    

Obviously that is a rather time consuming process that needs to be simplified. By the end of the first series when the videos started coming out weekly it was because I had written all of the remaining menu scripts at once and recorded them at once. I also wrote up all of the Compass Summaries at once. This allowed steps 9, 10, 11, and 12 to be rolled into step 4 saving a lot of time. The remaining steps that cause the most time is the venue tours as I still have to write the scripts, wait till I have some quiet time and place to record them and then search for relevant clips for every second of it. With Quantum I plan to film these segments as video onboard in the associated venue. I will also film the relevant shots for them at that time. This will allow me to not need a clip for every second as I can fall back on a shot of me as well as ensure all the relevant clips are grouped together to just be dropped right in rather than searched for. Since the menu's are no longer relevant and will now be replaced by the "Daily Dine" I'll be doing those in the same way but with some more food focus along with those venues. The compass which takes a while to type will also hopefully be simplified if the Royal iQ app allows copy and paste (really hoping for this one!). The last remaining way that I will hopefully simplify the process is in the export. Currently 40 minutes of the export is for the 40 second intro video to be generated. That is an insane amount of time for such a short part and a required part of every video export so the new series will have a more refined opening sequence of what's coming up followed by a pregenerated standard intro video that should save a lot of time over the 19 episode series (as much as 30 minutes per export).

With all of these refinements I am really hoping to speed the release schedule up significantly. I was also delayed by my personal life, but will have off work from 12/24 until 1/5 which will give me plenty of time to allocate to the series.

So in addition to the changes I listed above there are a few more details that I can now reveal. I should be receiving a letter in my cabin once onboard listing times and officers that I'll be able to have private meetings with to interview and tour their respective areas. The level to which I can record these I am not sure of at this moment or who they will be but some of the ones mentioned as possibilities (and that I requested) were the Cruise Director, Food & Beverage Manager, and Adventure Ocean Manager. So that should be exciting and at a minimum give me a lot of great information for the series if I cannot record the interviews. I have also been given official approval to record a few minutes of each show and use up to 20 seconds (according to the official media release policy) per show. So that will make the compass a little more exciting for the headliners as I won't have to use photos anymore! Should be a really exciting series coming up and I hope everyone stays tunes. Like I've been saying all along if you have any comments please let me know. I am currently working on a few additional graphics for the new Quantum series and will be setting up the Quantum Tour video so that I can just drop those clips in and get that one published as soon as I return. With 19 episodes of theCruiseView, the Quantum Arrival video (11/10!), the Quantum Complete Ship Tour, Coco Cay Port Tour, and all the usual sailing videos (Captain's Reception, Port Arrivals, Timelapses, etc.) there is going to be a serious Quantum media overload of probably 40 or more videos and thousands of photos.

Looking forward to sailing her 01/2016!

Amazing thread, sailing the Grandeur for 10 days (same itinerary) on 11/1/15. Thanks for all your hard work!

Thanks for all the video's. I just booked Grandeur for 12/2016. It will be my first time on the Grandeur so I am able to get some good information.

Just reviewed this thread again. It's really good for those of us who are fans of Lady G.

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Just reviewed this thread again. It's really good for those of us who are fans of Lady G.

 

 

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So glad you enjoyed it. It's great to see that after 3 years people are still benefiting from all my work!