scifimonkey

See my photo earlier in the thread which is captured from B&Ds own video. Not really a discrete rig though I am not challenging their right to use it as long as it does not freak other passengers.

Struggling to see why passengers require anonymity on a cruise ship. What would they be hiding? Are they ashamed of being seen on MSC by their friends/work colleagues at home? Did they tell everyone they were sailing Silversea? To 99.9% of people watching a vlog they are anonymous unless they choose to wear enormous name tags? Even then surely the audience are paying attention to the presenters not the blurry figures wandering around in the back of the shot. Unless the people filming (for whatever reason) are in my face or constantly nattering to the camera on an adjacent table( although tbf people do that to each other in the extreme on occasion without a camera) I have no problem with anyone filming me in the background of their shot and outside the realms of common decency (filming around pools and hot tubs or of children etc) I don't expect anyone to be hauling me up for recording my holiday locations and showing the resultant photos/video to my friends. Every cruise ship design is chock full of instagrammable locations put there quite specifically by the designers to encourage photography and videography to soft promote their product and the cruise lifestyle. Given these design choices by the cruise lines, to stop people filming/photographing is pretty hypocritical. Add another line to the small print to say that by boarding the ship you consent to being filmed in the background to shots that may be published seems like it would be sufficient and if certain high wealth individuals in the Yacht club no longer wish to travel there will be plenty of others to fill their slots. If you want the ultimate in privacy and anonymity save up 3 or 4 yacht club cruises and buy a small yacht.

I have every sympathy with Ben and David as even if someone did complain MSC could have simply advised them of this and asked them politely not to film in the yacht club areas from that point onward to protect the other guests privacy or maybe limited them to filming during the night when the venues were empty and or asking them to do post production voice overs rather than speech to camera. That should not however have prohibited the discrete use of phone or compact camera use such as virtually every other passenger was probably doing. B&D would, I hope and suspect, have responded positively to that reasonable request. Bens normal rig is however not exactly as discrete as he might have you believe, as seen in the attached photo so i can see why some passengers in the yacht club might have found it intrusive if they were filming a lot.

Thanks very much for that, much appreciated

You really should not treat your partner that way😂

Really dull question but kind of useful to know. What and how many electrical sockets have you got in your PH2. Are they US, EUR? Also what is there in terms of USB sockets? Will be joining next week and want to check if I need to do a quick run to the hardware store.

6.30 is a late lunch for me😆

Seriously I would choose another ship this year and see if this horrendous litany of failings can be sorted before booking on Iona.

If the current Norway season is anything to go by then which ports you visit now seems to be nothing more than a lucky dip and whether you get 2 3 or 4 ports on your 7 night cruise a matter of chance. As does which restaurants and bars might be open and when. As their new flagship Iona limps back to Southampton after yet another failure to fulfil its published itinerary it seems like the comparison with Easy Jet may be generous.

Anyone know why Iona diverted to Alesund. Is it because of weather or protests about it going into the Fiord or what!!

So three of these cruises have now returned. No news of plague ships returning to Southampton but does anyone have any anecdotal news of how the test is going?

It didn't tender as it has to unload over 5000 passengers and it would take forever…………………… what is more questionable is how does a ship supposedly designed specifically for the Fiords seem incapable of docking at Gerainger one of the primary Fiord ports, cannot dock at Flaam because it is too big and continually seem to have handling problems in a light breeze. Expect to see Arvia and Iona shipped off to sail the Med and the Caribbean before too long.

Just think yourself lucky if they are actually open…………….