Honolulu Blue

Another encounter I recall that wasn't on a cruise ship... I had a pre-show meet & greet with comedian Rita Rudner. She was a sweetheart and I got some really spectacular photos with her. Of course, I paid for them. 🤑 I'm tempted to scan and upload them, but I'll save them for George for conversation fodder when we meet up.

I almost forgot... I had a meet and greet with "Weird Al" Yankovic after a show a few years ago. I got his autograph and took a selfie with him. He's a good guy and an underrated musician. BTW, this wasn't on a cruise ship.

Hey! I resemble that question answering style IRL! 😁 (she's actually a lot more loquacious in real life, as I found when I was with her on the Summit back in 2017. P.S. She used that "purse and keys" joke when I was aboard, which was definitely NOT her first sailing.

This is a fun topic, George. Thanks for starting it and sharing your stories. And thanks also to @CruiserBrucefor sharing. My post, by comparison, is going to be longer and offer less content. But it might be interesting anyway. Here goes: I don't, in general, have the inclination to get close to celebrities, which is why these stories are going to seem so lame. I haven't done any inaugural sailings or anything like that, and I tend to choose cruises that celebrities wouldn't flock to. The most famous person I know I've sailed with is probably that rock star Captain Kate McCue. I'm sure I could have met her at the regular meet & greet, but I didn't. See the first bullet point above. I never saw her around the ship, but I did hear her announcements. I did a couple of music charter cruises (not the same ones as @George C, alas ☹️) earlier this year. Some of the performers were bigger names than others. I had impressively close seats to the stage at some of the shows - like 6th row center. Ticketmaster would charge an arm and a leg for those. Anyway, the shows were as close as I got to the vast majority of them. I thought I saw the lead singer for the band Cameo around the ship on one of my music charters, but I could have been mistaken Belinda Carlisle did a Q&A and she did some autograph signing after the session. I didn't partake, but maybe I should have, because I found out later that my coworker is one of her biggest fans. Interactions were limited on this year's music charter cruises because of you-know-what. I'm doing two more music charters next year, and we'll see how close I can get (if I choose to at all). Leaving the cruise ships... I once saw Ed "Too Tall" Jones playing craps at the Reno Peppermill. That was a while ago. Even longer ago, back when I was in college, I was at a rally where the wife of a fringe presidential candidate was speaking. I was pretty close to her, but there was no personal interaction that I can recall. Anyway, both she and he became a lot more famous now than they were then. I got an autograph of (redacted, nobody cares), a baseball player that I admired at the time. I think I paid a few bucks for it at a card show. Probably the celebrity meeting that left the biggest impression on me was the time I met local reporter/newsreader (redacted, nobody cares) on location. I remember talking to her while controlling my emotions. Neither she nor I said anything I can recall today, but it was a long time ago.

@zentraveler: Thank you for your review. The decoration of Carnival's older ships isn't for everyone, as the fact that the newer ships are more sedate shows. I've sailed on Carnival over a dozen times, but none less than six days. I haven't seen what you saw to the same degree. I mostly see people having fun but not getting out of hand. Good luck with whomever you decide to sail with in the future.

I think the individual CDs have some discretion to do programming that they like. The ship size has a limited role, other than there being more and bigger facilities on the larger ships. I don't doubt what you're saying, but I thought a bit about how to measure revenue produced by each CD. Each one seems to be loaded with noise. CDs don't have anything to do with fares paid, and their influence on crew gratuities seems extremely limited. They can encourage revenue-producing activities (like specialty dining, the Seuss breakfast, and the casino), but I think it's all but impossible to tease out which CDs are better at teasing out revenue among all the other factors involved. The most direct link I can see is Groove for St. Jude donations, and it strikes me as being somewhat wrong that CDs could be evaluated on how much they get from us who are supposed to be voluntarily contributing.

I live a long way away from any ocean cruise port, but within two hours of three of the Great Lakes - and within a day's drive of the other two. I'm mildly interested in cruising them, but the current prices are enough to dissuade me. I have done a couple of cruise-ish things that I haven't seen mentioned yet. I took a dinner cruise on one of our rivers some years ago. Out and back in a few hours. Not a bad experience, but I haven't been in a hurry to repeat it. And a long, long time back when working casino riverboats were a thing, I boarded one that actually went up and down the Des Plaines River (yes, I know Joliet's not in my back yard, but stick with me for a bit). That was a quite interesting experience, I thought. It's too bad that I couldn't repeat it before the riverboats were allowed to chain themselves to the dock and not ever bother sailing.

@memoak: Thank you for sharing your story. I'm sorry this happened to you. Get well soon.🙏

Thanks for sharing your review. I also find Carnival Journeys cruises to be especially nice. I wish I could do more of them.

I've done nearly two dozen cruises, all solo, over the past 8 years. To answer your questions: No, I never get bored on a cruise ship. I hardly ever get bored IRL. I find there's always something else to do or think about. No, I don't get depressed. Having someone with me would be nice, but a) it's not likely to happen at this point in my life, and b) I'd have to deal with certain issues being with them for a week. I sometimes send the people I care about back home lovely pictures, but mostly they're subtle needles ("I'm here and you're not!" 😁). No, I never feel unsafe on a cruise ship. I'm a guy and I'm told that makes a lot of difference. The times I've felt a little squeamish is when I've been traveling on a road somewhere in the Caribbean... up a hill... in the rain... in a vehicle that's seen better days... on a one-lane road... going at an impressive rate of speed... and there's another car coming... Needless to say, I've survived all those experiences, but sometimes I wonder how. Maybe someone is looking out for me. 😛 I'm sure you'll be fine. Enjoy your trip.

Best Internet at sea, eh? It looks like VOOM has been given the BROOM!

I hope you're wrong and the current scavenger hunt for perks goes away. I'm not a drinker, so I ordinarily wouldn't visit any of the bars. The pins and luggage tag (or whatever the gift-of-the-month happens to be) are cute, but why make me go down to the photo shop to pick them up? And I'd rather not bother room service to have my chocolate-covered strawberries delivered to me.

That's an interesting way to kinda sort of get around some of the fake photos of test results that would otherwise be presented. It's not perfect, but I guess it's good enough. We'll see.

Thanks for the heads up. You almost certainly got KN95s, since true N95s don't have ear loops. In my limited experience on Princess, I got two of what sounds like the same KN95s that you got when I sailed with them in April. On my cruise at the end of November, Princess had a mask mandate but didn't give me any freebie masks. Oh well, it was a different era then - Omicron was just a Greek letter.

UPDATE: No artist-led shore excursions for next year's TEC, but they will have artist-led special events on the ship (for extra $$$). There was an interesting announcement by Royal today - they're going with the satellite-based Starlink for Internet service fleetwide (including Celebrity). They'll start installing the required equipment soon, with full implementation expected by the end of the first quarter. This sounds good, but the devil is in the details - when will it get to the ships I care about? How much will it cost? How good will the speeds be? I don't think anyone knows the answers yet, but the journey should be interesting.

I think it's good news. But as mentioned, the devil is in the details. Will it be installed and available by my next cruise on Celebrity in November? Who knows? 🥴

Just curious... on your cruises, were you given mask(s) on boarding? And if so, what quantity and general type (cloth, surgical, KN95, N95)? I also wonder about how many are bringing masks onboard these days, but I won't ask about that.

Roatan and Grand Cayman are both popular stops and relatively close to each other. Many cruises on several cruise lines will visit both in the same trip. As has been mentioned, not all cruise lines have posted their 2024 schedules. Don't forget to consider other factors that may be important to you - such as the other ports on the itinerary, cruise line "reputation" and "fit", desired length of cruise, embarkation port, etc.

I got another e-mail from TEC this afternoon. My cruise planner is up and ready at the Royal Caribbean site. The Surf plan is $17.99/day and the Surf + Stream plan is $21.99/day. Average prices by cruise ship standards. There are some dining packages available, but where am I going to find the time for fine dining? Moving along, some of the excursions look interesting. But the e-mail introduced a big question mark - are there going to be artist-led excursions this year or not? I shot them an e-mail, and I hope for a reply... sometime.

Also, longer cruises tend to be on smaller ships. That makes it much more likely you'll see people over and over again - often in the same places at the same times. Having something in common makes starting conversations much easier - at least for me.

In the Different Strokes department, I like making decisions on my own. To quote one of my favorite philosophers, I love it when a plan comes together. 😁 I don't like it so much when I obviously screwed up, but those are learning experiences. Or so I tell myself. 🙃 I don't mind dining in the MDR. I rarely do it these days, but not because I'm uncomfortable with dining alone there. OK, to finally answer your question for me. The hardest parts I find about cruising solo are... Finding the time to do so. As a working class Joe, I not only have limited vacation time, I have times when I shouldn't be away from the office for operational reasons. The flights. From booking and suffering through some suboptimal flights with inflated price tags, to dealing with flight delays and cancellations, to the flights themselves, flying has seen better days, IMHO. Getting back home. Disembarking has some sad moments. ☹️ I think you, OP, will be fine. Think happy thoughts. 😀 Good luck!

I travel solo exclusively (so far) and I've booked under zero single tax offers before. There's usually nothing preventing what you described from happening. Sometimes these offers are targeted for those who are likely to travel solo.

@geoherb: Thanks for sharing. That's a very interesting distribution, surprisingly symmetrical. Here's a funny loyalty program story I'll share here: My first scheduled Princess cruise was canceled. I must have gotten credit for it, because I walked on my first real Princess cruise as a Gold member. I was also Gold for the second one. I booked a third Princess cruise for next April and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was considered Platinum. 🤩

Speaking about all cruise lines, not just Princess: Sometimes the cruise director/entertainment staff release some numbers Sometimes the Captain or their representative make a numbers-related announcement Some guests go down to Guest Services and ask

I don't think any cruise line has limited passenger count since April.