FalklandIslander

Tips:

1. Join TSApre. That will definitely save time getting through security at the airport.

2. Join Clear. That probably will save time getting though security at the airport.

3. Go to the designated self-disembarkation point at 05:00 in order to be first or second off the ship.

4. Pack light and use only carry-on luggage. Checking luggage would cost time.

Our men in the military are armed and trained, young girls are not.

By age 16, the OP's girls should have been exposed to enough situations which exercised their ability to make good judgements about safe conduct in dodgy situations. Unfortunately, some parents molly-coddle their children to the extent that the children don't get to exercise their judgement and then are still incapable of making sensible decisions in adulthood and even in retirement. I regularly run into retired cruisers who were evidently over-protected by their parents and consequently are less able to look out for themselves than savvy well-raised twelve year olds.

I am definitely not following your train of thought...it reads that you are saying the dead children did not need therapy.

 

Are you meaning to say the parents of children who died 80 years ago due to disease or famine for example?

 

Do you know any parents who lost children for any reason? Did your parents or grandparents? Did family members or friends? It rough stuff, especially when its multiple children.

Of course, the antecedent of "they" is the parents of dead children.

Yes, I knew well all four of my grandparents and one of my great grandmothers. None of them needed therapy. It was interesting to hear first hand accounts of Queen Victoria.

It would take many, many years of therapy for most parents to try to cope with the loss of a child or if they were harmed and they didn't take a moment to evaluate the risk and understand the consequences of what they were agreeing to. That's not being controlling. That's being responsible.

As recently as 80 years ago everywhere and still today in some places, most children do not survive to adulthood. Did the 99% of parents who lost one or more children 100 years ago need years of therapy? Of course not. They were able to cope because they didn't have overprotective parents who smothered them and kept them from growing up.

Not in Jamaica. Montego Bay, the only place where I was offered pot (or any other kind of illegal drug) in a port of call, the guy didn't care that my mom was next to me!

If he didn't offer any to your mom, then that was rude.

Originally Posted by mjkacmom

an over protected child definitely has a more likely chance of being mugged as adult, where criminals are looking for victims who appear insecure.

Certainly.

 

To Falkland Islander

 

The above quote was directed at me. It is not true, it was misunderstood and the way it is written, I agree 100%.

 

My 22 year old son was NOT over protected and was not insecure. He has 3 degrees and a PHD, is an attorney and works for the government. His position and future does not appear insecure in any way.

I didn't make any comment regarding your son. I agreed with (and continue to agree with) mjkacmom's general statement: "an over protected child definitely has a more likely chance of being mugged as adult, where criminals are looking for victims who appear insecure." I'm an attorney and a professor of law and I cannot find any evidence in this thread that mjkacmom's general statement quoted above or my agreement with it implicated either you or your son. If you choose to infer an implication, that's up to you.

If you want to make a statement, let's get the facts right.

 

No one has been overly dramatic, just telling their story and how it made them feel. Some cruisers have had bad to horrible experiences with tours or even walking in certain ports. Most times things go well.......sometimes they go horribly wrong. And that IS a fact.

Whether or not some are being overly dramatic is a question of opinion, not fact. I clearly labeled my opinion as an opinion "..., in my opinion, ...." You and I seem to have a difference of opinion, which is fine with me. I am unable to find any disagreement between us over facts.

I am a US citizen, so maybe I have this wrong, but every cruise I've been to at Port Everglades, every nationality just gets off the ship, collects luggage if necessary (or not), and proceeds to a combined immigration and customs inspection. At this point there are lines for US citizens (and I think permanent residents [green card holders]) and a separate line for other nationalities. If that's wrong, I'm sure to be corrected soon (and will be happy to then know better).

It depends on the port and the terminal. Just last week, I disembarked at Miami and there was no separation between US citizens and others. Everyone stayed in one queue. I joined the queue just before 07:30 and didn't make it through until after 08:30.

I thought they would not let anyone under 18 off the ship without a parent or guardian. I know they would stop my son and ask where is parents were (usually right behind him). Maybe I am wrong about the age.

I would hope that the cruise ships would not let anyone younger than five disembark without being accompanied by someone older.

If you have high standards for your kids, they will generally rise to the occasion or not fall too far short.

Yes, exactly.

an over protected child definitely has a more likely chance of being mugged as adult, where criminals are looking for victims who appear insecure.

Certainly.

Let me tell you what happened when my DH, myself and our 2 DS's ages 19 and 17 were on a cruise 7 years ago that visited Jamaica.

My DH and myself stayed on the shop while our 2 DS's went on a RCCL Shore Excursion Rafting down a river.

We were waiting and waiting for our sons to get back and looking off the Balcony wondering why they were not back yet.

While we are waiting we heard about an ENTIRE tour group from a Cruise ship getting robbed by guys with MACHETE'S!!!!

It was a Carnival cruise ship tour group not RCCL, but you better believe I was extremely nervous waiting for my DS's to get get back.

 

NOW, tell me again about being OVER DRAMATIC!

If no one in that other group was butchered but rather only separated from their cash then, in my opinion, you are being overly dramatic.

And I did too, I was allowed out until the street lights went on. I rode my bike everywhere, I played on the rail road tracks, :eek: Yep, I did.

 

It is a different world today, it is not the 60's anymore. I had a wonderful childhood and I was very , very lucky. No cell phones, no way to reach me and no, my parents did not always know where I was.

Overall, the world is a much safer place for tourists than it was in the 1960s. Some places have become worse, but most places are much better. In the 1960s, most crimes were not reported in any way the public would know about. Now, the much rarer crimes all go viral, so it seems like there is more crime. The statistics published by the FBI and law enforcement agencies all around the world show that violent crime is way down.

When I was younger than nine, I was free to wander around marinas in any country we visited, find children on other boats, play all day, and had to be back to our boat by nautical twilight (end of sunset, time to start heading back). After my ninth birthday, I was allowed to go outside the marinas, wander around foreign countries where I didn't speak the language, passport in my pocket, still subject to the rule that I had to be back to our boat before nautical twilight. I saw more than forty countries this way before puberty. If I had been subjected to the paranoia which seems to be evidenced in this thread, I cannot imagine how I ever would have managed to grow up into a responsible adult. Was I offered drugs at age nine? Of course. So what? Children need to be given enough freedom to make mistakes. That's how they learn and become capable adults.

First off, cruise ships are an invention of the 60's and 70's not a hundred years.

I did not state anything contrary to that.

There were passenger liners back a hundred years, but they didn't have stabilizers.

Wrong. The SS Conte di Savoia is one example of a passenger ship built in the last 100 or so years (launched in 1931) which had stabilizers.

Stabilizers are retractable airfoil shaped fins that are used to reduce ship rolling.

That's one kind of stabilizer used on ships, but certainly not the only kind. Gyroscopic stabilizers were used starting in the 19th century and are making a comeback. I've been on some modern ships that used gyroscopes rather than fins for stabilization. There are advantages and disadvantages to the different kinds of stabilizers. Anyway, all cruise ships have some kind of stabilizers, possibly not fins.

You may self disembarkation with your luggage. Generally it requires taking your luggage either up or down a flight of stairs. Last time we were able to take the elevator but not every time. We were told we would be using the stairs.

Three days ago I disembarked with my own luggage. Three flights of stairs. No problem. Elevators were an option, but that seems like a good way to become prematurely old and decrepit. As long as I'm able walk, I'll take the stairs. Never used an elevator on a ship in my adult life.

Getting them to cook. Veggie/Vegan burger on a grill that isn't used for meat burgers of handling them with utensils used for meat may prove more troublesome though.

On the larger ships the solution is to open a vegetarian and vegan dining venue with its own kitchen. On smaller ships, there might not be enough vegetarians and vegans yet to justify a separate dining venue.

I'm fairly certain that all monohull cruise ships built in the last 100 or so years have gyroscopic stabilizers to limit roll. In heavy seas, it might seem like they are not doing much but the roll would be far more severe without them.

I sailed on Liberty with my vegan daughter. As well as Freedom. You will [not] go hungry. But I can honestly tell you she never really enjoyed her food. The head waiter came over every night to check on her. They just brought her a vegan dish each night but she had no choice. And sometimes it was just not good. But she always asked for an extra baked potato every night.

 

She was told to eat lunch in the mdr on at sea days but she didn't want to. Lunch was a lot of veg sushi and salad and rice. Breakfast was oatmeal and fruit which she really likes anyway.

 

So in summary, was her belly full? Yes. Did she enjoy it? Not really. The desserts they brought her were mostly inedible. A bowl of lemon curd ? But they did make her a vegan chocolate once.

 

Good luck and enjoy your cruise ! It is doable.

I'm vegan and this is consistent with my experience, including two RCCL cruises last month. It's possible to eat vegan but they have little clue about how to prepare tasty vegan dishes. Best strategy, in my opinion, is to ask for Indian vegetarian food with no dairy and no honey. (The Indian vegetarian concept excludes eggs.)

As I previously suggested, you don’t go into a restaurant with the intention of getting food poisoning nor does the restaurant operate with the intent of giving you food poisoning. But sometimes it happens. It’s not the customers fault because they patronized that restaurant. Maybe the chef took all reasonable precautions but it still happened.

False analogy. A correct analogy would be that a hurricane or tornado or some other weather event struck the restaurant and broke its windows, inconveniencing one of the diners. Should the diner sue the restaurant owner for opening the restaurant in a location that might be hit by bad weather? Or should the diner take responsibility for going to the restaurant on a day when there was strong weather in the area?

Sorry about that, I got the numbers crossed.

You are correct 5 on gas 3 on travel.

Thanks for clarifying that.

My Sam's Club MC card gives me 5% cashback on all travel ....

Are you sure about that? All the information I can find online says it's 5% at gas stations and 3% for travel and dining.

In my opinion (as a professor of law), RCL seems to have a decent case against this woman for defamation. I cannot see any plausible case this woman might have against RCL. I would not advise RCL to sue her though, because the publicity would not be good for them.

My $75 statement credit posted 3 days after the qualifying charge posted.

If the ships get any larger than Oasis class (which seems inevitable) they may add a dentist to the medical staff.

Sorry for the dumb question but is a tsa precheck number the same as a global entry card. Again sorry but I just got my tsa precheck number and don't know all the uses yet. Thanks

No. Global Entry gets one TSA PreCheck, but TSA PreCheck does not get one Global Entry. The security clearance for Global Entry is somewhat stricter than for TSA PreCheck, so it is possible (but probably rare) than one could meet the requirements for TSA PreCheck but fail the requirements for Global Entry.

I thinking a ship had a dry dock in Singapore, but cannot remember which.

I can confirm that, since 2013, Singapore does have dry-docks large enough for the Oasis class.

Surely one of these will go to Asia.

Maybe someday, but I think probably not in 2017 or 2018. The Caribbean is still a vastly bigger cruising venue than Asia.

Let me say as someone with both American and British citizenship that I believe the difference to lie in the expectations of the passengers.