identitycrisis

22 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

It sounds like you were in the "traffic separation scheme" approaching Southwest Pass.  These are areas where ship traffic is supposed to travel, where it is guaranteed to be deep enough for ocean-going ships.  When ships pass each other in these channels, they can be pretty close together.  One prolonged blast of the ship's horn is used as a warning to another ship.  What it sounds like is that one ship was passing your ship, and doing so with both ships at high speed.  In shallow waters, two ships passing like this can create a low pressure in the water between them, and the two ships get sucked towards each other.  While not frequent, this phenomenon is fairly common.  Ships passing in channels will frequently be less than 50 yards apart.

Thanks, this sounds like a probable explanation and is somewhat reassuring? My husband thinks it was more like 30 feet, he said you could clearly see the other ship's balcony. 

I think we were still far out in the Gulf, or at least, this was not immediately coming into the pier, because we still had the rest of the night to travel before we arrived in the port in the morning. Maybe we were going up the coast line? 

We were still moving fast, not just drifting into a pier, if that makes sense. 

I'm cross-posting this post-trip because I was curious about something that happened late the last night of a recent NCL cruise. It was around 11:30 pm, we were in our balcony room packing, and we heard the ship sound a loud blast of its horn, like an emergency blast. We looked out the window, and we saw another cruise ship passing seriously, uncomfortably close to us. Like, much closer than seemed advisable... I hate to guess the distance but, maybe 30 yards away?  I've seen other ships sailing alongside us, but they were always well in the distance. 

Was it a near collision? Is this normal? I doubt the cruise line would admit anything nearly happened, but I've never experienced that, but I've only been on a few cruises.

Wouldn't their radar make this impossible? It was an extremely foggy night, and we were coming into the port of New Orleans.

Thanks for your thoughts.  We were actually really shaken up. 

HI, We booked a scuba excursion through Royal Caribbean on Nassau, Bahamas. We noticed the fine print mentioned that you need to have dived within the past two years. My husband has dived within this time period, however, didn't get his book stamped at the time so there's no way to prove it. (Except, perhaps, digging up an old credit card receipt). How stringent are they about this requirement -- will the ship or the excursion operator demand some form of proof, generally?

Thanks, but another poster said they got such a high number they didn't make it off until 12:30. Now I am concerned we could miss our slotted time.

Anyone know if they will assign us an early tender number, or if we have to be proactive and get one ourselves?

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We booked the 11am slot for the water slides/aqua park. Will they make sure we get an early enough tender so we don't miss it?

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So my understanding is if I book excursions and cancel them onboard before 24 hours, I get a refund as shipboard credit.

What if that amount ends up more than we end up owing at the end of the cruise? Do we then get the amount credited back to our credit cards?

Thanks!

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We booked two non-assigned balcony rooms for our group. One received documents and a room assignment a few days later, the other still has not. Is this a problem? Do I need to call and make sure there's not a glitch or do some rooms just take longer for whatever reason? We did ask to be on same level, near each other, if possible.

The room does show up linked to my account and I was able to book us dining together. One is a family of 4, the other is two seniors. Thanks!

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My plan was to let kids eat at buffet early 5-7 and then drop them at kids club and adults eat a later dinner, like at 8. Anyone else do that?

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Can you also do this on my time dining if you get an early enough dining time? (Will they pick up the kids and take them?)

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