plane2port

Someone tried to board with a pistol. We’ve gotten our medallions and are in the holding area waiting to board. 

We just arrived here about 11:30. No one has gotten on. Sheriff’s department and security not letting anyone on board. The line/crowd is huge here. Apparently someone had something onboard “that they weren’t supposed to “ 

2 hours ago, Chrissy6299 said:

 

How was the snorkeling? We're leaving on Wednesday and are wondering if we should bother... what was the water temperature?

In my opinion it wasn’t worth it to bring our gear. Although check out CruiserBruce’s suggestion above about snorkeling on the south side of the harbor. 
 

At this time of year the water temperature in the Bahamas is noticeably chillier than in the Caribbean. I would call the temperature “refreshing” rather than “bracing” (like swimming on Cape Cod. 🥶)

Nothing to see but the swim was nice!

9 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

@plane2port How was the snorkeling at Half Moon Key?

We were also on this cruise, and I was tempted to write a review, but the OP has just done such a great job with this review, I will just add my comments here. 
 

This was our first cruise after a cruising hiatus of about 6 years. We were enticed on board by a casino offer that we couldn’t refuse. We upgraded to a balcony which I’m glad we did since the weather made it hard to enjoy the promenade and pool decks. 
 

The staff was excellent and we found the food to be very good. The first night we ate in the dining room at a large shared table because we enjoy socializing with others during dinner. However the meal stretched out to about two hours, which tested my stamina, so we had out other meals up on the Lido deck, taking our plates to the aft deck. 
 

Other than the excellent band in the Rolling Stone Rock Room, we found the entertainment to be lackluster. We missed the first production show because the first show was packed and the second show was cancelled and never rescheduled. The second production show was mediocre as was the comedian (our opinion). We did enjoy the talks on the world stage with the curved triple screen (who remembers Cyclorama from the 60’s?). Plenty of movies available for streaming in the room and we had books on our IPads so we were never bored. 
 

We really enjoyed the ports. Here’s what we did:

1.  Grand Turk—rented a golf cart and toured the island, stopping for a swim. 
2.  San Juan—Walked to Castillo San Cristobal and then through the old town through the old sea gate. Fantastic that we docked right at the Old Town. 
3. St. Thomas—took the local bus to town and walked around, then took the Skyride (one and done.)

4.  Half Moon Key—walked down the beach to the rocks and snorkeled there. 
 

All in all a good cruise. Our only suggestion to HAL is that they step up their entertainment options. 

1 hour ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Hello!  No worries, mates.😊 We are fine and still on the Majestic Princess having a wonderful time. I’m simply not spending valuable port time uploading posts, and, as icat2000 confirmed, we really don’t have usable WiFi on board. However, I’m still dutifully writing posts every night. You’ll see them eventually. 
 

Thank you for your concern. Y’all are the BEST. 

Thanks so much for letting us know everything is OK. I’ve been following your blog for years and it’s rare for you to go so long between posts so like others I was concerned. I know that writing and publishing the blog is a lot of work so I just want to express my appreciation for you keeping up with it. I look forward to reading the catch up posts when you’re able to upload them. 

Just read the first installment of season ten. Hope you have a fun and relaxing season and that you enjoy all your upcoming sea days!

Add me to the list of those eagerly awaiting the return of the blog. Jeanie thanks so much for doing this. I know it’s a lot of work!

Thanks for this info!  I just booked us on the walking tour.  We will be in port from 7:00 am to 1:00 am the following morning.  The plan right now is to take the walking tour in the morning, come back to the ship for a siesta, and then go experience the night life after dark (when its cooler.)

Thanks to all who replied.  I see there are several ways to go about this.  I decided to use Globilizer's strategy of creating an activity stream for my usual suspects, but its good to know the other methods if I'm just giving someone a quick check out. 

It seems that with the new updates that we have lost the ability to search for all posts by username.  There are a few posters that I like to follow and it seems like there is now no way to do it.  Any workarounds?

We are going on one of the "drive by" cruises next year that does not have zodiac landings on the continent. I realize that we will be missing out and that the cruise that we are taking is inferior. But here's the thing--our cruise will cost about $2K per person, and the expedition type cruises cost about 10K per person.

We just don't feel like we can justify spending 20K on a two-week vacation. I envy those of you for whom price is no object and if you have the money, go for it!

Thank you so much for your DIY reports. We also like to do our port days independently if we can. We're on the Celebrity Eclipse in Feb. and are just starting our planning. I'm going to reserve some rental cars that have cancellable reservations at several of the ports as a fall-back plan.

I just reserved our car in Puerto Madryn. I'm going to print off your directions for Puerto Tombo to use when we get there.

Thanks again for this great resource.

Easy fix, if you have not found out already. Go to your profile and just input Male/Female or any new info. It will auto change to correct status and points. Still a pain

I didn't know this. Thanks! It worked!

I have an update for those who are waiting for their points and status to show correctly on the website.

I was at 73 points and emerald status before my last cruise. Returned about 3 weeks ago from a 7 day cruise. This cruise showed up in my past cruises profile about a week after my return but my status still showed emerald with 73 points.

Decided I would call C&A today to see if my profile had been updated. Chose the automated option. Gave my birthdate. The voice said I was a Diamond member with 80 cruise points! Went back to the website and still showing emerald and 73 points.

I feel better knowing that I am in the system now as Diamond and not expecting champagne and fireworks but would be nice to have at least an email.

Perhaps the time lapse is decreasing now but I took a cruise in January and it took 9 weeks for my points to update.

That is totally ridiculous. Actually outrageous. Their systems are so bad.

I'm glad to find this thread. With my last cruise in the Rhapsody I should be up to 80 points and that means Diamond! We disembarked last Sunday and the cruise just appeared today on my past cruises. But my status still shows as emerald and 73 points. It looks like others are experiencing delays in status change as well. Guess I'll wait it out a couple of more weeks before I call.

I haven't been to Poseidon, but I have visited Nogombo thermal baths on Ischia. From what I can see on the website/internet they look to be similar venues. I was not on a cruise but was staying in Stabia which is south of Naples. We took the train to Naples and then the ferry over to Ischia, then the bus to Nogombo. It was a very full day.

I really enjoyed the baths and it was a very restful day. I was on a month-long educational tour of Roman sites so this was a nice break from the ruins. But if i were visiting Naples on a port day this is not something that I would choose to do. There is so much else to see in and near Naples. For example:

1. The cross-Naples walking tour in Rick Steve's book.. Eat your way across Naples and stop for a underground tour of the Greek aqueduct along the way.

2. Visit the ruins at Herculaneum. Easy to get to on the train from Naples and easier to tour than Pompeii.

3. Walk up Vesuvius. The bus or a rental car takes you to the parking lot near the summit. Enjoy a glass of wine at the little stand on the summit as you enjoy the views of the Bay of Naples.

I could go on and on but you get the idea.

Since the most recent promotion began February 22, I’ve had nearly all our future cruises re-fared. We’ve seen thousands in savings (lower fares, free tips and much improved EZ Air fares). I know people believe that if you book with a good TA, you get the best fare available but, in my experience, that is not nearly enough. You have to check frequently for price fluctuations. No TA has the time (or the motivation, as it costs them commission) to do that for you.

And especially in your case where you have multiple cruises on the books. No one else can keep track of those cruises the way you can. You are doing the exact right thing for your situation--booking with the cruise line early so that you know you can get cabins on ALL the cruises, and then checking back for the price drops.

BTW, what are you looking at doing next winter? Pacific isles? Back to Europe? Aust/NZ? or the tried and true Caribbean?

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

We were thinking of taking the Conch Train on our next visit to Key West but i will have to rethink that after reading about your experience.

Did you eat four entrees the first night or were you just telling what everybody at your table ordered. I have been known to order two entrees myself which is why I ask.

Let me just make sure I have this right.

I should turn off roaming and ALSO be in airplane mode.

Is this correct? I have an IPhone. Under Cellular Data Options there are two choices: One is a toggle button for data roaming. I understand this one--it's either off or on.

The other one says Enable LTE. When you click that you can choose off, data, or voice and data. I Can I leave this one alone? Right now I have LTE enabled for voice and data.

OP here.

thanks for all of your suggestions and comments. I guess the best thing for me to do in the future is look at the carrier when I turn my phone on. If it says Cellular at Sea, then I will go to airplane mode immediately! This has been an expensive lesson. I hate that you have to be so vigilant now.

I love the Grandeur.. I've sailed her twice, but it was some time ago. Does she still have all the great artwork on the walls (bulkheads!!!;p) Seems like most ships now have modern stuff that I really don't appreciate. I loved Grandeur's traditional art. I used to just walk up and down the decks to admire it.

We found that our cell phone bill was $117 higher than usual, so we called our provider (AT&T) and they said that was the amount charged them by RCCL Cellular at Sea. We've cruised a lot with Royal and this is the first time this is happened to I'm trying to see how we can avoid this in the future.

We took a four-day cruise out of Galveston on the Vision of the Seas last month. Our only port of call was Progreso. We were using an IPad and an Iphone which we only kept on while we were in port. Evidently the devices switched to the ship's cell tower while we were in port and we used 14 MB of data (can't even watch a 30 second video with that.)

The phone representative said to keep it in airplane mode while ON or NEAR the ship to avoid the data charges. So now we can't even use our phones while in port? We have always used our phones while on the ship in port and never had this trouble before.

Does anyone else have any ideas about how to set your devices to not connect to Cellular at Sea? It would be nice to be able to use the 4G network in Mexico and the Carib without worry about connecting to the ship's tower.

We just used Uber to get to/from Hobby (HOU) airport to Galveston port. The price was $44 to go from the airport to Galveston when we arrived fairly late Sunday night (the night before the cruise). It was $50 to return to the airport when we docked back in Galveston yesterday. The pricing is flexible based on demand, but should fall within the range that I gave above.