RobInMN

We have not done a TA or a TP yet, but have Allure TA booked for Fall of 2025. The way my wife and I look at it, we'd rather have the long international flight at the start of our vacation, and the short domestic flight at the end. So, to that end, Fall TA from Europe to the US, and someday a Spring TP from Australia to the US. Retirement plan - Fly to Australia, land tours of Australian/New Zealand of things you wont get from a cruise, then B2?/3?B (Australia/New Zealand B2B's), then B2B TP's back to the US (or Vancouver if that's what we have to do)

Just off 14 nights on Radiance, and overall, I think all 4 of our group thought the food was pretty good. Only a couple disappointments. Good enough that I gained 11 pounds. 🙂

Wow! This really sucks for those on board. We just got off from the Panama Canal cruise, and I never heard anything about any hints of possible propulsion issues. 2 of our table mates (who we had a great time with) were staying on board for this leg. I feel especially bad for them.

Discussion from January 2023:

Part of that, like Norway, is environmental. UNESCO and net-zero. A new class will likely solve that by going LNG, like Icon and Utopia. A project name like "Discovery" doesn't imply simply focused on home ports. While Captain Rumen (Radiance) didn't really have too much to say, he did say that part of the design process was deciding where all they want to be able to go in order to figure out the dimensional limitations (like bridge heights). which also implies looking at ports of call and not simply home ports.

Are you using a VPN? I get that if I forget to turn my VPN off.

Silver Ray's Float out:

The Meyer Werft's Papenburg building amazes me. The fact that a ship the size of Odyssey (and CCL's Excellence class, NCL's Breakaway Plus class ships) is actually built indoors is unreal. The building hall is 504m long (482m of interior dock), 125m wide and 75m tall, with an 800 ton crane. Odyssey is 347m long and 49m wide. So the building is well over twice the width, and half again as long as Odyssey. Amazing. By comparison, Silver Ray is 244m long, and 30m wide. Can't find a height, but it's 11 decks compared to Odyssey's 16 The videos of the 22mile (36km) conveyance that ships built here have to do down the Ems to get to open sea are also amazing. The Ems is not that wide in many places, nor is it really all that deep in spots either.

We did this (from Rome) in 2018 on Symphony. We had the Orange card and kept it. I heard it was about 2/3 Barcelona, 1/3 Rome. Other than the ship/MDR schedule being the back half of one cruise followed by the front half of the next cruise, with the embarkation party stuff being half way through the cruise, zero differences for us. These last thing don't really matter to us.

If it's because it has not been Amplified yet, then you are going to be disappointed. Yes. Allure is going to be amplified in March of 2025. While the actual details have yet to be released, there is little reason to believe that they have altered plans from the original 2020 Amplification plans, which includes the Ultimate Abyss big purple slide. Hopefully they will make some formal announcement before too long

Just saw your live thread post. Glad to hear other captains giving out info also.

Forgot 1 other item worth mentioning. Captain Rumen said that their are 3 levels of command. Con, Navigational Command, and Full (Bridge?) Command. Full command is never given up, but the Panama Canal is the only place where the pilots take Navigational Command. This means that if anything happens, they take responsibility. Anywhere else, while the pilot has input, the Captain maintains responsibility. Navigational Command has Navigational override.

At the Captain's Q&A on Radiance, I asked what the status of Project Discovery was. Captain Rumen said that Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

At the Captain's Q&A on Radiance, I asked what the status of Project Discovery was. Captain Rumen said that Project Discovery is still in design phase, and looking like 2029/2030 (not sure if that's a build start or complete).

Wrong thread