gjkubel

55 minutes ago, rolloman said:

Royal Caribbean made a smart move years ago by making their ships the destination. They have enhanced their private island stops. During this Time of hysteria ....here is my suggestion, park their older “non destination ships”  and limit their itineraries to their private locations, shorten the voyages, disembark all passengers and crew upon return. Swab every crew member with a virus test before allowing them to re-board.  At this time, test results do not come back in a timely manner, therefore until that is vetted out, they may have to have two sets of crew for each ship. Again,  before I am attacked, this is only an idea. This concept would be used as a stop gap versus a complete halting of their sailings.

    

People with the exact symptoms are being sent home from hospitals without testing because we don’t have the kits to do the test on a large scale. Sure, would be nice to test everyone before getting on ship at each port. But that’s beyond pie in the sky, not to mention incubation period anyway.

I don't like it, but the truth is we all need to do our part to slow down the spread and that means all non-essential travel needs to be cancelled for the time being.  It's not enough to say I'm young and don't care or the odds are low I'll actually get sick.  With exponential growth we need to act swiftly and decisively.  I hope RCCL follows suit shortly here.  If they don't, something will force their hands sooner or later.  Be that the ships are too empty to be financially viable to sail or outbreaks occur on their ships and then the impact will be even worse.

50 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

In the past, each individual  gets his/her own FCC and they are nontransferable.

48 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

 

Typically a FCC is issued by passenger and based on how you booked.  If you booked on a reduced 3/4 passenger fare then those credits would be less than passengers 1/2.  

 

You and your wife could apply your FCCs to a couples sailing but the 3 minor kids would still each have their own FCC.

Thanks.  That's kinda what I assumed would happen, but appreciate the expertise on this board.

Does anyone know pragmatically how the FCC works.  Is it each person gets the FCC or is it just a credit number you get?  The reason I ask is let's say I cancel a family cruise (3 minor children) and get a FCC.  Can just me and my wife use that for a couples cruise later on or do we need to bring the whole family?

Someone asked if there was a pilot in control? I believe that a Pilot is ALWAYS in control of the ship when docking in US ports, but I could be wrong. I see a ton of blame being thrown the Captains way, but I haven't seen anyone claim to be a USCG maritime incident specialist, so I guess I am curious about the expertise of all these people who appear to consider themselves "Experts". Must be a bunch of certified meteorologists as well, since there is so much "analysis" of the wind conditions and its affect on a ship attempting to dock. You gotta love keyboard experts!

You are incorrect. But now I see others already got this corrected as I got to the next page.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the ship sailed.

 

How long should they have waited? An hour? Three? Six? If the ship waited, then the port employees would have to be there. The porters, the longshoreman...all the support staff necessary to ultimately 'disconnect' from the pier and move out.

 

Not to mention that it is a Dept of Homeland Security requirement that manifests be turned in at least 90 minutes before the ship sails. Yet another delay once those passengers arrived.

 

If the delay is too long, will that mean a missed port?

 

Should the few thousand already on board have THEIR vacation altered to accommodate others?

If 1000 people were missing because the FAA shut down airports (note, two things that I think have been exaggerated here) I would expect them to wait until they needed to free the berth for Allure. And I'm confident that is what they would have in fact done.

When we cruised out of Alaska an accident shut down Seward highway. I believe maybe 600-800 people would have missed the ship had we left on time, so we waited. Because of the delay, everyone on the ship missed Hubbard Glacier. But it was the correct decision.

I truly think you are ignorant if you believe the cruise line would just say too-bad-so-sad to 1000 people. Those onboard can still enjoy the facilities of the ship.

All that said, I don't think even close to 1000 people missed this sailing.

There were over 1000 passengers that missed this boat yesterday.

Can someone currently on the ship weigh in on this point because I highly doubt the ship would leave on time with this many passengers missing.

Our 30 inch bags which are also deeper than our 28 inch ones do not fit under the beds on GR. We've been on board several times in a JS and lifting the bed means it sits on the bag. We just store them behind the chairs in the sitting area of the JS.

Ditto. Luckily my bag was crap, so I just kept jumping on bed till bag gave out. But, grandeur beds are low, so plan accordingly...

Not regarding whether your cabin will be on shore side, but before I could remember what side if the ship is "P"ort and what side is "S"tarboard, I just used the trick of they are in alphabetical order in left to right... Port comes before Starboard... reading left to right, left is first. joila!

That is way more complicated than remembering that port and left both have same number of letters, IMO.

There is absolutely no way to know whether you'll be facing the port or not, for most ports. You might be facing port at some stops, and then facing away from it at others. Even at the same port of call, sometimes the ship may head into the dock and other times the ship will back in - same port, different wind direction, different scenario. Sometimes they vary position because they need to test the lifeboats on a particular side of the ship.

 

The reason some posters are being over-the-top rude to you (and I'm sorry about that, but Cruise Critic is what it is :rolleyes: ), is because the left side is known as the port side, and the way you worded your question, they chose to focus on that instead of the obvious intent of your question.

Oasis class ships will always dock to starboard side unless they have maintenance to do on that side (such as lowering the lifeboats). The ship was designed this way with the escalators on the starboard side.

Ummm, there was that whole Anthem thing...

We board this Sunday, so can't speak from personal experience. But I will say now that as a general matter, the seas in February in that area can be anything from nice to nasty and everywhere in between. Anyone who tells you that don't worry, the Atlantic will definitely be calm this time of year is blowing smoke up your aft.

Radio recently did a live report from Grandeur cruise to Bahamas and he noted the rough seas in many of his posts. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2300882

No experience with that cabin, but I'd move. Switch to the port side, instead. Or go forward, over the shops.

Indeed, when we were on Oasis, Captain Per mentioned in one of his morning shows that they actually prefer to have her starboard side to the pier when possible.

Oasis/Allure (and I assume Harmony) are different in that they will almost always dock to the starboard side because the ship was designed this way with the escalators on the starboard side. If they need to do drills or maintenance (such as lifeboat drills) on the starboard side, they can dock to the port side, but generally speaking, this class of ship will tend to dock to the starboard side. As the OP asked about NOS, there is no way of knowing and the docking side can vary from week to week at the same port.

(off topic, but in Castaway Cay, a Disney port, the ships will always back in, so you know the docking side will always be the port side there)

 

For the record, it's not an island, it's simply a fenced-off compound with strictly controlled access.:cool:

For the record, it is an island. Labadee is a peninsula on an island.

Funny how many views this thread has gotten just from people trying to figure out what the heck the OP was talking about.

Ships this big create a serious draw or undertow that pulls people under the water.

This is not true and a bit more of an urban legend or Hollywood myth.

Also, getting hit by any part of the hull, even going at a slower speed, can be deadly. This is really horrible.

This is true, though the person fell from the lifeboat, so he was pretty far away from the ship's hull.

That said, for the reasons explained later, it's not that easy to survive or be found. The person fell from a lifeboat, which was located on deck 5, so approximately 50 feet above the water. At that height, falling into the water can cause some harm. Also, it's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack, assuming the person is able to keep themselves afloat to be found.

If you are booking 2 years out, will the kids be 8 then? Or are they 4 now?

 

I wouldn't worry about the balcony door so much with 8 yr olds.

The balcony doors are very heavy and difficult to open. As well, there is a child lock up high (or has been on every balcony I've been on).

I have sailed RCCL twice to Alaska (many years ago) and will do so again in two months, as a Diamond member, so I can only offer the perspective who has considered the same decision you are and stuck with RCCL.

Aside from Glacier Bay, I don't see any reason really to change cruise lines and Hubbard Glacier is very nice. Someday I'll probably do another line so that I can see Glacier Bay, but IF you have never been to Hubbard Glacier, I wouldn't be so quick to jump cruise lines. But, that's just my opinion.

There are many excellent reviews of RCCL in Alaska, especially Radiance Northbound/Southbound cruises, which is what you are considering. I think it is more important that you add some pre-cruise time in Alaska if possible to see Seward and do a Kenai Fjords excursion and, perhaps, Denali.

By then I was tired and cold though. :)

Which is precisely when being able to watch from the comfort of your balcony is the best.

They are going to Hubbard Glacier and most of the time sailing in to see the glacier it is directly in front of the ship so the aft balcony would not be an advantage there. We had balconies on our first 2 times to AK and seldom used them. The one exception was sailing into Tracy Arm when it was raining. We could have easily seen the same views on the promenade deck. Since then we have booked an OV and haven't regretted it at all. At half the cost of a balcony, we had more money for excursions or we just saved a lot of $$$.

Except the same amount of time is spent sailing away from the Glacier, at which time an aft balcony would be beneficial...

So essentially, only buy one park, but the express pass? Though in our 50's/60's, we love the park when we were there before and rode every ride. Maybe at this age 6 hours may be enough.

Just so you know, you cannot ride the Hogwarts train unless you have the two park pass, as the train goes between the two parks. Also, if you are going for Potter, you'll want the two park pass because it is in both parks.

I can't sail inside a cubby hole with no fresh air for 10 days! I'll die... seriously, not over exaggerating.

I do not think it means what you think it means...

Dude, get off your soapbox, as that post is ridiculous. You are complaining about getting Freedom and Oasis, two of the largest and most innovative ships in the industry. Okay....

Beat me to it. Now, Liberty has had scrubbers for 2-3 years now, and Freedom is getting them now, so either of those two could go to Baltimore, as I believe Freedom class fits under the bridge.

I don't think anything larger than the Radiance class can clear the Francis Scott Key bridge, which has, I believe, only 185 ft clearance. Voyager air draft is 208 ft from what I can find online.

I called RCI and the person on the phone said that the grandeur was being replaced by a new ship being built right now after 2016. Sorry......I don remember the name of the ship that's replacing the grandeur

LoL. Would be nice - but I highly doubt the person on the phone has any clue, unless you called their C-suite executives. None of the ships we currently know about under construction for RCI can go to Baltimore.