Snaefell3

1 hour ago, vlthom said:

I do see that they are now offering sweet potato fries as a side

Missed that. 🙂   In lieu of coleslaw, though 😞  

1 hour ago, ak1004 said:

Our Princess. Raise was in the Baltic.

The satellite relay is shared among all pax.  Were timezones having you calling when the rest of the ship was asleep / dining / etc?

Were you in port, where the ship might have plugged into a shoreside ISP instead of going via satellite.

 Least likely, Princess spent enough on expensive bandwidth.

7 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

Well, we were getting over 5Mbps on Princess in 2018, so the technology is there, even before StarLink. And Princess has 3 times more passengers compared to Riviera, not to mention SS. And I'm pretty sure Princess guests post pictures too.. It's all matter of cost, but it looks like the more expensive the cruise line is, the worse the internet is..

 

It's the price of satellite relay, not the price of the cruise line. Rather than pricing cruise-by-cruise, ships simply buy less bandwidth when it's more expensive.

Before StarLink's polar-orbit satellites, cheap bandwidth was only available within about ±40º of latitude. In other words, good internet-at-sea in the Caribbean and not in the Med.

For example, Regal Princess needed to switch from a cheap satellite to an expensive one midway on a TA and we went from video-streaming speed to dialup speed.  😞

19 hours ago, Waltershipman said:

1st night in specialty restaurants a big plus to avoid intensity of very full GDR even waters agree

Yep.  But if you look a little deeper, you realize that's because folks tend not to book 1st night specialties, meaning seating is usually available for the asking upon boarding (or even for being accosted by a maître d' in a hallway. 😉 )   Many folks plan to get a "second" reservation the first night and use their guaranteed reservation later in the voyage.

YMMV, especially on a fully-booked, 7-day cruise.

1 hour ago, lighting said:

What is the perks and cost  of upgraded Wi-Fi?   Thank you in advance.

From luggage tag mailing for March '24:

"In addition to receiving Wavenet FREE Unlimited WiFi, you may also upgrade to Wavenet Prime and enjoy streaming.  Get access such as Netflix or Audible.  $9.99 per day, per device."

Common belief is that Prime does not give more bandwidth, but only removes anti-streaming filters.

6 minutes ago, clo said:

Another advantage to living on the Left Coast 🙂

"Another"?   😛😉

3 hours ago, ORV said:

Did anyone or Currents [on Regatta] mention that it was open to all or is that assumed because the lock didn’t work?

No mention one way or another in Currents.  Not a busted lock, no lock (the door forward from the gym was a vanilla glass door and I'd have noticed).  No "get your day pass" or "restricted" signs.

We were aware there was someplace called the Spa Terrace, but there was no indication that the little foredeck with hot tub and deck loungers was it -- we were O newbies in Concierge and kept looking for it during our first-day explorations.

Since our voyage, the topic came up in another CC thread, and there was a "Yeah, they removed the locks all the ‘O’-class ships a while back" reply.  Frankly, if we'd plopped down $25 for access, we'd have not thought it money well spent.

O ships have a foredeck called the "Spa Terrace" with some mix of hot tubs, thermal loungers, saltwater lap pool, etc, and not available to Cat B and below pax without a day pass.  But when I was on Regatta, the access door cardreaders had been removed, and I'm told that is the case on all of the ‘O’-class ships.

2 hours ago, Waltershipman said:

Lots of empty loungers too

...and here I thought it was Marina that was visiting Antarctica.

::removes tongue from cheek::

38 minutes ago, Iamthesea said:

 

Could someone share a first nights menu?  We will be on a 7 night cruise in the Caribbean.

There isn't a "first night menu". 

Probably because they run so many overlapping cruises, O's ships run a 14(?) day repeating cycle of GDR menus irrespective of embarkation/debarkations.  Check https://www.thepreismans.com/index.html blog for lots of actual menus and pictures.

1 hour ago, edgee said:

Vista

Thank you, good to know.  (Our luggage tags arrived yesterday 😁 )

@FeliciaLee?  Surf 'n Turf went from filet medallions to ground beef, too. 

But, yep, the new stuff looks like at least an even trade.

28 minutes ago, edgee said:

Noticed new menu at Waves

What ship?  

(Such is likely to be tested on a single ship first, then rolled out ship by ship if the test doesn't faceplant.)

One more facet:  Consensus is that food in Ember is great, and the ambient noise is objectionable.  PH+ folks can enjoy its good food course-by-course in the tranquility of their cabins.

Oh!  Wait!  Isn't there a thread about folks able to listen to their neighbors' TV?  😁

3 hours ago, roninman said:

 

According to reports, Oceania indeed originally offered passengers some compensation, with a decision deadline for accepting some weeks in the future, and then unilaterally without warning, snatched that offer off the table, leaving passengers high and dry for believing Oceania's offer.   And then Oceania completely ignored passengers asking for an explanation.    

 

Difficult to see how such behavior would not be a major marketing mistake.

 

*THAT* would be a mistake. 

However, O's weakness --ashore and afloat-- is silence when they should be communicating.  I wasn't paying much attention at the time, but IIRC there was a lot of "I'm sure that…" discussion that morphed into "O will…" because O was silent.

57 minutes ago, Psoque said:

The bandwidth/speed of the onboard internet is only as fast as the slowest piece of equipment onboard.

Typically, the choke point is the bandwidth of the ship's satellite downlink.

• You don't get your own downlink, everybody shares a single downlink.

• The cost of downlink *varies*:

  - In port, ships can plug into an inexpensive land-based ISP.

  - ±40º latitude can use low-priced medium-orbit equatorial satellites.

  - Expensive where most land use is via satellite rather than ground link

  - Very expensive in polar areas (unless on polar orbit satellite = StarLink)

• Ships buy more bandwidth when it's cheap and less when expensive.

Remember the real estate mantra: "Location, location, location".

7 hours ago, clo said:

Nor do I. It continues to look like a major marketing mistake.

I can see O's thinking:  "If each of those ports had been fogged-in, we'd have skipped them with no compensation, and this way you're getting replacement ports".

Such will certainly have an effect, but I'm not sure it's a "major marketing mistake". 

It means O will have trouble filling any cruises near a worry zone for the foreseeable future, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing since I don't book excursions to see active volcanoes, either. 🫣

2 hours ago, shepherd really said:

Currently Orv and the Marina are just North of the Antarctic Peninsula so he may not have internet access.  Marina is 

 

One of StarLink's advantages is that it uses polar orbit satellites instead of equatorial, and so it works just fine even in deep polar regions.  Shame if O didn't get it yet on Marina for this voyage.

Sheesh!  Look at all those ships.  Almost like a parking lot at Walmart? 

The First Law of Project Management:

• The first half of any project takes 90% of the available time and resources.

• The second half takes the other 90%.

2 hours ago, Cruzin Terri said:

Now, why could that not happen at the reservation desk?

Methinks any wise reservation system would hold back a table (or 2?) for the maître d' to use in solving problems, then if no problems arose he'd still want butts in those chairs?

Alternatively, you might have gotten the seats of some no-shows.

13 minutes ago, Fuzzy55 said:

We are also taking the Vista 3/16 and driving down. Is it common that the ship may embark at one terminal and disembark at another in Miami? Will transportation be provided between the terminals if there is a fair distance between them to get back to the parking garage by the original terminal?

That's right.  You're driving and need to get back to your parking lot.  Terminal ‘E’ is on the north side of Dodge Island (part of the long line of full-size docks) and Terminal ‘J’ is a lone, petite terminal on the south side about 500 yards away.  AFIK, walking from the south side to the north side would require suicidal jaywalking.

🤔  You could always take the problem to your butler/concierge/lobby concierge once aboard; but I'd start, now, with getting your TA involved or calling O directly -- but beware because there is a reason for the advice "Call O three times and average the answers".

There are several reasons O will always prefer to embark/debark at Terminal ‘J’ when they can.  Every so often, though, "can" can change into "can't" on very short notice because of weather.

26 minutes ago, Snaefell3 said:

"user hostile"

For those who wonder what "E (16.5-E) PST" means, there is no key supplied:

• E = Terminal 'E'

• (16.5-E) = Dunno. Anyone?  Beuller?  😉

• PST = PortSide To (pier)

Also, you have to actually click on a date in the calendar to set it as a search criterion, even if it already seems to be set by being boxed.

I could go on.

48 minutes ago, shepherd really said:

Generally

It's more "user hostile" than "user friendly", but check Port of Miami's official website: https://wwwx.miamidade.gov/Apps/Seaport/dailydock/Default.aspx

For example, Vista docks at Terminal E this coming March 16th:

1 minute ago, shepherd really said:

West Texas Crude by the barrel is a poor measure of fuel cost, since these ships burn bunker fuel by the ton.  

Not if you are a lawyer writing a contract.  WTI is well-litigated, and Joe's Bunker Service's price isn't. 😛😉

1 minute ago, Eloise4Ever said:

 

Again, I am very surprised that folks are comfortable with this kind of dubious business practice. O may not break out their port fees but don't you think they should?

 

Any company that treats their customers in such an underhand way is not a good fit for me. I find it amazing that so many are untroubled by these practices. To say this is much ado about nothing gives O carte blanche to treat their guests poorly.

 

Peace!  What you may not have noticed is that O doesn't boost (in my experience) port fees when they substitute a more expensive port, either.

1 hour ago, cruisemom42 said:

Whether or not Oceania is profiting from these changes -- and they almost certainly would be profiting from cutting port stays short...both in terms of being able to sail more slowly to next destination and cutting port fees -- they are disturbing to one who travels primarily for itinerary.

I've a theory about what's happening, and I'll repeat it here -- bear with me if you've heard it over on the other thread.

Cruise lines set their fares when they announce a cruise based upon the expected fuel cost, and right now they are hurting (among other things) from not correctly predicting current fuel costs, and would rather endure the grumbles from cutting port stays short than the fury of adding fuel surcharges even after Final Payment dates.

For example, the Ticket Contract for our cruise on O this coming March says:

"(§2.i) Carrier reserves the right to charge a fuel surcharge supplement, without prior notice, should the closing price of West Texas Intermediate Fuel increase above $65.00 USD per barrel on the NYMEX … This charge may apply, at Carrier’s sole discretion, to existing and new reservations and Carrier may collect the fuel surcharge supplement at the time of sailing, even if the Fare has been paid in full."

Today WTI closed at $74.51/bbl, and O has the right to impose the surcharge even now after Final Payment  …but they have'nt.