bajathree

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos people are posting from this current sailing. I haven't seen anything more crazy than the normal sailings in the videos....but will find out soon enough for myself. The only thing that I saw that was geared real party like was their late night Frat party where they have beer bong set up with people playing....I can see things getting out of hand really quick in that frat party since it looked pretty hard core college like atmosphere to me from the video.

Just noticed your itinerary is flipped from our's this coming Fri....we hit Nassau day 2 and then Cocoa day 3.

I just watched a video last night someone posted on YouTube of Aqua 80. While fun it looked to me like it missed that "Cirque du Soleil" theatrical feel that the other Oasis class aqua shows usually have. Seemed to me like they took the music and dance from the 80's party and implemented it into a dive show.

Hey old buddy....yes...it's been a long time. I am on Utopia this coming Friday!!! Then on Symphony in Dec. One of these days we will cross paths.

Very doubtful....especially after what orville99 described happening. Doesn't seem to be much changing there for the good anytime soon.

Utopia is going to be a big hit with people wanting to combine Disney/Universal with a big new cruise ship. It's funny years ago Royal calibrated with Universal and were promoting it. I went on one of their promotional tours and my feedback was .....all you have are these older ship short sailings offered to combine. You are taking someone from a beautiful new Universal resort and then putting them on a danky old ship. Well 12 years later and here we are.

Yes....that Champion Gate area is aways the problem....sometimes takes longer to get through that than the time it takes from Tampa to CG.

I will say this....in talking to people here locally in Tampa most seem to know about and say they want to try Royal's new ship the Utopia. And most of these people are either new cruisers or people that have never been on a cruise. It actually surprised me cause there really hasn't been much advertising about this ship yet and most seem to know about it and are showing interest. So maybe it's working at least for now to attract first time and newer cruisers.

Don't forget they are building the new Hideaway scheduled to open in Nassau next year also.

What time did you leave Tampa to make it there by 9:30am? Have done the run from Tampa when departing on weekends....what was traffic like on I4 from Tampa on a Fri morning? I usually do I4 to 417 to 528.

Thats absolutely crazy putting paying passengers through what you describe you experienced.

So this was a revenue sailing with passengers stopping at Labadee to drop off supplies?

I second renting a car...there are some gorgeous beaches to visit in Curacao. I always use https://www.advancecarrentalcuracao.com They will drop the car to the port for you and meet you and then pick it back up at the port also. They give you a GPS loaded with all the spots as well as a cell phone for emergency.

Violence is also on the rise outside Haiti’s capital. Last week, armed gangs attacked families located in Terre-Neuve, a village in northern Haiti, forcing more than 1,000 people to flee their homes to safer areas. https://apnews.com/article/haiti-gang-violence-displacement-0f1a492c9231161a54037ca5b9b7e676

Well thats good that they added a bathroom into the CL/CK on Wonder.

Post covid I found there are large amounts of kids on all these big ship sailings no matter what time of year anymore.

Tides are already being reported 1' above normal in Galveston. Tonight/tomorrow is reported to have tides 3-4' above normal with 5+" rain. Only good news is low tide is forecast to be tonight into the morning during the height of storm impact.

Watching numerous weather reports I don't see any way any ship is making it into Galveston Monday morning.

As to the booze cruise comments I think that will all depend on how much Royal can keep pricing high on these short sailings. I learned long ago on Royal back in the days of Monarch and Sovereign when they used to drop their 3 and 4 night sailings down to $79-89/pp to fill the ships....when pricing fell below a certain point you didn't want to be on that sailing anymore. I think they will be heavily comping these short sailings to their casino clients....as well as now with Royal's calibration with Hard Rock Casino they are going to be heavily comp'ing those customers also. That may allow Royal to be able to balance out supply and demand enough so that they can keep a higher price point up and not have to drop pricing to nothing to fill up cabins last minute...that will be key to keeping it from becoming that booze cruise atmosphere.

Not only will you have to knock on the door each evening....you will have to knock on the door even if you have to go to the bathroom during dinner as the bathroom isn't located inside KC/CL. You have no access into the CL/CK as a JS guest other than to stand outside knocking on the door waiting to be let in each time. To be honest they give JS guest access to CK for dinner on an as available bases but they don't make it easy for JS guests and make it feel a bit awkward as they are making you feel like you are begging to please let you in.

You may want to watch the radar and latest tracking....Galveston is fully in the cone. The track keeps shifting more northward. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/174634.shtml?cone#contents

Meaning in Falmouth itself. I have done many excursions in Jamaica.

I have taken many excursions in Jamaica while docked in Falmouth....some of them that have taken us through the area right outside the port area in downtown Falmouth.

There is absolutely nothing in Falmouth that would ever make me want to venture outside the gates for.

Thanks for that info....first I am hearing of it. Haven't been to Falmouth for a couple years.