mjldvlks

We were on Navigator with our then 14-year old who was getting ready for field hockey season, so during the spa and fitness tour we asked about the policy. I was given a waiver to sign and she was given a bracelet to wear whenever she was in the gym (had to be with a parent as well.) There were quite a few teens there doing the same thing - no issues.

. . . .

I think this is one of the clues to greater likelihood of success -- be up front, go to them first and don't just appear and wait to get challenged.

 

Personally, I support teens using the facilities, but only with parental supervision. I have seen too many teens at my local gym on school holidays who obviously don't belong.

 

I am not concerned that restricting teen use of the fitness center will be a contributor to childhood obesity -- first it's a week, maybe two obesity doesn't happen in that time frame. Second, as someone else mentioned above, there are plenty of other opportunities for physical exertion -- the track, sports court, walking around, taking the stairs, and perhaps most effective weight control exercise of all -- push aways -- firmly grasp the edge of the dinner table and push yourself away.

. . .

Virtually any electronic device with an ac electrical plug that needs its battery recharged can be connected to the 234v European plug. They sense the incoming voltage and automatically adjust. I recharge electronics all the time in the 234v outlet using only a plug adapter (no voltage transformer [converter] required). Do NOT plug resistive devices without current limiting into the 234v, as they will overheat and may cause a fire.. . .

 

Great point. We try to make use of the Euro outlets as well. I only post to point out that every device that can be plugged into a wall socket should have a data plate that give the proper input and output voltage. If it says something like "Input AC 110V-240V" you can safely plug it into either outlet using an adapter [but not transformer or voltage converter] as needed. This should be checked for any devices plugged directly into the wall socket. Going through my drawer of old charging cords, I noticed several of my old phone charging cords [not THAT old] do not allow for alternate voltage.

. . . But see the rules. . . .

 

Quoted in post #16 above.

. . . It means that somebody doesn't know what they're talking about. What they should really be asking for is a certified copy, but I don't think you can get one of those, either. . .

 

Actually you can -- see my posts above. I know it works from personal experience.

 

Rolloman -- even if it only avoiding some of those "steps," I'd rather have what they are expecting and board more quickly. It is so easy, there is really no reason not to.

The RCI website says the following regarding documentation:

 

To qualify for a military rate, an individual must be classified as one of the following:

 

Active personnel currently serving in the Canadian National Defense; United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard or Reserves. Proper identification in the form of a United States Uniformed Services WHITE Identification Card for U.S. military personnel, and a WHITE N.D.21 Identification Card with a Red Canadian Flag displayed for Canadian National Defense personnel, must be presented at time of check-in.

Retired from any of the divisions listed directly above. "Retired" is defined as A) enlisted personnel or officers with a minimum of 20 years of service, B) medically retired, or C) 100% disabled. Proper identification for those classified in category A or B must be in the form of a United States Uniformed RED (Reserve retired personnel) or BLUE (Active Duty retired personnel) Identification Card. Proper identification for those classified in category C is a United States Uniformed TAN Identification Card. Retired Canadian National Defense personnel are eligible and must possess a green NDI-75 card (retired personnel). All forms of identification must be presented at time of check-in.

Veterans with an Honorable Discharge serving a minimum of 2 years, or 6-months in an active war zone, in any of the United States service divisions listed above. Proper identification in the form of a DD 214, plus a current photo must be presented at time of check-in.

Spouses of actively deployed, or deceased military personnel, are eligible to book one stateroom as long as the eligible spouse is occupying the stateroom. All other guests traveling in the same stateroom are also eligible for the military rate. Spouse must present the PINK Dependent Military ID upon check-in as proof of eligibility.

 

Unfortunately, state issued IDs and/or VA cards are not listed. I am always fearful of the overzealous/officious agent at the dock insisting on strict compliance with the above requirements, so I always have my DD 214. No real reason not to -- it is easy to obtain a certified copy through the website linked above and it is reasonably quick. They claim they are responding to requests for separation docs within 10 days about 92% of the time [older docs or those that may have been involved in the St Louis fire may take longer due to additional research or reconstruction required]. My memory is I had mine in hand within 2-3 weeks of the request.

A long time ago, there was a thread on this topic where the consensus was that the RCI's requirements say "DD 214" and not a copy of that document so a copy may not fit the bill.

 

About that time we had a military discount on a cruise so I took my original [which is just a carbon manifold -- no seal or anything]. I am also a retired reservist so I have my ID, however as I am not yet 60, I do not yet have an official retired ID, so my ID does not match the specific requirements of the website. As others above have said, I have never actually been asked for anything -- but there is always a first time.

 

Anyway, when this topic comes up, I try to post the following link:

 

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/

 

This is the link to the National Archives site where you can get a certified copy of your DD 214 -- for free. I tried mainly just to see if it worked -- and it did. With reasonable promptness, I received two copies of my DD 214 each stamped with a raised seal. I encourage anyone who may have a need to prove prior military service to use this source. It's free, its certified, and [for those who are paranoid about such things] you never have to risk you official original.

Next cruise

That is the official policy, but I have heard some have gotten a friendly crew to give them the next level benefits [for things like robes, CL/DL, etc -- no enhanced discount for your current cruise] for the balance of the cruise [and I believe everything I read on this board]. In other words -- never hurts to ask. But don't get upset if they say no -- the policy is clearly next cruise.

There are several articles that say one of the policy/embargo relaxations is that travelers will now be allowed to enter the US with up to $400 in Cuban merchandise of which up to $100 can be tobacco and alcohol products. Not clear from these articles whether (1) this applies to all travelers entering the US or only those traveling to/from Cuba; and (2) when this new policy is effective. And I cannot vouch for the credibility of any of these articles.

It is apparent that everyone has an opinion and OP will never know what hers is unless she tries, so I encourage her to try the balcony.

 

For us, our first cruise was a balcony in the eastern Med. We then did a JS and then a couple of OVs another balcony and then an inside. We thoroughly enjoyed all of the cruises and I personally don't really care that much. If the price is right I would choose a balcony, but I have never felt like I enjoyed a cruise less because we were in another category. And I have never been able to tell the difference in categories at night with the lights out.

. . . what used to be called the promenade deck (do they still call it that?) . . .

 

I don't know about "they" but I do -- usually modified as the "outside" promenade to avoid confusion with the Royal Promenade inside. Note the deck chairs on this level are usually under cover. If you want sun, the areas above the pool deck will usually have a lot of chairs available without much crowding. I would be a little concerned about the wind on the helipad.

Thanks to OP and all aboard who are contributing. We appreciate everything you are posting -- but don't let us give you too much work.

 

. . .

13. . . . Treadmill equipment is nice, and I was able to get a couple of miles in even though the treadmill was moving under my feet. . . .

 

LOL -- I always enjoy the opportunity to get a little hill work in even at sea.

Spent two weeks on Independence for our TA -- it's a great ship.

 

As to what to do first, I am a creature of ritual and tradition so I normally follow a very similar patter. When we first board, we take the elevator to our cabin deck to see if cabins are accessible [even if not ready]. If so, we drop off the carry-on stuff and head to the Windjammer. If not, we heft the stuff to Windjammer with us. I know it might be crowded, but the first visit to the buffet is my "now it's a cruise" moment. After eating, depending on the time, we might find a place to sit and visit with friends until cabins are ready.

 

Once we drop off the stuff [or immediately after eating if we got lucky and dropped it off before] we start the grand tour. We generally start at the top and try to walk into every public space we can. One of my personal rituals is to get to the highest outside deck possible. As we continue this tour, we hit the fitness center, bars, shops, etc and eventually work our way down to the lowest public deck [4 I think on the Freedom Class] which usually has the outside promenade deck [or as close to one as there is]. Another of my rituals is to walk all the way around the ship on this deck. On the Freedoms, this includes going up the stairs to the helipad on Deck 5. One of my favorite places on the Freedoms is the area on the outside promenade where the deck bows out around the Main Dining Room and is out in the wind and the spray when you are at sea. If you want to "connect with the sea" there is no better place in my opinion. While we are on the appropriate deck, we will walk through the MDR to find our table. Mainly for education purposes so we know where to go at dinner time [We are typically travelling with friends so changing tables for social/conversational purposes would be politically incorrect]. Our grand tour will also include a tour of the Royal Promenade and maybe a stop for a drink/snack at Sorrentos or the Promenade Café [by that time it may have been as much as an hour since we left the Windjammer]. By the time we finish our touring, it will be getting close to muster drill.

 

I should mention that this is also my opportunity to photograph the ship. Typically, as many as 2/3 of my "aboard ship" pictures will come from the first afternoon.

 

If we run out of things to do, we will probably meet our traveling companions at a bar or other eating/drinking establishment. We don't see our cruise friends all the time so there is a lot of visiting to be done.

Here is a link to a video bridge tour for Oasis:

 

I looked on the RCI website and your route is from Ft Lauderdale through the straits of Gibraltar to Malaga and Barcelona. So in the context of the above comments [which I generally find to be consistent with our experience] you will be on the "Southern" route.

Our April TA crossed the Atlantic from Ft Lauderdale to Vigo Spain with stops in the Azores and Madeira -- so it was slightly north of the direct route for your itinerary. I say "direct" route because, as others have pointed out, there is no way to predict storms this far out. Given the time you have to make the crossing, the size of the ocean and the speed of the ships, there is a great deal of flexibility -- especially since you have no ports of call between Florida and Malaga. The Captains are pretty good about using that flexibility to avoid bad weather if at all possible. On our TA, my memory is that the weather was not hot, but pleasant all the way across. Once we left Vigo and headed North to Southampton, it got cooler, but still not bad. My memory is that the pools and Flow Rider were in use the entire crossing. I took a look at the pictures I took and they show people were generally dressed in light clothing -- a fair number of shorts and short sleeves, but also some sweaters -- in the same picture. Bottom line, as others have said, I would prepare for moderately warm to cool weather. Bring you shorts [and swimsuit if you care to], but have a sweater or jacket in case.

I recommend you look up the weather history for Malaga and Barcelona to know what to expect in those locations. In fact, you might consider looking up the weather for Gibraltar as well. When you pass through the straits, you will be close enough it should give you an approximation. Unfortunately, I am not aware of a good source for historic weather data for the open ocean. You might consider looking at data for mid Atlantic islands [e.g., the Azores and Madeira, and maybe the Canaries]. You will be South of the Azores and Madeira and North of the Canaries, but maybe that will allow you to interpolate and get an idea of what to expect.

Enjoy your cruise -- I consider our April TA one of my favorite cruises.

. . . By midnight, we were both in bed and getting rested up for our next stop (and one of my favorite places in the world)… Dubrovnik!!!!

 

Cool Girl

Dubrovnik is one of those places I never would have gone if it hadn't been on an itinerary we chose for other reasons -- but is now one of my favorites. There is almost always one on every cruise. This kind of surprise is one of the things that makes cruising better than all-inclusives or other kinds of land vacations.

As a general proposition, the white, unlabeled areas are spaces that are not open to the passenger population. It could be a variety of things, storage, mechanical, or crew passage ways. I can tell you for certain that the white area between 9677 and 9685 is a crew stairway. Early on our TA aboard Independence, that area was open and (a) seeing stairs [albeit without carpet or wood trim], and (b) following my theory that if there is no barrier they intend you to use it, I headed up to our friends' cabin on 10 aft. A crew member politely informed me that was crew only and I retreated. since the area next to 9597 is similarly sized, I am guessing it is another crew staircase. If you can get another room that is between two passenger cabins, you will probably have a somewhat better assurance of quiet, but if 9597 is the subject of a spectacular deal or if for any other reason you cannot find another cabin you like, I wouldn't be overly concerned about noise.

I agree with OP's suggestions and, if I am ever around in one of these situations, I hope I would be able to block, clear the way or otherwise help them.

 

At the same time, I want to put in a plug for ship's staff. We have fortunately never been in this situation, but we have twice [two different cruises, two different RCI ships] had members of the group we were traveling with who were. In both cases, the ship's staff were wonderful -- cooperative, helpful and efficient. From little things like free internet, telephone and use of ship's facilities to print boarding passes, to bigger things like assistance in planning and making arrangements for the early departure.

There are many things that are "good" service in the sense of better than what is typically expected. A few of the things that I have experienced that fit in that category include:

 

1. A bar tender that had my diet coke [on a soda card] ready on the bar when he saw me approaching to watch a game on the Schooner Bar TV.

 

2. Waiter who went out of their way to get special desserts made up for specific guests -- including Maria on Indie who got one of our table mates a specially made orange sherbet sundae every night for two weeks [i think he was testing her].

 

3. The cabin attendant that, even though we were in a lowly port hole OV on Monarch, went out of his way to make sure he talked to me personally the day before change over on a B2B to make sure we knew the procedure and he did what we needed.

 

4. Many bar servers who brought over a tray of our typical drinks almost the second our group sat down in one bar or another [most frequently our trivia group].

 

5. The many waiter who greet me by name and with a smile from day one.

 

6. The many activity staff personnel who let us pretend we are best buddies for a week.

 

A few of the things I consider sub standard [almost all of which occurred on a single cruise aboard Jewel]:

 

1. Having a waiter and headwaiter refuse an order for a steak to be cooked "medium" [Gee -- if Golden Corral can do it . . .]

 

2. Having a waiter yell [literally] at one of our table mates who had the audacity to eat what he served her [it turns out he served her by mistake -- his mistake].

 

3. The bar server who took my order for a diet coke [on a soda card] and then never came back -- twice on the same cruise.

 

4. The waiter who didn't even bother to show up for 30 minutes after we had been seated [OK this was not Jewel, this was Celebrity]. I don't think he ever told us his name.

Where would they be located. . . .

 

If they are on stateroom decks they would be inevitably located in areas that are now devoted to staterooms so, yeah, I think they would necessarily create traffic and noise in certain areas.

 

Personally, I have never had any trouble packing enough to get through a cruise. Since RCI's business is dominated by the one week cruise, I suspect most people are in that position. I think that, if asked, I would vote to keep them out [i have visions of the laundry room in the basement of my college dorm] but it is not a big deal to me either way. It just cracks me up to see folks getting wound up about it. RCI has made a business decision to not have them -- devoting the space they would occupy to uses [probably passenger staterooms] that are more profitable and avoiding the cost of equipment and maintenance. I think it is a safe bet that, if the RCI bosses thought it would improve the bottom line, they would install a whole deck of them in about half a heartbeat.

Can't help with the crib/Pack-n-Play but here are a couple of pictures of our OV on Jewel [3134]. It is an H I believe but should be the same size as a G. The Gs have Pullman beds and such for extra passengers, but this should give you a general idea of size.

 

 

 

Note we have put the little coffee table in the closet [a habit of mine].

 

Don't know what category balcony you had, but this OV had more interior space than our E balcony on Radiance.

I have mentioned this on other threads and it's not really a secret [indeed it's hard to avoid if you try to walk around the outside promenade] but there is an area on 4 where the walkway bow out into the open as it passes around the windows od the MDR. One of my favorite places for standing on the rail and sea watching. You are out in the wind and pretty close to the water. if you want to feel "connected" to the sea, this is about as close as you can get aboard ship. Here is a picture:

 

[quote name='GonnaSailtoo']. . . SO, yes, it was fabulous. YES, I had a grand time. And once again, YES, thank you for all your input, Cruise Critic members! :)[/QUOTE]

Glad you had a good time. Even though there are no chairs out there, hope you at least spent a little time out in the wind in the area around the MDR.

The read distance on the RFID enabled US passport when open varies greatly based on the power of the reader, environment and degree to which the book is opened. It is virtually zero when fully closed. Getting another cover for a US passport is equivalent to wearing a second condom:cool:

 

As long as the crooks agree to only use the short range skimmers in the proper environment aimed at fully closed books, we should all be fine, right?

 

You are saying pretty much what the State Department said when the RFID passports were first issued. I am simply saying that I have read an article that said the State Department line was proven inaccurate by someone who demonstrated that passport information could be skimmed from distances of up to 10 meters. The gov has since added foil to the book covers but it is not clear how effective that has been. I only know what I read, and have no way to independently verify any of it. But, given that screening devices are pretty cheap, and the security/privacy of RFID devices remains subject to question, I think that caution regarding their use is prudent. I reiterate, I don't care if the cruise line monitors my every move. Probably pretty boring stuff [well there was that one night . . . oh never mind]. I am unconcerned about "Big Brother" and have no phobia of "plastic jewelry." I am, however, concerned about the possibility of sensitive personal information [say credit card information from your on board account] being skimmed [either on board or ashore]. I confess my research has only just started, but I have found nothing to persuade me that these security/privacy concerns are unfounded or have been fixed.

I assume it will have your room number, credit card number, social security number, and high school GPA!:D

Don't forget your debit card PIN and mother's maiden name..

If you watch the video from RCL closely, you'll notice that the locking mechanism doesn't have a slot for a sea pass card magnetic strip reader. So unless they are going to put 2 separate locking devices on all the doors, it means that sea pass cards will have RFID capability.

 

I have not seen the video -- just read the information. That seems to be a logical conclusion. It had already occurred to me that 2 separate point-of-sale systems doesn't make any sense and that the card will most likely be an RFID card rather than a mag strip. Do you have a link to the video?