On 5/20/2024 at 7:58 AM, island lady said:

I dunno...I still miss the Monarch.  😉                                                                                                                                                                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monarch was okay, but I preferred Majesty. 

Of the ships in question, if you have children or teens then Symphony. We did one cruise on Oasis, I did not care for the layout. It seemed I could never get from point A to B without having to go through points C & D!  Freedom and Independence are our favorite ships.

20 hours ago, akcruz said:

This shot was taken not far from where we live, not my picture, a local photographer that shares their pics on many of the social media sites.  Beautiful sunset last night. 

 

What a difference a few miles make, It was still cloudy in Garden City at sunset,.

They're not dropping passengers in the open Caribbean, but one of the inlets. Not a lot of wave action or under tow from my experience at island stops. All bets are off if a storm is passing through.

I will get more info because it looks like one of the better excursions I've seen lately.

BTW,  I know 50 y/o people a lot older than I am.

Thanks, didn't notice we might have to swim to shore. I have no trouble swimming in the Caribbean, the Atlantic where I grew up and live is much more of a challenge. 

I'll have to track down more info on this particular excursion.

Reading over possible excursions on our December Freedom cruise. I am over 65, my sister is even more over 65, but I don't understand this particular excursion marked as Strenuous. If this is strenuous, sleeping by the pool will be considered  moderately strenuous.

Activity Level

3 hours ago, SRF said:

with DH, you could have linked accounts and he would be D.

Sorry I was not clear. Yes, DH is the same level as I am and my sister reached Diamond several years ago. 

They have never shown much interest in the diamond lounge.

17 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

Yeah and also the convenience factor depending on where we end up. I booked a suite guarantee this time because it was a good price and includes $350 OBC.

 

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, the cruises I've booked over the years never have good freebies!

1 minute ago, island lady said:

 

We as well, especially if it is in "the bilge" on deck 4 as a windowless large closet on most of the Oasis class ships.  😕

 

IMHO...There are just too many interesting lounges around the ship not to enjoy a "bar crawl".  😉 

We prefer a window seat in the Schooner bar on most ships. 

Thanks to an error in accounting, I had an extra cruise added to my C&A account. When the dreaded change came, I had just enough points to be Diamond. Because I split cruises between my husband and sister, it took her a couple of years to reach diamond, she was not happy, With DH or after my sister reached Diamond, we rarely went into the Diamond lounge. On our last cruise, a b2b on Independence we had the notice about not being allowed to use the lounge during happy hour. One evening we were bored and stopped in anyway, it was empty. So we had some  snacks and a drink before heading out.

I really prefer the 4 drink vouchers to access to the lounge. 

Instead of doing the origami folds suggested on the luggage tags, I use the paper cutter to trim it down and then use my handy dandy thermal document sealer to make water proof luggage tags I easily staple on and place inside my check through luggage.

I prefer using the preprinted tags so there are no questions about how I might write a number or other info requested on the tags.

From how quickly they cleaned up and repaired the mess in Philadelphia recently, I think they will not be waiting around for the lowest bid to start clearing the channel once they have completed recovery efforts. They will be looking for the best expertise and speed.

55 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

It sure matters to the people driving vehicles that cannot go through the Baltimore tunnels.

They will probably have to take 695 around the west of Baltimore. Longer route but not tunnels.

23 minutes ago, KmomChicago said:

I was thinking Norfolk as well. It’s not used a lot so might have better availability than the NYC area ports. 

If I recall the Norfolk port was used a few years back as a temporary port.

I've been on Indy and Freedom. Other than artwork, not much difference.

We had 12:30 check in time for our November Independence cruise.  When we arrived at the port there were 3 lines for 3 different boarding times. Once we were inside the building the 3 lines merged and no one ever looked at our assigned time. 

We used off site parking. The one we used was about a mile from the port and provided shuttle service to and from. 

55 minutes ago, akcruz said:

 

 

I don't do TikTok or any of those other platforms such as that.  For anyone that does is there a way to comment, calling them out about not being on the ship?  Maybe if they get bad comments or reactions they will calm it down a bit?  I am sure many out there believe all they are posting.

I didn't watch the TikTok but read some of the article at the link below. Seems some people don't know there are different types of cabins on ships. Wait until she finds out what other perks frequent Royal cruisers receive, perhaps she'll leave the cruise.  😉

https://www.dailydot.com/news/royal-caribbean-9-month-cruise-special-treatment/

‘Clacissm? On MY elite world cruise?’: Passengers on 9-month Royal Caribbean cruise say they booked the same experience–but some people are getting special treatment

'You can't convince me that this isn't a social experiment.'

Vicariously enjoying the trip from home. 

I have seen several of the TikTok posts on my phone. It is amazing that someone who has never been on a cruise ship (or out of their home) is supposedly on a world cruise. They are putting out so much disinformation it is very sad that their articles are what potential cruisers see about the trip.

On Independence last month they had 3 lines and sent you to the appropriate line on arriving at the terminal. Sounds great, all 3 lines moved at the same pace and once at the door, everyone was clumped together. 

21 minutes ago, time4u2go said:

Your luggage along with 5,000 other people's luggage. 

 

How is it even done?  Is everyone's luggage put onto the same carousel?  Is the carousel big enough to hold 5,000 - 10,000 pieces of luggage?  Is the carousel big enough for 5,000 people to gather around to find their luggage?  Or are there different carousels for each zone?

 

The luggage was on 2 separate carousels and they were much longer than the ones in most airports. 

The luggage was in zones based on your number.

It was always annoying wading through all the luggage, a suitcase here, duffle there then getting them all together. With the carousel my luggage comes to me. It also seems to be quicker and less chaotic.

We rarely cruised out of Miami and we're recently returned from our first cruise since 2018, sailing out of Miami. I don't know if this is something just in terminal G, or is being added all over, but ........

Why did it take so long for them to adopt luggage carousels like at airports? What a pleasant surprise, almost better than the new immigration and customs process. 

Do you have an "it's about time" item?

On 12/6/2023 at 5:53 PM, screenname2004 said:

Assume we have early access to our new cabin, do we stay there until b2b group lunch? When does group lunch start?

Our group lunch was in the main dining room and started at 11:30. 

We took a B2B on Independence, our first cruise since 2018. Since memory is a little fuzzy on anything that long before Covid, it is difficult to compare. It is also difficult to compare a 4 night cruise to the 7 night cruises we used to take. Our biggest disappointment was the Windjammer. Very repetitious in their offerings.

I do tend to over analyze things, so going through 2 musters close together and listening to the count down of the hundreds of cruisers who had not yet stopped at their muster station I have to wonder why the staffer welcoming us aboard does not specifically tell you to go to your muster station? Following up on that, we were in Schooner over hearing someone giving their first time cruiser friend completely incorrect info.