shwabob

The tender rides are anyhing.but short.  In Roatan it seemed to take each of the ship's tenders about 20-30 minutes to load up, check out, cruise to port, and get unloaded.

Today in Cozumel it was just a mess because they contracted with larger tender operators with larger 250-300 pax double decker ferries.  These took between 15-30 minutes just to load since they had to be packed as full as possible before departing.  Then, while the ship can load multiple of these at one time, they only have a single dock to offload at.  Transit only takes 5 minutes, but we waited 45 minutes sitting there because only one boat can offload at a time and the offloading takes 10-15 minutes.  Repeat this ordeal but add another 30-45 minutes standing in line at the port because again only one dock.  it just seemed really poorly put together and would have just been nice to know a few days before I embarked.  I would have adjusted my plans accordingly.  Quite a lot of people missed tours (NCL booked and not), and if I had been attempting to do a scuba dive in Cozumel I would have been totally out of luck.

Currently on Escape.  We were not told about the tendering at both ports until after embarkation.  The whole process has been quite a disaster and from what I've heard quite a lot of people are upset about it - one family said that their grandmother that was elderly/wheelchair bound missed their wedding in Roatan because she wasn't allowed on the tenders.  I'm more upset this just wasn't disclosed in advance, as if I had known that I was going to have to spend 45+ minutes each way sitting on a hot tender boat I would have scratched my plans for Cozumel entirely to avoid that mess.

Captain just woke everyone up. Says that the now estimate arrival at 13:00 today.

On my previous sky cruises there's not a lot of swiping cards to check for anything. I've seen it happen sometimes in the first day but after that it's open season. On the GA this week I can say I'm seeing a lot more underage drinking - either under 21 getting their hands on liquor/shots or under 18 getting alcohol petiod (usually girls getting beers from 18-21 year old boys). Plus the under 18 teenagers have been rampant in spice and the bliss club at night and security isn't checking anything.

So far, NCL's communication to the passengers boarding tomorrow seems quite reasonable. They waited until they were given clearance by the Coast Guard to return and would be able to give the boarding guests a good estimate as to when they should arrive at the ship.

 

I do hope they waive the telephone/internet fees for those on board the ship. One could argue that this is a travel insurance issue (and we actually use insure my trip to cover our entire vacation when we travel with our kids and purchase insurance), but given the fact that this was a crew member and not a passenger who jumped overboard, it seems that NCL should reimburse the airline change fees.

I'm currenrly waiting right behind someone to get on the phone with AA and change my flights. I get that they can't just open up free calling to all the rooms as that would overload the available satellite bandwidth. The airlines aren't making it easier and communication from Norwegian staff on the boat has been VERY inconsistent or just downright nonexistent (I've gotten way too many blank stares, it's as if they've never planned for such a thing as this). Up until now it's been a great experience, but despite the best efforts of the Frontline crew the management is doing a horrible job handling this and not communicating at all to crew or passengers.

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So I do have to give credit to the crew in guest services handling the situation. They've got open lines to each of the airlines and they are just moving people through as fast as they can. But it's a mess.

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Here's some pictures of the mania in guest services earlier:

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We are now making 22.9kts according to the scan display channel on the TV's. Position 22 56.23n 84 13.23w heading 49.7.

Any one of the brilliant experts want to give an ETA?

The captain just announced a minute ago the search has been called off by the USCG. We have turned around and are making 17.5kn NE back toward Miami. Position is Lat/Lon: 22.746040 / -84.433266. Captain still estimates arrival in Miami at 3pm.

I'm surprised the ship turned around some 12 hours later, then again I don't know how many miles away they were. I would have thought and they probably did contact all ships in the area where the person went over. They probably have the exact location, I'm guessing they saw the person go over from one of the video cameras and just back tract their position.

The reports we heard from various crew was that the jump was in the very late night/early morning hours...like 0400-0600, and the ship was only doing about 14 knots during that period and 1300 when it turned around.

So guest services is a mess indeed. Theyve opened up three phones for people to call their airline so there are massive lines for each. Now they're telling people that any compensation will have to come from the head office in Miami after the trip, and they cannot say how much will be offered. Also saying captain will make another announcement at approx 9pm advising on estimated Miami arrival. But they're still insisting that we will be there at 3pm tomorrow per the Captain's earlier announcement.

Some guests are saying they saw a plane overhead but that's just hearsay at this point.

They probably didn’t know until 12 PM what actually happened. Most likely this crew member didn’t show up to work this morning, so they started looking for them (thus the repeated pages). After figuring out no-one knew where they were, the staff started tracking down when the last time someone saw them was. Based on that, then they had to watch video until they saw what actually happened. This was likely not a short process.

 

As was already posted, the Captain made an announcement shortly after they turned around. Meaning the passengers found out shortly after the Captain did.

This is accurate. They made 2-3 PA announcements for the crew member to call a certain extension. The crew working where I was at told everyone that it meant he hasn't shown up for duty and they checked his stateroom. One even mentioned they knew the person and that 'he hasn't been doing well'. Just before 1pm the ship turned around very quickly and you could feel it jumping up to full speed. Captain got on PA and announced just after that.

I bet your back tomorrow evening around 9

Yeah...for some reason I could have swore the post I quoted said 27-28 hours. I guess it depends on when we get relieved from search by coast guard.

On a side note, there's a lot of very upset passengers in the atrium/guest services and the cruise director is unsuccessfully trying to pacify them. They're going to have to do something pretty quick to make this better for the guests.

Roughly 14.

And we're still traveling in a Westerly direction....so I think it's safe to say the odds are slim to none that we're getting back into Miami tomorrow.

We're doing the grid search now.

Our position a few minutes ago was:

Lat/Lon: 22.811168 / -84.233367

Assuming 21kts (the speed we traveled for 5 hours to get to this approximate area)...how long is it going to take to get to Miami?

Captain just made an announcement that we are about an hour from the coordinates and will begin a search pattern at that time. Also informed us that arrival in Miami will be delayed to 15:00 (3pm) tomorrow at the earliest. Also captain said that the crew member did jump over and did not fall over.

Cruise director then informed that they will be opening up internet cafe for people to change flights, but will NOT be reimbursing any change fees for affected flights. Also will not be opening up phone lines to call airlines, you will have to use internet cafe.

Is the not reimbursing for flight changes due to their cree member jumping over standard practice? Or am I just going to have to raise hell with the home office about it when I get back?

This morning there were numerous calls over the PA for the crew member and then finally the captain came on and advised us probably five minutes after the turn around. We're booking at full speed and it's a little rocky right now. The bartenders on vibe deck seemed quite disturbed and said that the person had not been aboard long, plus the announcement said the crew member had a 'defect' and went over board. Several crew members have said that indicates he intended to jump over. Hopefully it goes well though.

Currwntly on the Getaway. Captain advised a few minutes ago that the ship Is turning around to search for a crew member that appears to have gone overboard last night. No info yet on delay in arrival to Miami. We're moving at Max speed to the estimated coordinates where he went over. Will advise if I hear more on possible delay to arrival.

I did Tabyana last November (Thanksgiving week) on Getaway, and we were in port with an MSC ship and a Carnival ship. All three of the ships has excursions to Tabyana, and they had us using a different color wristband than the CCL and MSC passengers - I believe that the MSC and NCL had the full buffet but CCL didn't or something along those lines. Their ships had different departure times, but there were jitneys running constantly to take people back to the ship.

Overall it was a good excursion, with good food and a pretty beach, it was definitely very crowded, and I noted that the condition of the place had slipped a bit (all of the beach loungers were in poor shape), plus the peddlers/merchants hassling you on the beach near the shore line and in the water was beyond ridiculous. The entire time, there were merchants with carts walking back and forth in front of the resort jingling bells and shouting..."ice cream, two dollars!", "snorkel!", "cuban cigars!"...constantly. While it was definitely very safe and security was watching everything, I'm not going back again on my next trip.

Final Thoughts

After this point, we really just took things easy for the remainder of the trip. The final sea day had great weather, and we were able to lounge on the lido deck the entire time without issue. Debarkation in Fort Lauderdale was a very easy process, and overall I was very impressed by princess on this trip.

Princess really delivered an outstanding cruise experience on this trip for me. Just a few weeks after this trip, I would book another 5-day cruise on Caribbean Princess for March of 2015. This proved to be another spectacular voyage to Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios, although there were quite a bit more children on that trip than I would have preferred.

Here are some of my observations from both of my trips on Caribbean Princess:

Princess does a much better job than Carnival in how they handle guests in dining areas, having multiple buffet lines and more staff on hand in the buffet to find guests a seat and take care of their drinks.

I was very pleased having multiple different pools scattered throughout the boat versus one or two large pools as Carnival has done on their ships. This broke up the crowds and kept the little ones and loud cruisers concentrated in the two central pool areas, while the forward and aft pools were much quieter and more relaxed.

On this first trip with Princess, I was highly impressed with the service and attentiveness of the entire crew, especially our room steward and the dining room staff. I can’t say the same for my second trip. Whereas on this trip our steward was very friendly, non-intrusive, and very attentive to our needs and schedule, that was not the case on the next trip. Our room steward was downright rude, very short with us, even complaining when we asked for an extra bucket of ice for the wine we brought aboard. She was also very unwelcoming to the fact that we tend to eat around 8-830pm, and we basically went without turndown service after the first night because of this. As we were getting ready around 7pm on the first sea day, she started knocking on the door, asking us when we would be going to dinner. When I told her 8pm, she got very upset, telling us that she had to get done with the room and had things to do so we needed to go to dinner by 7pm from then on. I was shocked. The following day, I mentioned this to guest services and they were apologetic and said they’d look into it. However, nothing came of it and we just went without the turndown service in the evenings. I really was disappointed as I’ve never had this type of experience on any ship.

I have absolutely nothing but praise for the Crown Grill experience. Literally everything I ate there was absolutely fantastic, with impeccable service. However, there’s definitely not the same consistency in the two main dining rooms on the ship. This first trip, the food was always good – not fantastic, just good – in the dining rooms, and we didn’t have to wait for a table in most cases. On the March 2015 trip, this area went way downhill. The first night, we waited 35 minutes to be seated, and were basically chased out of the dining room after our dinner course because they were closing up. The wait staff was very curt, and we found that the food just wasn’t good…bland, tough, and overcooked. Nothing like what we experienced on the last sailing. Fortunately, we ate in the Crown Grill three nights on that cruise, and it delivered big time. Every time we dined there, the waiters brought extra lobster tails even without asking (one time we literally got 10 lobster tails between two people), the wait staff was very friendly, and we genuinely enjoyed our entire meal. The remaining night we didn’t dine in the Crown Grill we just settled for the buffet, which actually had a very good Prime Rib and Turkey dinner being served that completely surpassed our expectations. Maybe it was just due to the fact that we were cruising around Spring Break, but it was a real let down to see the dining room slip like that.

In closing, I’m very satisfied with my Princess experience and highly recommend them to any cruiser. Their product is leaps and bounds ahead of Carnival, and frequently is at a similar price point. Starting this January (2016) I started up a Master’s degree program, so unfortunately I’m rather limited in that I can’t cruise during the semester, so I only get the summer as an option now. Since Princess doesn’t have ships positioned in FL during this summer, I’m going to be trying Norwegian Getaway this coming May and hope it will be a similar experience. However, Princess will most likely always be my first choice for cruising from now on.

Princess Pizza was much better than Carnival’s, and there was frequently a line for it:

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Here’s the TV lineup: