sergeant655

I did a similar cruise in 2012 on Radiance and for boarding day. There is a all aboard time  that is in place for the purpose of the muster drill.  Passengers have to be onboard for the drill but are welcome to go ashore again after the drill. On day 2 the all aboard time is similar to that for a port of call

Boarding Caribbean Princess recently there was a passenger in line at the entrance to security that was told to go to terminal 21 as there were sailing on the Island Princess.  Don’t know how the luggage handlers can miss the island Princess name on the luggage tag

does the bars serve Canned or fountain coke during the diamond happy hour  on all ships or is it different from ship to ship.  I am sailing on Serenade in August and want to know if i can use the 3 drink vouchers to get unopened cans that i can store in the stateroom fridge

I was on Caribbean Princess in November and was not required to show my passport in Martinique even though i had it on me when I went ashore 

What airport was this that was confiscating power packs at security.  United asks that you take them on in carry on as if it does catch fire there is a better chance of it being put out faster as the flight attendant can take a fire Extinguisher to it. Security at the pier has never had a issue.  Only gadget I saw them looking for is that Samsung phone that was prone to catching fire

I just got off Caribbean Princess and really enjoyed him.  He had the crooners bar singing on the last night of the cruise.  He has signed off today however not sure where he is going next

Just at the end of a 2 week cruise on the Caribbean Princess and it never seemed to work for me

On 11/13/2019 at 1:21 PM, BarbinMich said:

Re Zuiderdam's outside elevators (in the mid-ship, near the inside elevators):  are those newly installed?  We were on her in Apr 2017 for a 16-day TA and I don't remember those.  But perhaps because we had the most forward cabin (or one next to it) on Main deck so wouldn't have needed to use mid-ship elevators.

they were a feature that debuted for Hal on the zuiderdam and are now on all the newer ships. It would be easy to miss them if you use only the forward or aft banks or the inside mid ship elevators. I been on both ship so for me the locks the ship passes thru would determine which ship and cb has slightly better production shows .  Just saw bravo last night and enjoyed it.  Cb also has game shows while Hal has America’s test kitchen and Lincoln Center stage

On Caribbean princess For the current sailing  they told Is that we were welcome to leave carry one in crown grill and state rooms would be ready at 1. We were able to go to our stateroom upon boarding  as it was announced that staterooms were ready earlier then expected 

I had that happen on a b2b the involved 2 ships. I went to the loyalty ambassador on the second one and showed my cruise card from the first.  After looking up my history in the computer they put a diamond sticker on my card and updated their records for that sailing to reflect that I earned diamond status .  They also notified the diamond concierge so she could issue a key to open the diamond lounge door  

Carnival should also resume the 1 way Alaska sailings they did untill 2009 .  They are currently the only brand owned by ccl that does Alaska sailings that do not have one way offerings. Also Victoria has just approved a motion to limit cruise ship call by not signing any additional contracts until a environmentally friendly solution like shore power can be implemented.

I was on the Regal Princess last year and still remember how nice the ship was.  I enjoyed every minute I was on her and would sail on her or any royal class ship again . Loved the Love boat horn under the great belt bridge

I don’t believe they can shorten the show as Andrew loyd Webber requires that they preform the Show as written I was in a elementary school production where the teacher wanted to remove one song from the show .  We were told that we had to put it in the show as the show had to be preformed as written or not at all

On Indy during the westbound ta in  2016 the CBP process in st Thomas was a absolute disaster.  There was only 5 officers for the whole ship ..  they will have us citizens go to the theatre and non us to the dining room We also had a delayed departure as health and coast guard inspections also took place on the same day so you may get some extra time in st Thomas . We still had a cbp inspection in Ft. Lauderdale but it was a quicker process as they only did a brief look at the passport and collected the blue form as they were still collecting them in 2016

On 8/29/2019 at 4:41 AM, cot427 said:

Unrelated to ship v. ship, but to the route: do we go through immigration in Vancouver at Canada Place before heading out (Seattle, Sea Days, Hawaii)? That would be similar to what we did when I did the northbound Alaska route. 

You will likely clear in Vancouver unless the next stop is in Victoria.  .  It will save a lot of time on arrival to preclear.  If you do have to clear on arrival in Hawaii. The CBP there is the most effective in getting people thru quickly. .  They were able to clear Explorer in under 3 hours in 2017 while st Thomas took 4-5 hours to clear the passengers alone and the inspections for them and coast guard resulted in a delayed departure 

You will likely have to do us immigration on Bar Harbor. Fill out a Canada customs card and hand in to guest services for Saint John and us immigration in Portland . The non us lines can be a bit on the long side and the ship will have a staggered system in place to manage the crowd  in the non us area. They may have 2 lines. One for Canadians and one for every one else as they likely need a I94. One ship even told Canadians that they had to fill a I94 out when it is not required and even gave us 2 papers one saying to go to the us line. One to the non us line.  I followed that one with the required documents that matched the cbp website 

I believe that the Bahamas allows royal to open the casino in the evening only. I was on the Anthem that had a overnight call in Nassau and recalled the casino opening around 9pm.  

When I did Alaska b2b on Radiance I was not required to get off the ship as a zero count was not required. It is only required if immigration is doing their inspection on shore in the terminal.  They will have a meeting for b2b passengers (usually held in The colony club on deck 6 aft ) and also send a letter to the stateroom explaining the process 

When you take it on the plane.  Beware you might get pull aside for a bag check at security if you put it in checked luggage as it tends to show up all black on the screen

All 4 port side aft elevators travel to deck 14. It is the Radiance class where only the outside facing elevators go to deck 14 which is why there is the Separate button that is used if you are heading to those decks there is a step up to enter the Viking Crown Lounge area . As there is a platform in the middle where the dance floor is. There is a bypass to the right that goes around it and will take you to the diamond Lounge . 

They tried to move the DL to a spot near the dining room on deck 4  and Wanderland on deck 11 however the DL would have now been accessible to wheelchairs so took Wanderlands place if they rearrange deck 4 to be like Harmony and symphony then Wanderland can go in to deck 11 and would offer better views then the Quantum Class Version 

If anyone has recently been on edge can you confirm if the gratuity is 18% .  I just came off Millennium in which it was 20%

Anthem did not have it swing out over the sides at sea .  They said that it takes longer to do that and want a shorter experience to move people thru faster. It will also be closed at sailaway when there is a bridge that they need to pass under and it opens after clearing the bridge. Sounds like they will have to wait for low tide as the bridge is 200 ft at high tide.  Norwegian BLISS also has to pass under at low tide to clear

Millennium requires you to hand in passports when visiting Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy in Russia they placed a sticker on the back of your passport when you check in and then collect your passport after you complete Japanese outbound immigration if you are leaving Japan. The sticker has your name and Stateroom number on it and are stored by deck you have to collect your passport when going ashore in Russia after immigration looks at it and hand it back in when returning to the ship for immigration to clear you to depart then a few days later you collect your passport at guest services and if you are in a suite. Your butler will hand deliver them to you.  No problems at all

Just off the Millennium and the only things heard in the cabin was the spoken parts of the muster drill and a farewell announcement from Captain Theo. In fact. The general emergency signal did not sound in the cabin but the abandon ship signal did sound no disembarkation announcements were heard in the cabin