sloopsailor

Notice that I edited my comment to tone it down (you copied the original and the edited version). But it is ironic that both of your comments are complaints, which actually proves my point. 😉 Relax. It was just a comment about how you thought it looks. Not a big deal.

According to a presentation by a ship officer on one of our Celebrity cruises, some older cruise ships have the flat area of the bow marked with an "H" as a place a helicopter could land in emergencies. Some newer ships now have "WINCH" instead, indicating a helicopter cannot land there and winching is the only procedure. I am more familiar with Celebrity ships, so I will use different ships in the same class as examples. On the first three ships in the Solstice class, that forward deck area was strong enough to support the weight of a helicopter. Poles, railings and rigging all were built to fold down for clearance. The following sister ships were built with less support in the decking for weight concerns, and winching is now required there. Compare the forward "V" shaped area on the two images below.

This is a test installation. It's only at the rear of the ship. When it gets fully implemented, it might not look anything like that. Best to wait and see the final installation before passing judgment. It may be better - or it may be worse. No matter what a business does to improve a product, there will be people who will complain about what they had to do to make that improvement.

Royal Caribbean International is adding Starlink to all of it's ships, including Celebrity and Silversea, for it's internet. Eventually I expect most cruise lines to follow as the coverage will be much wider and faster with Starlink than with traditional satellite systems. https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2022/08/31/royal-caribbean-starlink-internet-cruises/7950752001/

Hmmm. So you consider the crew "trained parrots"? And they are "transmitting" a "lot of willful misinformation"? Talk about lack of respect for the people who are working long hours to make you cruise enjoyable. Your attitude towards the hardworking staff disgusts me.

PacnGoNow's suggestion is what we do. The passengers ending their cruise are off the ship by 10:00 AM at the latest. Most of them will have already departed the terminal before early boarding passengers begin to arrive.

Nope, I am not a snowflake that can't handle the staff doing what they are told. I don't get offended as easily as you. This all reminds me that some people just HAVE to be incensed by something, even if it is something they have to blow out of proportion to satisfy their agenda. BTW: This comment isn't directed at you - unless you think it should be.

We always do. We want to start our cruise as soon as possible. And instead of paying for lunch on shore while waiting to board, we board early so we can enjoy a lunch we already paid for, usually in whatever MDR is open. Plus, it gives us more time to roam the ship to get familiar where everything is. We don't cruise that much and want to enjoy every minute of the ones we do take.

You are the one being sloppy. Actually, "disrespectful" is closer than sloppy. Most likely the staff has been instructed to guide people to other dining venues instead of guiding people to a limited location that will only be available a limited duration, as a form of crowd control. They might be following orders. They certainly aren't "lying" to you for their own nefarious reasons. What if they directed you to the correct dining room, and by the time you arrived the available time had ended and the doors were closed. I would bet you would then be calling them yet another disrespectful name. Calling them liars is extreme at best, and insulting at worst. Not very gracious on your part.

Interesting. So the staff are liars. They all are out to deliberately ruin your vacation, correct? Best you try another type of vacation where the staff is honest instead of having to deal with these scoundrels.

We like variety, so we are rotating among the dining rooms on our upcoming 15 night cruise. We'll even let them sit us at different places in the rooms rather than asking for the same table each night. With traditional dining we were always sitting at the same table with the same people for the entire cruise. On a long cruise this could get boring, especially if you had a table in a corner or other less ideal location, and especially if you ended up with your back to the room and facing a corner the entire cruise like our last traditional dining experience. As passengers we expect not to have the exact same items on the menu every night. And for us, it's the same with the dining room and table location. Every time we dine it will feel like a different restaurant because we will be enjoying it from a different perspective each night.

I find it humorous that some people claim the staff complains to them about things. If I were an employer, that staff member would be on her way down the gangplank at the next port. Employees are supposed to be focused on assisting the passengers, not complaining about their job to them. But, then again, the vast majority of your posts are negative, so I will take it with a grain of salt like I do most of the rest.

Thanks. My wife has an iPhone and I have a Samsung. We seem to have more problems with her phone than mine. Not a judgment of which is better, just our experiences with what we use them for.

Apples and oranges. There is only one casino on a ship, so there is no other option for that activity. There are many different neighborhoods in a town or city, so it's possible to live away from that noise. Caveat venditor...

Which phone works better?

Your original question only mentioned use as a charging port, not as a power port, which is how these devices use the ports. I was trying to help. I guess I should not have bothered to provide examples as you are now altering your original statement to make me look foolish. Lesson learned.

Could be used to power a CD player, a fan, a white noise machine, a flameless candle, etc. Lots of newer items that rely on electricity are being designed with a USB cable that can be plugged into a port fixture or a USB power supply.

I would recommend that people do not remove the gratuities in order to give cash to specific people of their choosing. All cash gratuities must be turned into the the ship's purser for recording. If you remove the gratuities, those cash tips are then shared with the rest of the people who support those you gave cash to. If you do not remove the gratuities, they get to keep that cash. Also, removing the gratuities could raise a red flag that you may be dissatisfied with the service from those people responsible to serve you directly - cabin attendant, dining staff, etc. This may appear to management to be a negative review, which could adversely affect potential promotions, or in extreme cases, continued employment. By giving them cash tips you are creating more work for them and could potentially result in lower performance reviews. Just leave the gratuities in place. These people work very hard to make your vacation a memorable one, and they deserve those gratuities. All of this has been verified by at least one CC member who has worked on various cruise ships as the purser.

One of the Hawaii excursions we signed up for is already sold out for the afternoon tour and is waitlisted for the morning tour. And we're still 7 months out!!

Some people live in a fog of pessimism. Others live in the light of optimism. If the OP is so annoyed with what they perceive as severe negatives, I have a hard time understanding why they have booked that cruise in the first place. To go on a vacation with such low expectations seems to be a fools errand. Personally, I go on a cruise looking forward to the positives, not obsessing over perceived negatives. And, frankly, I have never been disappointed.

Our cruise is three months away from final payment and we've made all our dining reservations and have booked several excursions already. We're only gold loyalty status. Some people have said that other than Elite and above, everyone must wait until after final payment. We didn't have to wait.

I enjoy the benefits of loyalty programs when I am rewarded with free drinks, or bar setups in my room, or other benefits that doesn't adversely affect someone else by moving me to the front of the line and making them wait for me. When people with lower level loyalty status are forced to be inferior in some way - having to wait for the higher levels to board, to disembark, to better seats in the theatre, to make reservations, etc. - then we are getting into the haves-and-have-nots class structure that the ships of the past embraced. No one on a cruise should be made to feel like they are a lower class than any other person on the ship. Period.

Sorry, I don't have an answer to that.

There are no San Diego departures listed for fall 2023. Only Los Angeles and San Francisco out of California. The Pacific coast cruises out of Los Angeles and San Francisco visit San Diego, but don't start or end there.

We're on a March cruise in a few months. We have had our specialty restaurants reserved, and paid for, for at least three months now. These are special events - a birthday and later an anniversary - so we wanted to get exactly the venue, date and time we wanted so we booked well in advance.