bus man

On my Harmony cruise over Thanksgiving, my son said that he was told there were about 900 teenagers onboard.  He was good about coming back to the room by 1:00 a.m., or shortly thereafter.  He said that security didn't enforce the rule against the kids who were just quietly minding their own business or peacefully sitting around chatting.  It seemed it was more of a tool that could be used to keep the loudmouths under control.

Hello,

We will be in Bermuda on Easter Sunday, April 21, having arrived the day before and departing at 2:30 p.m.  We will be docked at King's Wharf, Royal Dockyards.  Is there a church at the Dockyards?  Are the shops at the Dockyards open on that day?  In general, does Bermuda close down for Easter or are tourist businesses open on that day?  Would we be able to visit Horseshoe Beach that morning and make it back to the ship on time?  (It looks like the public buses don't start running until around 11:00 a.m.)  Thanks!

Hello,

We will be arriving in Bermuda on Saturday April 20 on the RCI Grandeur of the Seas, docking at King's Wharf.  The ship docks at 1:00 p.m.  What would be the best way for a family of 4 to get from there to the Crystal Caves in time to visit before the last 4:30 p.m. tour?  I'd prefer to use some means other than a taxi in order to try and keep the costs down, but we'll do a taxi if that's what is needed.

Also, is it possible to visit Horseshoe Beach after the caves, or would it be too late in the day for that? (Thought about doing it on Sunday morning, but the public buses don't start running until 11:00 a.m. on Sundays, so I'm not sure we'd have enough time before the ship sails at 2:30 p.m.)  Thanks!

We were there in mid-April of 2014. They did have baby turtles, and my kids got to hold them. It was their favorite part of the entire cruise! The exact date of our Grand Cayman stop was April 17th.

I have friends who have never cruised but are considering taking a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Baltimore on the Grandeur. Their 9 year old son is autistic and has the emotional level of a 5 year old. He does not like crowds and feels claustrophobic in small rooms. (They also have a non-autistic 7 year old son.)

I have suggested to them that, if they want to give it a try, they sail on the shortest itinerary available out of Baltimore (which is to Bermuda) and get two balcony rooms, so that the family can spread out and that the floor-to-ceiling windows will make the room feel more spacious. I've told them that the standard rooms are small, and even the Junior Suites are, at best, the size of a small-ish hotel room.

They are honestly not sure how their son would do, and they would like to see the cabins themselves, in person, to see if they would be large enough to avoid triggering a claustrophobic reaction. Under these circumstances, would it be possible to arrange a brief tour of the ship while she is in port, so that they could at least determine this issue before buying a ticket? And if so, how would they go about arranging it?

And, if you have any other suggestions that might make their cruise work better for them -- or, for that matter, if you think it would be a bad idea for them to cruise at all -- please let me know. Thanks!

You could still end up with very nice weather for sure.

 

If you are into Craft Beer, the Halifax port has Garrison Brewing right there on the pier. http://www.garrisonbrewing.com/

 

It smells awesome in there and their beers are truly spectacular.

 

Lots of History in Halifax.

 

dp

I'm not into craft beers, but I certainly do appreciate the suggestion.

We're planning on visiting the Maritime Museum, as I am very interested in the Titanic. I've also thought about visiting Fairview Cemetery, though I'm not sure the family would go for that. Any other ideas for a family with young kids (10 and 8) during our visit?

Also, any suggestions for St. John? I would love to see the tidal differences at the Bay of Fundy, but I don't know if we'd be able to do that during a single-day visit, nor do I know where to go to see the biggest differences between high and low tides.

I live in Moncton New-Brunswick. 1hr and a half from St-John, and 2 and a half hours from Halifax. If weather and warmer temps are important for you, the early August has way better odds of having dry warm weather. June will probably be nice during the peak daytime but evenings will likely be chilly and any ocean water beaches will be practically unbearable. Also we get more rainy days in June. Ocean waters in August are nice and warm and we get more dry sunny days in the last 2 weeks of July and first 2 weeks of august.

 

dp

I'm not surprised to hear this. August would have probably been a better bet, but because we have another activity we would like to do that month, we defaulted to June. At least, it's LATE June; we'll be at St. John on the 28th and Halifax on the 29th. So hopefully that will help.

I'm not a beach person, so it won't matter to me if the ocean water is too cold.

August is hurricane season. If sailing for those ports is the reason how disappointed will you be if the ship sails elsewhere?

I'm very eager to see Bar Harbor and Halifax. The other ports I'm looking forward to as well, but not as much. Needless to say, I'll be disappointed if I miss any of them, but especially the first two I listed. But I do understand that port calls are never guaranteed.

I would think that late June would probably be a pretty good compromise between decent weather and hurricane risk (or lack thereof). At least I'm hoping so.

Which POV room did you get? We are in 8037 in April and I am super excited for the extra space and large window, I haven't been in a room with a view of the ocean before. If you could maybe take some pics and share for us to see :D

 

enjoy your vacation!

We're in 7084 on the Grandeur. And we're very excited too. We've paid the money for balcony rooms before, because we want the extra space in the room (family of 4 = tight quarters!) and the huge window to enjoy the view. But we actually make very little use of the balcony itself, so I don't care that we won't be getting one. We are anticipating that, for us, the Panoramic Oceanview will be the perfect room type.

FYI, we will be sailing in June of next year (2016), so you will have seen this room type before I will. So I'll turn your request back to you, and ask if you would take some pics! :)

I think it's a great idea that Royal decided to have a few trips north during the summer.

I totally agree with you. I hope it's successful and Royal keeps on doing it. But just in case it isn't, we decided to take the plunge and grab it, so we can make sure we get to do it. We're booked on the late June sailing, because even though the weather would probably be a little better in August, the June one worked better for our summer schedule.

We got a Panoramic Oceanview room, which will be awesome; a room with the square footage of a balcony cabin but the price of a regular oceanview! (The lack of a balcony doesn't bother me any, as I don't use them much even when I have them; but I do love the floor-to-ceiling windows in those rooms.)

Though I did offer extra credit to the first student who could give me the correct meaning of the acronym IRA

In a financial-planning context, it stands for Individual Retirement Account. In the context of "The Troubles," it stands for Irish Republican Army. In the context of male given names, it is a male given name (initial cap only).

I will take my extra credit in the form of shipboard credit, if you please. :)

Does anyone know if anyone produces a plastic scale model kit of any contemporary cruise ships? I'm not talking about the ceramic (?) pre-built models that they sell in the souvenir shop. I mean a plastic model kit that you assemble yourself, using glue; similar to the ones that are available of the Titanic, in various scales (1/350, 1/400, 1/700, etc.) and made by such companies as Revell, Academy, Fujimi, etc.

My kids are 6 and 8. We tell them about a month and a half out. That way, they have long enough to be excited, but not so long that it seems like an eternity away. ("How much longer until we go on the trip?" gets tiresome after awhile.)

On our last cruise, DS was too short to use the Flowrider, and he was disappointed. Sadly, the ship we're going on next doesn't have a Flowrider. But I'm sure there will be enough other things to occupy his attention!

Hi everyone,

DW and I have wanted to take a Canada/New England cruise for some time now, but they have only been offered in the fall, and we haven't wanted to pull our kids out of school. But I see that RCI is offering this itinerary on the Grandeur in the summer of 2016, one in late June and the other in early August.

For anyone who has done this before, how do you think it would be with kids? (Mine will be 10 and 8 in the summer of 2016.) We'd like there to be a decent number of other kids for ours to play with, but not so many that they overwhelm the ship. I'm not too worried about onboard activities, as this is a fairly port-intensive itinerary. And besides, last time we cruised they both loved Adventure Ocean, so I'm sure they'd enjoy it this time too.

I guess what I'm asking is, (1) how many other kids would there be on a summer cruise to Canada/New England? A few? Some? A lot? (2) Are elementary-aged kids likely to enjoy this itinerary? (3) Would late June be better, worse, or the same as early August? and (4) Anything else that might be helpful for me to know? Thanks!

We did a "group" cruise once. It was my family (2 adults, 2 kids) and one other (2 adults, 1 kid). We knew going into it that we wanted to do the shore excursions together, so we got together before the cruise and decided which ones we would all enjoy. We also chose to eat all dinners together, except for each of us trading off our kid(s) to the other set of parents for one night, so that each couple could have a date night sans kids. Other than that, we'd do our own things, though we did tend to bump into each other for many of the breakfasts and lunches.

It worked out fine and we all had a good time. Yes, I would do it again -- with the right people.

I got it too. Because it had his name on it, I was willing to open it and read it. But the message just screams "scam." I'm sure he doesn't need this hassle, and I hope this doesn't have a negative impact on his business or his reputation.

Where they all US adoptions? There are additional documentations for foreign adoptions.

I assume you mean that there are complications prior to finalization. Once the adoption is finalized, the child is a U.S. citizen, same as any other. However, I do believe you are correct that if you don't have a passport, then you have to bring other documentation, such as the citizenship decree.

My two kids were adopted from South Korea, and my wife and I are white. We have passports for all of us. Yes, we do bring copies of our adoption decrees with us, "just in case," but we've never needed them. About the only thing we've gotten that might be out of the ordinary is that sometimes the TSA agents will directly ask my kids what their names are. I assume this is done as a safeguard to ensure that what they unhesitatingly answer will match what their documents show. I don't know if they do that for other families, or just ours because it's pretty clear that my kids are not biologically related to us, their parents.

Other than that, we've had no issues whatsoever.

OP, it's probably too late this time, but next time I would go ahead and get passports for all of you. It's just so much easier than having to bring birth certificates and adoption decrees and so on.

Just curious...how did you expect this to be done in a large crowded building with no power? Stand on the counter and scream at the top of their lungs?

A megaphone, perhaps?

Disaster? Really? The lights went out. Did you think it was Al Qaeda? Seems to me the first instinct of a first responder would be to stay calm and assess the situation at hand. I am not a first responder but have taken several emergency preparedness course and advanced first aid. First thing they all said was to not hurry up and do anything...slow down and do everything.

I didn't say it was a disaster. I said it was a potential crisis situation (emphasis on "potential") and then used examples from disasters to illustrate some of the things that shot through my mind during those initial couple of seconds.

Lastly...Holy Week is a rather significant vacation period around the world for Christians. You should have been expecting large crowds and long lines everywhere, not just during embarkation.

I'm aware of the significance of Holy Week, and I did expect long lines. What I didn't expect was that many of the folks in those lines would be from Mexico, and their documents apparently would not exactly match what was needed, and thus their check-in would take much longer.

The fact that you live in Texas would suggest that you are probably more familiar with Mexico and its people than I, who live in Maryland, would be. So while the Holy Week travel patterns of Mexicans may well be common knowledge where you live, I can assure you that up here, it is not.

Disaster and crisis situation and dark .

 

It was 1:00 in the afternoon. .

Sounds like a overblown media hype!!

Turn off the lights in a building with almost no windows, and it's almost as dark at 1:00 in the afternoon as it is at 1:00 in the morning. Just sayin'.

My desires for a cruise experience could best be described as "casual elegance." I enjoy being on classy-looking, asthetically appealing ships, yet I do not wish to have to dress in formal attire all the time (or even for every dinner). Royal Caribbean hits the spot just right, which is why I keep on cruising with them. My one experience with Disney was also very nice -- except that the food was too high-brow for my tastes, go figure -- and I would sail with them again.

As for lines I would avoid . . . by reputation, Carnival is not entirely a "no-go zone," but it would have to be a great ship and good rate and really interesting itinerary for me to consider them. Also, I managed to wrangle a tour of the Carnival Pride one time, and I came away seriously unimpressed.

I have no desire to cruise on any of the premium lines that require you to dress up all the time, as that's simply not something I'm looking for on vacation. Yet I also don't want cheap or tacky, which is why Carnival and Norwegian (again, by reputation and friends' comments only) are far down on my list. (The ship itself is a big draw for me, and I consider the Epic to be horribly ugly; so I will not sail on her.) I suspect I would probably enjoy Holland America and Princess when I'm older (I'm currently in my late 40s), so they're on my "someday" list.

For now, I've found a line whose product I enjoy, so I really don't feel a pressing need to try anyone else. I realize that I don't know what I'm missing by not branching out . . . but I also know what I'm getting on RCI, and I'm happy with that. I can only afford to cruise on average of once every two years, so I'm not willing to risk possibly having a bad time on a line that, by reputation, would not be to my liking.

I imagine that the odds are remote that anything bad would come of it, if you posted from your cruise . . . but to my way of thinking, why take the chance? If there's a select group of people to whom you want to gloat, you could create an e-mail group list for just those people. But otherwise, I would think your best bet is to simply go, disconnect from your online life for a week, and enjoy the company of your boyfriend without his and your electronic companions along for the ride. Then, after you get back home, you can post all about it.

(That, by the way, is what I did for my recent cruise. I put not one peep about it on Facebook prior to the trip and during it, but posted a bunch of pictures when I got home.)

Has anyone ever heard of an island being evacuated before a hurricane?? People that live on islands in areas subject to hurricanes do not leave their homes or islands. Where would the ships take them?? Passports, customs and immigration come to mind. There will not be any cruise ship in a port that is in the likely path of a hurricane.

When I was in Cozumel, I asked my tour guide what people did when hurricanes came. He said that the residents hunker down in their homes or go to shelters, but they do try to evacuate as many as the tourists as possible before the storm hits. I failed to ask him how they do that, so that's really how this question came to my mind in the first place.

From the responses, it's pretty clear that cruise ships would not be used for this purpose. I suppose that someone (the Air Force? Commercial airlines?) must fly planes in to get the people out.

By the way, I can attest that your last sentence isn't always true. We made a port stop in Grand Cayman on my October 2010 cruise, and the ship made a hasty departure at the end of the day because Hurricane Paula was approaching.

I cruise in a little over a month. This is still on my radar. :)

Maybe if you print out the picture that the OP posted earlier and take it with you, it will help you remember. That's what I should have done.

OP, please let us know whenever you do end up getting your stingray. (I checked the Turtle Farm's website, but they didn't have any links to their gift shop. Seems they're missing a revenue-making opportunity there.)

I don't drink and have no desire to be in the deck chair locations that many cruisers seem to covet. So I'm not sure if I get to claim to have more highly elevated social morals in this case. Do you have some other test that I could try?

I'm in the same boat. I don't drink, so I don't smuggle. And I don't care to lie out in the sun, so deck chairs by the pool are of no concern to me.

But what if I did drink, and did want to lounge by the pool? I still wouldn't smuggle and chair hog. I too believe that rules are made to be followed (rules that are clearly immoral excepted), and also I want to set a good example for my children, so that (hopefully) they won't grow up with the entitlement mentality that says that the rules apply to thee, but not to me.

Moreover, these are not victimless crimes. Smuggling costs the cruise line in lost alcohol revenue, which they have to make up by raising the cost of my cruise ticket. And chair hogging can potentially lead to angry confrontations, which detracts from the happy enjoyment of the pool area on the part of other nearby patrons.

On my cruise last week, we let our almost 8-year-old son go from the MDR to the bathroom and back unaccompanied. He handled it just fine. When we used the elevators, he was always careful to hold the door to let other people on and off. I was quite pleased with how he handled himself, and I believe that he will be able to handle some more freedom whenever we cruise next (which, sadly, probably won't be for awhile yet.)

Our almost 6-year-old daughter also handled herself quite well. But we did not let her go anywhere by herself, not even to the bathroom.

Except for the homeless people on the bench and the muggers, it is perfectly safe.

 

:rolleyes:

They're not homeless, they're just waiting for their upgrades to come through. And they're not muggers, they're Shore Excursion salespeople!

I know it's not nice to pile on, but it seems that your decision to hold off eating anything between breakfast and boarding had a lot more to do with your family being hungry and impatient than an power outage.

 

I do agree, though, that someone ought to address the crowd, even if it to say that they are checking into what is going on. I expect the terminal had nothing to do with the power outage and neither had reason to know when it would be fixed nor power to do anything about it.

 

Stuff happens. Roll with it, and move on.

In this instance at least, I agree with your piling on. It is no one's fault but our own that we didn't eat anything after breakfast. Our plan had been to enjoy lunch aboard the ship after boarding. But then the hotel shuttle took much longer than expected, then there was the two-hour wait in the check-in line, followed by the additional hour lost due to the power failure.

As I've never previously had a check-in take anywhere near this long, it simply didn't occur to me that it would would have this time. But stuff does happen, and this time it happened against me. Next time we'll prepare better.

And no, I don't hold the terminal responsible for the power failure. But I do hold them responsible for the failure to communicate.