CRUISEBOY305

So, I guess that none of you have ever taken a bottle of water or a candy bar into a movie theater. Same scenario.

in all fairness thats just a plain rip off. lol

Well they do give us a 10 minute head start before they sound the general alarm... gives us time to get our free drinks and upgraded floatation devices... We get brand new whistles too... but Pinnacle...now they really get the perks... crew will piggy back them to the lifeboats... and they get snacks!! :D

I am literally on the floor laughing :D

To be honest, I think you're making too much of this. They are limited as to what they can do with that many D, D+, and Pinnacle passengers on-board and no dedicated Diamond Lounge.

 

If I was travelling with friends who didn't have the same status, I would go have a cocktail someplace where they could be with me! Friendship is worth a lot more than a "free" drink. Heck, last year on the Mariner, we spent MUCH more time in Vintages than we did in the CL -- it was far less crowded, and the wine was much better!:D

 

took the words right out of my mouth (keyboard)

I'm subscribing to this thread for entertainment purposes. :D

 

I think I might start a thread soon that says something like "Can I smuggle alcohol on board, while talking on my phone, carrying my new free towel courtesy of RCI, wearing shorts and my diamond platinum pinnacle pin (that I don't own) to the MDR?"

 

Debbie

lol

What are your thoughts on sneaking alcohol on board cruises? I've never done it and never would but there are some that do it and get away with it. There are people that even have YouTube videos that show you how to do it. I think that's hilarious yet sad at the same time. Whatever your opinion is, I'd like to hear it.

I personally frown upon it. I've cruised with friends that snuck alcohol on ships and I want nothing to do with there alcohol. I personally enjoy sitting at a bar and chatting and meeting new people and having a couple of drinks. I mean come on, drinks on cruise ships are not that expensive compared to a bar or lounge in a city. If you can afford the cruise, then you can afford to set aside some funds for alcohol. I do it.

Royal Caribbean may have to step it up a little more in Port Canaveral as Carnival is moving some big ships there in 2014.

 

http://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/9479.html

Royal has freedom and Explorer is coming down later this year. Rumor has it one of the Oasis ships will be home ported there. But nothing official will be announced till April

Greetings Everyone!!

 

Just back from two weeks on the beautiful Independence of the Seas.....first the 6 night.....then the 8 night.

 

You meet the nicest people on cruises! These two weeks were spent with former cruise buddies that we either met on board or right here on Cruise Critic. We have all become life long friends. We love the cruising lifestyle and the part about making new and wonderful friends is the best part. More about these folks later!

 

We are Jane and John from North Carolina. We are D+ C&A members and just went over 400 points on these cruises. A long way from Pinnacle' date=' but we are having fun trying to get there! We are in our 60's and I retired in June after 40 years of teaching. We can now cruise at times other than school vacations! Yay!

 

We left home the day after Thanksgiving for the drive down to Florida. We drove to Jacksonville that day and stayed at The Hampton Inn Baymeadows on 295 East. Great place to stay and very reasonable. Will definitely stay there again. On Saturday we drove on down to FLL but instead of staying there, we found another great Hampton Inn about 20 miles north in Deerfield Beach. We will definitely stay here again, too. Both HI's were [u']way less [/u]than $100 each.

 

Sunday ~ Dec. 1st ~ Fort Lauderdale ~ Embarkation

 

We were up early and left the Hampton Inn around 10:00 or so. We made reservations online for Park N Go on Eller Drive right at the port. The GPS took us right there. We arrived at 10:30. Although they were very busy....we got right on a shuttle and headed over to pier 29. We got into the terminal before it started raining. The only line was for security (who took away my power strip, by the way! First time in over 60 cruises!). Other than that.....check in was a breeze and we were on board well before 11:30.

 

Welcome Aboard!!

 

 

 

We parked ourselves and relaxed for a while in Bolero's right there on Deck 4. We never go to the Windjammer right away because it is usually too crowded. There we met the nicest crew member, Nelma, from the Phillipines. She stayed and talked to us for a long time and made us feel really welcomed.

 

 

I went up to Chops, Giovanni's and the MTD desk to make all our dinner reservations. I was able to get everything we wanted.....Chops the first night, Giovanni's on Wednesday, and MTD at 8:30 the rest of the time. It was at the MTD desk that I met Cynde, who was in charge of those reservations. We became good friends over the weeks and she took care of us in the dining room!

 

 

At 1:00 we went to our cabin.....8370.....a D2......very nice accommodations for the two weeks. We were very thankful that we would not have to move.

 

 

After we dropped off our carry ons, we headed to the WJ for lunch. Most of the crowds had thinned out by this time, so it was somewhat pleasant. I usually get a salad here topped off with whatever the carving of the day is. Always good! I'm not a fan of the WJ desserts, so we always go for the frozen yogurt out on the pool deck for dessert. Ooooooo.....it's so good!!

 

 

By the time we got back to the cabin, our luggage was there, so we were able to unpack two weeks worth of clothes.....and believe me.....we brought two weeks worth of clothes!! We filled the closet and drawers to capacity!!

 

 

 

 

Thank You Jane for such a wonderful review of Indy and sharing your amazing photos. Just booked the 8 day cruise for January 2015. This will be my first time on Indy. Been on Liberty a couple of times already.

Hi I am looking at booking the 8 Night Exotic Asia Cruise B2B with the 3 Night Malaysia Explorer Cruise for March 2015. I know that this is a new Cruise with the first in March this year. Has anyone any advice regarding this cruise? Thanks

Hello there, I'm currently booked for the 8 night Asia cruise on the Mariner. this will be my first time in Asia. Currently researching the ports still.

I've started a roll call for the 8 night cruise. Here's the link

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1960579

I am looking for reviews about the new studio cabins on the Pride of America. This is not an option in the cabin reviews list.

I'm booked on a Studio cabin on POA as well. curious to see what others think. They've been a hit on other NCL ships. Even Royal Caribbean is now adding single studio's to it's new builds as well as some of the older ships.

What are the differences between freedom class and solstice in terms of demensions?

The Solstice is 121,878 GT with 1033ft length, 121 ft beam and 27 feet draft

freedom and Independence OTS are both 154,407 GT with 1112ft length, 126ft beam and 28ft draft.

so Freedom / Indy would be slightly larger than the Solstice.

If the Freedom goes down under, how will they keep people from falling out of the Flowrider (as it will now be upside down)? :eek:

lol…good point

Yeah, no - again, I'll mention the Flow Rider, which would be absolutely wasted on an Alaskan itinerary. It'll never happen.

The Flow rider doesn't get used when the Indy was in Europe during winter so no loss there. It'll most likely get more use in South Pacific itineraries, if Indy or Freedom do in fact replace Rhapsody down under as well.

Not until the Panama Canal is widened & lenghtened. As of right now the Freedom of the Seas is too big for the Panama Canal.

If Freedom or Independence moves to Alaska, it will most likely go the same route Celebrity Solstice went when she was moved. Via Europe/Asia and Australia.

Does anyone know of any possibilities of Freedom of the Seas going to Alaska to replace Rhapsody?

 

Thank you!

Bobby

I've heard from a few places that Independence was replacing rhapsody and Anthem OTS was replacing Independence. and one of the Vision ships (Posssibly Rhapsody) was replacing the Majesty OTS. But we won't know for sure until April when the new dates are published.

Hi everyone!

 

Does anyone know if the Majesty has gone paperless with the coupons yet? If so, can I still use up my old coupons that I've saved from before?

 

Thanks! :)

I was on the Majesty in November and they were still on Coupons. Went back on just last week and they'e gone paperless now. If you're using one of your e-coupons you have to tell them to run it.

Erik - Do you recall what time they started disembarkation, and / or what time you were out on the street having cleared customs? Thanks!

We were cleared around 7:30am.

There's something about the terminal 23/24 setup at Port Everglades that slows down disembarkation.

Yes you're right on this as well. I departed from this terminal on the Solstice a couple of years and it took over an hour to get through customs. Meanwhile a few months later I went on the Allure (Not sure what termianl # that is) and it was a breeze. Yes Terminal 23/24 is a big part of the problem.

This would be great... I'm hoping to get home before my son goes to bed!

 

@cruiseboy305-any tips you can share from what you saw?

if you want to get off the ship early, I suggest you get in line early. I went down to Studio B really early, I want to say around 6:45ish and the line was already ridiculously long.

We have a 12 hour drive home after getting off LOS-is the self-disembark process really as bad as some people make it out to be? We always do self-disembark and have had a range of experiences. We were on Jewel last year and were off and through customs in minutes; our worst was on Freedom when it took an hour because people hadn't checked in like they needed to. I know it can vary... but what should we be prepared for?

I was just on Liberty a month ago. I've done the Self-disembark on Jewel, Oasis, Allure, majesty and Liberty(Twice)

Liberty for some reason has been the absolute worst. The most disorganized I've ever seen. And there's no departure lounge for Top tier C&A people either.

Just booked a 4 night on the Enchantment and the price dropped to half that I paid today. RCCL won't honor the reduction after final payment is made!!

You can make your final payment, you just can't be past the final payment due date. Royal and Celebrity have always adjusted and refunded the difference.

I just cruised Allure 2 weeks ago. The ship, the shows, and the overall service of the crew literally blew me away.

 

However I had 2 issues with the accounting department of crown and anchor which is the only department that fell short of my expectations.

 

The first issue is I cruised solo, but was only credited 1 point per night instead of 2. I already reported this to both crown and anchor and the official RCCL representative of my area and they acknowledged the error, up to now, I'm still waiting for the missing 7 points.

 

The second issue is I purchased the $179 unlimited internet. Since it is now coupon-less, the 10% gold discount should be automatically applied, but it was not. I reported it to the RCCL representative, up to now, I'm still waiting for the $17.90 to be credited back to my card.

 

Anyone else had encountered any of the issues I had?

I'm a solo cruiser as well, and just about a month ago I cruised and they took forever to post my points. Finally I did the C&A online chat with someone and they had to enter my points manually. I think the single supplement points is very new to the C&A system but I'm sure it will get better. Believe it or not there are allot of Single cruisers out there.

As for your internet coupon. I did my first cruise just last week on liberty with the new paperless coupons. and allot of my coupons didn't come up when my card was swiped. I had to tell them I had them available and again they would have to manually enter them in. Another system still being worked out I guess.

We are 2 credits away from Elite - which we would have achieved with our cruise in February that we just paid for.

I will NOT be a happy camper! :(

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm on track to becoming Elite in January. I will be majorly ticked if they make it even slightly harder for me. I was on the verge of being Platinum when Royal Caribbean made the change and it didn't affect me any. Hopefully Celebrity's change will be the same.

Excellent question on Pompeii or Herculaneum. Fortunately, we had four days in the area in 1999 so that we saw Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, etc. at that time. From my wife and the other couple that traveled on this 2011 trip with us and had seen Pompeii previously, the clear conclusion is that this more famous city would be the first choice. Why? Pompeii was a much larger and more diverse city. There is more to see there and a wider range of options, including BOTH residential and commercial stores/shops/services. That included Pompeii's house of women who offered, commercially, the men seven different "positions" for "services", etc. You know what I mean, right? Another unique part with Pompeii was seeing some of the bodies that were "frozen" in place when volcano erupted and they died. You could see the facial experience at the time of that tragedy. The downside with Pompeii is that it is much more crowded and busy. Our 1999 visit to Pompeii was not too crowd, but it can get hot and busy there, especially during the summer and with multiple large ships in port.

 

Herculaneum was more of a small, elite residential area. Very interesting and a nice "matched set", having already seen and done Pompeii. Herculaneum is closer to Naples, but does not have the train station that drops you right there at the main entrance. Below are a few Pompeii pictures from our 1999 visit there.

 

On the ceramics, YES, we saw some of the larger dinner tables. They looked great. BUT, my wallet is thin enough without dealing with the cost of buying AND SHIPPING such pieces back to the USA. Loved walking around and experiencing their high quality work with ceramics. For my taking pictures, is much cheaper than buying those pieces.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

 

Here are some samples of what we saw in Pompeii with our guide. There are a wide variety of buildings, interiors, art and architectural objects, etc. Very interesting and super historic!!!:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An example of the art on the walls within a residence in Pompeii. Amazing sites and sights in this historic area.:

 

Great photos. I've been to Italy just not to pompeeii / naples/ sorrento region. Defintely on my bucket list though.