alfaeric

Again, not just me. I've seen multiple people get the benefits right away for P. I understand that you didn't. And I'm not disputing it. But more than one have and are getting it.

I've seen that posted multiple times, but I know others besides ourselves that got the benefits immediately. Drinks, wi-fi, etc. Everything.

Who says they didn't? Maybe I'm missing something- but did anyone here have a Suez Canal cruise on the Voyager? Seems that people that had their cruise canceled had some kind of Med cruise that was canceled because the ship had to leave early to get around Africa instead of the Suez Canal. As far as I can tell, they are in the exact same situation where our Grandeur cruise was moved to the Jewel last November- and they didn't offer us the TA that moved the ship from Amsterdam to Boston. Once I found out about it, I asked to move with no penalty, and we were allowed. I have no idea what happened to the people on the Grandeur that were originally on the Tampa to Boston cruise that was totally wiped out. If someone has a Med cruise, it's Royals responsibility to replace it with another Med cruise, not some longer one that it a totally different itinerary. The "good" part would be to allow people to change to that new itinerary without any penalty.

Fair enough. But the ship is travelling at a steady state that nobody notices the motion, you don't think people would notice if the thrust cut in half immediately? Not sure how you would not notice that- the ship would be decelerating, regardless of how much. I remember being woken up when it was clear the ship was turning when it should not be, because the ship was rescuing stranded fishermen. And I will think it's dumb to throttle all of the engines instead of one. Makes no sense to compromise all of the engines when you just would need one for a nominal power requirement fluctuation. Especially when you can do it to the smaller one.

I didn't say it would never happen, I said that it's really rare and the rest of the time the motors have to match relatively small power requirement changes. And *most* of the time, the larger requirement changes are during docking when motors are turned on and off regularly to position the ship.

Maybe they are planning for a day that H2 is available in a better way??? Otherwise, it's a lot of money to invest in fuel cells (which are considerably more expensive than a similar sized ICE) to generate power. It would be interesting to know the size of the fuel cells, as a SI engine could make the same power with almost no additional emissions- NG emissions are really, really easy to deal with- they were some of the first PZEV vehicles on the market almost 25 years ago.

I'm confused. You just explained that it's hard for the engines to constantly follow the power output requirements for the ship. Fair enough. I don't really get that part of engine to electrical generation. But before that, you said that all the engines vary the same percentage to deal with the variable output. If it is so difficult and complex and slow and coarse, why have all of the running engines do it when you can do it with just one? Then you deal with the inertia of one engine as opposed to all of them, and if you do it on the "smaller" one, it's a little quicker to react. Sure, there are possible times where there could be dramatic changes in requirements, but most changes are not really that- trimming the power to keep constant speed, lights, HVAC, galley power, etc. Over all of the time we've cruised, I don't recall a time where the ship suddenly slowed after cruising at 17knt- that's something you would notice. The largest immediate change I can recall experiencing is docking where the motors driving the azipods and bow thrusters are on and off to glide into the dock. Still, to deal with the variable power requirements, the engine are throttling, as you have posted. You may not call it throttling, but the fuel flow is varied (aka throttled) to best match the power requirements with the power generation.

Lets not confuse throttling with engine speed, please. Throttling effects engine output in all aspects, so if the engine speed is forced to be constant, then the power output will go up or down based on the requirements. And varying the output of the engine, regardless of if it's speed, or power, or both- is throttling the output. I've seen plenty of dyno testing where the intention was to keep the engine speed constant, but vary the load, so I know it's possible. For a gas engine, the air flow is varied, for a diesel, the fuel flow is varied. Both are throttling the output. Basically, you are saying all of the engine outputs are throttled proportionally- so they are being throttled. As for how they are run, the way you describe it to me makes no sense to do it that way. Each engine has it's onw generator, right? So as long as all of them are in phase with each other, they can each output different amounts of power. As an engineer, it makes no sense to have all of the engines run out of their peak efficiency range when you can limit it to just one. Using one engine to fine tune the power output give the team much finer control over the total output. Maybe that's how it does, but I certainly would not run it that way.

Why do you require an explanation more than civil unrest? Does it really matter? Canceled is canceled. Do they really need to explain that legs after yours can't be done, so they need to leave the Med early to deal with the longer voyage? I don't understand the need for more than what they tell you from RCI when other are capable of seeing through the explanation for a deeper understanding. Again, last November, people who were on a Tampa to Boston repositioning cruise had their cruise canceled due to unrest in the middle east. And that's the whole explanation we got when they changed ships on us. That's way less connected than your original cruise was.

I very much respect your position, but one engine is going to be "throttled" as a diesel. Load is never constant- there's enough variability that even if the ideal range is 75-85%, it's likely that it's going to have to dip to 65 at low times and maybe even 90 for brief times. Besides, ranging between 75-85% is throttling the output. Run all but one at ideal output, the last will be close enough, but not perfect. Meaning throttled, even a little bit.

Check your options before you cancel. We had our Grandeur Canada cruise changed to Jewel thanks to unrest in the middle east. Messed our cabin up really badly. But Jewel came from Europe instead of Grandeur from Florida, as it moved up to Amsterdam for the summer. Meaning that we could do a longer TA that added Iceland as the same price that we had on the Grandeur. Meaning looking deeper into the options gave us a much better trip for the same protected price. Not to dismiss your anger and frustrations- totally understand that.

I would suggest to avoid Blacklane. They canceled out trip leaving the Galveston port the day before we were to get back to Texas. Abandoning us at the port. For the most part, getting TO the port was easy and straight forward for us. Getting FROM the port was almost impossible. After the first cruise, we walked from the port to a downtown hotel, thanks to the lack of taxis and other cars. After the second, we were lucky that a Lyft driver was standing next to us- even though the app said there wasn't anyone that could pick us up. So we hired him on our own. There were no taxis to pick people up- all seem to have left and none filled in for the rest of us. I have heard things have gotten better, but we are not planning to go back to that port, ever, just because of transportation issues.

What specific ship design issues? It's the same as the rest of the Oasis ships, right? As for the food and beverage, I do actually put that to the 3/4 night itineraries they are trying to get- people are not on the ship long enough to really complain about it, so why not cut corners? And clearly the activities are just for 3/4 night party cruises. Just like it seems that the shows are- I'd bet the lower impact of Aqua 80 is for the sake of the performers. And there's no real time on a short cruise to have a second show in the main theater- so why bother? Again, this isn't a cruise we will take, and your experiences (while correct and accurate) are not something we've seen a lot of.

If they needed the power, they would have sized it up, but they didn't.

removed

How much are the issues related to the 3-4 night itinerary and how many are so bad that one should avoid RCI? Seems like most of the issues are more related to the 3-4 night schedule than anything else. And since we don't do those anymore, well.... BTW, I love the Indian food- something new and interesting.

Another factor is knowledge of the system. Every time we've been able to visit the bridge or talk to the chief engineer, Oasis ships seem to run mostly on 3 of the 6 engines. Which is one reason the Oasis got away with an empty engine for so very long (they had 5 out of 6 running engines for many years until there was a dry dock where they cut a hole in the ship to swap engines). All engines have a sweet spot for efficiency, too- so to maximize that, the "throttled" engine to make up the varying power requirements needs to be as small as possible and the rest of the engines need to run at peak efficiency all the time. So beyond the extra power generation systems, it's likely that time and engine efficiency has taught the designers a better understanding of the true needs of the power system. I could be wrong about this- but it also seems that cruise ships rarely every use all of the power they have. So there's not much need for that extra power an Oasis ship has over the Icon.

Hopefully you mentioned it to the team. We did for the Mac and cheese. And we got two lobsters even though our team knew it wasn’t for me. Food was 50/50 for us overall, but the lobster was bad. Bummer that we missed the fresh cod, but we had a great meal in Iceland.

Lots of items are repeated. But this- no menus are totally repeated.

A modern traveler has a phone, tablet, computer, and camera that they need charged- what else? And many new computers can charge from a USB-C outlet. Still- all of those use a transformer system, and I have not yet seen a modern charger system that can't deal with 220V. Meaning there are two extra outlets if you buy a couple of $5 converters. And multiple outlet USB blocks have been around a long time- We've used a 4 USB thing for about a decade (since we got a smartphone). I'm not aware of anything "modern" that uses 120V directly- most of those are old things like hair dryers, curlers, etc. Most of which are not allowed on ships. I get that you think that they should update the old rooms, but I don't think that's very feasible considering how they are built.

Does it have a transformer, or are you talking 120V directly? Almost every 120V *thing* you could bring on a ship are not allowed anyway. Can't bring a coffee maker, can't bring a hair dryer, etc. What are you powering? If it's electronics, you should check and see if it can run on 220V- as almost all electronics transformers can run 220V as well as 120. So you just need the adaptor plug.

Check your USB chargers- I have yet to see one that isn't capable of running the 220V Euro outlet- so a very simple converter from euro to us would let you use the other outlet for a multi outlet USB charger. Very worth having given you can get multiples for less than $10. That way the two US outlets can be used for the devices that have to use 120V. Then again, you should also check your other devices, most computers have 220V capable systems, too.

This is the one time that it depends on the LA and Hotel director. We got pin benefits on that same cruise, and we've seen others get the same on different cruises. Wasn't asked for but was gotten. One extra drink from D+ isn't much, but the internet package for free was nice. (but that has nothing to do with attending the celebration or lunch)

The "celebration" is pretty simple- they announce your names, you go on stage, get a picture taken, and sit back down. I can totally understand that it's not appealing. I'd bet you will get your bottle of bubbly wine in your cabin regardless of going to the celebration of not. The statue they hand you on stage isn't the one you get- so that's not really important. As far as I can remember, the only real thing you get is a picture. As for the cheers with an officer- it's totally identical as the one you get as D+, just with different people. Yea, the food is *slightly* better.... But not real surf and turf anymore. I know I'm probably not helping, but just want to be honest of how it is. We still go as we do enjoy it.

If it costs less than a DIY show, sure. But if not, I can understand why Royal is moving a different direction- even if I prefer more musicals. Thankfully, we have the shows we have, and they will be there for a really long time. As for exposing new people- that's a bonus if Broadway/West End sees a bump in viewers.