alfaeric

Chief- one thing that was suggested by another chief engineer on the tube of u's was that there was a fuel system problem. Which is one system that isn't all that redundant- it's one source that if it goes out, then all of the generators go out. Is that accurate to your knowledge? I found that curious, where you have all these redundant systems that are fed by a system where a single point failure can take out all of the redundancy. Not trying to speculate, but that suggestion was just, well, curious given that a failure could shut it all down.

Vision is 2200, Radiance is 2500. Any bigger than that and it will have to grow a deck, meaning it will have a tough time with the bridges.

So then it doesn't sail full like the mega ships. As for the prices, no, the suites are lower cost, too- that's where we sail, and the small ships are all much lower than the biggest ships. Unless the ship is on some special itinerary. Compare equal itineraries, and the price is lower on smaller ships.

Just to ground people a little in size.... Almost all of the talk is about a ship that is somewhere in the Voyager to Freedom class ships- which is between ~3600 to 4600 passengers. Just for fun, stick with Voyager for 3600 passengers. This compared to Vision (2200) or Radiance (2500). So at a min, the ship needs about ~500 more cabins at double occupancy. Sure, you can stretch it like the Enchantment- but that added ~150 cabins. The only choices are to make it wider or higher for those added cabins. Wider is very possible, but it would end up limiting the places they can go, too. So higher is the most likely thing. That's multiple decks higher. Have to be a heck of a stack to retract multiple decks in. I want it to be true, too. As we really enjoy sailing out of Baltimore. But realism of what they are actually saying suggests that the ship isn't likely to be that small.

You mean back in Feb when we got on and off the ship in Baltimore? I wasn't aware that we got off in Norfolk and was bussed back to our waiting car that we could see from our cabin when we got off the second time.....

Just posted about the vision, but given they are also consistently the cheapest cruises, they are not the highest demand ships. Think what you want, but when we see that they are the cheapest cruse AND the times we have sailed are not the fullest, yea. Maybe really close to full, but given the price per night, nowhere near the relative demand for mega ships.

No, they don't. We were just on her for 2 cruises, and the second one had +400 fewer people.

Right- our only issue with the Icon is the price. So hopefully Star will relieve some pressure to even out the demand. But we love all the ships- all of them have their space in our cruising. I *hope* that they can continue to cruise out of Baltimore, but if not, so be it.

Another thing I find amusing is how people extrapolate their opinions of icon and oasis to everyone. Even though the large ships are getting premium fares and are selling full but the small ships are the lowest fares and don’t always sail full.

Again, the ships this is being most touted on are vision and radiance class ships out of ports that can’t handle voyager ships. That’s where the confusion is coming from. Especially for Baltimore cruisers who really want to keep a ship at that port. So much so that the vision won ship of the year.

Would need a retractable deck to fit into Baltimore and Tampa.

Talks about a 3-4k class has been going around a lot. We heard the same. But, IMHO, the ships it’s most announced on are 2k ships with pretty specific height limits. Which this new class won’t likely meet. So I don’t really understand why it’s made such a big deal on the ships from Baltimore and Tampa.

12 nights carry on is easy for us. Heck, just sailed 20 nights w/o needing to do laundry.

Then try not to get so offended when people add to your posts, then. You don't need to react to everyone quoting you.

So sorry to post an optimistic post that progress is being made. Terrible of me. And worse that adding to your post means that I'm arguing with you.

But it does mean that they are on the proposed recovery schedule. Meaning the whole channel should be open to shipping sometime near the end of May. Roughly when the Vision gets back out of dry dock. Which is really good. Cruising is the least of their worries, but if they can get big container ships and car ships in and out "normally", then the couple of cruise ships will be easy.

If they keep on the scheduled clean up time, it will end up being near the end of May that the full channel should be available. The team seems to be progressing well. It will be interesting to see how they take off the remaining bridge off the Dali, and how she reacts to that weight taken off. It was in 2022 that another container ship went aground in the Chesapeake, so they have local experience.

Marmalade is great, but the food isn't Puerto Rican. It's more fusion than pure Boriquen. Riaces is a good choice. And even though it's more commercial than the smaller ones next to it, the quality is really good.

People over reacting isn't a bad thing sometimes.

"One basket" suggests that the ships are ONLY family friendly. They appeal to more people than just families, otherwise there would not be people well over 50 on the big ships. We've never had kids, but love the big ships. Maybe the big ships are not appealing to you, but you can't extrapolate that to everyone. Let alone, it's working in a massive way right now in their favor. There are plenty of small ships in competition, so Royal doesn't have to rush into this.

Reviving this thread as there's going to be a limited access channel opening on Thursday. So it's quite possible the channel will be totally back open when the Vision returns to service.

I always find it amusing how people claim some massive decline in food based on beef. We've been sailing RC since 2001, and I've rarely had a well cooked piece of beef in the MRD. It happens, but it's far from often. (by well, not well done, but done correctly) But somehow, that is an indication of a sudden decline in the food.. Ok. On the other hand, for every person not sailing RCI for *reasons*, the price goes down. Which is a good thing.

It's interesting the difference in what people think is small. Since the new class of ship is enough above 100k GT, it's highly unlikely to fit under the bridges to Baltimore and Tampa. Tampa fits Radiance class ships, which are ~90k, and Baltimore fits Vision, which are ~70k. Since GT is a measure of total interior size, that tells you a lot. If we are actually talking small ports that do require small ships, that's in the 70-90k GT size. I would put Discovery in the mid-medium sized ships- which the Voyager class ships are. But those ships are unlikely to fit into Tampa or Baltimore. And a lot of really small ports. So anytime I hear (and I heard it first hand, too, on the Vision) of anyone implying that the +100kGT Discovery ships will come to Baltimore, I really scoff at that idea. I guess they could make it wider than taller, but that would be pretty wide to be that big and still fit under all of the bridges.

They will still be there. The version of Hairspray is clearly specific for the Symphony. And SNF has been on Liberty for way over a decade- we first saw it on Liberty back in 2012, and then saw it again last December ('23). IMHO, the 5 year thing was more about the type of license they got- and once that was solidified, the Broadway shows have not changed. Grease is still on Harmony, how long has Cats been on Oasis? 2014? WWRY has been on Anthem since she put to sea.

They keep the B2Bs off the ship for a little over an hour, in our experience. Kinda sucked that we also had to pack ALL of our clothing for the fogging, too. But it was done, and we were able to unpack before the B2B lunch, and it wasn't a problem for the second cruise.