alfaeric

Yea, we had a noro scare on our recent Vision cruises, where the ship was fogged during the turnover. And the WJ was served by crew (including entertainment). Just happened at the end of the first cruise and didn't come back for the 2nd. I have personal speculation, but it's just that. We didn't get sick.

Or be smart with your smart phone and tell it what time it is.

And having tried to DIY a B2B booking (on various sites), I find it MUCH easier to call someone. Either Royal directly or your travel agent.

Didn't say that it did. What it did do is eliminate the worry if the 6 month rule was going to be enforced. When we boarded, we had a sub 6 month PP, so I got an EDL as cheap insurance. And I can use it to go to Canada w/o a passport, too. It was just a thing we did to make sure we can board the ship.

Again, the rules are not US rules, but other countries rules. The you can come and go up to the expiration date. RCI enforces the rules of the countries they visit. Do they enforce this, totally? No, not in my experience.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/do-i-need-a-passport-to-cruise Q Do I need a passport to cruise? A Everyone will need to present an accepted form of identification to board the ship. We strongly recommend that all guests present a passport as their form of ID on boarding day, and for some guests a passport is required. The passport must be valid for six months after the day your cruise ends. The name on your passport should match the name on your reservation. What if my name doesn’t match? While some other forms of ID may be accepted for your cruise, a passport is the very best option and here’s why: A passport is the hassle-free, gold standard for traveling between countries. Boarding and disembarking through customs with a passport is usually faster than other types of ID documents. If you have an issue while exploring a foreign port (such as missing the ship), it’s best to have a passport with you. Guests who do not bring required documents may be denied boarding.

Suggestion next time, quote the thread you are actually replying to. Or at least clarify what you are replying. It wasn't clear what you were answering. Still, the PP is required for the open loop cruise, the 6 month requirement is a country by country thing. Royal just applies that to all cruises. Whether its enforced on embarkation is the risk, as it seems that enforcement isn't 100%. Many others have sailed on a sub 6 month PP and we just sailed with one. I didn't trust that, so I got an enhanced driver's license that I can cruise on.

What do you mean? For Americans, you don't need a passport to fly to and from San Juan, since it's part of the United States. If that's what you mean. The 6 month *requirement* is a nation by nation thing. Royal "requires" it for that reason only. And by require, many times they won't worry about a sub 6 month time frame. Personally, I don't trust that, but people have pointed out multiple times that they were able to use the PP within it's last 6 months. And, actually, we just did a couple of sub 6 month cruses. At the same time, when doing an open loop/repositioning cruise, some of the document requirements may be different. OP- if you want to be 100% sure there won't be an issue, get new passports. For a fee, you can get them immediately by visiting a passport office near you (who require travel soon to get it fast).

We love the Broadway Shows, too. 1) Mama Mia 2) Hairspray 3) Grease 50) Cats. (note, Grease is also on Independence, while Saturday Night Fever is on Liberty). Can't say we have a favorite aqua show- love them all a lot. Nor the ice show for the same reason. Flight is an amazing second stage show. Anyway, the musicals are a very personal taste thing- many others will flip my list upside down. If you *had* to choose, I would suggest seeing if you can see highlights on the U of Tubes to see which one you like the most. I don't see any of them moving ships- the are pretty customized for the ships, and the original reason they moved from Oasis (Hairspray) and Allure (Chicago) have been "solved". Have fun, and see all of the shows for the ship you sail on!

When they say check in on the app, they only mean at the port. You should be able to do the hard check in on your computer, and then the app will have the day of check in stuff- check in seapass code, the safety videos and what not. At this point, you should at least try to check in on a computer instead of the app and see if you can finish.

Another thing to add- if you can eat early, there are generally more spots.

The easy button is a can of spray wrinkle out.

Everyone can have an opinion. Mine is to use a design that puts the main structure far enough in from the channel to add a large grounding buffer to the bridge structure. May be cheaper than adding a bunch of dolphins, and pretty effective since a ship can go aground only so much.

But those are considered Eastern Caribbean cruises, not Southern. We were just on both of those islands on the Vision, so I'm well aware that they are out of Baltimore. Again, those islands are reachable from NJ on the Anthem- so they are far from unique to Baltimore. Royal markets the ABC's as Southern Caribbean. I've gotten there mostly from San Juan, but recently out of FLL on Harmony. If you want to insist that Eastern Caribbean cruises are Southern, that's fine, just not how they are marketed. And it's confusing when people mix terminology. Anyway, given how long it's going to take to get all of the bridges high enough to get anything bigger than the current ships- it's more likely that Royal will build a totally new class of ships decades before all of the required bridges are raised. And for now, the focus should be around cleaning the shipping channel so that Vision can get back when she's done with dry dock.

Tataka was talking about Southern Caribbean cruises. I've never seen one out of Baltimore or New Jersey. The long cruises from both go to the Eastern Caribbean.

Everything depends. Timing, class of cabin, etc. For OUR cruising- Anthem was more expensive than Vision. But compare Tampa vs. Port Canaveral- Tampa has small ships with lower costs than Port Canaveral, in general. BTW, which cruises out of Baltimore have ever gone to Aruba? I've never seen one, and if it did, it would be closer to 16 nights instead of 12.

If they expanded the port to accept large ships, there's a 100% chance the parking price will go up. There's barely enough parking for the ships right now.

So the discussion is about getting a bigger ship into Baltimore, right? That would eliminate Charleston and Bimini. Basically, if the bridges are lifted to even fit the Voyager ships, the itineraries would shift to be the same as out of NJ. And the ultra low cost east coast cruises would go away. No real advantage, really, to NJ. The only think that makes Baltimore unique is the small ships.

I don't disagree, but I also know that the top appeal to the small ships is actually the price. At least to us. Less often the top appeal is the itinerary- which it was for an Eastern Med cruise and recently a cruise to Columbia and Panama. And when we finally do a Panama Canal- it will certainly be a small ship. But none of the ports out of Baltimore are unique. Some of them even suck- I really hate being in Port Canaveral when another RCI ship is in the port because you have no choice but to use transportation to even go for a short walk. And now that we've been to Freeport- don't need to do that again. Even going north, you can do the same from NJ or Boston.

They can adjust the number of 11/12 nighters out of NJ. The time it takes to sail to destinations south is almost exactly the same, anyway. Really, the only thing special about Baltimore is the small, old, ships which generally means lower priced itineraries. We would have chosen the Anthem had the prices been anywhere near the Vision for the B2Bs we just took.

Seems that one other thing they can do is keep the shipping channel width the same, but make the bridge span longer. That would add a ship grounding area before the bridge structure to add some safety to any other boundary hardware.

That part I understand. But the switch to that subject is intertwined into this main story. And to accomplish what you want, 2 more bridges need to be lifted. Which is well outside the timeline of this accident. So when you come in randomly to see if the current news is updated, and you see discussions about the replacement being in a bad place- it's natural to think this is about the FSK bridge, since it HAS to be replaced right now. That's the confusing part- a bridge that has no choice but to be replaced vs. the other two and where they are, when they will be replaced, etc. Again, IMHO, the cruise aspect of this area is minor compared to the rest of the shipping. So I don't see the other two bridges changed anytime soon- especially since this bridge gets replaced now.

Which suggests that the Vision will just have two cruises out of Norfolk. Pretty amazing.

Most people claim that Baltimore is a drive to port, and that a majority of them are within a few hours- meaning that hotels are maybe a few thousand single nights a week for all of the cruises. Parking is something, sure. Call it 3000 cars a week? I would wager a bet that the parking for all of the brand new cars coming to the port is considerably larger. Not saying that cruise passengers are not important. But I don't see them as being so important that Baltimore is going to go out of their way to fit a 4000 passenger ship in the port.

Sorry, but it’s still confusing. The discussion moved from a bridge that has no choice but to be replaced to one of additional volume in a different place that eventually will need replacement. And since cruise ships represent a very small part of the shipping traffic, I don’t see a real need to add height on all bridges as a high priority.