cruisecritiquer

On 1/3/2019 at 10:07 AM, matj2000 said:

Waterslides on ships are nothing to brag about.

 

Especially compared to real water park slides.

 

Most of the ship slides are pretty slow and some you actually push yourself along to avoid stopping midway.

 

They take up a lot of space and are very noisy.

 

They should not be a deal breaker.

hahaha

Are you slide-shaming us? We are consummate Norwegians and we have always enjoyed our NCL waterslides. If Royal's doesn't compare, that's a shame. NCL's are great. 

We'll take water slides wherever we can find them. Atlantis. Maya Lost Kingdom. Disney. 

We like our slides.

I respect your opinion.

lol

21 hours ago, MaiseyM said:

 

 

Thanks.  I didn't know that Allure was getting a makeover, if I understand that correctly.  I wanted to do Symphony b/c it's new, but honestly, with a party of five, if I can save a few thousand at Christmas and have something almost the same, I am leaning toward Oasis or something else.  I just need some new ports b/c I have done San Juan, Labadee, and St. Maarten at least two times in a row.  I need something new.  

I'm normally cruise with NCL, but I'm kind of sick of the same old ports as well. 

I asked social media for a specific itemization of what will be on the AMPed Oasis and they said, "Hi, Alicia. I'll check on this and get back you once I have the info. -Gwen"

 

10 hours ago, MaiseyM said:

I am curious as well.  I am toggling between taking Symphony or Oasis with the revamp.  I really want Symphony, but if Oasis is less expensive for my party of five and still has most of the same offerings as Symphony, I may lean toward Oasis.  I am wondering if they add the new restaurants that Symphony has as well, like the new Hooked or anything else.  Those aren't dealbreakers for me, but it would be nice to have some of the newer things.  Like the iFly.

There is a significant price difference between Symphony and Oasis (AMPed) at the time of our desired sailing at the end of this year.

Oasis Balcony starts at $835 for Dec. 14 sailing.

Miami, Florida | Cruising | Labadee, Haiti | Falmouth, Jamaica | Cruising | Cozumel, Mexico | Cruising | Miami, Florida

Symphony Balcony starts at $1232.00 for Dec. 15 sailing.

Miami, Florida | Cruising | Basseterre, St. Kitts | Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas | Cruising | Perfect Day at CocoCay, Bahamas | Miami,Florida

Harmony Balcony starts at $852.00 for Dec. 15 sailing. 
Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida | Perfect Day at CocoCay, Bahamas | Cruising | San Juan, Puerto Rico | Philipsburg, St. Maarten |Cruising | Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida

That's an enormous price difference between Symphony and the two others. 

And, after you start looking at the details the Harmony is $1102 and $1375 for ocean view w/ balcony and ocean view with large balcony respectively. Oasis is $900 and $1097. Symphony is $1316 and $1594.00.

I'd happily book Oasis if she's getting all the upgrades I've heard about. 

I found this website, but it's confusing to me what the green highlighted updates mean. 

https://www.*****.com/2018/04/30/royal-caribbean-releases-royal-amplified-fleet-upgrade-schedule

I keep hearing rumors that the Oasis class ships will all have water slides a la Harmony and Symphony. Does anyone know if the dry dock coming up in 2019 will include this?

It sounds silly but a ship with no water slides is a deal breaker for my teens and spouse. 

Thanks!

DandDM I was trying to tell YOU about the sail free promotion for August 2016 and I just realized I directed my post ^ to OP.

Hi OP.

I must confess I did not read the entire thread and even worse, I'm posting a month late. However, I just wanted you to know if you are willing to push your cruise back to August instead of July, I saw a friends and family sail free discount on the website. Additionally, if you have not already done it, you can purchase an AARP membership (yes, even if you are under 55 - they are called associate memberships) and still obtain your AARP discount. I booked the trip August 13-20 and was able to book a suite for under 10K with four people because of the kids sail free. It was cheaper than booking 2 balconies with 2 people in each room.

Take care!

276. Oh how I've missed you guys. No cruise this year had me in a dark place. :p

I don't get rudeness from that post...I thought it was a tongue in cheek envious comment.:confused:

anyway congrats OP and happy sailing. I hope you have a great time.

See signature....

Contact publicrelations@ncl.com. They keep historical data on their promotions so if your OBC was part of a promotion on your booking date, they will be able to look it up.

Been there done that and it was resolved.

Freestyle, Entertainment, and NOBODY does SUITE like Norwegian.

I once had an over limit bag by airport standards. DELTA wanted to charge me extra. The port commented about my having a body in my luggage but no mention was made of an extra fee. They don't look that closely for extra luggage.

7 more days.

I think this thread never dies because somehow you just feel better posting how many days you have left. LOL

Echoing the previous poster, they seat you at a table by yourselves unless you specifically ask to be seated with others. It is exactly the same as if you were going to most typical restaurants - you'd be seated with only the party you come in with.

Official Statement from Carnival:

I wanted to make sure that we clear something up as I see some of you are asking. Here is our official statement. Cheers

Late afternoon on Wednesday, Oct. 15., we were made aware by the U.S. CDC of a guest sailing this week on board Carnival Magic who is a lab supervisor at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. At no point in time has the individual exhibited any symptoms or signs of infection and it has been 19 days since she was in the lab with the testing samples. She is deemed by CDC to be very low risk. At this time, the guest remains in isolation on board the ship and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew. It is important to reiterate that the individual has no symptoms and has been isolated in an extreme abundance of caution. We are in close contact with the CDC and at this time it has been determined that the appropriate course of action is to simply keep the guest in isolation on board.

These are my personal thoughts and I didn't start this thread to start arguments because I realize there are strong emotions on both sides and I realize that these hospital workers made sacrifices to help others and they ought to be commemorated for that.

1. Ground flights from West Africa. There are virtually no direct flights from West Africa to the US -- they almost always connect in Europe, so we need to work with the EU to quarantine any suspected cases.

2. We need to close our borders, particularly the southern border until the last Ebola case has played itself out. Ebola would be easy to spread if there were cases in South and Central America.

3. Enforce quarantines of suspected cases and have a third party monitor hospital workers instead of this self-monitoring which could go terribly wrong if someone is in denial about the disease.

4. Set up large isolation units in local hospitals, gather a group of doctors and nurses who are willing to work in the quarantine ward and therefore be quarantined themselves. An SOP for all hospitals needs to be created and enforced.

5. Finally we should continue to send aid and assistance to West Africa, utilizing chartered flights to minimize the impact of Ebola on the population when the aid workers return.

Some of these things may seem extreme and would undoubtedly interfere with our cruise addictions but these measures may become necessary if they aren't necessary already.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? I am open to hearing others' opinions and invite a dialogue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/17/cruise-ship-carrying-texas-ebola-nurse-refused-entry-in-belize/

By Lindsey Bever and Fred Barbash

October 17 at 2:32 AM

A Texas health-care worker who “may have” handled lab specimens from Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan has been isolated in a cabin on board a commercial cruise ship in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Department of State. And Belize Coast Guard won’t let the vessel or any of its thousands of passengers into port.

The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital employee and a partner boarded the ship Oct. 12 in Galveston, Tex., before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the requirement for active monitoring, the State Department said in a statement. Although the worker is showing no symptoms of the disease, the U.S. government is working with the cruise line to get the ship back to America “out of an abundance of caution.”

The employee, who has not been named, did not come into direct contact with Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. However, he or she may have been exposed to his clinical specimens.

“It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed” Duncan’s fluid samples, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Friday morning. “The cruise line has actively supported CDC’s efforts to speak with the individual, whom the cruise ship’s medical doctor has monitored and confirmed was in good health. Following this examination, the hospital employee and traveling partner have voluntarily remained isolated in a cabin.”

Neither the State Department nor an Associated Press report quoting unnamed White House officials confirmed where exactly the ship was or which cruise line was operating it. However, Belizean news reports state that the cruise ship Carnival Magic was being kept offshore after the government of Belize learned that a U.S. hospital worker on board may have been exposed to Ebola. The government assured its citizens that the health-care professional “never set foot in Belize.”

“The Government of Belize was contacted today by officers of the U.S. Government and made aware of a cruise ship passenger considered of very low risk for Ebola,” the government of Belize said Thursday in a statement. “Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, the Government of Belize decided not to facilitate a U.S. request for assistance in evacuating the passenger through the Phillip Goldson International Airport.”

Duncan died at the Dallas hospital Oct. 8. It’s not certain what kind of lab specimen the hospital worker may have handled. Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids such as vomit, urine, saliva, sweat, feces, breast milk and semen. And it’s clear what, if any, protective gear he or she was not wearing at the time of contact.

In this Oct. 8, 2014 file photo, a sign points to the entrance to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where U.S. Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan died. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The announcement comes amid growing concerns after two nurses who cared for Duncan tested positive for Ebola. Nina Pham was diagnosed Oct. 11, just three days after Duncan died from the disease. She was flown Thursday night to the National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, M.D. after delivering an upbeat but tearful greeting via video.

Amber Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola earlier this week – a day after she flew with a fever on a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland back to Dallas. Since then, the CDC has contacted the 132 passengers who rode with her. However, officials said Thursday she may have shown symptoms as many as four days before they initially indicated. Now the CDC is busy tracking all passengers who were on her first flight to Ohio last week.

Pham and Vinson were among nearly 100 workers who cared for Duncan in the Dallas hospital. Psaki said that as part of the CDC’s contract trace investigation, it was discovered that another employee of the Dallas hospital had left the country on a cruise ship.

At the time the worker boarded the ship, CDC protocol called for “self-monitoring,” including daily temperature checks. Psaki said the person has been following those instructions since Oct. 6.

“Today, every person at Texas Health Dallas who has had contact with a known Ebola patient is under active monitoring for 21 days after their last contact with the patient,” Dr. Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer for Texas Health Resources, which oversees Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, said in a statement.

Every year for the past 5 years I've said I'm just going to wait and buy last minute because it's cheaper. Then I become concerned that the room type I want in the location I want might not be available or the prices might actually go up instead of down. Then every year I convince myself to just go ahead and book it now. Every year I kick myself. When will I learn? :rolleyes:

For our October cruise this year coming up in just 9 days...(smiling so big my face is about to crack)...the prices before the mini sold out were still 20 higher than what we paid for it so I'm not complaining (this year). I guess it's a gamble. We have traveled in November every year except this year. As long as you don't book a Thanksgiving cruise, I think it's pretty safe to wait until after the PIF date for a sailing at the very least.

I was told that it was to slow the spread of fire and that since the Princess incident, the materials to make these dividers have changed industry wide.

This is how it was explained in another thread and this is not the first time I've heard this.

chengkp75:

It is a fire break, not a fire boundary. What the divider does is to stop the wind from blowing all along the balconies, carrying flaming material and heat to the next balcony. It's not an A-60 fire bulkhead (must not transmit fire from one side to the other for a minimum of 60 minutes), but it will slow fire propagation. The dividers are now (after the Princess fire) all made of material that will only smolder when flame is applied, not burn.

Yes we are lucky over here

 

We are well employed and fully fund any and all retirement options available to us.

Spend wisely

Travel often

Educate the kids

Don't waste money " keeping up with the joneses"

 

Oh wait.... Maybe it is because we live in a normal sized house

 

Keep our cars forever

 

Make the kids earn and pay for most if their stuff ( including kicking in a bit for family trips)

 

It could possibly be because we didn't do stupid life altering stuff when we were teens and young adults too!!!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

My parents taught me the importance of education, hard work, and a thick longstanding credit profile with lots of "pays as agreed" and no "late pays" or "high rolling utilization" as the secret to fulfilling the American dream of buying a house, buying whatever car you can afford (and keeping it until the mechanic said it would cost more to repair it than to replace it). They were right in that we were able to purchase a house at a very young age and buy pretty much whatever we want (within our monthly budget). So we have been able to get the pick of the litter when it comes to credit card perks and I consider it a blessing that we are able to use those cards to earn points and pay it off at the end of the month.

However, there are a lot of financial advisers who disagree that credit cards are the best way to manage your finances and I've had an internal struggle with both ideologies. Dave Ramsey (who I do not always agree with) comes to mind.

Here's what i know can happen with credit cards, even to people who were responsible as teenagers :confused:, parent their kids properly, and aren't spend-thrifts. I work in several areas of law but one area in particular that makes me privy to a lot of people's finances. On more than one occasion, I've seen people lose everything through divorce, family illness (cancer, etc.), failed investments, loss of their lucrative job, etc. and end up not being able to pay the credit card debt that they had historically paid off each month. Unfortunately, tragedies don't usually occur in between the narrow space of time when your bill has been paid in full and your next charge. These people weren't overspending based upon their net worth and income and they weren't terrible stewards of time or money. They just live in a fallen world with a fallen system where bad things happen and sometimes it is no one's fault.

For that reason and sometimes for personal or religious reasons, some people believe firmly in paying everything in cash and I don't see the point in making judgments on people who do that. :confused: To insinuate that people that don't do that were bad teenagers, didn't parent responsibly, don't put aside money for retirement, etc. seems like a self-righteous accusation.

My point here is there isn't one right answer to how to handle finances. The right answer is whatever one leaves you without debt, without financial strain, without financial stress, and without some company having a cause of action to sue you for failure to pay your financial obligations so from where I stand, our way works (as long as we CAN pay our bills) but so does using cash.

I don't generally understand giving someone money before they are owed it - such as prepaying for steward fees or whatever. BUT, if it helps someone budget effectively, then I don't see the point in judging them for it. It's actually a good thing that they are aware of what works for them to stay on top of their finances.

Oh dear. I'm going to need Dramamine to watch this video! :D

According to the Univ. of Wisc.

http://labs.russell.wisc.edu/mosquitosite/repellents-for-application-to-skin/

http://www.amazon.com/Repel-94109-Eucalyptus-Natural-Repellent/dp/B004N59OFU

This is a good product.

I'm not the type to succumb to paranoia but of course I want to take reasonable precautions since VI has seen an influx of Chikungunya cases.

http://virginislandsdailynews.com/news/chikungunya-spreads-on-st-thomas-st-john-1.1744428

My problem is a lot of mosquito repellents have a ton of chemicals so I've been trying to find a natural repellent other than DEET (sensitive skin on some in my household). Does anyone have any suggestions. Here I was reading about lemon eucalyptus oil and wanted to know if anyone had any experience with it?

http://www.nrdc.org/thisgreenlife/1006.asp

As I wrote... it would cost you about $2300pp for 7 days and take 10 days to try and duplicate what the ship does.!!!

 

So 10 days would cost you $3284pp to duplicate what NCL does in 7

 

Remember it WILL pretty much suck up a whole day to fly interisland ( check out, check in TSA, bags check in get car) and you be run ragged.....

I can't tell from your several posts whether you are pro or anti POA cruise. :confused: