sirk25

Congratulations to you. What a fantastic out come. I would be super happy as well if that happened to me. Sounds like it is setting up to be a great cruise. Well done indeed.

Cheers

Well, part of me thinks "boat perv" is a bit much and part of me laughs at it too. I am not sure I can be accused of voyeurism if they put up the cams!! "Your Honour, I am innocent!"

 

Anyway, I have watched cams in ports and on ships many times. It warms me to see sunny places even as I freeze here. All the Princess ships have them and most of the other lines too. In looked at ports, most of the bigger busy ports have cams too. The hard part for me is to see the camera while it is light there.

I agree with you 100%. I really don't like being so far away.

Last year, on a family cruise with my inlaws, DW and 2 sons, we were at Coco-Cay, at a "tendered" port. My eldest son and I had a late para-sailing excursion booked. We didn't really set up any meet up times with the rest of the family after the excursion, assuming we would just run into each other. Being out on the water and in the air, I didn't think it necessary to carry any valuables or belongings, so I gave it all to DW in a carry bag. (ID, ship card, cash, insulin pump) At the time, she didn't realize she was carrying it all. While we were enjoying our para-sailng adventure, the family decided to go back on the ship so the 3 yr old son could have a nap as he was getting cranky. See where this is going?

We finish the excursion, back on the island and start looking for the family. The island is getting pretty quiet, its late in the day and most people have tendered back to the ship. We are running all over the island, looking for them. Then it hit me, how will WE get back on the ship when we need our ship card to even get on the tender. Panic sets in as the ships horn blows and the last tender is filling up. Ship crew is trying to round up everyone. I explain to the nice ship crewman of our predicament, not knowing where our family was. I had him call our stateroom to see if they were on board.... no answer. He checked with security if they has checked in as being back on the ship....nope. NOW the panic elevated to a super serious level. :eek: Son and I were the last ones on the tender, after going thru a level of security checks, verifying photos, signing documents. Relieved we made it on the tender and getting back, but still no clue on the where abouts of the family. As soon as we got onto the ship, found the nearest phone and call our room to hear my wife answer in a happy cheery voice, not knowing what we just went thru. Lesson #1 learned.

Lesson # 2, the crew said something about getting a replacement card at guest services as our "missing/lost" cards were deactivated. Didn't know what he was talking about cuz when we got to the room, our cards worked find in our room, so we thought nothing of it. Next, getting off the ship in another port, running a bit late for an excursion, found out we couldn't get off the ship due to invalid ship cards. DOH!!! NOW I know what that guy meant. So a quick trip, fighting the crowds to get to the guest services desk to get cards replaced, and then we were good to go. Just a tad bit of embarrassment as we held up other people for some time.

I too was on that cruise and curious and concerned with what happened. I can tell you this, it seemed that Carnival did what they could to protect the privacy and dignity of your father. I know this because as we were going for dinner that night at 6pm, they had restricted access to decks and outside areas and the elevators. Maybe it was a safety thing, but I also think it was to prevent the looky-loo's and stuff. Thank you for sharing what happened. Its so great to hear that he is doing well and your family was looked after during the whole thing. Kudos to Carnival for how they handled the situation. Thoughts and prayers go out to your father and your family for a complete recovery and good health.

God Bless

-a fellow concerned passenger

Well good to hear some people made it home. Our flight was delayed out of Miami destined for Toronto by 2 hours. Later found out all flights from southern Florida were delayed as well. So we missed our connection in Toronto last night and are still here in Toronto waiting for our rebooked flight tonight. So an extra day of vacation, a 24 hour layover and didn't have to go to work today. All is good. Missing the hot Caribbean sun and sea already. Can't wait for our next cruise next January. Cheers folks

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We are in the captains lounge, waiting to board. Super excited to see our ship and ready to go.

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Well we made it to Miami. Are now at the hotel and getting settled after a long travel day. Over 4000 miles flown. Nice not to see snow and feels like summer here. Gonna do some shopping and sight seeing around Bayside area tomorrow. Can't wait til Saturday.

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Soooooo..... ANYONE getting excited yet? Not even a little bit? I think I am in vacay-giddy mood and not being very productive at work today. Tomorrow is gonna be a full on write off. Might even throw the towel in early.

Well here we are, 2 more working days to go til we get on the plane to fly to Miami on Thursday. And it can't come soon enough. Getting tired of the -32C/ -26F weather for the last 9 days straight. Time for some sun and Caribbean waters. Gonna be a long next 2 days of work. I am digging out the suticases and starting to pack tonight. Flight leaves at 5:30am on Thursday morning. Its crunch time kids.... lets do this!! :cool:

We are doing the 12 night Jan 11, 2015

That's the one we are on too.

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Just found this thread! DH & I are planning on sailing on the Quantum in March 2014 with my inlaws and I just love reading all about her! Thanks for all the info!

Isn't the first sailing in Nov of 2014? Do you mean March 2015? Lol

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Royal Caribbean has shocked me! I can't believe they don't have any apps...yes I know they have three but they are all trash. They need to contact a major app developer and work hard on 2 or 3 apps and delete the ones they have.

 

1. App for cruise bookings that has info on all the ships similar to how it is set up on the website. In this app you could also edit your bookings, make reservations, see price drops, upgrade, etc. Of course they could have a little slider on the front page of the app at the top that has the same "advertisements" as the website.

 

2. The app we all want for the cruise...pay a one time fee to get the app and be able to use it on the ship to send messages, FaceTime for iPhone/iPad, make dinner reservations, show reservations, have a map, basically everything you can do on the interactive screens around the ships. Of course this would only be available on ships that feature the interactive screens.

 

3. (Possible) a total revamp of the Portfolio app they currently have. All the info on shopping/excursions you could wish for.

 

Shouldn't this be simple? Make it available for Windows, Blackberry, iPhone & Android. Make sure it can fit the iPhone 5 screen and have available support for each platform. They make money, this is totally doable and I don't know why a mega company like this hasn't attempted this in our tech savvy world.

YES!!! PLEASE... someone NEEDS to do this. TAKE MY MONEY NOW!!! I would love to have apps like this on my BlackBerry. The one that interests me is the onboard texting like someone mentioned. Great idea, and I am sure it would get used tremendously

When I talked to the RCCL agent this morning, I asked about the FJS (the connecting one that has 3 cabins joined together) You have to have a minimum of 5 guests to book it and the first 5 pay the double occupency fee.

We were on the FOS for the Feb 24th sailing. I must admit, I totally dropped the ball on the picture thing. :( If I had my time back, I would have done things differently. We ended up in the end purchasing the unlimited photo package ($299) for the CD of digital prints, and then of course it was easy to convince me to also get, for ONLY $100 more, ALL of the printed photos. So considering that EACH print would cost you a min of $12 (small ones) and up to $25 for the 8x10's, this was a FANTASTIC deal. What it does is eliminate the need to pick and chose a few photos out of all the options. Keep in mind, $25 a pop is only 4 pictures. The last few days of the cruise you see all sorts of people huddled over a stack of photos and tryign to decide what is the best one. They make it hard to only pick one or two. If you can afford it, spend a few extra bucks and get them all.

The reason why I say I would do it differently.... There was 6 of us in my family all staying in the same suite (2 different family names) All of the photos would be included under the one stateroom number. BUT....... we only decided on the last day that the unlimited packgage was the best deal. We only had about 97 pictures in total. As fairly new crusies, and new to RCI, didn't really know how the picture thing worked. We avoided alot of the opportunities to get pictures taken. BIG MISTAKE. They take wonderful shots, no sitting fees, SO many options of differnent back drops. Yes there were photographers on Coco-Cay taking pictures of the kids and people on the beach and in the water. (LOVED the shots of my 3yr old in the sand and beach) I am disappointed we didn't get more portraits done, and if I had known ahead of time about the unlimited package, I would be one of the photo hogs as well. (the young girls seemed to like glamour shots. no offence to a previous poster) Its worth it to get all the pictures, good, bad and ugly ones for the one fee. We took serious pictures, silly and goofy ones and just had fun with it. Where else can you get professional pictures taken for such a low cost. We picked thru the printed pictures and split them up. I have the CD and will just burn another copy for the inlaws and we all have the pictures for our own use.

This is longer then I anticipated, but what I am trying to say, I strongly suggest if you like the pictures and you plan on buying some, think about the unlimited package ahead of time and take advantage of getting your pictures done. Have fun with it and you won't regret it. With the facial recognition, its cool how they associate the pics to your account, and it makes it easy for the roving photographers around the ship to capture you and you not even know it until you see some of the results. I think I covered what most other people have already stated, I am just adding my experiance to emphasize the point.

Cheers

We are travelling on Freedom of the Seas at the end of Feb and was in kind of the same situation as you. There is 6 of us travelling including my 3 old son. I booked a pre and post hotel and transfer through the Royal Caribbean cruise line. Because we have 6 people, needed 2 rooms. Booked at the Buena Vista palace, which I found out is very close if not right next to Dinsey World. It seems to be an upper scale hotel but they don't provide transportation from the Orlando airport. (not sure if I did the right thing booking via cruise line in terms of best deal etc, but whatever) The next thing I needed was transportation from MCO for all 6 of us and a toddler. After much searching and getting feedback from Cruise Critic members, I contacted Mears transportation and arranged for what I think was a economical choice. Pick us up at the airport in a luxury van that will hold all 6 of us including all our luggage, and they provide a car seat if we wanted for free. Its not a shuttle van so the family has it all to themselves and a direct trip to the hotel. (25miles I'm told) cost is $91 to the hotel and the return trip is $61 for what ever reason. It was cheaper then a cab, or car rental, limo and more efficient then a shuttle that would do a milk run with many stops. Transportation to Port Canaveral is on a RC shuttle and I don't know what to expect with that.

Not sure if that helps, but good luck and happy sailing