silly question about how full the ship is

[mazz1]

i see on another post that a person mentions sailing on a very full ship, this is probably the silliest of questions but how do you know/ find out just how full the ship will be 🤔

[YXU AC*SE]

(1) you can ask upon boarding.  (2) the easiest self-serve way is scanning in / out of the ship at the security podium. Their screen (easily viewable) shows a live count of on-board / off-board guests --  add the two together and you have your pax load.   Scott.  

[cantgetin]

At check in, the agent will have a tablet that will say 402/2023, meaning that 402 out of 2023 expected check ins are completed.  You can ask any guest interacting crew--they were told at their pre-board meeting.  THey may give you an exact figure,  or say something like "a bit over 1800" when our number was 1813.  They know and. care because that number influences their work schedule and what they are allowed to do in guest areas on off duty hours (eating in restaurant, for instance)

[CruisingWalter]

I always ask the bartenders on every ship how many people are onboard. They always know. 🙂

 

If you want to know before you sail, ask your TA to do a quick glance at the bookings to see. They can see the availability pretty quickly and give you a rough estimate of at least a percentage, like the ship looks 50 or 70% full based on availability. 

[cantgetin]

I believe that what the TAs can see is the number of available cabins.  That can give a rough guess about occupancy, but can also be deceptive if VV is offering the "no single supplement" deal as that leads to a lot of singles booking cabins that could hold 2. 

Most cruises I've heard of or sailed on recently have been in the 1800-2000 range; definitely up from 6 months ago.  I was really pleased that there was not a huge difference between 1800 on my last cruise vs 1400 on the one before.  I think that VV is doing a better job of spreading out sailors, partially by increasing activities on board.  At 1800, we were able to make dinner reservations for each night prior to boarding and to change our times during the cruise when desired.

[mazz1]

thank you

[cruisinglowcountry]

crew said it has been the busiest they have ever seen it - let me tell you we just got off and it was NOT busy anywhere. We never felt it was crowded.

[Bobblehat71]

We just got off Valiant Lady and there were just 980 passengers on board. It was great 😎

[cantgetin]

3 hours ago, Bobblehat71 said:

We just got off Valiant Lady and there were just 980 passengers on board. It was great 😎

The crew must have been in heaven since we had 1800 the week before.  Some crew perks (such as eating in passenger restaurants) depend on how full the ship is.

[jaxcruisinguy]

Just got off Scarlet and it was at 2332/84%. There were pockets of heavy crowds but for the most part they were handling the load well.

[lisabucsfan1]

12 hours ago, jaxcruisinguy said:

Just got off Scarlet and it was at 2332/84%. There were pockets of heavy crowds but for the most part they were handling the load well.

 

Did you happen to notice if there is still a ton of construction in the area that might be a block for getting TO the port/parking garage by chance? 

[jaxcruisinguy]

55 minutes ago, lisabucsfan1 said:

 

Did you happen to notice if there is still a ton of construction in the area that might be a block for getting TO the port/parking garage by chance? 

no issues getting to the parking garage. There is construction on the causeway that takes you to the tunnel to go under the bay and into the port. But once I popped out of the tunnel, took a hard 1st left and was in the garage in minutes.

[lisabucsfan1]

13 minutes ago, jaxcruisinguy said:

no issues getting to the parking garage. There is construction on the causeway that takes you to the tunnel to go under the bay and into the port. But once I popped out of the tunnel, took a hard 1st left and was in the garage in minutes.

 

Oh perfect - ok this is in line with my previous experience. Thanks for confirming!

[cantgetin]

I cruised the week after Walter posted about the traffic issues.  We had no trouble.  Looks like it might be a spotty thing with the construction and/or high numbers of ships in port.