LIVE from Jewel May 15, 2024 - 27 nights

[HBE4]

11 hours ago, twangster said:

This may be the last from me, at least for a while.  It's a lot of work and the pay sucks.  Plus I don't have anything worthy of the effort on the books.  I do have some epic train journeys coming up but there is no place to post those live so I'll just be keeping them to myself.  

 

I hope you have found this informative and I thank you for viewing. 

 

Certainly disappointing as like many others, I thoroughly enjoy a @twangster review.  The immense amount of effort you put into it clearly shows. Not only in the incredible pictures and videos but the way you organize the content, the details you provide and how you always seem to write the perfect caption. Your storytelling is so good, I often feel like I'm there with you. Thanks to you, I've added Panama Canal (sans Empress) and Noway (sans a few fjords) to my bucket list. Did I mention the incredible pictures and how you were able to capture so much of the ship without people?

 

I don't read many "live" review threads & when I do, I often skim thru large portions of them or stop reading after a while. Yours and a couple of others are the only ones where I take the time to read each and every post. They will be greatly missed & I guess I'll just have to go back and reread the old ones.

 

11 hours ago, loug1601 said:

@twangster,

 

The float away lounge on this site would just LOVE a good train saga! Please consider it. I know the reports you do must be incredibly time consuming, but on a selfish note, I just love them!

 

Patty

 

Yes! This!! The Float Away Lounge is the perfect for non-cruise topics and if you ask the Admins, I'm sure they'd let @twangster create a thread for his train saga, which I'd also be interested in.

 

Another option that another person used to do was write her trip reports in the Port-of-Calls forums when her land trips happened to be cruise ports as well. Again, she asked the Admins if it was okay & they gave her permission.

 

Food for thought. I'm sure we all wouldn't mind settling for a Readers Digest Condensed Trip Report.

[bobmacliberty]

I hadn't heard that Norway will close down some of the fjords to cruise ships.  I wonder if this is controversial locally.  On the one hand, Norway seems like a pretty eco conscious country, and I imagine the desire to protect the fjords is strong.  On the other hand, some of those smaller towns would seem to rely heavily on tourism.  I don't know how well the Twizy rental place, for example, can survive without cruise ships.  Same for some of the breweries. 😱  Did you guys get any sense from the locals what they think of this?

[Gerdywerdy]

Would anyone currently on this boat be able to tell me if the product attached is available at the SPA to buy. A friend of mine very keen to get it and bought on a different company's boat but I think same products might be available with Royal Carribean.

 

Thanks everyone. Any help greatly appreciated

 

 

[Biker19]

50 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

Did you guys get any sense from the locals what they think of this?

Hard to judge as many of the places you frequent are not locals. Like Alaska, many of the staff go there for the season. Many of the others are tourists from Europe. In Flam there were busloads of tourists (came to ride the train). 

 

The ports are being converted to shore power (two of the stops had that on the itinerary) so that may also limit the ships without such hook up.

[RobInMN]

4 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

I hadn't heard that Norway will close down some of the fjords to cruise ships.  I wonder if this is controversial locally.  On the one hand, Norway seems like a pretty eco conscious country, and I imagine the desire to protect the fjords is strong.  On the other hand, some of those smaller towns would seem to rely heavily on tourism.  I don't know how well the Twizy rental place, for example, can survive without cruise ships.  Same for some of the breweries. 😱  Did you guys get any sense from the locals what they think of this?

It's not so much that they are closing to cruise ships, it's that they are imposing emission rules on the UNESCO fjords. Not sure if this is UNESCO or Norwegian parliament driven). Cruise ships that meet these standards are fine. I do not know if LNG qualifies or not, but until RC develops a new ship class (Project Discovery?) that potentially meets the new standards, they are out.

[LindaD22]

6 hours ago, Gerdywerdy said:

Would anyone currently on this boat be able to tell me if the product attached is available at the SPA to buy. A friend of mine very keen to get it and bought on a different company's boat but I think same products might be available with Royal Carribean.

 

Thanks everyone. Any help greatly appreciated

 

 

Yes, they do have this onboard. I attended a Ladies Pamper Party and they demonstrated this product on one of the guests. 

[andreasfcb]

3 hours ago, RobInMN said:

It's not so much that they are closing to cruise ships, it's that they are imposing emission rules on the UNESCO fjords. Not sure if this is UNESCO or Norwegian parliament driven). Cruise ships that meet these standards are fine. I do not know if LNG qualifies or not, but until RC develops a new ship class (Project Discovery?) that potentially meets the new standards, they are out.

 

I think LNG is enough and power to the grid when docking.

 

Do we know if they added that capability in dry dock to Jewel or if it was already there before? The captain announced in Alesund that we were connected to the power grid and shut down our engines for the whole day. I didn't know that Royal was capable of that and it sounded special at that time.

[twangster]

14 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

I hadn't heard that Norway will close down some of the fjords to cruise ships.  I wonder if this is controversial locally.  On the one hand, Norway seems like a pretty eco conscious country, and I imagine the desire to protect the fjords is strong.  On the other hand, some of those smaller towns would seem to rely heavily on tourism.  I don't know how well the Twizy rental place, for example, can survive without cruise ships.  Same for some of the breweries. 😱  Did you guys get any sense from the locals what they think of this?

 

Norway first tabled the restrictions many years ago then went through several iterations to land where they are now.

 

https://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1824

 

At first only electric ships would be allowed.  They were a little too aggressive with their dates to the point not even their electric ferries would be ready in time.  The shift to allow shore power as a compromise was a more recent addition but only two of our ports in Norway had shore power to offer.   Biofuels are now included but it's not so simple.  

 

https://www.dnv.com/expert-story/maritime-impact/latest-updates-on-proposed-rules-for-zero-emissions-in-Norways-World-Heritage-fjords/

 

The other issue impacting itineraries is IMO2023 and other efforts in the shipping industry beyond just cruise ships to reduce speeds as a means of reducing emissions.  On both of my cruises we had some legs where the ship was running at high speeds, relatively speaking, i.e. over 20 knots.  By reducing speeds emissions are lowered.  For a cargo or container ship that means it takes longer to get there so rates go up as the ship is less efficient at generating revenue.  However the cargo still gets there.  For cruise ships reducing speed means some itineraries are just not possible.  Who would accept two sea days instead of one and fewer ports of call? 

 

So cruise lines, especially ones with older less efficient, higher emission producing engines have to re-think the itineraries they can offer.  

 

Between the two issues, IMO2023 and the Norway regulations, it's dramatically impacted what Royal can offer in the region.

 

 

Edited June 14 by twangster

[twangster]

6 hours ago, andreasfcb said:

 

I think LNG is enough and power to the grid when docking.

 

Do we know if they added that capability in dry dock to Jewel or if it was already there before? The captain announced in Alesund that we were connected to the power grid and shut down our engines for the whole day. I didn't know that Royal was capable of that and it sounded special at that time.

 

LNG unfortunately is not enough.  As it turns out LNG still produces a lot of emissions.  The sulphur content is greatly reduced compared to heavy fuel oil but LNG isn't perfectly clean, it's just a lot cleaner than HFO.  

 

I'm wondering if shore power capability was added in the recent dry dock.  Our docking in Alesund may have been the first time Jewel had used it.  

[Gerdywerdy]

14 hours ago, LindaD22 said:

Yes, they do have this onboard. I attended a Ladies Pamper Party and they demonstrated this product on one of the guests. 

 

Thank yo very much. I live in Belfast I wonder if its possible to arrange to buy some without being a passenger?

[Biker19]

4 hours ago, Gerdywerdy said:

I live in Belfast I wonder if its possible to arrange to buy some without being a passenger?

You might ask that of a passenger in the Roll Call thread of one of the sailings with a stop there.

[Gerdywerdy]

must

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

You might ask that of a passenger in the Roll Call thread of one of the sailings with a stop there.

must try and find one as a ship due to dock in Belfast this weekend

[hellokitty_kt]

On 6/6/2024 at 1:35 PM, Hoopster95 said:

I’m normally not a museum guy, but the short 1.5 hour visit to the open air Sunnmore Museum to learn about some

of Norway’s early history was actually really good

which excursions is part of your visit to Sunnmore Museum? In your opinion is 1.5hours in the museum enough time spend?

[Hoopster95]

2 hours ago, hellokitty_kt said:

which excursions is part of your visit to Sunnmore Museum? In your opinion is 1.5hours in the museum enough time spend?

 

Hello. Looking back, if I remember correctly, it was slightly longer than 1.5 hours (we had closer to 1 3/4 hours perhaps?). Yes, it was about the right time for a quick overview. I enjoyed it, and personally I didn't need anymore time

 

If you are visiting this museum yourself and wish to immerse yourself more, If you are mobility challenged, or if you're interested in reading every signpost regarding the history if each building/boat you walk by, add more time. As part of a full tour which included other areas of Alesund, I feel we had perfect time to roam the grounds and I still had 15min to enjoy a latte & Svete, and then get going for other things to see.

 

https://www.norwayexcursions.com/en/tour/alesund-the-ultimate-sightseeing-tour/

 

[travelling8]

@twangster what”s the name/brand of your 360 camera? I’m thinking of buying one after seeing your photos. 

[Joesantos]

On 5/16/2024 at 3:40 AM, twangster said:

I'm starting this LIVE thread a little late here on day two but I figure it's better late than not at all.

 

This is a B2B for me starting with 15 nights for cruise #1 and then 12 nights for cruise #2.

 

Screenshots from cruisemapper.com

 

Cruise #1:

 

 

Cruise #2:

 

 

Even though it's day two as I write this, let's rewind just a bit.

 

Was there any Zumba? Dancing by the pool? Theme parties?

Booked for September after kids in school and my wife loves dancing, wondering if live bands Latin music dancing opportunity.

thanks for your information 

 

[twangster]

2 hours ago, travelling8 said:

@twangster what”s the name/brand of your 360 camera? I’m thinking of buying one after seeing your photos. 

 

Insta360 OneX4

 

The X4 is a huge upgrade over previous versions that I've used before.  

 

360 cameras have a learning curve.  There is a lot of work in an app to make something worthy of posting.  As I use them more, I learn more.  What works, what doesn't, when too much 360 stuff is just too much.  

 

The X4 finally achieves higher resolution but that comes with large files.  I have a 1TB smartphone largely to be able to do 360 file manipulation.  

 

The advice I offer to anyone looking to use a 360 camera would be to practice long before the big event you are thinking about.  I am more careful about how I capture now which makes it easier to go through the mountains of video they can produce.  

 

They are a great tool to have in a photographer's toolbox when used appropriately.   

[cruiselvr04]

Thanks so much for taking us along.  We can’t wait for August to do our Norway/Iceland/Greenland.  We’re also very thankful to have booked it before the ships aren’t allowed in. Now just as long as American Airlines flies we are good to go. 

[twangster]

In reference to the first cruise to Iceland I just came across this Youtuber who visited Akureyri early in June several weeks after my visit.  

 

That thumbnail for her video is the mountain pass road we used.  It was closed in her video.

 

It's just amazing to me how the weather can vary in Iceland.  One might assume a later summer visit might be better yet in this case I'm am feeling very fortunate for the great weather we experienced.  

 

If you have an early summer visit to Iceland maybe consider still bringing all the cold weather gear.  You never know.