Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!!

[catmand]

Sorry, I respectfully have to disagree. Because the ship is large gives an excuse to the family that "needs to keep in touch".? There should be 1 rule for the family........"don't get off the ship, alone" . What happened to "meet you at 4 in the cabin"......what happened to notes, or phone messages? What did people do prior to these "quiet invaders".?

If I have to listen to someone else's conversation at all.THAT is an invasion of my space. Last cruise, less then an hour old we were subjected to:

"Where you at?"
"Down at the bar, where you at?"
"The buffet, you wanna come up here?"
"No, you come here, 'cause I got your daughter here and she is too drunk to walk!"
"OK, where you at?"

Get the picture? and I don't think the complaint is for a quick, quiet, exchange you see, because those are the ones we NEVER HEAR.

[Danno]

[quote name='lesleyfb'].... Cruising has come out of the dark ages...[/QUOTE]

Actually I think that cruising is leaving the "enlightened ages" and progressing into the "dark ages". Enlightened people understood that manners count, courtesy counts, tradition counts. Too many people that choose to cruise today don't give a rats a$$ if anything they do intrudes on those around them...unabated these will become the "dark ages" of cruising.

Because a lot of people who cherish the style that X promotes are vocal about it, I think many rude pax are put off by Celebrity's image as a snobby line...not true, but WELL DONE!!! If we can perpetuate this myth we can go along way to allowing these ships to keep some of the aspects that make cruising a "special" vacation...not a floating amusement park.

[Cruise Cat]

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=purple]Danno - Maybe everytime you see one of those people using these devices, you could report them to ship's security. Tell them that they were 'casing' the ship and talking into these devices. Worth a shot,:D though Security might have a little trouble believing this about a 10 year old.:eek: [/color][/size][/font]
[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=purple][/color][/size][/font]

[gardencat]

leslyfb

There have been families for a lot longer than there have been cruise lines and while there may not always have been big cruise ships there were big fields and big farms and big towns etc... How did families ever manage to keep together in the past without these modern marvels?

[Shirley and Les]

Danno,
I think you are just looking at the tip of the iceberg with the free walkietalkie offer.
For some of us, hearing "aboot" in place of "about" is the bigger problem.
:D :D :D :D
Just kidding,
Les

[stephy1]

We were on the Constellation last year and we were waiting to get some ice cream. There was a father with his daughter ahead of us, with a walkie talkie. So the father hands the walkie talkie to the kid, who is all of 5 years old. She starts SCREAMING into the walkie talkie "MOMMY I'M GETTING ICE CREAM!!! MOMMY I'M GETTING ICE CREAM! MOMMY WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING ME???" So the father finally takes the walkie talkie away after he realizes no one else thinks it's cute, and holds it so the kid can talk to the mother about her ice cream, while we waited and waited and waited.....turns out the mother was on the other side of the Lido eating lunch. Evidentally this conversation couldn't wait until the father and daughter walked back around to the other side.
Now you tell me, was that really necessary?

Stephanie

[NitaBcruising]

[b]I totally agree about the annoyance level on this one! [/b]

[b]But, as a clerk, I also don't care for cell phone use! I have had buffoons talk on the phone while trying to order something from me! I HATE that! They are too inconsiderate to shut up long enough to talk to me, or step out of line and finish their call. :mad: :mad: :mad: One lady left, and we could hear her saying "Oh they don't mind, I was just buying something!" Hah!! We did, too! :mad: How rude![/b]

[ABoatNerd]

Danno, well said.

Persons like yourself, myself and others who are quiet and operate with privacy, decorum and consideration for others are on the way out. Accept it Danno. You and I (and others) are idiots belonging to a previous generation, culture and civilization. PS. Danno, I am a huge NASCAR fan and attend races and yes, I conduct myself somewhat atypical from the general fan base!

We are being replaced with an ever increasing % of selfish, loud, boors everywhere. This is a natural and predictable evolution in North American society as our civilization declines (it did not take long for the Roman Empire to collapse, it collapsed due to similiar conditions seen today, fair warning to North America). This natural decline is aided by 3 items; (1) technology (walkie talkies, cells, boom boxes, loud mufflers) which allow such individuals the chance to disturb others (2) political correctness which does not support the "common good" rather defends the "rights" of boors to operate their way with no regard for anyone and everyone is reluctant to speak up(3) the "rights" culture

This decline is evidenced on cruise lines where RCL has curfews, security guards and the topics on these boards. Elsewhere, metal detectors at schools. Who knew it would lead to this.

I have always cruised Celebrity as I thought it had a higher % of folks who conducted themselves like me vs Carnival/RCL.

For me, the decline in our civilization and individual behavior was demonstrated this weekend and the walkie talkies were front and centre.

Backyard - Screaming kids in above ground pool, yelling parents to kids, kids yelling to parents. Myself and rest of neighbours hiding inside their houses, unable to use their backyards. We will however, be rising up against these self centred boors.

Provincial Park - Kids screaming everywhere, running on roadways in front of cars, parents at the camp site screaming into their walkie talkies at kids on the beach (can hear them screaming 4 sites away), out of control teenagers, drunk, swimming in the lake at 1 pm shreaking and yelling, waking up the entire campground, the family 5 sites away with the radio baring.
____________________________________

Not not everyone operates this way on cruise ships or elsewhere. The vast majority of folks are caring and considerate but their % is in decline.

It will be interesting to see how society addresses the imbalance of "rights" vs "responsibilities" and everyone's personal opinions whether on a cruise ship or elsewhere.

There will be those who disagree with my opinion and analysis. Absolutely fine, FREEDOM OF THOUGHT is a fundamental principle (not supported by the politicial correct culture). Some of those persons may be part of the "rights" culture of North America (most clearly seen in socialist Canada with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (note, Responsibility is not included)) where such persons refuse to modify their behavior for the "common good" and where judicial decisions are totally in favour of the individuals "right" to do what they want. Let it all hang out and DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, WHEN YOU WANT TO, WHERE YOU WANT TO.

This makes it difficult for cruise ship lines, law enforcement, municipal bylaw, provincial park wardens to defend the "peace" as there are no "rights" available to them - 100% rights have shifted to the individual.

I have sympathy for cruise lines as they have limited ability to dictate behavior on their ships and they have no support to charge and remove persons who are a "nuisance".

I am monitoring these developments and may decline to cruise in the future.

For now, I am buying a large piece of land to use where I will not see nor hear anyone.

Hope great cruising for all, ABoatNerd

[Danno]

I think I should purchase the property next to you...I could use a nice quiet, considerate neighbour!!

[skinndog]

I think I have found the right thread to ask for help in deciding which cruise line to switch to. The last post by ABoatNerd prompted me to reply here. My wife and I have been frequent cruisers on RCL mainly because of their great handicap facilities. My wife is confined to a wheelchair. The impossible rudeness of fellow passengers on the last few cruises has prompted us to look for a more civilized cruise line.

When parents allow their children to run wild with their walkie-talkies and forgo any pretence at control it got to us. The children, and sometimes their parents, actually pushed the wheelchair aside as we were trying to exit onto the pool deck. The final straw was having to listen to a mother screaming into her w-t trying to get her kids to join them for dinner while the waiter was trying to take the order.

We were hopeing that Celebrity would be a stepup and started started several months ago looking at these boards trying to get a feel for the environment on this line. My question that I hope you can help with is this: Is it worth switching to Celebrity or should we keep looking elsewhere? We do not want to give up cruising just because the PC people are trying to take over.

Jack

P.S. Before you ask, the user name "Skinndog" was my call sign when I rode the back seat in F4s.

[Danno]

Jack...while I think it would be a lie to say I have never encountered a rude person on X. I will say they are odd enough that they stick in your mind. My experience with disabled persons on X is that they are treated with respect and consideration a by the crew and fellow pax. The crew in particular seem to do an outstanding job.

As I have not had a disabled person in my care I might suggest you start a thread asking for thoughts from some who may be disabled who contribute to this board...I would be disappointed if you didn't get mostly positive comments.

You sound like people I would enjoy dining with...hope we get the chance one day.

Oh...and if things work out perhaps you would consider joining [b]X-SNOBS:D .[/b] We can talk later....

[jimmy2x]

Skinndog,

To try and avoid dealing with the "great unwashed", I suggest the following:
1. Cruise Celebrity or HAL
2. If possible, go on cruises longer than 7 days
3. Go at a time when it is likely that mostly adults will be there

Obviously, not a guarantee as creeping slobisim can happen on any ship, but it has to increase the odds.

[Offtune Angel]

[quote name='lesleyfb']1. These new ships are so huge that families need to keep in touch and the use of walkie talkies is the way to go.
2. Cruising has come out of the dark ages and we need to move with the times.
3. Live and let live.
4. People usually are discreet but there is just no pleasing some people.
5. Its the same old, same old.[/QUOTE]I totally disagree with your statements. In order:
[list=1]
[*]The beauty of these ships is that they [b]are[/b] so huge. The ugly is that they are not huge enough to avoid families who THINK (or, more aptly, DON'T THINK) they NEED to use walkie talkies to 'keep in touch'. If you want to keep in touch, stay together! If you must be separated make arrangements to meet somewhere at a pre-determined time.
[*]I believe cruising is going INTO the dark ages every time it allows something to interfere with the relaxation that cruising used to provide -- Interference from cell phone abusers and walkie-talkie abusers is definitely not conducive to relaxation, nor is the interference that comes from static caused by the actual equipment being used.
[*]Live and let live -- yes, please, [b]let[/b] me live -- far, far away from noise pollution.
[*]As for people usually being discreet -- If they were, we wouldn't find it necessary to have this topic. But the topic has been posted. Danno's (and many other's) complaint is viable.
[*]There is just no pleasing some people -- especially those who refer to the 'same old, same old'. They are usually the worst perpetrators of violating someone else's space with their communication toys or other bad habits.
[/list]If I had supernormal hearing, I might agree that I was being too sensitive to the Walkie-talkies, the yakkie-yakkies and the bellowing cell-ing. I also object to hearing sound from walkmans and their ilk. As I said to my teenagers -- if [b]I[/b] can hear your walkman, it is [b]too[/b] loud. The only sound worse than all of the above is my hearing aid screeching in protest to the sound pollution.

[tuggers]

I definitely think you would fair better on X. And I never cruise when kids aren't in school unless it's an
Escape Cruise with adults only. Like someone said try to do the 9, 10, 11 and 14 night cruises to cut down on your non serious cruisers. Mostly the people you were speaking of, IMO, stick with 7 and 9 night trips. So I take the longest ones I can. Welcome to X!

[skinndog]

Thanks Dan, Jim, and tuggers.

I feel more comfortable about booking with the X crowd now. I found the X-SNOBS thread that Dan referenced. After reading through that I found that people here are expressing the same complaints that have cropped up for us in the last couple of years.

We have tried what Jim and tuggers suggested, taking the longer 10 to 14 day cruises to be with a more genteel group. That helped with the problem with children. Don't get me wrong here, I do like kids. It is just the ones that parents let run wild and have no idea what politeness means that bother us. Most of the adult pax were friendly and fun to be with. It was just the few who thought that formal night meant replacing the flip-flops with shoes (sometimes with no socks) and putting on a clean tshirt. I don't like wearing ties but I do so when it is reasonable to dress up. I would have thought that the dinning room staff would have turned away anyone dressed in poolside attire on formal nights or even informal nights but there was no control. I get the impression that on Celebrity things would be a lot better.

Judy and I are planning on a cruise on the Infinity in the fall of 2005 to do Hawaii. We have to book almost 1 year in advance in order to ensure that we can get a wheelchair accessable stateroom. We usually take 2 or 3 cruises a year but we are building a new house in Arkansas and will be moving some time next year. BTW, we bought 40 acres on a lake in the Ozarks to ensure some peace and quiet in our advanced years.:D

[bob278]

I recognize that both have a purpose and can be beneficial, but I've often been tempted to buy an air horn and blast it when people are abusing walkie-talkies or cell phones in confined places. And that's the key for me - abusing them. Sometimes, it may really be necessary for them to talk to someone, but a little courtesy goes a long way.

 

Can't you just imagine the reaction someone would have if you "interrupted" their private conversation with an air horn? I know that isn't practical, but how about joining in on their conversations? Start answering their questions and when they look at you, simply smile and say, "Since I could hear every word you were saying, I assumed you were talking to me".

[skinndog]

I was in a grocery store to pick up a few items when I was startled into dropping my bag of coffee. A women was yelling into her walkie-talkie to her son about getting the right cereal. I heard him yelling back without the aid of the radio because he was at the end of the asile! They continued looking at each other and yelling for about 2 minutes. Why couldn't she just walk the 40 or so feet and just talk to him? Stupid and Stupid. And everyone wonders why Americans are so fat. Both of these people could have used the exercise since they need to lose about 80 pounds each.

 

The proceeding can be ignored, I just needed to get it off of my chest.

 

Jack

[Cruise Junky]

I recognize that both have a purpose and can be beneficial, but I've often been tempted to buy an air horn and blast it when people are abusing walkie-talkies or cell phones in confined places. And that's the key for me - abusing them. Sometimes, it may really be necessary for them to talk to someone, but a little courtesy goes a long way.

 

Can't you just imagine the reaction someone would have if you "interrupted" their private conversation with an air horn? I know that isn't practical, but how about joining in on their conversations? Start answering their questions and when they look at you, simply smile and say, "Since I could hear every word you were saying, I assumed you were talking to me".

 

OMG I love it. I dare you ? :) :) :)

[davehau]

These new ships are so huge that families need to keep in touch and the use of walkie talkies is the way to go. Cruising has come out of the dark ages and we need to move with the times. Live and let live. People usually are discreet but there is just no pleasing some people. Its the same old, same old.

 

Actually, it doesn't matter if the ship has 100 passengers or 10,000, is big or small.... simple common sense and good child-raising makes it simple for families to keep in touch.

 

Our rule is easy, costs nothing, irritates no other passengers, and certainly keeps my son and I "in touch" more than a walkie-talkie that was never designed to work in a steel vessel with metal walls, floors, etc:

-Every even hour, on the hour, he and I both were to make sure we were at the cabin. If one of us were, and the other wasn't there within 5 minutes, we could simply leave a note for the other on a pad I leave on the desk. Exceptions could easily be arranged if he or I had something else we wanted to do at the usual time we'd meet, and if nothing else, we could simply call the cabin if we unexpectedly weren't going to make it back. Given that Celebrity has house phones all over the place, this is easy to do, even from the sports decks, which was his usual hang-out.

 

Of course, he understood there could be penalites for not making the effort to communicate or meet me, and I made sure I kept to it, if for no other reason than to set the example.

 

Did it work? Has for 2 -10 night cruises, with only a few bumps here and there. And of course, it's far cheaper than buying those annoying squawk boxes for however many kids, not to mention the kids having to keep track of them. Also, since my son is a teen, he far prefered being able to discretely slip away and stop by the cabin to the idea of wearing/carrying an obvious sign that his parents had him on an electronic leash.

 

What if there was an emergency? First, you're on a cruise ship -- a controlled limted environment, usually withing mere feet of crew members trained to handle almost anything. If there was an urgent problem, they'd handle the immeidate issues, then they have real cordless phones with relay transmitters throughout the ship -- and set procedures to find a passenger when they need to. Also, we usually spent a few minutes each morning talking about what each of us planned to do that day, both for contact purposes and as simple polite discourse, so we both had a general idea where the other might be.

 

 

Dave

[Danno]

C'mon Dave...a non-electronic, common sense approach that teaches a young person responsibility while showing him the adults also have to keep up their end of the eqaution....HERETIC :D !!! Well done!! Thanks for the tip...sounds like a great system.

[sea-cruise]

Skinndog, I'm so glad that I read your post about Royal Caribbean pax being rude. Honestly, we haven't sailed with then for the past 5 years and we were thinking of another cruise with them soon, but your post has somewhat changed my mind now. How sad that pax have become so self-centered in general. It seems that their opinion is the ONLY opinion, and so they are oblivious to anything else :eek:. I'm writing to say that we did sail the Infinity (her maiden Hawaiian voyage, March 2001) and we LOVED it. We had one of the cabins that is nearer to the front portion and has the triangular shaped balconies. We recently took our grandsons on their first cruise, so we chose Carnival. I do know what all of you mean about the walkie-talkies. Our grandsons are older so we used post-it notes and had connecting cabins enabling us to communicate that way. If they had been younger, we would have been with them, so there would have been no screaming into the wt's. It really is becoming less of a joy to cruise than it use to be...but of course, that's only my opinion for what it's worth. Have fun on your Hawaiian cruise!!! :)

[old Marine]

Danno and others.

 

Now that we have defined the problem as people with no respect for others ,aside for the air horn,how do we get their attention to stop the disruption of our space and tranquility. If I throw their w.t.overboard they will have the security people visit me,or should I follow the suggestion of one of the writers and repeat in a loud voice the answer to what they are saying..

 

George of NC

[Danno]

Now we make it clear to X that we find these devices not in keeping with the traditional, up-style cruise that they are claim to have embraced...they won't know if we don't tell them!!

 

 

I think you'll find X moniters these boards...why wouldn't they?? What a great research aid!!

[nealberk]

Now we make it clear to X that we find these devices not in keeping with the traditional, up-style cruise that they are claim to have embraced...they won't know if we don't tell them!!

 

 

I think you'll find X moniters these boards...why wouldn't they?? What a great research aid!!

Danno, I just wish X would "come out of the closet" and let us know that they are watching us, listening to our comments, and doing something about the real problem areas!

[brigittetom]

SeaCruise, My favorite cruiseline is Celebrity. No doubt about it. We booked a NE/Canada cruise on the Granduer last October. It was a fantastic 10 days. The service was outstanding, the lunch buffets were far better than Celebrity. The dinners weren't even close to Celebrity nor was the service. Our cabin steward was great. I would not hesitate for a minute to take another RCL cruise. As you might have noticed, the food thing is not our criteria of a great cruise.

 

As for the passengers being rude, not ruder than Celebrity. You get the same group of elders that push you out of line in the lunch buffet. I don't know why I always have that problem. They must just read Stupid on my forhead. It happens to me on each and every cruise. Go figure.