EOS The Good & Bad 2/13 - 2/22 Cruise with the Bad Propeller!

[geegee1]

Great review so far! ....keep waiting to find out what was so bad about leaving out of Bayonne? :confused:

 

~Connie

 

 

Personally getting off the ship on Sunday in Bayonne was a nightmare. Instead of having two seperate parts for pickup and dropoffs they are in the same spot. so you have some mix of 3500 people getting off a ship with 3500 trying to get on, fighting for 100 or so drop off/pick up parking spots. I would say it was a zoo, but that would give Zoo's a bad name.

[aloha43]

Hi there, didn't you speak to his parents. I have two sons and whilst I have brought them up to know what is right and wrong you never really know what they are up to but in their teens you have to give them some freedom. We are on the Explorer in April and I hope if my children are caught being rude or annoying that someone will tell me. I will soon hang them up by their short and curlies!LOL

 

Gail

 

Actually, by the time I caught him, and yelled at him.....I turned and ran right into the concierge....and he took it from there.

 

BTW...I say kid...but this "kid" looked like he was around 17-18 years old. Old enough to know better.

 

And, if it had happened again, I wouldn't have hesitated to knock on their door and talk to the parents.

[luv2travel29]

I'm back! There are no bells on the JS, but we had kids knocking on our door and taking off, they would also insert the "make up my room tags' in the key slot to drive the cabin attendants nuts. There were soooo.. many kids on this cruise as the result of the winter school's winter break in this region.

 

I forgot to mention that at the cruise terminal we were given a piece of paper informing us that the itinerary was slightly changed and we would be in San Juan from 6 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Aside from sailing slowly and the itinerary change, there was very little information provided other than the Captain's weather/location updates. Our ports of call were:

 

Labadee, Haiti

Samana, Dominican Republic

St. Thomas

Puerto Rico

 

This brings me to the tendering issue at Labadee and Samana. This was our 18th cruise and I have to say that it was the worse tendering experience ever. We were told not to go down to the tenders during "peak hours" (8:30 - 10:30) to avoid the crowds. We waited until 10:40 to go down only to find a line extending all the way to the 3rd floor. The stairs and hallways were mobbed with people and it took over 45 minutes to get to the tender. During this long wait standing in the stairs, there was no staff around to keep this under control. People were getting off the elevators and cutting in front of others because they had no idea as to where the line ended.

 

Will be back shortly.

 

ramar; i was on the same sailing as you and i totally agree with you on the tendering.... RCCL needs to do something about that....

[mkg]

great review so far, looking forward to the rest

[Rancher Dave]

Sounds like a great cruise for you, other than all the misbehaved kids.

 

Great review, thanks for taking the time to put it up.

[RaMar]

So we loved MTD, and the staff was superb. Disembarkation was a total nightmare and this is why I will not sail from Bayonne again. I would rather sail from NY or Brooklyn before I go back there. We were given colored tags with disembarkation times according to the colors, we were also assigned areas on the ship to meet prior to getting out to the "warehouse" to get the luggage. Beware that all the announcements are not heard in the cabins and go to your assigned area early. We were assigned to go to Studio B, and approximately at 10:00, we began to go downstairs. As soon as we got to Studio B, several colors including ours were called. We followed the long line and had to go downstairs carrying the carryons all the way to deck 1. I thought it was a great way for someone to fall and start a domino effect! We found our bags promptly and there are plenty of porters to help. By 10:15, we were waiting in the outside tent hoping that our cab would get there soon. Well traffic was backed up for miles because the dirt road leading to the pick up area was jammed with buses and cars. In addition to dropping off passengers for the next cruise. What a mess! Our cab did not reach us until 12:00, and I was desperate to get out of there. It was damp and the light rain didn't make things any better.

 

Will I sail RCI again? Definitely, but I will not leave from Bayonne again. Despite the few bumps along the way, I enjoyed the cruise and its way better to be on a cruise than here with a windy 23 degrees. To future EOS cruisers, Enjoy and Bon Voyage!

[grayesun]

Can understand why you'll avoid Bayonne for future sailings...our disembark went pretty well in spite of 1 bag being placed in wrong color area for pick-up...we spent about 20 minutes searching repeatedly through the bags of our color (dark brown i think)...once certain our missing bag was not there, I took a shot at an adjacent area where similar dark colored bags were staged...sure enough there was our bag mixed in with this other dark color group...following this, we walked to our car, about 300 yards across the parking lot, got in and drove home to Mass (bringing home more cruise booze than we ever had before):D...

Our worst disembarking experience was recently on IOS where we tried the express route...never ever again, hauling ALL your luggage down multiple decks on crowded stairways is a freaking nightmare & somebody is going to get seriously hurt in a "domino fall" as you mentioned:eek:

 

Thanks for the fine review...great job.

[DPurcell58]

We've sailed out of Bayonne 4 times (the last time being Pres. week last year) and only once got out of there past 10AM - we have our car in the parking lot, that makes it easier to just get out yourself. It differs from week to week i think, sometimes the arriving passengers just overlap with the ones who are leaving.

[RaMar]

They should have two separate terminals so that you don't have 3,000+ people gathered in the area. The taxis and cars picking up passengers had a tough time parking and on top of that very large buses dropping off people for the next sailing. It was nuts!

[Maraprince]

They should have two separate terminals so that you don't have 3,000+ people gathered in the area. The taxis and cars picking up passengers had a tough time parking and on top of that very large buses dropping off people for the next sailing. It was nuts!

 

 

Exactly! You cannot reasonably have new passengers arriving before the departing passengers are fully off the ship and out of the terminal area.

 

 

MARAPRINCE

[GiaGia]

We took a Carnival cruise in July from Manhattan. Unfortunately there were 3 ships in at the same time (two Carnival and one NCL) and the nightmare was waiting two hours for our pickup to go four blocks around to get us. We vowed never again from Manhattan. :(

Thanks RaMar for the excellent review of our cruise. We too had a wonderful cruise. :)The kiddies did not bother us (although we booked not knowing it was school holiday week). Guess they just reminded us of our grandkids.

As for disembarkation, ours was easy as we walked to our car and drove out the empty (paved) road. We did see the tremendous lines coming in and sympathize with those who were waiting.This was our 2nd parking experience at Bayonne and our 2nd trip on EOS. We love the ease of getting into our own car and plan to drive and park there as often as we can cruise from this area. The parking cost was $171.00 and worth every penny!

[RaMar]

GiaGia: Glad you had a good cruise as well. We've sailed out of Manhattan also and it can be quite crazy but nothing in comparison to our experience in Bayonne.

[nvance724]

Like ReMar we were also on that cruise. Had the same experience with very unrully kids and some adults. Also found the ports and getting off the ship a trial. We somehow ended up in the front of the line when they called the color luggage tags/ After finally finding our bags we caught a porter and he got us through customs in a breeze. We rolled our bags to the parked car and left post haste. If we had to wait for the car tobe driven around it would have been a nightmare. For new Bayonne cruisers a tip is to get your bag to the car, not the other way. Anybody have any positive experiences during Presidents week in the past? What do you think the 4th of July will be like?

[Bruins14]

Cruised out of Bayonne twice, I found disembarking fine, we got off ship, bus ride ( could walk, but they wont let you ) grabed bags went thru customs. Walked to car, than we were on our way home to Massachusetts

[EndlessLove]

At embarkation, is there any reason you can't park your car first and then bring your luggage over to the porters instead of dropping luggage off and circling around to park the car?

[megr1125]

At embarkation, is there any reason you can't park your car first and then bring your luggage over to the porters instead of dropping luggage off and circling around to park the car?

 

no you can do that.....as long as you don't mind walking with all your stuff......

[aggie1]

We are sailing on 4/5/09. Now I am really getting worried. In Texas our Spring Break is in March. When we booked this cruise we did not know it was SB in northern states!!! I am around kids everyday in a 1000+ elementary school and also 2 granddaughters. I love kids but not when they are rude and rowdy. At least I will not be at school but sailing on a cruise ship.

[RaMar]

aggie1: Most likely there will be a lot of kids on your 4/5 saling. Schools in my area end on 4/8, and it is a long break. I am also in a school everyday and perfecty understand your point. Enjoy your cruise, EOS is a beautiful ship, and perhaps we had the majority of the rowdy ones on our cruise.

[seadays4me]

At embarkation, is there any reason you can't park your car first and then bring your luggage over to the porters instead of dropping luggage off and circling around to park the car?

 

Parking is now located past the luggage drop off point. You no longer have to circle around to park the car.

[EndlessLove]

Did they move it back to that area recently? I had heard that they changed the parking area to the right of the terminal and that you had to unload your luggage and then loop back over to park (though I did hear that they are good about letting cars through the line coming in). Can someone confirm? Thanks

[138east]

In order to park you do not have to get back in the line. After you drop off your luggage, you make a left and then a quick left between the buildings. This leads directly to the parking without getting back into the big line.

If you need the handicapped parking, you must drive through the big lot and out the left side crossing the incoming traffic (not too bad - people will let you across) to the lot next to the terminal. This was great at the end of the cruise because you could get the porters to bring the wheelchair and luggage directly to the car.

[seadays4me]

In order to park you do not have to get back in the line. After you drop off your luggage, you make a left and then a quick left between the buildings. This leads directly to the parking without getting back into the big line.

If you need the handicapped parking, you must drive through the big lot and out the left side crossing the incoming traffic (not too bad - people will let you across) to the lot next to the terminal. This was great at the end of the cruise because you could get the porters to bring the wheelchair and luggage directly to the car.

 

Sounds like parking is back to the way it was originally. The past couple of years parking was moved to just past the luggage drop off point. I thought it was a better setup. I also thought they moved it there to prevent the cars from getting the paint over spray from the nearby drydock. Thanks for the heads up on parking for our May cruise (or will they change it again by then?).

[spanky]

We've been on a few sailings from Bayonne and haven't experienced any out-of-ordinary problems. We usually do express checkout as that last morning can be like a zoo with people trying to get off the ship. One big problem are all the butt-heads who decide to camp out on the stairs, with all their families and suitcases spread out all over the place. As you are told to either wait in your cabins or go to the public rooms, why would you hang out on the stairs?

 

 

Can understand why you'll avoid Bayonne for future sailings...our disembark went pretty well in spite of 1 bag being placed in wrong color area for pick-up...we spent about 20 minutes searching repeatedly through the bags of our color (dark brown i think)...once certain our missing bag was not there, I took a shot at an adjacent area where similar dark colored bags were staged...sure enough there was our bag mixed in with this other dark color group...following this, we walked to our car, about 300 yards across the parking lot, got in and drove home to Mass (bringing home more cruise booze than we ever had before):D...

Our worst disembarking experience was recently on IOS where we tried the express route...never ever again, hauling ALL your luggage down multiple decks on crowded stairways is a freaking nightmare & somebody is going to get seriously hurt in a "domino fall" as you mentioned:eek:

 

Thanks for the fine review...great job.

[negc]

As you are told to either wait in your cabins or go to the public rooms, why would you hang out on the stairs?

 

Because there are certain people who never believe that those announcements or restrictions apply to them. They are "special" and get to do what they want regardless of its effect on anyone else. They probably also grumbled as you tried to make your way past them on the stairs.:rolleyes:

[sixbirches]

My husband and I were also on this cruise. It was our third time on the Explorer. I work in a school, so I knew this was a vacation week and I have to say that we had no issues with the kids and teens on this ship. I did see a few rude adults though. I think you can expect that any time of year and on any ship.

 

We always arrive at around 10:30 am and as usual, we quickly parked, checked in and waited for the bus. We got on the ship quickly and we asked the steward on our deck if we could drop off our carry on luggage in our room before we went to lunch. He was very nice to let us do that. Then we ate lunch and the rooms were ready. We also found our luggage in the hallway after lunch, so we were settled very quickly.

 

I thought the Sailaway was great for February. We sailed on that infamous Dec. 07 trip that had snow all over the deck, and we were out for the sailaway then too. I love to begin cruises outside, even in winter. You just need to dress for it.

 

We are early risers, so we didn't have any complaints about crowds in the Windjammer. We usually ate at around 7:30-8:00 am. It was always easy to find seats. We also had no issues with seating around the pool because we are outside by 9:00 am.

 

The weather was really great for February. Our second sea day was beautiful outside. I also never felt that this trip had rough seas. But everyone is different in how they tolerate motion.

 

The tendering process didn't bother us. In Labadee, we were on the beach very quickly after the boat was anchored. And I also did the Cayo Levantado excursion and didn't think it was that bad. But some people are just not very patient, so naturally, they get annoyed. I also thought that this excursion was a great beach day, and my lounge chair was not covered with mildew. I guess I was lucky....

On the tender back to the ship, we slowed down and stopped to watch dolphins in the water. That was definitely fun. And no one asked us for tips, as I have read on other reviews.

 

We went to Magen's Bay on our own in St.T. We hadn't been there in several years. The clouds cleared out and it was a beautiful day.

We didn't do much in San Juan since we were only there a few hours.

 

I thought the cruise was awesome. I do enjoy the Explorer. Even when the ship is full, I don't feel like its as crowded as some ships - for instance the NCL Gem felt packed to me when we were on it last spring.

 

We had the 6:00 pm dinner seating and were at a large table. We totally enjoyed ourselves and have wonderful service from Oliver and June. They were fabulous. I have to say, we have also enjoyed great service from everyone on the Explorer.

 

Also, my husband struck up a conversation with an upper level crew member when we were up on deck 6 one morning looking at the ship models there. He was a former Navy officer and he and my husband, a former Marine pilot, spent some time chatting about aircraft carriers they had both sailed on. Anyway, my husband asked about the prop on the Ex. He explained very professionally what the repairs to the propeller were able to accomplish in terms of ship speed. Small adjustments will probably be made to itineraries, just like they were made on ours, since the ship is sailing a few knots slower. Nothing more can be done until the ship goes into drydock.

 

We also had a very quick disembark this time on the Ex. We had orange tags, and we were called much earlier than we expected. We found our bags quickly, had no trouble finding a porter and walked right through customs. Our car was a quick walk. We were were back home in NW Connecticut by 12:30 pm. It was the quickest trip back by far. And we don't get any special considerations, since this was only our third RCI sailing and we are Gold members.

 

We prefer to drive to the ship instead of hassling with flying. So, I certainly hope to sail again on the Explorer. We have always felt comfortable on this ship and have received wonderful service from all the ship personnel.