Overtyme

From Royal press release on 2018-19 deployment issued yesterday:

 

 

• Quantum-Class Anthem of the Seas will continue year-round itineraries from Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey sailing a diverse series of five- to 12-night itineraries to Bermuda and the Caribbean and seven-night itineraries to The Bahamas. For the fall season, Anthem of the Seas will offer nine-night itineraries to Canada and New England.
  
• The newly revitalized Adventure of the Seas will call the Northeast "home" for the first time since her debut, sailing a variety of seven-night itineraries from Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey to The Bahamas and New England & Canada throughout the summer season. In the fall 2018, the ship will feature three open-jaw 10- and 11-night Fall Foliage sailings to Quebec, Canada. Adventure of the Seas will reposition to Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale for the winter season, offering six- and eight-night Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries.
  

Nice!

Thank you for sharing!

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It looks like they just released the 18 - 19 Caribbean schedule, but Anthem is not showing as coming out of NJ.

I wonder if she is being replaced!

Radiance - Alaska itineraries are now out. Looking forward to seeing more itineraries soon!

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FYI - more information on the reveal.

 

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/never-done-before-3-d-design-unveiling-for-celebrity-edge.html

nice find JV!

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So much for this week

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I swore I got an email about a live streaming event for Edge.

I can no longer find that email, but it had a date and time (and maybe a link).

Anyone have that information?

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For Symphony only.

So far this all that I see also.

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Starting the week of March 6th.

 

(Slow day, only two today).

Hoping this is the week[emoji18]

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Starting the week of March 6th.

 

(Slow day, only two today).

Thank you! Can't wait!

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It'd live to know when RC will release the new 2018 itineraries. Any idea?

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Cause of new baby coming in april we`ve decided our next cruise is in 2020. Hopefully booked as soon as its possible. :)

My advice- wait until 2021 (unless you're bringing family to watch the baby. We brought our 3 year old, and we had a good time, but because she wasn't potty trained yet, there was no Adventure Ocean, which meant that we didn't get any adult time.

5 months later, she's fully potty trained.

By contrast, our older one was potty trained by 3.

Every child is different, but because people book so far in advance it's impossible to know.

Allure was by far the best ship for families!

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P.S.: Question for original poster: Why did you historically go for 'latest and greatest?' Because it was new? Bigger? More specialty restaurants? Neighborhoods? Flow riders?

Sorry for the delayed response.

Historically I've always gone for the latest and greatest because (sad to say), it's been quite a few years between cruises, compared to when I was a kid and on my grandparents dime, practically every year.

With that, quite a bit of innovation has come with each class.

So, for example, for our honeymoon in 2003 (CRAP!) we went on Adventure. Navigator (same class) was newer by a year, but I think that we felt that they were the same class and Adventure had a better itinerary.

We booked the Serenade of the Seas in 2005 because we were in Puerto Rico for a wedding anyway, but also because it was the newest class.

We knew it would be smaller, but there were new features including what I believe was the start of specialty restaurants (only two from what I recall).

In 2011, we took our then 3 1/2 yr old daughter on Allure, which was only a few months old.

I have to say that the things that made this attractive to us were all about the ship, and nothing to do with the ports.

We knew that it would be a hassle to take a 3 yr old on and off, so we didn't bother worrying about where we were going.

The bon-voyage aquatheater show with Dreamworks characters was perfect!

She had a blast in the newly, super big, Adventure Ocean.

Taylor Swift performed on our cruise (a cool bonus), and the performances which included Chicago, were top-notch.

Our next cruise was this past June/July and was a no-brainer.

We live in New York and Anthem was pretty new (at least it was the newest class).

We added to our family, so not paying a ton in airfare was a nice bonus.

It was the latest ship (okay - missed that cut-off by a month or two) and 90 minutes to the port.

She was beautiful, and we liked the rotational dining format with the same waiter.

We also loved that it was greater than 7 days.

Turns out that we likes Allure much better in terms of what it offered the younger one, but the now 9 year old loved surfing and iFly.

We missed the pool/splash area which was lacking on this ship.

I could do with/without the NorthStar.

Anyway, I guess where i'm at is that we wont be on another cruise for about 6 years.

By then, Icon of the Seas will have launched and i'm sure it will offer a whole new group of features.

With that will come a lot more money.

But, our favorite class, Oasis class, should come without the premium or Anthem (if its still in NJ will have probably gone through refurb/drydock and probably will get water slides and other features by then and will also come at a lesser price than Icon Class will.

By now, you've probably figured that I have spent way too much time thinking about this, or that I definitely have first world problems.

But this has been the trend so far for me - newer (at a premium) over older.

But as I get older, the considerations have changed for me and i'm thinking that for us, somewhere between convenience and features is our answer.

But on our next cruise, well have a 15 yr old and a 9 year old. Ports will probably matter a lot. Maybe A European Cruise? [emoji12]

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It's only taken me 35 years to come up with this.

All of our recent cruises were on ships that came out < 2years before we sailed.

As a result, we've paid a premium for our cruise vacations.

It occurs to me that we could probably take several cruises in the same time frame if we don't go on the newest ships.

So the question is, would you rather go on the latest and greatest once, or go on several cruises on some of the older ships?

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The timing is also interesting to me. She's due to be delivered 6 years from now.

Oasis Class took six years from design through delivery, in large part due to the split hull design(never done before) and in part due the enormity of that class.

I don't believe Quantum took nearly as long.

Makes me wonder what they are planning for this class which several articles are suggesting will be around 200,000 GT (also as was suggested by Biker above).

I'm excited!

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I guess, in the end, a lot of this also comes down to infrastructure, both in terms of drydock capacity for ship yards to build bigger than Oasis Class and port capacity to handle ships of increasing size.

It may be one thing to want to build bigger and then another thing to make that a reality.

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This is not to debate if bigger is necessarily better, but rather to understand what the new class will look like in terms of size and capacity?

From the press release, early information (not yet formalized) is that the Icon Class will have a passenger capacity of around 5,000.

Depending on which article you read, Oasis Class has anywhere from 5,400 - 6,000 passengers, with at least one article in the Orlando Sentinal saying that Allure has a capacity of >7,100 passengers (something which I haven't seen anywhere else).

Here's their article, if you're interested:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/florida-cruise-guide/os-the-three-largest-cruise-ships-in-the-world-take-time-out-for-a-photo-op-20161104-story.html

I wonder on one hand, while RC continues to add to their Oasis Class fleet, indicating that they are happy with the success of this model, why they would continue to build smaller ships beyond the Quantum Class, when they already have a bunch of smaller ships, older and newer? Why not try to out-do themselves?

Starting to wonder if RC's influence over this board is stopping the creation of a Virgin board. I read a while back, that RC fought (and lost) to prevent Virgin Cruises from coming to Miami, where they have their offices.

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I couldn't agree more!

Here's a video from their site that I just stumbled upon.

I'm looking forward to seeing what they bring to cruising.

http://virginvoyages.com/#video

There is one in the Solarium and one in Two70. Both were there in July

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Stomach has settled down, but can't sleep. We have some major swaying and creaking going on now. Thanks for all the wishes...

 

 

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Hopefully you'll have some great weather in Bermuda tomorrow.

I'm sure you'll be happy to be on land.

Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

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This might not sound right but it works. If you can get some alcohol wipes open one up when you start to feel like your going to get sick. Take it and smell it with a few good breaths. It will reset the receptors in the brain and you won't get sick.

 

 

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Sounds similar to smelling salts

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We've always purchased the top package for each of us, but one could argue the opposite: do away with any packages altogether and/or modify the prices there could be no sharing.. [emoji850]

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Great Stirrup Cay - undergoing a revamp...

 

http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Norwegian-Cruise-Line-giving-Great-Stirrup-Cay-a-big-upgrade

 

https://www.ncl.com/freestyle-cruise/great-stirrup-cay

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=7056

Got it! I'm not a fan of the RC Private Island - Labadee (Haiti). I've heard much better things about GSC.

On a seperate note, do you know if the Breakaway Plus ships are able to make it into NY Harbor or are they too large for the Verrazzano Bridge?

Quantum, Anthem, Ovation are listed as slightly larger than Escape. I'm actually wondering if the "new" GSC will be on the itinerary of the new NCL ships.

Apologies for my ignorance. GSC?

The 3rd Breakaway Plus ship's information is still unknown. The way things are going with NCL, nothing is set in stone...not even the T&C. :p

From what i've seen online, the second breakaway plus ship was supposed to be called Bliss, but was re-named to Joy (was originally to be reserved for the 3rd ship in this class), when they decided to hurry time to market in China.

I'd love to see Bliss come to New York to compete with Anthem, which I believe is smaller in size, but is bigger than Breakaway.