Jump to content

dgramling

Members
  • Posts

    44
  • Joined

About Me

  • Location
    Johnstown, PA
  • Interests
    Running, Technology
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Royal Caribbean
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Caribbean

dgramling's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. In completing the survey from our last cruise, the section for ports of call, listed the question about the distance of activities from the cruise port. Is Royal finally acknowledging you can't plop down a port, invest no money outside of the fence, and expect it to flourish? We have loved the excursions we have done in Jamaica, but it has remained the one port we don't go off on our own. The port is simply too far from Ochos Rios and Montego Bay to be comfortable to get back on time. Add onto that Royal's desire to shorten port time as much as possible. This last cruise we lost 2 hours in port for undisclosed engine maintenance that Royal claimed the shortened time was done for comfort and safety. The other contributing factor making the Jamaica stop less than desirable is the loss of Margaritaville and other stores in the port, making your food and drink options limited to one restaurant and some booths.
  2. Royal spent alot of time and money to change the Oasis class to be LNG starting with Utopia, it was inevitable they would want another ship to justify that expense on.
  3. Be careful with using vouchers on CocoCay/Labadee and in specialty restaurants, they often don't enter them into the system until much later. This can cause you to be charged for a drink you thought you used a voucher for. On CocoCay they enter vouchers on paper and then ring them in once the ship sails. In specialty restaurants where they fill the drink order in the restaurant and not by going to a bar they ring them after they close.
  4. Terminal A, I know they did it for both our Symphony cruise in '19 and our Oasis cruise in '20 I was able to find this video on Youtube of them doing it in '18
  5. We were just at Blue Lagon (Nov 6th). The ferry process was the worst part of the excursion. They did give the standard safety speech on the way over, but very few people listened to it. The way over is always slower than the way back, not sure which direction the sinking occurred in. We were on the ferry that sank and sat in the bottom port aft the speaker above us didn't work well, so we didn't hear most of what was said going over. If they tried to use the intercom in an emergency people would not hear them. The workers that were on the ferry with us were the same ones who met us at the dock to "organize" the group, I put organize in scare quotes because the workers weren't organized enough to be able to organize the guests. One of the workers from the dock even said he was an animal encounter person so I would surmise being on the ferry is not a main job duty. I will say as this was the second time we have been to Blue Lagoon we do enjoy it and think it is a nice place, just wish there was a different way to get there than the ferry that is crowded and takes a long time.
  6. In past cruises out of Miami, they had porters in the parking garage on the levels that had open parking to take your luggage. On the cruise that we just got back from (Oasis 7 night) they didn't. Is this a one-off or did they stop this practice? There was quite the backup getting into the curbside drop-off, so even though it was a pain I still would have lugged my luggage down the elevator anyhow, but the porters being in the garage was so convenient. It will make me rethink driving to Miami in the future. I considered taking Brightline as we usually come from a family home stopover on the space coast, but didn't want the hassle of luggage in an Uber.
  7. I just returned from a cruise to Nassau, CocoCay, Labadee, and Falmouth. Since we went to Blue Lagoon in Nassau, Jamaica was the only place I could fly my drone. I looked up the laws ahead of time and they did make it difficult, such as no flying over private property, no flying over groups of people, and height restrictions. The hardest restriction was that the take-off and landing had to be 165 feet from anyone. Even though I followed all the rules and only flew it over an uninhabited part of a river, I had a worker walk past me and ask if I was okay with leaving the drone in Jamaica. So be aware that even if you follow all applicable laws, you may still upset someone. I can imagine a lot of people don't follow the rules, but I have always gone by, when in someone else's home follow their rules.
  8. I used a Gopro, but keep in mind which one you are doing, if you are doing the sitdown a chest mount will work, superman style would require a headmount. I wouldn't trust using my cellphone its a long fall and I'd rather have a camera that could potentially take a fall, rather than a phone that absolutely wouldn't.
  9. Does anyone know a store that definitely sells Goombay Punch either bottles or cans? I saw a vlog that had it available at the drink booth (Bahama Mama's I think) in the port, but a newer vlog wasn't there. Also, does anyone think I will have an issue bringing it back onboard RCL, even if it needs to get confiscated until departure?
  10. It will usually show when on the ship connected to the Royal Guest wifi, but this hasn't always been the case. You can book a restaurant in the app for the first night if it doesn't conflict with the automatic reservation. We usually book every night but the first night on the app and then stop in to a specialty restaurant and say please change the first night to X.
  11. There are several restaurants that aren't named on the deck plans, my most likely suspect would be deck 16 aft, but there are others: on 15 forward, though I think that will be solarium bistro, deck 8 forward, deck 7 aft in the surfside neighborhood.
  12. Was there in September piers are done as far as decking is concerned. They are adding canopies now. They entrance is still under construction so they were routing you below the new entrance building and the new but yet open outdoor market. This was on a new paver walkway. It has improved greatly since we were there in February.
  13. No just Wonder. Seems like it and the large print name will be features going forward
  14. Its the one on the right without the stand, laid flat. Just got of Indy. They are installed on the Canopy for the Flowrider seating and the top above deck 13 forward.
×
×
  • Create New...