buggins0402

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-carnival-cruise-ship-italy-83afc020-e3a0-4c19-93d3-16a7d937342c.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100

49 minutes ago, davekathy said:

All the equipment (including spinners) in the fitness center on the Summit was Life Fitness. I'm sure that would be fleetwide. 

Thanks...I just searched the life fitness website and it appears they make spinners, in addition to the awful non spin exercise bikes that I usually see in hotel and ship fitness centers. 

6 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

All I can tell you for sure is they are the kind I used when I attended spin class at LA Fitness.  Basic spin bike with no bells or whistles...adjustable seat and levers near the handle bars to adjust tension.  Here's a pic of something similar.  

Thanks that helps...I can go by feel for resistance and use music for cadence.  Hopefully, Reflection will also have a few in the fitness center.  Keiser’s would be better, because they show watts and are similar to Pelotons, but this will work.  

Thanks again. 

1 hour ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

No peloton bikes but there are 2 spin bikes in the general gym area near the treadmills facing the windows. Just off Silhouette today. 

Are they true spin bikes or life fitness exercise bikes?  I’m cruising on the Reflection on the 9th and plan to upload Peloton classes to my iPad, through the app. If there are true spin bikes, I will upload more bike classes, otherwise I’ll go heavier on Treadmill classes. Given a choice I’d rather do a tread class on treadmills or even elliptical, than do a spin class a life fitness bike. 

On 11/29/2019 at 4:20 PM, pinotlover said:

 

 

A few of our lady friends went to see Kris Kristofenson ( sp) this past week. Their comment was “ It’s time for him to retire, he mostly just acted old!” The time is coming when 3 Dog Night and CCR will seem like Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. I wonder the percentage of those watching Lawrence Welk reruns every week that are still taking cruises?

 

 

I’m an avid Peloton user and older than most.  That said, the classic rock,  60’s and 70’s Rock theme rides are very popular.  It can’t be just the few oldsters riding those rides and enjoying the music. In fact, I can see a riders age group in the live feed of “who’s here” and most are in their 30’s and 40’s. It’s the same story on the Tread. 

Trivia 😁 .... the favorite “sport” on Oceania.

25 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Phony "service" dogs:  Yet another reason to avoid cruises that start or end in Swamplandia.

I saw a questionable service dog on a mass market cruise last year around the horn, beginning in Santiago and ending in Buenos Aires.  The owners were on our deck in an inside cabin with their pit bull mix...14 days. I also saw it at the airport, near our gate, when we leaving a few days later.  If it was on our flight, it would have been a horrid experience for the animal and any passengers, since it was BA to Newark. 

On the slight chance that it even was a true Service Animal, what they dragged that animal through was weird and bordered on inhumane.

6 hours ago, Luvcrusn said:

Yes. If the OBC is from X and shows in your Cruise Planner you can use it to purchase a WIFI package before the cruise (when there are sales and even without the sales it's 10% off the onboard price) or during the cruise. You may also use it on board if it's from X or another source (travel agent for example)  if you choose and sometimes there are mid cruise specials.

Thanks, I think it’s from the TA...I tried booking the WiFi on the website and it seemed to want money.  I guess I’ll wait until we are onboard to get it.  

Can it be used toward the purchase of a WiFi Package?

1 hour ago, Fouremco said:

None of the cruise lines that we've sailed with allow use of the bikes outside class. The same holds true with most of the gyms at home.

Oceania did last year, but then again, their classes are free and it was one of the small ships so the bikes were not in a separate room.  Not a real problem, in a pinch I’ve done the classes on an Exercycle type bike during hotel stays.  But, I will probably load more tread and boot camp classes than bike classes, given this information. Any treadmill works well with those.  

1 hour ago, hcat said:

We have our own trainer at home, so we are not looking for a trainer on board. 

 Not everyone at a ship's gym  is Certified  or needs to be.  There are some activities or classes that could be offered without charge, if they are not proprietary or advanced .

 

  They could use more qualified  people in the gym  to help those trying things  like treadmills and  resistance machines for the first time.     Activity staff as opposed to gym staff,  used to  lead the top deck  am and lm stretching and the walk mile activity.  I just think they should offer more to guests without added fees,

Oceania stopped charging for classes a little over a year ago. 

I am a heavy user of the Peloton App (Spin, Yoga and Tread).   My plan is to download some classes to my iPad, so all I will need is an internet connection to start the class and not have to worry about streaming.  Does Celebrity let people use spin bikes outside of a class? 

We were hit by a different taxi scam in Santiago.  We had a precruise stay at the Ritz Carlton. I had intended to use the nearby subway station to use that back and forth to downtown.  However, we had language difficulties and couldn’t figure out how to buy passes and load them.  Giving up, we went back to the hotel to get a house car to downtown.  The hotel driver didn’t speak English but was able to make it clear to us to not pay more than 10,000 CLP on the return by taxi.

 On return, we caught a taxi, I asked how much it would be to the Ritz in my limited Spanish. He pointed to the meter, so I thought we were ok.  Well, that meter started turning like a slot machine gone wild.  When he stopped (across a major street from the Ritz, rather than the front door) it was around 19,000 CLP. Rather than argue I gave him a 20000 note.  He took it and handed back pointing out a small rip and saying it was no good.  I handed him another and that came back, with him pointing out a small corner ripped off.  At this point, I said I had nothing left but my husband fished out two of his 10000 notes.  We learned later the notes he handed back were actually counterfeit...they had no hologram. So, he had switched my good notes and returned counterfeits. Per, the concierge at the hotel this is a very common scam.

In BA, were very careful with taxis after this experience.  We used taxis from the hotel, where they used only Radio Cabs and wrote down cab numbers to ensure they knew who to go back to with issues.  On the return from somewhere, we did take our chances, but only used Radio cabs.

 On the last day we wanted to see a number of areas and hired a driver from the Sheraton for 5 hours.  It really wasn’t that expensive ($20 or $25 an hour).He didn’t speak English, but we would just agree on a location and time for each pick up in each area we wanted to see. We got the idea from someone else from our cruise staying at the Park (connected to the Sheraton).  They were a party of 4 and had done this for their entire three day stay and was quite reasonable given that there were four of them. Also, even before stepping foot in BA,  we had the ship concierge arrange for a hotel car to pick us up at the port.  Again, it might have cost just a bit more than a taxi at the port...I seem to recall something like $20, but well worth it.

We did an around the horn last year on NCL.  Actually you don’t go around the horn but down to it.  Here is a thread that explains the route into or out of the Beagle channel, to or from Ushuaia. 

Budget Queen was on our cruise and has done this itinerary 13 times.  She is a wealth of knowledge of which side of the ship to be on for the different areas.  If you have any questions, you might see if you can search through things she has posted on the SA port of calls board. She even knows where you might look for penguins going into the Falklands. She definitely knows where all the glaciers are. 

33 minutes ago, bengaltiger1 said:

Only one device at a time can be signed in to the account. So if your partner wants to use it, you will need to sign out.  

Thanks. It is just me, with an IPad and a phone, but I don’t multitask with both at the same time.

Does the the one device package only allow “one device” or is it “one device at the same time” to be signed in? 

It should be noted that the Sapphire reserve card’s medical cancellation benefit does not have a pre-existing medical condition exclusion, if that matters to you. However, the look back period is not onerous (I forget what it is exactly, but remember it wasn’t horrendously long).

2 hours ago, teacherman said:

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Today, we had our "interviews".  We drove to the CBP office at the Ambassador Bridge Detroit crossing from the USA to Canada.  When we went into the room, there were 5 CBP officers next to each other at a counter.  My wife and I were called at the same time.  We were each asked about 5 questions-name, address, phone number, e-mail address, if ever arrested, etc.

 

They then took our pictures and fingerprints.  My prints were difficult for the scanner to read.

I told the officer the countries visited on the application were incorrect and that I had an updated list.  He said "don't worry about it."  We were approved and given a little booklet that he wrote our Known Traveler Numbers in.  They said we would receive our cards in about 10 days.  The "interview" lasted approximately 5 minutes.

 

I am only reporting this because I started this thread.  It took 5 months from the application day until today.  Thanks to those of you who told me to contact them about the delay, or we could still be waiting.  AND, we did have a nice lunch afterwards.

Given the cost of short term parking at DTW, the Ambassador Bridge office, with it’s free parking, is a good alternative (and the savings can be put towards lunch).  They also had a hard time getting my fingerprints.  

3 minutes ago, ORV said:

J Jill stock is up 13% today, must be due to the influencers here. 🤑

Could be because I dropped some major $ there last weekend. 🤑 Went to return some items bought on line that didn’t fit and ended up doubling my spend. I’ve lost weight, but there is some major size inflation going on.

Interesting, Oceania recently redeployed Sirena to the area for winter 2020/2021.  Some itineraries are similar, but nothing identical to what Celebrity was offering.

9 minutes ago, clo said:

Oh, dang.  I thought that's what they all served.  Oh, well.  And thanks for ruining my dream 🙂

The only place Maine/Canadian  lobster is served regularly is Polo.  That said, if the ship is, or has been in NE, and it can be provisioned easily, you may find it more places.

40 minutes ago, clo said:

Hmm, maybe a lobster roll 🙂  Grab a hot dog bun (I know, not a split top but still) and a little mayo.  Mmmmm.

Just to put a bit in your mouth to rein in some expectations...Waves lobster is not the Maine lobster found in East Coast lobster rolls. 

We have done this twice.  First time was to stay overnight in Florence and meet the ship in Civitavecchia.  We had received preapproval from Celebrity. The night prior to docking in Livorno, we received a message in our cabin to go to guest relations to give them our passports, or we would get a very early wake up call to bring them so the ship could clear.  The morning in Livorno, we were instructed to pick up our passports.  They also changed our key card so that on exiting it didn’t ding.  That brought a security crew member who checked us against a list.  On return in Civitavecchia, it was the same thing....no ding, and a security person called to check us back in and restore our key card.  I had peaked at the list and there were about 8 cabins doing this.

We also did this on NCL in Israel, to spend the night in Jerusalem.  NCL didn’t give pre approval until on the ship.  We decided to chance the plan, since most of the roll call was planning private overnight tours in Jerusalem (although we were DIYing) NCL had overnight tours offered and there would have been a mutiny.  No issue,  as they had a protocol set up to accommodate the masses doing an overnight. One wrinkle on this stop was that Hamas decided to start firing rockets into Ashdod, so the ship stayed in Haifa overnight.  We were aware of the itinerary change prior to leaving the ship. 

I agree with John...your plan B for catching the ship in the event something goes wrong is better with Livorno/Civitavecchia than Rome/Naples. In any case, make sure you have the contact information of the port Agent in the relevant ports.

58 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

you need to read reviews with an open mind

some  say nothing about the issues  & some go into unbelievable details 

take them all with a grain of salt 

go & form your opinions

 

Just my 2 cents

Agree...sometimes you can find one thing that sets a reviewer off and then it causes an entropic spiral into negativity. Some people just can’t drop the bone. 

The difference will be noticed more in the class of ship, rather than atmosphere due to passengers. We love both classes...each has their strengths and weaknesses.

1 hour ago, dogs4fun said:

Ocean vessel - Oceania Marina

River cruise - Monarch Baroness (136 passengers on Danube cruise)

Wouldn’t Nautica be your smallest ocean vessel (noted on your signature)?