ronrythm

3 hours ago, TRLD said:

Too funny. 

 

Suggest you go take a look at the relative fleet age and the timing of added capacity.

 

Looking at HAL you have 

 

Volendam 1999  1432

Zaandam 2000    1432

 

Zuiderdam 2002   1964

Oosterdam  2003   1964

Westerdam 2004    1964

Noordam  2006     1972

 

Eurodam  2008                 2104

Nieuw Amsterdam 2010     2106

 

Koningsdam 2016        2650

Nieuw Statendam 2018  2666

Rotterdam 2021            2668

 

The majority of  HAL's capacity is relatively new and is in better shape than the average age of Carnival or Princess.  Only the Volendam and Zaandam are near CCLs normal retirement age.  You have several Princess and Carnival ships past that time frame.  If one takes a look at the percentage of ships and capacity by age both Carnival and Princess is aging out faster than HAL.

 

If one looks at the time frame between last two classes and the amount of capacity added during the last class.  Would not be surprising for the next ship to be in 27 time frame.  I would expect one will expect an order for the first ship of the next class sometime in 25 or some of the 2100 size ships to be transferred from Aida.

After 15 years of age the cost of maintenance go up dramatically, with all of the twice every 5 years technical surveys requiring a dry dock instead of alternating underwater and dry dock. Looking at that, most of the ships listed are in that range. Don’t be surprised if Carnival Corporation decides to cut them from the fleet.

5 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

I have not run into any hotels or resorts in the last few years that do not have free internet and I have been in a lot. Sometimes we have to join their loyalty program to get it but they have it free, Starlink for ships is less expensive than what they had before. That is why the cruise lines installed Starlink in a few months after it was approved by the regulators. High end cruise lines are including it free. What it probably will take for free internet is one of the mainstream lines to give free internet as a competitive advantage.

And I have been in hotels that charge for it. So that proves nothing. Starlink still is very expensive, especially as your bandwidth goes up. And it is slower than fiber, with much higher latency, so it doesn’t scale up as well. High end can afford it, because, one, they are already charging a higher price, so the increase for internet costs is less noticeable, and two, they have smaller ships with fewer users. Main stream lines have to throttle the use to avoid overloading the system, (which still happens even with it throttled). One way to throttle is to charge for the use, so not everyone uses the system. A second way is to have “tiers” with different speeds.

I guess we need to update the old joke about the ship having an extension cord that they reel out and reel back in to include a fiber optic cable for internet!

A lot of hotels do not provide free internet access. Especially the higher cost hotels.

All ships require satellite service to get internet. Take a look at the price of Starlink compared to cable internet and you’ll understand why cruise ships charge for internet access.

7 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Al that was missing on our Oasis NYE this year, which was also well done in the RP, was the free champagne.  Cutbacks, I guess - LOL.

That cheap sparkling wine they serve is no loss! For New Year’s Eve, buy the good stuff!

4 hours ago, Noledad77 said:

867-5309

Ask for Jenny.

On 2/8/2024 at 5:05 AM, chengkp75 said:

The damage was caused not by the ship surging back and forth against the dock, according to what I've heard, but because one of the fixed rubber fenders on the dock collapsed, allowing the ship to strike a projecting portion of the dock.

So would the port be responsible for the damage to the vessel, or does the vessel assume risk when docking? Thank you.

On 12/16/2023 at 7:52 PM, cruisingrob21 said:

While the more affluent ports tend to have higher port charges, there have been rumors that the cruise lines sometimes do pad the port charges with their own "fees".  Certainly the panama canal is not really a port but it does have charges, which have gone up considerably in the last 20 years for vessels to transit it.  Based on anecdotal stories, various harbor pilots charge exorbitant rates, but it's the price to visit a specific port I suppose.

 

There are theories that cruise lines are also padding those fees somewhat   it might be true.  We have occasionally noticed an on board credit "refund" for port charges and fees even though there was no change to the itinerary.  Makes you wonder if the cruise lines estimate the charges and if it's calculated after the ship leaves and is less, the cruise line then gets a credit. It's hard to say since there is no explicit breakdown of those port charges 

If it’s in the United States, the port fees are not padded. By law they can only be what is charged to the cruise line by the port. @chengkp75 has explained this several times. The cruise lines divide the fees by the expected number of passengers and charge that. If there are more passengers than expected, they have to refund the difference if it is over a certain small amount. If there are fewer passengers than expected, the cruise line will typically just take the loss.

Enjoy your cruise.

13 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Streaming simply is done through apps.  It is done worldwide in hotels and I doubt the bandwidth used is more than a blip than it is now.  With new satellites and new services internet is not as valuable as once was.  The only reason it is costly anywhere is it is an unregulated utility.  

Sorry, but you are totally incorrect about the bandwidth requirements for streaming. It is quite simply huge compared to all other network usages. There’s a reason streaming is the first thing throttled on congested networks. The attached image shows streaming compared to other media uses. Remember 1 Megabit/sec = 1000 kilobits/sec. On a ship you are in quite a different situation than at home. I doubt at home you are sharing one connection with several thousand other people. 

6 hours ago, yakcruiser said:

Most all the workers would still be American citizens if this law was repealed. If they can find enough workers. Just like our Washington State ferry system which cancels numerous sailings every week due to shortage of workers. And most of their boats are old although not as old as our boats here in Washington. We have boats 50 and even 64 years old because boats here have to be built in Washington State and we only have one shipyard capable of building such boats and the price is exorbitant. And yes, I'm sure there are few small yards on the East Coast that benefits from this law too but at what cost to the taxpayer?

Do you really think a foreign flag vessel is going to be using American citizens? Speaking of ferries, how you followed how many foreign ferry accidents there are? Do you want that to happen to your Washington ferries? I’m amenable to changing the PVSA to allow foreign built vessels, since the federal government’s poor policies destroyed our ship building capability, but I want them American flagged, crewed and subject to American regulations.

On 10/1/2023 at 1:13 PM, yakcruiser said:

Can we all agree that this law needs to be eliminated.  It was written over 100 years ago and is really not applicable anymore. We do not have shipyards capable of building giant cruise liners and most American workers do not want to work on a cruise ship regardless of what you pay them. The only people still benefitting from this law are a handful of workers in Hawaii. Just think how much cheaper the Pride of America cruises would be.

So when did the Alaska Marine Highway move to Hawai’i?

22 hours ago, dockman said:

 

And i for one hope that the old Joni Mitchell lyric is still remembered..."They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot" 

 

And back to the original topic I am hoping for the best for Maui as it is one of the worst disasters that I could ever imagine.

 

 

Which of course she wrote about Waikiki and a certain pink hotel. 
my heart breaks for all my friends in Lahaina. Still waiting to see if several are OK. 
with Aloha

I’m on Radiance today. The town is definitely crowded, but manageable. They do appear to be tendering the passengers on Princess. Definitely a lot of rock moved.

enjoy,

Ron

23 hours ago, scottca075 said:

PS if you want a Carmel like experience, you could fly into SNA and stay in Laguna Beach, which is Carmel By The Sea South basically. That puts you 45-60 minutes from the World Cruise Center.

Laguna gets my vote, too. Great town!

3 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Again, what if the owner of the service dog did not want a cabin with the roll-in shower and all the grab bars that accessible cabins have?  Does Viking have accessible cabins in every category?  I think the easiest thing would be to designate a portion of each cabin category as "dog free", and have that as a special request, than to limit the cabins available to non-mobility challenged service dog owners.

Also, what if a person who needs the roll in shower can’t get the cabin, because someone who doesn’t need the roll in shower but has a service animal has the cabin?

There are a lot of answers to this over in West Coast Departures,  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/315-west-coast-departures/ where this will probably be moved. What time of year is your cruise? Despite how the movies portray California, we are not bright and sunny all year around!

Enjoy

Any ship can miss Skagway due to winds. If the only thing you want to see is Skagway, fly into Vancouver and drive up to Skagway.

For all of you saying $2 bills are legal tender, they are not legal tender on RCI ships, because you are NOT IN THE USA. You are legally in the country of that ship’s registry. As soon as you cross the gangway, you left the USA. Please quit assuming that the laws of the USA are in effect everywhere in the world. That’s one of the things that makes Ugly American Tourists.

As to the part of using them for tipping, everyone who works in cash handling positions hates $2 bills. They don’t fit anywhere in a normal cash drawer. Most cash handlers will try to get rid of them as soon as possible, because they confuse things. Quite often they will be counted as the wrong denomination and your cash drawer won’t balance until you figure it out.

So you give a crew member a $2 bill. Are they going to turn it down? No, they are going to be as appreciative as possible in hopes of getting more of them. But since they are probably not going to be able to spend them if they get a day off in port (as the port merchants won’t take them. Period. They just don’t) they are going to have to probably put it on their shipboard account. Yes, they have shipboard accounts too. So they take their $2 bill to the Crew Purser and hope the Crew Purser is in a good mood. Because the Crew Purser is in a cash handling position and hates $2 bills as mentioned above. The Crew Purser is very important to crew members so they try not to piss them off. But they need to get rid of that $2 bill. Things to consider when you tip $2 bills.

I looked earlier and got the “30 days” message. Today I got an email offer. My cruise isn’t until May 19. I am solo in an interior, so I low bid balconies and outsides. I’m happy if I get an up sale and I’ll be happy in my interior.

Enjoy

The question you need to ask is what happens if you don’t make it to LGB in time? What if there’s fog and the port is closed and you don’t dock at 6:00? What are the options then and are you prepared to take that risk?

7 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

This implies that cruise ships sailing in/out of the US are subject to Federal laws.

 

 https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=2481

 

 

 

Cruise Critic articles about law are about as accurate as Wikipedia. That is to say not at all. They are writers, not international maritime lawyers. @chengkp75 and @Heidi13 have worked under them and are much more knowledgeable than the writers of entertainment articles. Thanks to both of them for contributing.

So the RCI app on my iPad just sent me a notification that I have to report to my muster station in the next 30 minutes. Personally, I think that’s a bit early. After all, my cruise doesn’t leave until May.

oops.

45 minutes ago, ddled said:

Cruise Director on Allure says that no way because someone up in Royal developed the app and will not change it.  

Royal doesn’t get to make the choice. The International Maritime Organization has only approved E muster on an experimental basis. If the IMO does not approve E muster on a permanent basis, then all cruise lines will have to go back to in person musters. Or quit sailing from any of the IMO signatory nations. Such as the United States.

Dry noodles, hmmm? And how do you think they are going to cook these? Crew members are not allowed to cook in their cabins, by public health rules. Correct @chengkp75? 

another thing to consider is if your health insurance covers liver transplants.😜

I had M101 on Majestic Princess this past June. My balcony was available at all times. It was great for glacier watching. When it was raining, I could go back inside and warm up every now and then. A bit of tunnel vision from the room itself.

enjoy.