Vagabond Knight

I very much like the idea of some quiet public areas, free of phone conversations, especially (but not limited to) those using speaker-phone mode and free of music coming from phones or personal speakers. The Elks Club member who mentioned their club having a rule that people were supposed to leave their club's bar area to take an incoming call or make a call had the right idea.  I doubt that any of us are opposed to someone texting (without sounds on), taking photos or browsing the internet or cruise line app with sound turned off.  However, having to listen to loud video calls with someone's grandkids, or a remote work call laying into an employee who missed a project deadline, or a video game, or a YouTube video of people laughing at others doing face plants doesn't make for a very relaxing time when you're in quiet relaxation mode.  Yes, some of it's just common courtesy and there's no way to prevent all of this all over the ship, and there shouldn't be anyhow... sharing fun stuff with others a great way to spend some of your vacation time... but there should be at least a few areas to get that true quiet relaxation time without having to hole up on your stateroom. It should be somewhat easily enforceable if only restricted to a few specific, well-marked areas.

3 hours ago, Cruising Is Bliss said:

 

The problem with this is that you didn't title it "set aside quiet areas". Your title was a very specific complete sentence that specified cell phones are the problem. By default that became the first sentence of your post and set off knee-jerk reactions that derailed the discussion you wanted to have about quiet areas.  People read it as CELL PHONES BAD!!! and stopped reading and started typing.

Sorry, but that's not a problem with the title, that's a problem with reading comprehension. 

Apparently, the OP needed to title the thread "Just a Question: Would you support "no cell phone" AREAS on Ships?"  Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible to change the font size and color on a thread title.

16 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

On one of my cruises a young lady broke up with her boyfriend over the phone during dinner.  Or perhaps it was the other way around.  However I did not think that the dining room was going to make it past the main course unless we got the two of them back together 🤣.   I seriously do not want to know everyone's personal business.  I think that most of these obnoxious people should get some counseling from Dr. Phil 🤣

I shake my head at the number of people who carry on phone conversations while in a public bathroom stall with uh, bodily function noises happening and toilets flushing all around them.  I don't feel like that needs to be a "quiet space," but personally I feel it's kind of disrespectful to the person on the other side of the conversation.  😒

It seems that some read the thread title as "no cell phone areas" instead of "no cell phone" areas.  OP was not suggesting a ban in all common areas,  but rather a few quiet "escape" areas.  If someone needed to be available by phone to work or family at all times during their cruise,  they would simply not hang out in those quiet areas.  Sounds reasonable to me.  You'd still have your stateroom and most of the ship to be available and in touch if you need that constant audible connectivity. 

Getting a reminder from the cruise line may be nice but should not be relied upon. It's ultimately up to the customer (and/or their TA) to remember to make a payment on time, using whatever method works best for them. My husband and I use a Google calendar to keep track of activities,  appointments, vacations,  birthdays,  etc. and whenever we book a cruise we put the payment deadlines and the $ amount on the calendar and set an email notification and pop-up notifications that alert us prior to the deadline.  

Having done Aqua for a number of cruises, I would answer NO.  What we enjoy about Blu is the fact that it's smaller, quieter, and has such personalized service when you're there for the duration of the cruise (just a wee bit better than the MDR since Celebrity's MDR service is also very good at dinner).  That, and breakfast.  Making it a pay-for-dinner specialty dining option would not entice me because the only advantage we'd retain is the smaller and quieter aspect of Blu.  We would no longer have servers with whom we had a "relationship" and who knew our preferences, and obviously the breakfast advantage would be gone.  I enjoy the food in Blu, but I don't find it to be any better than the MDR.  

41 minutes ago, RedIguana said:

I will happily write up a review of my experience when I get back if that would be of any help.

That would be marvelous!  TIA

Has anyone taken the Celebrity excursion "Small Group: San Gervasio Mayan Ruins with Local Historian?"  It's offered on our "Connie" cruise in March.  Pros?  Cons?  Worth it or not?  Thanks!

We were on the Escape this week out of Port Canaveral, Florida and had all our MDR and specialty dining booked ahead for dinner each night.  All went extremely smoothly with no wait.  Just a couple of minutes wait (< 5) when heading to MDRs for breakfast or lunch (no reservations). 

I love me some rockin' & rollin' on a cruise ship! It's the rapid jigglin' that's weird and uncomfortable, but thankfully that's finally gone. The chandeliers in Savor or Taste, wherever we were for breakfast, were really dancing this morning when we were jigglin'.  😁

Yes, whoever said that "Free at Sea" was extremely misleading was absolutely correct.  They could call it "Freedom at Sea" since you're free from deciding if you think a particular cocktail is worth the price to you, you're generally free from signing charge slips if you get something that falls within your plan's price range, etc., but the name of the program implies no cost when the cost is actually quite substantial. 

Would like to see NCL and other lines be up front about what you're getting for what price, but I guess that will never happen.  In my dreams they'd only be allowed to advertise the starting price of the cruise by using a number that included all non-optional service charges, port charges, taxes and "gratuities."

What the heck is this constant jiggling motion tonight with the ship?  We're midship and it's driving me crazy. Can't read, can't get to sleep.  I love when a ship is rocking, but this is more of a quick wiggling motion that does not feel like normal ship movement. 

We did our first NCL cruise in October on the Dawn.  My husband made all the dining reservations online ahead of time.  The first night, we went to the Venetian at our "scheduled" time, gave them our name and said we had a 7:30 (or whatever it was) reservation.  They told us there are no reservations unless you have a large group.  My husband whipped out his phone and showed them the screenshot of all our dining reservations for the week (which included both MDRs and specialty restaurants) and they acted kind of snippy with us, insisting that there are no reservations in the MDRs.  Asking "Then why was I able to make reservations online?" and showing the screenshot did not impress them... they just looked at us like we were crazy.  The food was excellent on the Dawn for the most part, but the reservations (or no reservations) thing in the MDRs was confusing and rather annoying.

Ship - Dawn

Deck - 8

Stateroom # - 8082

Stateroom Category – OK (Obstructed Oceanview)

Starboard or Port Side - Starboard

Quiet Stateroom? (With comments on problems) – Absolutely not.  1) There are storage/work rooms for the crew next door and across the hall. 2) The first couple of days when everyone is getting used to the ship layout, people are often talking loudly outside the door while trying to figure out whether they're lost or not, due to the room being on a turn at the end of a somewhat confusing hallway.  3) The lifeboat outside the window (which is right next to the bed) also serves as a tender boat, so at tender ports you tend to be awaked by loud whirring motors and banging as the crew prepares the tender and lowers it into the water around 6:15am. 4) There is a crew catwalk right outside the window that provides access to the tender/lifeboat, so there would often be crewmembers talking right outside our window, or going into the boat to clean/check it, or hanging out in it on break.  One day, some crew group held some kind of meeting in the boat.

Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No

Balcony View - It is an obstructed view and so you're looking into a tender/lifeboat unless you're at a tender port and the boat has been lowered.  You do get natural light into the room however, because when the tender/lifeboat is in place, it has windows that line up with the stateroom's window. The window in the tender/lifeboat is not clear enough to see through, but do pass daylight.

Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - N/A

Was wind a problem? - N/A

If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? - N/A

Any specific problems with this cabin? - 1) Read the comments regarding the room not being quiet. 2) The layout of the room is awkward because, other than the bed, everything is based in the same small area.  If someone's accessing the drawers, you can't get to the closet. If someone's accessing the closet, you can't get to the bathroom or drawers, etc.  3) There is a fold-down bunk next to the master bed that makes getting out on that side a serious challenge if it's not folded down since it obviously needs to stick out from the wall.  Seems it would hang over the bed quite a bit (we didn't open it) when folded down.  4)  A metal cot (for the 4th person) is under half the master bed and so you cannot store suitcases under that side as we'd normally do.  5) The stateroom supposedly accommodates four people, but we cannot imagine how four people could possibly co-exist in there.  It seems that when the cot for the 4th person is brought out it would block the way to the bathroom and make it near impossible to move around the cabin. 6) One of the drawers would absolutely not stay closed unless you jammed a folded up piece of paper into the side of it.  7)  With the catwalk next to the window, there is no privacy since crew members were right outside the window surprisingly often.

Any other comments? -  Pretty convenient to quickly get to the mid-ship elevators or O'Sheean's.

We've decided to take the Bee Le Havre bus over to Honfleur when our October cruise stops in Le Havre.  Does anyone have any wonderful restaurant recommendations for lunch in HonFleur?  

RCI is always sending me "offers," usually for add-ons/upgrades for the cruises we have booked.  When I open the email in Microsoft Outlook, the text says, for example, "Oops! It looks like these Symphony of the Seas offers were too big to dock here. Click here to navigate in browser."  When I click the link, I get a blank page, except for this message at the top:  "The system is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please try again later."  This happens every time.  The link is going to a royalcaribbeanmarketing.com address.  If I go to the royalcaribbean.com site, it's functioning properly (as well as it ever does, at least).  Does this happen for anyone else or is it just me?  I normally use Chrome, but just in case, I've copied the link and tried it in Firefox and Edge and get the same result.

Our two upcoming transatlantics on the Freedom are listed as "Carnival Journey" cruises.  I've looked at the advertising page for the journey cruises (https://www.carnival.com/journeys) and read the information on there, but I'm interested in hearing specifics from those of you who've been on one of these cruises about the extra activities they say we'll be experiencing.  They list 1) Destinations, 2) Throwback Sea Day, 3) Academy of Fun, and 4) Crew Connections as the extras.  The destinations are obviously specific to the cruise and we are well aware of where we're headed 😉, but please fill us in regarding your experiences with the other three offerings.  Thanks in advance!

5 hours ago, edinburgher said:

There really is little need for a shorex to Honfleur as it is an easy DIY from le Havre by taxi or by public bus (taxi is easier and you should find others to share the ride with you.) And all your time will be " at leisure" and you can do with it what interests you and have lunch somewhere of your own choosing.

 

There are multiple threads and posts on the FRANCE PORTS forum you can read to help you decide.

Thank you, @edinburgher!   Sounds like an even better plan.  The shore excursion is $109 per person and is only for four hours, so taking a taxi would be quite a bit less expensive and give us as much time as we want in Honfleur.  We'll post this in our roll call thread and see if there's another couple who wants to share a taxi in to Honfleur, but sounds like we'll be fine even if we're on our own.

On 6/20/2023 at 10:33 PM, cruiserking said:

For the Le Havre port stop I highly recommend booking the ship tour to Honfleur. Your ship will likely include this excursion. It's only about 40 minutes away by bus and is such a quintessential French town busting with ambience. There are dozens of shops, tons of inviting restaurants. We skipped the guided walking tour included with the tour and spent a delightful 2 hours strolling around this delightful spot. 

Oooo... I like the way you think!  We're booked on the "Colorful Honfleur" excursion on our NCL tour in a few months, which talks about a walking tour and then "some free time at leisure" and I've been thinking that I'd rather have all that time "at leisure."  Actually wondering if it would just make more sense to get a taxi or some other transportation to/from Honfleur since the excursion is only four hours and the ship is in Le Havre for 16 hours!

I am a bit surprised at the excitement over these items.  Kind of looks like a typical children's menu in a family restaurant.  Will sail on Carnival later this year for the first time in years.  What were they serving prior to this if this is an upgrade?

My assumption is that it's probably 10% off the package price, but that the gratuities are charged on the full price rather than the discounted price. Would that explain the difference?

This would be similar to walking into a restaurant with some kind of coupon... others may do things differently, but my husband and I would tip on the price that our meals would be without the discount.

Some folks sailing with us on a 9-day British Isles cruise this fall were asking if there are any "theme nights" for which they should plan.  Since this will be our first cruise on an NCL ship, I have no idea.  I understand that there are no formal nights, but are there any "usual" theme nights to be expected?

32 minutes ago, Norwayfan1 said:

See post 76 on this thread.

Thank you, @Norwayfan1.

Thank you for your research and for posting this, @Norwayfan1.  Sounds like it's actually "official" and goes beyond NCL, so I am very surprised that there isn't more about it out on the internet since it seems like it would affect other cruise lines and businesses in the port city as well.  Perhaps the other lines had already adjusted their schedules accordingly.

I have googled and googled and, except for that one article that talks about the total overhaul of that NCL cruise, I can find no mention anywhere of "new restrictions" about tender ports in Ireland from October through April.  So, is there really such a government restriction or is it simply a NCL policy change?  I have trouble believing that we wouldn't be able to find ANY other articles talking about the restrictions affecting cruises on other cruise lines and/or how it will affect the tourism in the port cities.