macruisefan

Unfortunately, they have become heavily invested in Port Everglades and Port Canaveral. Too bad, because they're both duds to cruise out of. Miami is a much more enjoyable city than Ft. Lauderdale for a pre-cruise stay. And far more scenic for sail-away.

Hi Allennn. Thanks for all the info. Two questions:

The $12 limit. If it's more than that, do they charge the difference or the entire amount? i.e. if you go for a glass of wine that's $20, to they charge you $20 or $8?

How about sparkling water? I'm a sucker for San Pellegrino and can go through a large bottle with lunch and dinner easily. Wondering if they will give you a large bottle.

Both of these (only charging the overage, and large sparkling and still water bottles) were included last year on Celebrity, so I'm curious.

I might get slammed here by IMHO the specialty restaurants on RC or any other line simply aren’t worth it.

Tour cruise price includes food so why pay more for restaurants that quite frankly are not much better than the food in the MDR or buffet?

Not going to get slammed at all. I do happen to disagree with you. I have been disappointed with the MDR for a variety of reasons. But if you enjoy it, then fantastic! After all, there are people out there who don't like to cruise at all, so they don't cruise. If you have found an experience you enjoy, then that's great.

I'd never slam you for that. I WILL slam the people who actually object to the fact that they even have specialty restaurants. To each his or her own. But I find the specialty restaurants to be an integral part of my cruising experience, so someone literally objecting to the fact they exist rubs me the wrong way. I think it's kind of like someone who doesn't drink objecting to the fact that you can pay more for alcoholic drinks on board, when there is already plenty of milk, water and juice included.

Every company (whether you realize it or not) collects information on the people who utilize their products and services. In turn this information is used to develop demographics for mainly marketing or future developmental purposes.

I'm aware of that. I just kind of chuckled when I looked at the list. You can only choose one, and some are strangely paired (Professional/Technical), while some are quite specific (Nurse or Teacher), yet still others are really broad and general (White Collar, Military)

Still wonder how you would make up the list.

I guess in order to make my list, I would have to know for what purpose the information is being collected. But I guess I would at least try and make the options similar in terms of what they meant. If "nurse" and "teacher", why not "physician" or "policeman" or "dentist"? I'm a physician who owns my own practice. I'm clinical 40% of the time, managing the practice 30% of the time and acting as a departmental administrator at a hospital 30% of the time. I'm "Health Services", "Business Owner", "White Collar", "Exec/ Upper Management", and "Professional" (but not sure what "Professional/Technical" means!). I didn't even know which to pick!

Wow. I never considered that. But it turned out on my cruise that I was seated with a single mother (I'm a single mom) who also worked in a similar industry as I. We were also from the same city.

 

I forgot that they'd even asked for that info.

Well that sounds like a coincidence. After all, I don't believe they ask anywhere if you have children (unless you're traveling with them).

Why are you laughing and scratching your head?:confused:

What would be on your list?

That list seems logical to you? So if you're a "nurse", you're a "nurse". But if you're a physician, PA, PT, OT, Tech, or one of the other hundreds of healthcare related positions, you're "Health Services"?

If you're clerical, you're automatically administrative?

Upper management and middle management are blurred areas of distinction that in no way illustrate what field one works in.

What if you are "White Collar" (whatever that even means anymore) but are the business owner?

I don't even know what they mean by lumping "professional" and "technical" together. Who is that? Is it an employed electrician? Or is it a software engineer supervisor? Perhaps it's a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Okay this one makes me laugh and scratch my head.....

While doing the online check-in, one of the items RCI has you select is your occupation. Has anyone ever wondered where on earth their list came from? It's like they just randomly picked some "jobs", some "fields" and some "terms" and threw them together. Here is the list of options in it's entirety:

Blue Collar

Business Owner

Clerical/Admin

Exec Upper Mgmt

Health Services

Home Business

Homemaker

Middle Mgmt

Military

Nurse

Profssnl/Technl

Retired

Sales/Marketing

Student

Teacher

White Collar

Thanks for the quick replies!

The new drink package thread is 20-some pages long, and filled with a lot of extemporaneous information. I tried to look for current info and finally gave up. What is the current situation with drink packages? I just looked at the offerings for my January Liberty cruise, and they are the same ones they had last year. Is the new package no happening? Or is the website just not current? (surprise!)

Bloody Mary Breakfast!

if you ingest feces I can promise you that you will be terribly sick and could possibly die.

If this were the case, people would be dropping like flies everywhere. Fecal matter CAN spread viruses, bacteria and parasites. However the vast majority is harmless. Furthermore, the likely dispersion of a minute amount of fecal matter into a 15,000 gallon swimming pool is going to make the likelihood of actually spreading illness fantastically unlikely.

Look, the IDEA of it skeeves me out too. As it does most people. And it's that IDEA that makes cruise operators or any other pool operator take the drastic measures they do when there is an accident. But there is virtually no evidence of any actual disease spread through this method. That is why I said, and still assert that the declaration that someone should be put off the ship for this is rather absurd.

Those days are numbered on Royal ships

Still gonna try! :D

Overpriced specialty restaurants

Never Main Dining!

Cigar on balcony!!!!:p

Just booked a solo trip on Liberty OTS for late January. Short four day cruise. Any experience on the shorter cruises with specialty dining availability? I generally dine in the specialty restaurants most if not all nights. But not really sure about what time I'm going to want to. Think a solo will have much trouble booking into Chops & Portofino on board?

Not sure if the shorter cruises put them in higher demand, lower demand or no difference.

I'm the one who suggested putting people off the ship for a second incident of allowing a diapered baby in the pool and I don't think its an overreaction at all.

 

This is an issue that impacts the safety of others and therefore choosing to ignore the policy after you have already been told to follow it should result in your removal from the ship.

It's a completely ridiculous overreaction. Maybe we should staff every bathroom and anyone who doesn't use soap and hot water to wash their hands will be kicked off.

I agree doing it repeatedly is inconsiderate. And if there were an accident resulting in the closure and cleaning of the pool, then they should pay big bucks. But kicking them off is completely asinine.

Not really necessary for the kind of port calls cruises usually do. Also, there is no immunization for malaria. There is prophylactic medication, but I would never take it for a brief cruise visit. Even in Belize, I'd just use lots of DEET and call it a day.

Plus auditions for cast and rehearsals could take months.

Those are ongoing anyway. The performers change regularly as they are on periodic contracts. Meanwhile there is a landside production arm that is training and casting replacements for all their shows regularly.

Eventually they will have to, but I doubt it will be any time soon. Changing the show involves changing the entire set. An expensive and cumbersome operation that would likely only be able to happen when the ship is out of service for drydock. Oasis' first drydock is scheduled for next year, and I would be surprised if Hairspray was pulled then as it is still very popular. Typically, these ships drydock every 4-5 years. So I would suspect the next drydock in 2019 or so might be the time for a change.

Disgusting. They should have been put off the ship after the second incident.

LOL! Slight overreaction eh?

I always find if fascinating that people freak out the instant a diapered child hits the water. Yet everyone is fine with the fact that all the drunk adults can magically consume huge quantities of alcohol while spending hours in the pool, yet never need to get out to pee. Miraculous!

I'll take a bunch of diapered kids in the pool anytime!

If it was just the falls (the cables), then I would suspect it would be a quick turn around, and you can pick it up on the way back. I'm relatively surprised that they are not required to have a spare set of falls onboard. USCG requires that for US ships.

 

On the Pride of Aloha, we parted a lifeboat fall wire, and dropped the sheave (pulley/hook arrangement that fastens to the boat) into Hilo harbor. Boy, were we scrambling. The Bosun got the deck gang to start renewing the wire on the davit, and the Staff Captain went scuba diving for the lost sheave. That was about 600 lbs that we had to hoist up using another lifeboat winch. We managed to get the repairs done and the boat heaved up by sail away time, but it was close. Worked all night cleaning the grease off the promenade deck!

Are you in some sort of contest where you are trying to use the most nautical terms possible in one post?;) We get it, you know your maritime terminology!:eek:

I believe those have a capacity of 350, so assuming enough capacity as others have indicated, 350 people probably have to have new Sea Pass cards (or correction stickers) showing a new Muster Station. I'm sure we will hear something in reviews. I guess this is why they test.

I don't know if this is necessarily true. The muster station is where you gather, not necessarily which boat you're getting on.

Interesting. How full is the ship? Normally when a lifeboat is taken out of commission, you need to reduce the passenger count to allow for that. Even with extra life rafts, it requires an exemption, which is not always automatic (maybe received from the Bahamian Maritime Authority as you said). But, wow, taking a boat with that much capacity out of service is something.

Normally I'd agree. But clearly Oasis and Allure were built with a very significant over accommodation. After all, Oasis sailed for the better part of it's entire first year without the #1 lifeboats on either side, after they were damaged in the transatlantic. I believe they had to re-engineer the mount to be protected in weather.

That's what I love about this board..so helpful :mad:

 

 

Thanks for posting the link Clarea :)

Jeesh! Lighten up! It's meant in all good fun....

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=passport+application

Amazing....