zeroed

It’s showing Escape there on Jan 22nd but it doesn’t leave Canaveral until 4pm on the 21st. There’s no way to make it that far overnight on a cruise ship.

Met a pinnacle who said demand is high right now because of all the people having to use their FCC. Royal is using the demand level to estimate prices they can get for 2023 bookings. As demand wanes perhaps prices will come down some.

Imagine getting injured severely enough to warrant emergency medical attention and overnight hospital stay in someplace like Labadee Haiti and not having a passport. Now imagine trying to deal with being a “wealthy” American in their eyes and needing to rely on locals to help your loved ones get in touch with the US Embassy in Port au Prince (long way from Labadee) to try to get home since you don’t have a passport. Then there’s getting you to an airport capable of getting you to the US, etc. If that doesn’t terrify you then you don’t know Haiti. Get a passport. ps…always be careful in foreign countries. Some despise Americans and the smiling faces you see at the port aren’t always sincere.

I think it’s hideous and sailing on a ship filled with little kids would be hell on earth. I also think that if the economy gets as bad in 2023 as some predict and once all the COVID era cruise credits are expended that cruise bookings in general will see a slow down especially among young families. That’s primarily who Icon is marketed towards. Sure some grandparents will foot the bill but not enough to fill an entire ship.

I’ve never spoken to anyone who has ever been more than once. I don’t understand how they haven’t revamped it yet.

Most young families with small kids aren’t going to be able to afford to sail on Icon by the time it’s operational. They’ll be too concerned with getting a home loan for less than 12% and affording basic groceries. RC won’t be able to discount tickets enough because of the huge cost of sailing that behemoth. The timing of introducing any new cruise ship stinks especially one with a niche target demo that is struggling to pay for daycare.

We usually give the steward 40 bucks at the beginning and ask for extra pillows and such. If they do a great job for the duration we give another 40-60. Most of them do an excellent job. After reading these tipping threads some of y’all need to cruise right on back to Carnival.

Last time we were there on Allure the Freedom was in and got there before us. The best chairs were long gone and the Oasis pool was packed. Looked like a bowl of human soup. It’s definitely much better to be the first ship in.

It did go forward then got crooked in the channel like it lost power or something. It is now tied up at the Carnival Mardi Gras terminal 3.

We usually leave ours covered by a towel and a bag. Never a problem yet. The chance of theft on a Royal ship is low but never zero so be mindful. Now on a Carnival ship I bring nothing but my room key on a lanyard around my neck and both eyes open.

Same problem here. I’m on Harmony in three weeks and it’s still GTY.

A ghost took my card and spent entirely too much in the casino while my wife and I were asleep. He then returned to the room and left the room and my clothes smelling like smoke and liquor. I was a victim but my wife doesn’t believe me. Stupid ghost.

That’s a good point. The state dept issues travel advisories for nearly every island in the Caribbean that cruise ships visit and that doesn’t even get mentioned here or anywhere else. Trust me, I’m more worried about being robbed in Freeport than catching the rona in the Windjammer. Chances are that a favorite Caribbean port is a scary place. Go search it here. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/

It’s fine as long there aren’t a ton of kids onboard. In the evening when parents are letting iPads babysit their little ones and the teens are burning up Insta, it slows down a good bit. After about 11pm it’s back up to speed.

Certain Broadway shows are overhyped and enjoy great success because they become the hip trend of the moment to say you’ve seen. Cats is one of those. Hamilton is another.

This. Make sure to take one of those and not walk the gauntlet of aggressive hustler scumbags.

Correct. The only spring in the process is the spring in the valve they open to filter tap water.

We’ve always received bottles despite cans being pictured in the ad.

I’d bring the cream and not worry. It’s never prevented some on every single cruise I’ve been on since the restart to be smoking weed on their balcony and nothing was done despite complaints.

I don’t think any of the cruise lines have been honest about the percentage. If you pay attention to what the passenger number the CD or capt announces and compare that to the number of max passengers the ship can carry you will often find they’re sailing close to or at full capacity. Last August on another cruises line that said they were sailing at no more than 50% in reality 79% of max capacity. They’re for-profit businesses so just accept that they’re going to lie in favor of maximizing profit especially after being shutdown for so long.

That’s why we don’t cruise after May and before August at the earliest. Not dealing with absentee parents and their bad A kids.

They aren’t? Perhaps I’m mistaken. Why are we tipping them for doing their job then? In the US our waiters and such are paid less then minimum wage so we tip them to offset the difference for their service. Are cruise crew paid salaries and we American have been duped into tipping them this whole time?

I thinks that’s by design. If they make the process a pain for you then you’re likely to avoid reporting it and they don’t have to quarantine you and more importantly, report cases to the cdc which can impact business. To them, no news is good news.

It’s because Americans are ridiculous with the tipping thing so cruise lines get away with lowballing the fares and then rely on shaming people into tipping their underpaid employees. It’s a sin. The stories I’ve heard from ports like New Orleans and Mobile, AL about people not tipping or removing applied tips is sad. I think that’s mainly because of people who can barely afford to buy a ticket and aren’t tippers anyway are able to squeeze onto a short booze cruises to Cozumel and blow any money they had leftover in Mexico. The poor crew is left untipped and overworked. If the cruise lines would include the tips in the price and it couldn’t be removed by guests then it would certainly help crew and a byproduct may be that it keeps some riffraff off the ships as well.

Maybe I missed it, did you actually get sick or did you simply test positive? There’s a difference. What about your cabin mate?