alfaeric

Just saw the news that there will be a controlled demolition to take apart and "remove" the rest of the bridge from the Dali. Maybe tomorrow, as they project floating the Dali Friday. Once that is done, then they can get a lot of gear in there to finish the clean up. Keeps looking that they are very much on schedule to open the channel fully back up at the end of the month.

True, but it’s only 20 min away. And it closes at 5pm when the normal departure time is closer to 8pm. So the only real risk is if some rocket parts are being trucker over the causeway at the same time you are coming back.

We did it on our own a few years ago. Pre-purchased the tickets and use ride share. Saved us some decent money- and we could stay closer to it closing. Let alone you could get there faster not waiting for all of the other passengers to fill the bus.

In terms of the supplied stuff, yes- you get body wash, shampoo, and conditioner in a JS. The actual brands of the products are not the same as GS's and up. But we find them to be fine.

Seems to me that the lack of TV selections is a way to make sure people don't hole up in their cabin when they can leave and encounter the ship and ports. I had thought in the past that when a cabin gets sick, they offer free movies for a day....

Maybe not for the sink, but there's one in the shower. At least for the last bunch of cruises we have been on.

FWIW, I just looked up estimates of the height out of water (TIL this is also referenced as air draft) of the ships vs. the bridges. Vision class ~170 ft Radiance Class ~172 ft The bridges are 185 ft, but I'm sure that varies a lot with tide. Voyager class >200ft There's not enough room to add another deck, so the decks would have to move up and lose one off the top. It would be creative to add that many cabins in the same space. And, for once, I would actually worry about it feeling crowded. Which is hard to fathom on a small ship

We will just to have to agree to disagree. The 2200 ship Vision barely fits into Baltimore as it is, I don't really know if Radiance will or not. But adding 10-20% more cabins isn't exactly trivial. Moreso as cabins have gotten slightly larger over time. AND when you have more cabins, the commonly used spaces also need to be bigger, such as the theater, dining room, and WJ. Making the foot print bigger means taller, wider, longer. Longer didn't add many for Enchantment- but it would if it had more decks (like Voyager to Freedom). Wider could, but I'm not sure how much wider a small ship can get without problems. And wider also means a ton more interior cabins- which lowers the value of them. Unless the ship is wide enough to have a central parkish area. But either longer and wider will change how the ship can use a dock. Taller, on the other hand.... It's not that I don't want it to happen- I really would love to see a 3000 person ship fit into Baltimore. I just can't see the modern design do it- one with a bunch of balcony decks (far more than the 2 Vision ships have).

Thanks. Makes more sense now. And the long explanation was very helpful.

Chief- one thing that was suggested by another chief engineer on the tube of u's was that there was a fuel system problem. Which is one system that isn't all that redundant- it's one source that if it goes out, then all of the generators go out. Is that accurate to your knowledge? I found that curious, where you have all these redundant systems that are fed by a system where a single point failure can take out all of the redundancy. Not trying to speculate, but that suggestion was just, well, curious given that a failure could shut it all down.

Vision is 2200, Radiance is 2500. Any bigger than that and it will have to grow a deck, meaning it will have a tough time with the bridges.

So then it doesn't sail full like the mega ships. As for the prices, no, the suites are lower cost, too- that's where we sail, and the small ships are all much lower than the biggest ships. Unless the ship is on some special itinerary. Compare equal itineraries, and the price is lower on smaller ships.

Just to ground people a little in size.... Almost all of the talk is about a ship that is somewhere in the Voyager to Freedom class ships- which is between ~3600 to 4600 passengers. Just for fun, stick with Voyager for 3600 passengers. This compared to Vision (2200) or Radiance (2500). So at a min, the ship needs about ~500 more cabins at double occupancy. Sure, you can stretch it like the Enchantment- but that added ~150 cabins. The only choices are to make it wider or higher for those added cabins. Wider is very possible, but it would end up limiting the places they can go, too. So higher is the most likely thing. That's multiple decks higher. Have to be a heck of a stack to retract multiple decks in. I want it to be true, too. As we really enjoy sailing out of Baltimore. But realism of what they are actually saying suggests that the ship isn't likely to be that small.

You mean back in Feb when we got on and off the ship in Baltimore? I wasn't aware that we got off in Norfolk and was bussed back to our waiting car that we could see from our cabin when we got off the second time.....

Just posted about the vision, but given they are also consistently the cheapest cruises, they are not the highest demand ships. Think what you want, but when we see that they are the cheapest cruse AND the times we have sailed are not the fullest, yea. Maybe really close to full, but given the price per night, nowhere near the relative demand for mega ships.

No, they don't. We were just on her for 2 cruises, and the second one had +400 fewer people.

Right- our only issue with the Icon is the price. So hopefully Star will relieve some pressure to even out the demand. But we love all the ships- all of them have their space in our cruising. I *hope* that they can continue to cruise out of Baltimore, but if not, so be it.

Another thing I find amusing is how people extrapolate their opinions of icon and oasis to everyone. Even though the large ships are getting premium fares and are selling full but the small ships are the lowest fares and don’t always sail full.

Again, the ships this is being most touted on are vision and radiance class ships out of ports that can’t handle voyager ships. That’s where the confusion is coming from. Especially for Baltimore cruisers who really want to keep a ship at that port. So much so that the vision won ship of the year.

Would need a retractable deck to fit into Baltimore and Tampa.

Talks about a 3-4k class has been going around a lot. We heard the same. But, IMHO, the ships it’s most announced on are 2k ships with pretty specific height limits. Which this new class won’t likely meet. So I don’t really understand why it’s made such a big deal on the ships from Baltimore and Tampa.

12 nights carry on is easy for us. Heck, just sailed 20 nights w/o needing to do laundry.

Then try not to get so offended when people add to your posts, then. You don't need to react to everyone quoting you.

So sorry to post an optimistic post that progress is being made. Terrible of me. And worse that adding to your post means that I'm arguing with you.

But it does mean that they are on the proposed recovery schedule. Meaning the whole channel should be open to shipping sometime near the end of May. Roughly when the Vision gets back out of dry dock. Which is really good. Cruising is the least of their worries, but if they can get big container ships and car ships in and out "normally", then the couple of cruise ships will be easy.