alfaeric

Deleted because I think I’m not accurate. 

17 minutes ago, dbancroft said:

I read somewhere that b2bers do not have to do the e-muster on 2nd cruise is this true? 

That is not true. You still have to emuster. 

14 hours ago, RogueMonk said:

Grump.

It’s true, though. Not much to worry about doing b2b cruises. 
 

The only tip I will suggest is to enjoy the brief time of a very empty ship. There is a small gap between the time you do your turnaround, however it works, and new people getting on the ship. 

5 hours ago, island lady said:

 

Shows cancelled 2 weeks ago, and all shows when I was on last week.  Megan, running a live thread for this week was lucky and got to see the matinee show yesterday, but was cancelled again today.  

 

Booked Allure mostly to see Mamma Mia, and did not get to see it on our 4 night.  😞 

It will likely be dealt with by mid June for the op. 

Your wait staff will figure it out quickly when you tell them no bread and a side of veggies instead of starch. Always broccoli available and almost always asparagus. Substitute all you want. 

Fwiw, we found that an annual medical focused policy is pretty cheap, all things considered. Just a few hundred bucks for a year, and the evac coverage is really high. 

if you only travel once, taking the risk *might* work, but multiple times a year?  Especially the older you get and the injuries change. 

The expensive part of travel insurance is any reason cancellation. And for that, I would suggest to look into your CCs, as some have really good coverage included on the card. 

14 minutes ago, island lady said:

Don't count on seeing Mamma Mia.  ☹️

Why not?  Are they taking it off the ship all of a sudden?  It’s never totally full. 

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

Use the app on boarding day to look for availability. If all else fails, go to deck seven rock wall landing to watch.

This has always worked for us except for the comedy show. 

36 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

The public has long since lost interest in this.

Other than the people who live there and will be impacted by this for a long time. Which is appropriate since they are the ones most impacted. 

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.

6 minutes ago, BND said:

We did the ship's excursion which from what I've heard is a better overall tour.  Also, the tour should be as soon as you get to PC and will return in time for all aboard.  You can't guarantee that with Uber.  

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.

17 hours ago, surgie said:

Sounds good but I'm not a super experienced RCI cruiser so is a JS considered a "suite" as far as bath products go? I know there are some differences with other perks that JS do not get. 

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....  

28 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

Even in a grand suite there’s no liquid hand soap in the bathroom. They do supply upgraded shampoo and, conditioner

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

1 hour ago, RobInMN said:

Voyager is 3100-4000, so you can increase the footprint without necessarily adding decks. The pool deck on a Voyager class and Radiance class are both on Deck 11. Voyager's extra decks & height come from the "Crown" (Deck 14 vs 13) and the stacks. I am pretty sure you could add 1 deck to Radiance without having any issues with the vast majority of bridges. I think you could add a deck without increasing the overall height too much as they seem to have abandoned the "Crown".

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).

52 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

 

 

Sorry for the long winded explanation.

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.

1 hour ago, Southern Dan said:

 

Everything I’ve been seeing on various message boards is that the captains on ships have been saying they will be sized in between Radiance and Voyager Class.  We’ll find out eventually I suppose…

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.

1 hour ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Only iof you compare inside cabins.  Take a look at the prices for the balconies and you will see that they are quite high.

 

This is one of the major design flaws of the Vision class is the lack of balcony staterooms.

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.

1 hour ago, shipgeeks said:

That was one that got moved to Norfolk unexpectedly, and quite a few pax cancelled.

 

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.....

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

What small ships aren't sailing full though? It's likely more the long and thin routes, which are more likely to get slotted to a smaller ship, that aren't sailing full. The more traditional vacation routes, no matter ship size, are definitely full.

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.

44 minutes ago, shipgeeks said:

The Vision class ships based in Baltimore always sail full!  

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