Nanobot

In the Canadian easten Arctic, satellite service is okay up until the middle of Baffin Island. It reduces quickly from there to Lancaster Sound, north of which it is not available. When you get into the fjords you will lose the signal due to the mountains.

Well there are some of us who actually do know some of the other posters having cruised with them - many of which were met on Roll Calls through CC. There are others with whom we've posted on many threads together and have become CC acquaintances. Not sure I understand the issue with that or how personalizing a comment to or with them takes away from the thread. Maybe I'm missing something here......

Thank-you leaveitallbehind. I fully understand that community members have opportunity to cruise with other members and wish to keep in touch with them, as I have also done. Since you asked, what is missing in this thread is an explanation that these personal responses by some, and introducing new subjects off topic from the original thread by others are in fact violations of the CC Community Standards under Disruption of our Community - https://boards.cruisecritic.com/faq.php?faq=guidelines . I also note that as these threads are moderated, not much happens to these disruptions unless a member reports it to the moderator. To me the personal comments are minor disruptions, but the hijacking of the thread is annoying and although I have not reported any to date, I may start reporting some posts for the hijacking reason. Regardless of this subject, my method of transmitting personal messages is to send a text or an email to my acquaintances, as I am sure most readers are not interested in my personal correspondence with another member. I also note that members have the ability to list a contact method on their personal profile should they wish.

The text from the Standards relevant to my post is: "...Postings that have been placed on the boards to disrupt the flow of conversation or otherwise disrupt Cruise Critic members' enjoyment of the Community will be removed and you run the risk of losing your posting privileges. This would include,... utilizing the features of our Community to transmit messages of a personal nature.

Also disrupting to the Community is Thread hijacking which is the act of trying to steer a web forum discussion thread off topic by discussing a subject entirely unrelated to the original topic...."

i've noticed this a lot on this forum. posts starting out 'julie and i' or other terms of familiarity. it's like you think we know who you are and i guess you do know some people on the forum but i'm guessing 98.44% of people on this forum have no clue who you are.

 

I see this posting format as being different than someone starting a review saying "my wife julie and I were on the ship' where you clearly introduce yourself then proceed to use the names.

 

so do you post expecting everyone to know julie is your wife and jack is your dog? yes i've even seen posts saying 'we left jack at home this time' and the public at large has no clue if jack is the kid/dog/etc.

 

or do you really just not care who knows you and who doesnt and you are gonna write how you write regardless of the audience? ;p

 

i better go now, rex needs me.

I keep my comments to the requests/statements of the OP; or, to correct bad or incorrect advice on that thread. I see many times on these boards the personalizations that you have stated and, IMHO, they are unnecessary and don't add value to a thread. A point of contention for me that I have also noticed, is that many people post replies on a thread that hijack the thread or add nothing to the OPs subject, to the extreme, they want to comment for the sake of commenting.

I know this won’t happen in Port Canaveral...

 

They will not let you check soda or cases of water with a luggage tags taped on them...

 

The porters make it clear your “allowed” two bottles of wine, water etc must in your carryon only.....

Well, that settles it. Never will I book a cruise out of Port Canaveral.

there are various threads on this, the last one was started on 13 November (two days ago).

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2564055

Just remember you have to carry it around with you until the rooms are available which is usually about 1pm...

On HAL, we check the cases in with our luggage. Never any problem since we started sailing with them 4 years ago. Just remember to tape luggage tags on two different sides of the cases, and we also tape those flimsy cases shut as well.

We found out they have a reasonable luxury day pass and the ship is stopping for the day in Willemstad.

Yes, HAL decorates well for the Christmas celebration. Special events include caroling, Santa, late night splendid holiday buffet, and of course decorating all the public areas of the ship. We enjoyed it a couple of years ago.

Yes they are metal to comply with the fire code.

Anyone ever used Uber or Lyft from Port Canaveral to Universal Studios? Wondering whether to book car service or try Uber...want to be sure we don't waste time waiting for a car to show up (it's an hour's drive or so; we're there on a Sunday).

Thanks

We have used Carey Executive Transportation in Florida and they were wonderful. Carey is a worldwide company and has an app. The last trip was the cruise port in Fort Lauderdale to our hotel in Miami (about an hour) and cost us $100 total for this high end service.

I am of the opinion that using a passport is the easiest way to travel.

While I write this, I wish you to know that documentation requirements change all the time and any experience a poster has posted about that is older than, say for argument's sake, five years is probably useless today. Just so you are aware, in Canada you cannot get onto a flight that is bound for a non-Canadian airport (i.e., to the U.S.) without a passport (and if you are Canadian or U.S. resident you can use a Nexus card instead of a passport). Here it is succinctly from one of the airline's sites: "Travel Documents:

• Canadian and U.S. citizens must present either a valid passport or a valid Nexus Card when travelling by air between Canada and the United States."
  

I fail to see the need to do this....

Well we check in cases of pop and water because they are heavy, and that is my need to do this.

We were on Zuiderdam in January and there are two other ways to get your statement rather than standing in line. For the first way, there are small kiosks near the front desk which will print out your statement, just don't leave the kiosk until you are sure your received all your pages, as it doesn't print that fast. The other way is through the new onboard (free) wifi, and the person whose credit card is being charged can view a live statement at anytime. The only delay with the electronic version is with shore excursions which may take a day or two to show up.

We didn't use the kiosk, and only used the wifi version.

Well you could book cruises away from the US where the drinking age on the ship is 18. (Except Japan where it is 20).

Seems to be a preference for some to use debark and others to use disembark. According to the Oxford dictionary both are hundreds of years old and equally acceptable. Debark from the mid 17th century and disembark from the late 16th century. LOL, whatever floats your boat.

What I found interesting is the word deplane also exists in the Oxford dictionary, and the origin is recent (20th century), although I never liked it.

"Holy cow, when did it become rude to ask someone what they do for a living? That's a standard ice breaker along the lines of "how do you like the weather?" Or "so where are you from?"" It did not become rude, it was always rude. Many people have not retained what is considered rude when their parents raised them. Other conversation stoppers I have experienced include, "oh, you just renovated, what did you pay?" or "So, you just bought that house, what did you pay for it?"

Simpler small talk always works as an introduction to a good conversation, like the weather, current events, books you recently read.

The scenario posited by the OP is not a viable reason but there are others that could cause the ship's master to leave port early.

On one of my cruises the daily newspaper had a message that due to x, y, and z the ship may have to depart earlier than normal, and in that situation the ship would sound the ship's whistle with the following pattern. Passengers were warned to be wary of a possible signal for an early departure. It did not happen for us on that trip.

Also, there are some ports on islands with volcanoes and islands in areas that are subject to earthquakes/tsunamis. These are some reasons why a ship would depart earlier than planned. An event like a volcanic eruption or an earthquake at your port or near your port (which you may not feel) or a tsunami warning are all reasons to quit your current activity and quickly return to your ship in case of a change of the ship's departure time.

Thankfully, these are rare events.

Yup! A lady jumped off a ship we were on and they fished her out, fined her $5000.00 US although we were in Italy and threw her back in. I was drinking out of 2 wine bottles back in 2010 (Statue of limitations is up) in the S China Sea and they both slipped out of my hand, overboard and luckily I had put the corks back in with wax. Nothing ever came back to me tho. Too late. I'm a bad person, fined myself $5000.00 US and spent it on a boat.

I am assuming that your "(Statute of limitations is up)" is a comedic turn of phrase. If not, please be advised that there is no statute of limitations in international regulations.

That is when I stick my arm between the doors, when the doors open again, I then stick my entire body in front of the doors, wait a bit, stick my head out to see if any more are coming (hopefully there are), then look disgustingly at the culprit.

 

Then sometimes I do a little snicker to myself.

Yes, I have seen this done. IMHO it is not a safe practice. Elevators sometimes develop faults including the malfunction of the safety feature to prevent closing doors if they are obstructed. I have experienced this twice on different elevators. And, it hurt. Also, it is a bad example to children if they see your actions. Just use the button to open the doors next time, you will still annoy the culprit.

Mimosa or Caesar here. And, most ships carry the Clamato juice so that makes me happy.

Many years ago, I worked on ships and one of my crewmates had a brother who flew fighter jets. We would get regular fly-bys, like those on the video but at faster speeds, anytime we were in the area of the base while the base was conducting training.

I also had the opportunity to see various reconnaissance aircraft similar to the type in the video. They are used for multiple scenarios including, visually or electronically identifying ships, detecting and recording oil spills from ships, etc.

In both cases low flying practice makes perfect.

Classic poutine is best made from freshly cut potatoes which are french fried, covered in fresh cheese curds, and then smothered in a thick beef gravy. Enjoy!

Then there are variants of the classic with different types of ingredients such as added pieces of beef or chicken.

Don't bring jeans.;) (Easy for me as I don't own any.)

Another idea is to purchase a charging case for the phone. A case that protects the phone with a built-in battery to charge your phone at the flip of a switch. It makes the phone a bit thicker and we have found it useful on long days away from the ship. They are made by third parties for most phones, an example is here:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/muvit-muvit-volt-powercase-iphone-5-5s-charging-case-black-muchp0058/10400913.aspx?path=aafdee821ab6ed397f5fec921b1b49a2en02

the one above is $40 Cdn.

One I use once in a while: I say, I am sorry that happened, was there anything today that made you happy?