jamiebytes

Royal's FAQs say if you use a travel agent, they can come anywhere from 20-50 days before the cruise. 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/electronic-cruise-documents

On Symphony this past week, lunch at Chops on embarkation day was reserved for The Key guests. I had the Ultimate Dining package though and we were able to use it sea days for lunch. 

41 minutes ago, Bailey & Sophie said:

We were on a cruise sponsored partial tour of the Panama Canal through Celebrity. Had delays. The Equinox waited 3 hours for us to get back. 

Similarly, we were on a Celebrity ship (the Reflection or Silhouette I think) on a cruise-sponsored snorkeling tour that was an hour late coming back. The cruise waited for us all to come back (about 40-50 ppl) then once the last of us were back, they pushed away in a hurry. The funny part was there were no delays or reason why we should have been late. The 2 tour guides were just having too good of a time, and apparently never bothered to check a clock. It was only when one of the passengers pointed out we should have been back already that they started heading back. 

That was the only time that ever happened to me and I was still nervous! Practically ran back to the ship. 

We booked a Suite GTY on our upcoming Symphony cruise, haven't booked a GTY often. Booked <60 days out, still waiting on an assignment. Fully expecting a Junior Suite, but still very eager to get a room assignment soon! I like to plot out paths to key places from my room ahead of time so I'm not spending the first day figuring out how to get everywhere without getting lost. I don't have great internal GPS, as my husband puts it! 😂

14 minutes ago, The Fun Researcher said:

The thing I don’t like about getting there early is the strange walk around the ship toting around your luggage.

Same here, though I usually compromise by carrying just one bag in hand with whatever my husband and I might need through dinner time, including valuables and toiletries. We let the Porters take the rest. 

I put it in my safe when going to port and always take a photo of the contents before closing it before leaving. Same thing with land vacations. 

Also, on a personal note... consider an insurance rider on your homeowners insurance (or renters insurance) for your ring. 🙂

My husband and I have gone to Qsine quite a few times with just the two of us as well.

Each time the server has usually mentioned that they bring smaller portions by default when you only have two people, but be sure to ask how much comes in every dish. Example, if you order the spring rolls, ask them to bring just 2 rolls (1 BBQ, 1 veggie).

I've never been disappointed by anything I've tried at Qsine. Only thing I haven't touched is the Sushi Lollipops, but my husband likes it so we usually order 1-2 for him.

I suspect it works with cruise lines, like it works with airlines. The Capt. consults with dispatch and meteo team, and Capt. decides based on the information fed to him, and advice from dispatch.

 

Do I know this for certain? No. But I think folks are being WAY too hard on him. He did a damn good job fighting to keep our bow pointed into the wind and waves, which he HAD to do.

I agree. He did NOT make the decision to sail in a bubble. Royal even stated already that they have an onshore team that makes these decisions, they're just enhancing it now with the new team they're forming. Honestly I think it would be a very poor decision on Royal's part to make the captain a scapegoat for this and fire him to shut up the media.

This captain just fought a hurricane-strength storm in a 168k ton ship and won. Do you really want to get rid of someone with that type of skill? Personally, I think Royal should have him speak to every other captain in the fleet to say, "hey, if you get stuck in this situation, here's what worked and here's what didn't during the storm." Also mandate all captains, officers, AND corporate decision makers to complete extensive meteorology training with regular re-certification. (Edit - even this is no guarantee! Weather changes, moves, gets worse. Any captain should be prepared to handle this or worse.)

Just saying - I think there are better ways to learn from this scenario instead of just firing the captain as a quick way to look like they're doing something to the press. Improving their long-term processes and training may not be as "sexy" or scandalous to the press, but perhaps that should be seen as a good thing. (Edit - regardless of whether it could have initially been avoided, additional training never hurts!)

I was also on the ship. There were 4500 passengers on the ship so many conversations and viewpoints to overhear. I do think that people keep focusing on the weather woulda/shoulda/couldas, which is definitely valid but also interesting to me since In the 24-36 hours after the incident most of the reactions I saw on the ship were primarily anger regarding the ship not continuing the cruise (either by not going to ports or by not reopening things like the pools).

I overhead quite a few loud, angry phone calls about how "we're not going to the Bahamas at all, this is such a wasted trip". One memorable moment right after the captain's announcement that we were turning around when a lady screamed "this is BULL****" at the top of her lungs while looking straight at me (not sure why) and then walking away expressing her upset at not getting to the bahamas. Lots of general disappointment around turning around - many people wanted to continue in spite of what happened. Many people I talked to with this view were first time cruisers, and for some this was their "once in a lifetime" trip. So I can definitely understand where their disappointment came from. But I point this out to say... Not everybody was worried about the danger on the ship.

There were of course 4500 of us on the ship, so indeed there were a lot of different observations made. Even my husband and I had different reactions. During the storm, I was shaking and in tears initially, while he watched the Super Bowl and insisted everything would be fine and he'd had worse. (He did puke due to the motion eventually, for which I will forever tease him!) I was scared! But I also knew that we had not been told to go to muster stations, and my personal observation of the captain's mid storm announcements was that he was clearly focused on nothing else but the ship which was exactly where he needed to be. If he called us to muster stations though, I would have flipped undoubtedly.

Personally? My only complaint was in the way the return time announcement was handled. Changing the plan after 24 hours meant we spent 5 hours on the phone with travel insurance and our travel company sorting out how to fix our rescheduled flights in a way that would actually be covered. We worked it out in the end.

Other than that, I am fine with the way Royal handled the situation and am confident that they will be implementing policies and procedures to prevent this from happening again.

I also feel they are incurring an extreme financial loss due to this cruise (full refunds, no gratuities collected, damage repairs, replacing items, tossing unused or damaged food, 50% off future cruises, lost revenue from days out of service, cost of assisting people with hotels and airline change fees, cost of refunding all internet packages and providing free service, other compensated items they provided to assist passengers, logistics costs for bringing the ship back early and conducting inspections and repairs). Royal has been hit straight in the pocketbook on this. For those people who insist Royal only continued the cruise in the interest of making money, wouldn't you also agree that the financial hit of this incident will motivate then to do everything in their power to avoid ever being in this scenario again? I feel they will, so I would sail on Royal again without hesitation. Probably not out of Jersey again though. :-) I only went to Jersey to try the Anthem. Beautiful ship. Wish they'd bring her south during the winter.

Thanks for the post. So happy to see you guys pulling in safely. Have a safe trip home, wish you all the best!

Thanks!! I am happy to be going home after this, but I do want to say for the record that the staff and crew has been AMAZING. I felt like they've been working doubly hard - from the performers dancing/singing their hearts out to the repair guys fixing every little thing to the stateroom attendants building fabulous alligator towel pillows. Very appreciative of everything they've done.

Also I just had an AMAZING steak at Chops so I am going to leave this cruise with a very happy tummy. :-)

What about the lights outside the doors? NONE of them are on? Aren't there dining rooms somewhere in there as well? Seems awfully strange to me. The entire midsection looks dark.

I'm on the boat, sitting in Chops Grille portside right now having dinner with my husband. The windows are obscured by the life boats so you wouldn't be able to see the restaurants for the most part. Most people on the ship seem to be on decks 4/5 having dinner. Also I think there's another showing of spectra's cabaret in Two70 right now, which was standing room only when I went last night.

Also there was a huge line of people on deck 5 waiting to debark with their luggage in hand when I went into chops.

I'm staying overnight and flying home to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon. Seems like a fair number of people wanting to stay onboard, especially those flying out or driving out far. The people wanting to leave already mostly seem to live very close.

Why would customs be required? Was a cruise to nowhere - never stopped.

I was wondering that too, but I think because people can buy certain items on board (alcohol, cigarettes, jewelry) and/or have casino winnings, don't those things have to be declared to customs? I've never bought any of that so I'm not sure how it works.

News from the captain just now: we will arrive in Bayonne at 6pm ET, and get the pilot and ideally be fully docked by 9pm ET. He did mention people can stay on the ship overnight if needed. The cruise director and guest relations might be able to help out with travel, but he didn't give any details. He said Full details will be provided at 10pm tonight on channel 22 in stateroom TVs.

This is definitely positive, but I personally plan to wait until tomorrow AM to change my return flight again. Make sure no unexpected weather or other issues pop up.

How are the fingers today? You are the poster that got their fingers slammed in a door last night? If I got that wrong, I apologize, just wondering if medical was able to check out those digits.:)

I am - they are fine today, only one finger has a visible bruise. I lucked out in the grand scheme of things! :-)

I am very happy with the decision the captain has made to turn us around. He handled yesterday great and I couldn't ask for more than that.

I plan to enjoy our couple (now free) sea days and rebook something on royal later this year. Leaving out of Florida though. :-)

Just walked around the entire ship. I can confirm most damage appears cosmetic and mostly in outdoor areas. Crews are hard at work repairing things like the deck 14 ceiling that got busted. A couple of carpets near doors pretty soaked. Couple plants in the solarium ripped/fell out. couple destroyed plants and fixtures outside. All things like that.

I noticed that our balcony chairs didn't really even move throughout this whole ordeal!

It was bad, but the ship took it like a champ. Crew is clearly tired but working tirelessly. I hope they get some sleep tonight!

I couldn't see if this was mentioned yet, but our tentative ETA to port Canaveral is sometime early in the morning...

I finally fell half asleep when things started getting better around 1:30am. Just woke up at 3:30 due to the movement. I have never been so relieved to see us moving! Thank you so much to the captain and the crew! Waters still rocky but things are clearly improved. Going to try to sleep for real now. :-)

I am trying to avoid negative thoughts on the captain or royal's judgment here since all i can think about right now is getting through this.

But that said... Please everyone bookmark this thread so that next time you see someone complain about missing a port or being behind schedule due to weather, you can point to what happens when you actually do go through a "hurricane strength" storm. Then ask them, "would you rather go through 10 hours of helpless horror and real, true risks? Or would you rather miss the port?"

Well, for those uber curious people wondering if anyone got seasick, my husband just did. I've only seen the man puke once in 4.5 years together, so that's something. We probably shouldn't have dared to share a jar of Pringles out of the mini bar.

The weather has gotten better, but it's still pretty bad. Super severe rocking.

Do you have any shots of the sea during this storm?

I can't recall if Anthem has an forward facing bow webcam.

I'm not sure if this attachment worked, but the problem with taking photos is you couldn't really see anything. While it was light outside, if you really squinted through the balcony door you could see the movement of the waves which were extremely high.

Everyone stay safe and I can't believe nobody is seasick

People must be. I NEVER get seasick and during the worst parts of this I've been extremely nauseated. Sitting on the floor with the metal waste bin nearby just in case. I'm on deck 11, so I imagine it must be worse for those on higher floors.

Right now there are longer (a minute or two) periods of (relative) calm, but then there ship will take a couple very DEEP rocks to each side before you'll feel the ship shudder as the captain adjusts the angle again.

It is crazy how fast the winds change direction. Definitely calming, though still scary with all the rapid changes in wind, and I know the captain and team must be solely focused on reacting quickly.

After this, I think they need to take a pitstop at the nearest port to do a full check over the entire ship. There is no way there isn't any damage. Probably mostly cosmetic, but I would feel best if they took the time to check everything out, even if it means missing ports. It's still probably a few hours before it's safe to start moving though.

Your doing great hun .... I don't know that I would do that well :(

It's almost over then go get those fingers checked ! K :)

 

Gail

Thank you! I definitely will get them checked out but I'll probably just need to take a bunch of ibuprofen. Thankfully I'm young enough (29) that this wouldn't be as tough for me as others. I worry about some of the elderly on the ship. Plenty of people in scooters on the ship that will have an extremely tough time moving around right now.

PS the metal hangars constantly sliding down the metal closet rods are drving me crazy and they sound like an injured wookiee.

Oh yeah, it's the scariest sound! I thought it was something a lot worse until I realized where the noise was coming from. I eventually took them all of the rack and laid them down. Also had to cram all my toiletries and things into drawers since they were flying across the room occasionally.

I'm sitting on the floor of my cabin, wishing every positive thought I have toward the captain and his crew! My husband is keeping me calm.

The announcements over the PA from the beginning told us this could last 5-6 hours. The captain has us basically staying in one place, continually rotating to try to best position against the wind. Riding out the storm. If you watch the ship map on the TV, you can see the angle of the wind hitting us at up to about 145 knots at the worst we've seen it display. It's so ominous, yet so hard to look away...

Captain is on the PA now, saying things have improved and there barometic pressure is increasing, so hoping we will be through this within a few hours. Says he is in contact with the Miami office and coast guard. I'm sure staying put is the absolute safest choice they all agree on.

The huge rocking of the ship at 3:30 or 4 or so started quite unexpectedly. I happened to be midway into the bathroom at the exact wrong time and had to grab the doorframe to catch myself. Fingers got slammed when the door swung shut hard on its own. I don't think they're broken, just bruised, but I would rather have ten broken fingers and still have my lfe, so this an extraordinarily small complaint in the grand scheme of things. When we get through this, I will gladly shake the captain's hand, bruised fingers or not!

(Sorry this was so long.)