sr71pav

I think the prices right now to SJU are absolutely insane. We're trying to figure out flights for a cruise Jan-Feb from Indianapolis and I can't find anything remotely reasonably priced. The ones that are ~$450 want to take me to Chicago, Newark, NYC, etc. in January. I just don't think so. Coming back, finding more than a 30 minute layover is like pulling teeth. I thought with Southwest opening up their flights last week, there might be something decent. The only option they have leaves at 7:50am!

The prices are so bad, we're considering cancelling our Disney cruise (looking forward to it!) and going on NCL or RCCL out of Florida instead.

Yes...I'm ranting. :mad:

I think there are only a handful of Southern cruises and all are in Sept/Oct. If they shock and have one in Jan. 16, DW and I will be all over it.

Bob,

 

You mean if me and my DH are in the same cabin, I can put two bottles of wine in his and my carryon???

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Just wondering

I wish! It's two bottles per cabin. Trying to double that,intentionally or not, has been hit and miss (more miss than hit, from what I've seen).

The beverage rule says no beverages other than the two bottles of wine, but they usually don't enforce the rule.

They don't generally enforce the rule for non-alcoholic beverages, but they do for the alcoholic ones. In other words, case of water = yes, third bottle of wine = no.

People on this board are so funny. I am on at least 15 message boards on various topics and have never seen such outright malice if god forbid anyone says anything negative about ________ (fill in the blank - in this case it's cruising). This helps me to understand why I don't like cruising if this is the type of people I will be spending my vacation with :p

If you don't like cruising, why do you follow these boards?

I think I did see that one. Is that the one with her and her friend doing handstands in the window of the OV?

I guess I have a different take on this. When I read "superior" I interpreted it as "what does Disney do better than other large ship cruise lines?" I'm just amazed how everyone clued in on one word so completely like it was an insult to every other line of all kinds in the world.

I've never been on Disney, but I'm looking forward to booking one when the Jan 2016 cruises are announced. Its the little extras. The embarkation process, aqua duck, split bathroom, little larger balcony room than other large ship lines. I've done mostly Royal and I like that Disney splits out the aft cabins which is unlike Royal. Its only DW and I. We have no kids and we will never have them. We look forward to the large adults only areas that will be mostly unused.

The real kicker for us was reading the reviews from Gambee. We were excited about the idea before the end of day 1.

I doubt most folks factor in potential quarantine during cabin selection, but holy moly... imagine being confined to an inside... as compared to a balcony or even a suite. It would be like jail. You'd probably get a good dose of mental illness to go along with your physical one.

My wife got sick on a cruise a few years ago. She claims the balcony was what kept her sane and she refuses to cruise without one now. All the free movies and phone calls in the world can't be as comforting as that balcony during quarantine. Glad they let me out, though it was awkward for a couple days.

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Because most can just cancel and rebook under a new booking. "New bookings" really only means anything after final payment.

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Happy days! Saved nearly $700 for both my and my parents bookings yesterday. Today, the cruise is listed as gone.

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This makes me laugh. I'm looking to do the exact same thing from RCCL and I'm looking to move to NCL. Thought I'd try a new ship at least so I think it may be Escape for 2016. Maybe all the cruise lines have hit a rut internally for the Caribbean.

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I have to say that, yes, I'm a bit bothered by the recent changes. The NCC and ship deployments are the ones that bother me. NCCs just became mostly pointless. The ships...I always cruise January/February. I was looking forward to Anthem, but there's no way I'm going to NYC at that time of year. Also, it looks like they've left NOLA, and I'd like to go out of there sometime as my wife has never been there at all. Plus.. the itineraries seem boring as it's always the same 4 or 5. I'm eyeing some NCL cruises for 2016 just for a complete change. Freestyle doesn't bother me at all.

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Theres usually an announcement of some sort that the drill is about to commence well before the general alarm. The general alarm sounded after we were downstairs at the station, but we were definitely one of the later ones there and the cabin steward was the one who alerted us. Are you seriously going to judge based on one incident that I already stated was unintentional?

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This last cruise DW and I were two of the last ones to our station. Normally, I'm one of the first, but we somehow didn't hear the start of it. May have been due to having an aft cabin, and the announcements were off in the room.

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I may be booking my first NCL cruise soon. My eye is on the Dawn out of New Orleans. If only I can convince DW that I'm not crazy wanting to book thus far in advance...

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We had no concerns about missing the boat. The group we used even references cruise passengers specifically on their site. Because the pick up and drop off location was at the end of the pier, just outside security, everything was a breeze. The dives were over early enough that we were back on the ship for a about 3 hours before we realized my sunglasses had been left behind. There was even enough time to grab a cab to their shop without feeling pressed for time.

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Perhaps it would be worthwhile to look into a dive shop outside of the cruise line. I was just there in January (Royal Caribbean, but it doesn't matter), and DW and I booked with Blue Island Divers. She was just getting over a sinus infection, so no diving, but that wasn't a problem at all. I forget exactly what they charged, but it was $15-25 for her to go snorkelling while I was diving. The nice this was that there were only myself and 2 other divers, so no stress diving. They picked us up right by the dock, so it was really easy to do. Just offering an alternative, if you're interested.

It's the inconsistencies that drive you crazy!! Why would March 14, 2015 be open for booking, but not February 12, 2015?? I'm beginning to think it is dependent on ship because it was last year's cruise on the Independence where we had no problem booking almost a year in advance! Maybe Explorer doesn't get the same services?

 

Our friends who are cruising with us are going to enquire later and see what answer they get.

You may have hit on something. My cruise is also on Explorer. We're getting screwed! :screwy:

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I think it has to do with some 2015 cruises for some reason. I posted another thread about this. Almost nothing shows up under the excursions right now...only three options last time I looked.

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DW and I have a cruise booked for January 2015 that stops at Labadee. I admit that I'm looking for the cabanas, but almost nothing shows up. Does anyone know why there are only 3 excursions being shown?

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I will not venture a guess as to why there will not be towel animals for the current cruise. However, you are under the common misconception about the ship's power plant and propulsion systems. The ship has several diesel engines that drive generators that generate electricity. This electricity is connected to a bus, or distribution grid similar to the "grid" on land, so the electricity is available wherever needed, hotel or propulsion. The fact that the ship has problems with the propulsion motors does not reflect a problem with generating electricity. The diesel generators are not "laboring", nor even are the propulsion motors, the propulsion motors have been stopped, and without the available horsepower from these stopped motors, the ship cannot make speed. The ship has 6 generators, and only one is needed to power all hotel functions, so the laundry will not be affected. Other than the engine department, no other department would be affected by these propulsion problems, so "normal maintenance" will not be affected.

I had thought that, with the azipod systems being electric drive rather than mechanical, it would all tie back to the same diesel electric systems. Is that not the case?

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At a guess, its probably due to the extra power necessary to do the extra laundry. I'd expect there's a lot turned off behind the scenes for this cruise due to the trying to lessen the amount of power needed from the laboring engines. What with this being the last one before drydock, I think normal maintenance (scrubbing, painting, etc.) will also be cut on this one.

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I don't know the rules, but why not just renew the passport now? The turnaround time is actually pretty quick from my experience.

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Uh...I booked two aft cabins for 2 people each about 3 weeks ago. Am I missing something?