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twangster

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Everything posted by twangster

  1. Booking a refundable deposit cruise is one thing. A refundable “book later” or future cruise certificate isn’t possible.
  2. Politics, competing interests and greed got in the way. Brightline had to move forward without Cocoa on the original plan. The toll road companies have and are lobbying hard against Brightline.
  3. Arriving tomorrow. No special announcements from the bridge, just your standard noon announcement that we will arriving at 7am. I hadn't booked any excursions so can't say if they cancelled any.
  4. They can’t sail one way between two US ports as it violates federal law (PVSA). No Seattle one way Alaska cruises will occur in the foreseeable future. The new cruise terminal in Seward is future proofing for a day there are no small ships like Radiance class and demand is present for larger ships on this route. Vancouver is still problematic for Q class due to tidal impacts on departure and arrival times. There is loose talk of a terminal outside the Vancouver harbor but no hard evidence it will ever happen.
  5. Maybe time to bring our own hidden cameras so we can spy on the cabin attendants when we are out of our cabins.
  6. As a business traveler the concept of hidden cameras has been something on my mind for decades. Erin Andrews from ESPN had to deal with it from a 2008 incident in a hotel room in Tennessee. I think that individual brought the idea to the mainstream. Since then advancements with technology has made it easier for those that followed his lead, unfortunately.
  7. Explorer may be an example of the stealth updates they will do in the near term.
  8. First of all being in a Junior Suite you will be accommodated on a space available basis in Coastal Kitchen. That is basically the lowest qualified method to eat dinner at CK. By policy only guests named in the JS will be allowed to be considered for a dinner spot. You can always ask and if it is a slow week on Harmony they might grant a request to allow you to host a guest who isn't technically eligible but IMO this is uncertain. If it is slow enough to accommodate a JS guest the CK host or hostess might realize that you would consume a table for two so allowing you to bring an unqualified guest is not a problem. However it's more likely that they will not allow it since it raises a flag when they enter her cabin number and she isn't supposed to eat there. Some CK managers have laid down the law with their crew to strictly enforce the policy and a CK host/hostess may not be willing to deviate from their instructions. Accommodating the whole family of four is unlikely but you can always ask. Swapping names may or may not be an option given the age of the children and cabin location. The policy is: Under 21s – or under 18s if sailing outside North America – can only sail if they're in a room with a guest who's 21 – or 18 if sailing outside North America. The only exception is when they're next door, or immediately opposite, their parent or legal guardian. It's possible your two cabins are aligned to qualify but only Royal knows for sure. Sometimes the deck plans we see make it look like cabins are directly across from each other but if the doors are not aligned or the cabins are in different muster stations then that combination may not qualify. You might consider calling Royal and posing this to them now, before boarding. Having both you and your wife in the JS won't make a difference in terms of trying to get the whole family into CK. Consuming a table for four is more impactful compared to a table for two, but you can always ask, you never know.
  9. Symphony also had several cruises added as she progressed. They called them "pre-inaugural" if I recall correctly and I don't think they offered anything to guests booked on the original inaugural.
  10. I don't think they will do very much to Quantum guest areas. The dry dock is being performed due to required maritime maintenance every 5 years until a ship is 20 years old then every 2.5 years. That is the primary reason for the dry dock. The required maintenance is the basis to maintain the certificate to sail. Without the prescribed scheduled maintenance the certificate to carry passengers would be revoked. It's not unusual for some additional work to be performed to guests areas during a dry dock because the ship is empty of guests. When Anthem was scheduled to go into dry dock in 2020 before the pandemic happened Royal flat out stated there would be no meaningful updates to guests areas. They might replace things like broken floor tiles but there would be no new venues. During my January 2020 cruise on Anthem they replaced all the carpet in the Windjammer doing sections every night while the WJ was closed. This was months before her scheduled dry dock in May of 2020. The point being that replacing carpet doesn't require a dry dock. Carpet is routinely replaced all the time as required over the lifecycle of the ship. Quantum, Anthem and Ovation are one year in age apart. Once onboard they are nearly identical to each other. In many places if you were magically teleported between ships you would not be able to tell which ship you were on since they are nearly identical to each other. There are minor differences such as the name of the pool side restaurant. Ovation had this restaurant changed to a Fish & Ships venue during her first Alaskan cruise in 2019. I was onboard and watched them work on it during the cruise. It didn't take a dry dock to get this venue changed, it was done during a regular cruise with guests. On Quantum specifically they may choose to modify this venue in a dry dock, or not. Bilingual signage might be replaced, or not. The SeaPlex pods that hang off the ship where Playmakers is located on Odyssey is wildly different between the original Quantum class and the Quantum Ultra class Odyssey. They would need to do a lot of work making significant structural modifications that would alter the weight and balance of the ship requiring her to be reengineered and recertified. It's possible but it would be costly. Would a PM generate enough new revenue to justify the multi-million dollar modification? Without a PM guests find somewhere else to drink and eat so the investment would need to show that retrofitting a PM would generate new additional revenue that would not otherwise be spent. I doubt they would make this sort of investment on the original Q class ships but who knows? They could maybe find a way install a Teppanyaki venue by displacing the teen/kids club area. That would require some infrastructure such as plumbing and electrical to support a food venue in a place that doesn't have that infrastructure currently. Would such an investment generate new additional revenue or would it simply drain revenue away from the existing specialty dining venues? Royal has data to review from Odyssey to see if Teppanyaki has created new revenue or reduced the revenue from the other venues. If the amount of new revenue is minor it's difficult to justify adding a Teppanyaki to the original Q class (non-Ultra). My gut is telling me that the original Q class ships won't receive meaningful updates to guest areas. If a ship does not yet have shore power capability that will likely be added during a dry dock. This type of modification may be best done with the ship completely dark, no power. A dry dock while doing other required scheduled maritime maintenance is an ideal time to slip in a few days to add shore power capability. Quantum needs shore power capability to operate from California so if she hasn't already had this added, it will be added during this dry dock. I think they will find a way to refresh Allure and Explorer. Adventure is mostly "amplified" already, they just need to some minor stuff to call it a full amp. PM on Voyager class is not required to declare them amplified so I'm not sure Adventure will get a PM. Royal has to be careful as they have told investors they are focused on reducing debt, not so much on amplifications. Yet we all know ships like Allure and Explorer need an update. Liberty and Adventure to a lesser degree but both could use a minor touch up. That's four ships that clearly have a need despite Royal telling investors amplifications have been indefinitely postponed. I suspect they will find a way to quietly update these four ships without the fanfare and telling the worlds about it like the "amplification" program did. Beyond these four ships I don't see newer ships such as Q class getting meaningful changes such as new venues at this time.
  11. That is not the phone number for Crown and Anchor. it is the phone number for sales and reservations in Australia. The reason they are telling you to email them is because the person you reached is not part of the CAS team and they can't perform CAS related tasks. In North America the toll free number for Crown and Anchor is 1 ‭(800) 526-9723 or ‭1 (541) 285-9723‬ as a long distance call‬. The second number can be reached globally but would be charged as a long distance call. The concept of using a provider like Google voice is to be able to call North American toll free numbers from foreign countries such as the UK or Australia. If you can find a method to call CAS directly during North American daylight hours your issue could be dealt with immediately. Yes it sucks that the CAS department doesn't provide in country phone numbers around the world but it is what it is. The amount doesn't matter, the presence of the line on the invoice is all that matters. If that line item is present with any amount including zero then it shows the fare was booked on a solo basis.
  12. When you ride the zip line you are driven from the Labadee compound to the mountain side where the zip starts. You are briefly outside the fence of the compound on the bus ride to the zip line start area. The compound has a couple of layers between guests areas and the outside world. There is a staging area with fuel and other supplies. Then the buffer ends at the security office and gate. This is where day workers would enter the compound, going through security. Once beyond the gate you are in the true Haiti. The road to the zip line goes up the mountain where it connects to a main road that would go off towards the rest of Haiti. The main road. The top of the coaster ride next to the zip line start is also fenced off.
  13. Tokyo was supposed to be a new home port. Bummer.
  14. I've seen the new releases not work for DP340 as well. It's not unusual for them to take a few days to load but it seems its taking longer this time.
  15. It gets complicated quick. A few senators have tried to introduce bills but they never go anywhere because it's not as simple as just allowing select ships i.e. cruise ships to do something as the act addresses all or nearly all commercial vessels that carry passengers. On the surface it seems simple but it quickly becomes a pandora's box involving international law and maritime treaties. While the US can enact legislation that applies to US flagged ships, creating law that applies to foreign flagged ships isn't as straightforward. In some cases within international law or maritime treaties there is only a concept of a vessel without distinguishing a modern cruise ship (which didn't exist in 1886) and a small boat that carries 10 people. The US by itself can't rewrite international law or maritime treaties. If the US was to chose to allow a foreign flagged cruise ship to carry passengers between two US ports (coastwise trade) then a foreign government could interpret that as being any vessel of any size can carry passengers between US ports because from an international legal perspective there is only the concept of a vessel. That's overly simplifying it, but it's just one aspect of one complication. Allow a cruise ship and you allow foreign ferries, water taxis, duck boats, etc. by the same modification. Technically the aspect that impacts cruise passengers the most is a matter of cabotage and that is also evident with the airlines. An Air Canada plane can fly from a city in Canada and land in a US city to drop off passengers or pick up passengers to fly back to Canada. What Air Canada can't do is land in one US city and sell seats to reach another US city. That is protected so that US domestic airlines compete on those routes. That is an example of a cabotage regulation. Just as Delta can't fly to Montreal and sell seats to carry passengers to Toronto. There are international agreements involved. Similar cabotage regulations are baked into the PVSA for passenger vessels but cabotage is just one small component of the PVSA. Once you decide to revamp such an old set of laws its difficult to just focus on only aspect of the law, i.e. cabotage. If you are going to modernize law you need to look at the whole thing. Cruise ship passengers probably don't care about the act and everything involved, they just focus on the cruise they want to take. So in their minds it's just as simple as saying cruise ships should be allowed to do the cruise I want to take. It's not that simple. Keep in mind we are talking about a cruise industry that is comprised of foreign corporations operating foreign flagged ship. The cruise industry has taken this approach to avoid paying US taxes. Royal Caribbean is not an American company. They don't own any US flagged ships. They avoid paying substantial amounts of US taxes by registering the company in Liberia and their ships in the Bahamas. Why should the US rewrite laws to benefit foreign corporations that don't pay US tax? Just so less than 0.0001% of the US population can go on a cruise vacation they desire? The number of people that want to take such a voyage is a small subset of the overall cruise industry. It's a lot to ask when you consider that it impacts such a small group of cruisers such as "I want to cruise from Hawaii and stay on the ship for a B2B ending in Seattle". That's maybe a couple hundred people per year.
  16. DP340 has no impact on CAS points earned.
  17. I cash tip water. Not much different than a beer from a bartenders level of effort. Since I cash tip a beer, I cash tip water.
  18. ArriveCAN was always matched to my passport and not shown to CBSA. I crossed a number of times when ArriveCAN was required, driving and flying, and ArriveCAN compliance was noted on screen to the CBSA agent when they swiped my passport. It's only when you didn't complete ArriveCAN would you really find out that it mattered. Visitors would get a slap on the wrist, Canadian residents faced the possibility of crazy high fines.
  19. Bring a copy of the invoice showing gratuities are prepaid when you board the ship. If the ship charges daily service fees (gratuity) then go to guest services with your invoice showing they are pre-paid.
  20. I've done the reverse, from Miami to Port Canaveral before moving to Florida. Car rental was easy, least expensive option and it provided an opportunity to swing by a Target at my own pace to pick up more sunscreen.
  21. I've been told this before. Some of the money goes into a crew fund that pays for crew parties off the ship on select port days. Not everyone can go to all such events but over the course of a contract there is opportunity to participate in many such events. Crew beyond bar staff are invited. Some of the money goes into an employee assistance fund of some sort although that is an interpretation based on a concept I was told about. Almost like a hardship fund is what it sounded like, administered by management.
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