twangster

Just now, JLMoran said:

Hmmm, since that probably means there will be traffic / lines getting into the port, maybe I'll leave closer to 9 in that case. I don't need to be that guy shouting "FIRST!", but I would like to be boarding as early as possible. She's a big ship, gonna need time on that first day to explore and find where everything is!

When I arrived at 10:15am I wasn't anywhere close to 1st and there we already 15-20 diamond sitting down in the diamond chairs plus many other levels of C&A in their sitting areas.  Worst case you have to sit and wait depending on when US customs clears the ship for new guests.  

1 minute ago, JLMoran said:

Actually watched it after @twangster posted a link on my separate thread about this question, along with your other post showing the drive in. I can deal with small as long as it's not overly crowded when I get there. Port is only about a 45 minute drive from home, so I'm giving serious thought to leaving with the missus at 9:30 to bypass rush hour traffic and get there around 10:15. Hopefully they'll be taking in embarking passengers at that point, so we won't have to wait outside in the chilly October morning air.

I've arrived just after 10am by Lyft and they were accepting new guests so 10:15 after parking, etc. shouldn't be an issue.

10 minutes ago, KathyC said:

My father-in-law was telling us about how on Celebrity he got free drinks each night after only 3 or 4 cruises.  He was really annoyed that his travel agent told him he couldn't get a status match on this RCCL cruise.  

What is his Captain's Club level?  

If you are a Captain’s Club Select or Le Club Voyage Explorer member, then you will receive Platinum benefits if you sail on a Royal Caribbean ship. If you are a Captain’s Club Elite or Discoverer in Le Club Voyage, then you will receive Diamond benefits for the Crown & Anchor Society.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/faq/details/print.do?faqId=971&faqSubjectId=340&faqSubjectName=Crown

50 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Totally understand. I have the luxury of "not knowing what I'm missing" and only knowing my phone's level of quality. Which is probably a good thing, or I'd be going into debt buying at least a micro four thirds body if not a full-blown DSLR, plus however many lenses, plus carrying bag, plus... 

I do have to say that I'm a little less satisfied with the Moment Tele lens after using it last weekend to photograph / take video of my older daughter's final performance with the youth chorus she's been in the last 9 years. The edge distortion in many of those photos and video clips is a lot more noticeable than the pics I took on my cruise, with people on the edges of the pictures horribly blurred or distorted (maybe the lens needs a cleaning?); creative cropping was necessary (where possible) to clean up most of the pics.

The Moment tele is my least favorite lens.  They claim it's a "bokeh" effect.  I think that is clever marketing to justify the edge distortion.  

14 hours ago, F1guynz said:

Given RCI's penchant for finding savings maybe in the future they will try to curtail this by limiting the number of drinks in the lounges.

1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

 I agree with everything you said and I suspect the above is coming very soon.  They have already experimented with requiring the servers to "swipe" cards during the happy hour; my guess is this was a test to see how much it slowed everything down and how much bitching resulted.  I foresee a time coming where those in the lounges will be restricted to the same 3 drinks that they permit outside of the clubs.

The cost of Diamond happy hour has got to be on someone's radar.  I've sat there and watched the drinks flow, people stuffing 6 soda's or beers in their purse or watched a drunk D/D+/P fall down drunk and crash into a table spilling everyone's drinks only to be hauled away in a wheelchair because of how much they consumed.

On Anthem in December a DL server told me "changes are coming".  In January they no longer consumed the entire upper level of the Music Hall as overflow each evening.  This year on Liberty, Serenade and Adventure they never consumed the VCL as overflow despite the DL busting at it's seams when happy hour began. 

So far the changes seem to include making the DL an uncomfortable place to be by not overflowing outside of the club.  They never seem to enforce the "drinks can't leave the DL" policy.  To some degree it has worked as I tend to visit bars using my drink coupons before dinner now because the DL is chaos and you can never find a seat until past 6:30pm when dinner has finally persuaded most to get out of their chair.

Putting on my "I own the company for a day" hat, I'd certainly be asking my team how to contain the Diamond happy hour extravaganza.  With the growing number of Diamonds they are going to need make additional changes or adjust the thresholds to achieve levels.  That is dangerous talk right there because of folks who have been working for years at achieving Diamond and alienating them or pushing them to the competition if they "move the goal posts during the game".

The elimination of the CL and converting them to SL is part of this effort leaving the DL alone... for now at least.  I suspect they are waiting to see how that plays out before making more changes.

No other line offers the type of happy hour elite benefit that RCI does.  Carnival's platinum level is achieved at roughly the Diamond level and the biggest benefit is priority boarding.  Once on board Carnival's platinum doesn't do much for you and there is no equivalent lounge or daily free happy hour at any Carnival level.    I've certainly felt like more changes are coming as RCI aligns itself with the industry more and more which is why I made a push for D+ hoping to be grandfathered in in case they make drastic changes.  

2 hours ago, JLMoran said:

@twangster, meant to ask once this was over -- How did you find the experience of using just your iPhone and the Moment lenses for all your photography? I know you like to take a lot of night shots and photos in more dimly lit areas, but the ones you posted here still seemed pretty good for being on the phone. Do you think that going forward you'll just stick with the phone and leave the big camera behind, or is there still too much of a gap with the kind of photos you like to take for that to be reasonable?

Lord knows phone cameras have come a long way in the last 10 years. But I can totally see where having the larger camera bodies with much bigger sensors and support for a variety of lenses is still going to be a necessity for quite some time, especially for those gorgeous night shots and photos of performers on stage.

While I enjoyed traveling light I missed the quality that comes with a better camera.  I felt very limited and "threw away" a lot of pictures I wouldn't post on the blog.  Even some that I did post were marginally acceptable and as i look at them I find myself saying "that would be such a better photo with my real camera".  

I'm keeping the Moment lenses and I'll take them on excursions or to places I can't or won't bring my Nikon but I won't cruise again without it.

22 minutes ago, J. Woody said:

Yes!! Newer ship sailed from N.Y. I thought Liberty!

18 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Liberty is in Galveston now.

Cape Liberty is in the NYC area.  Liberty of the Seas is in Galveston.

With family in the GTA they often fly from Buffalo.  When I visit them I fly into BUF and drive across.  Even customs process is much easier.  US bound customs process is a mess out of YYZ.

3 hours ago, DunkelBierJay said:

I'm amazed the Armonia didn't have more extensive keel damage after that with those rocks being so close to where she ran aground...

Apparently the keel is as thick as her Captain's head.

4 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

This coming from the guy who was like, "What will I fill my time with between June - October so I can get my glass block on Symphony?  Oops, I just booked Mariner...Oops, I just booked another 8 cruises before that..."  It's the like boy who cried wolf lol 

You know I'm just kidding right?   We all benefit from you cruising...

No Live blog for you!

2 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

What is this "IF" nonsense?  At the rate you are cruising, you will be there before I can even make D+!

I can't keep up this pace.  I really want 340 to get reduced single supplement.  With that achieved I can afford to cruise with Matt in peak season, plus take some more exotic cruises like Hawaii, Norway,  Transpacific, etc.  Right now those are too pricey when paying 200%.

1 minute ago, tonyfsu21 said:

 (PS they were not in a suite). 

I've seen plenty of annoying non-Pinnacle suite guests in the lounge.

I swear if I ever make it to Pinnacle I'm not going to wear the badge but do things to annoy the entitled Pinnacles.  When they complain I'll whip out my SeaPass card like a trump card

4 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I'm Canadian.  We're easy going and friendly 

As am I, just what are you trying to say?

The train booked through RC stops feet away from the cruise terminal.

The train booked through The Alaskan Railway stops at the train depot which is a 15 minute walk to the ship, or you can use the free shuttle buses they offer.

I booked Celebrity Southbound last year and booked the train directly.  It sold out months in advance.  Check availability before cancelling the RCI train. 

I did a recap blog of that cruise including the train ride here:

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/5211-alaska-recap-celebrity-millennium-june-2017/

The train ride is incredible.  So glad I booked it and I got the last two seats when I did.

I'd stick with the RCI booked train, suspect you'll be fine and since it's booked through Royal they won't leave without you.

Either way, have your RCI luggage tags on your bags when you arrive at the train depot in Anchorage, you won't see you bags again until on board so have all your docs and medication in a carry on bag. 

3 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

The only time I was mildly annoyed (and this only happened once) was when we were in CK, a few minutes after being seated, we had to move because Pinnacles wanted our table....

That is over the top.  I would have refused to move out of principle.

I think Junior Suites should be given access to suite lounge.  Maybe they can set up kid tables in the corner of suite lounge so that everyone can see "those are the junior suite people" sitting in smaller chairs at a low table.

Seriously - all that money for JS and what do you get?  A walk in closet and double points.  On a handful of ships you get Coastal kitchen dinner.  RCI needs to throw the JS people a bone.   

Both are great ships with subtle differences.

Grease on Harmony, Cats on Oasis.

Oasis solarium has a small pool, Harmony doesn't.

Harmony uses Wow bands, Oasis doesn't.

Oasis was the 1st in that class and has been updated since 1st sailing in 2009.  Harmony is the 3rd newest ship in the fleet having first sailed in 2015 and 3rd in the Oasis class line. 

Harmony has water slides and a dry slide (The Ultimate Abyss).  Oasis doesn't have these. 

Other than that, they are the same basic layout.  I've sailed both and have a future booking on Oasis.  I'd sail either any day.

EDIT - welcome to the forum!

Oasis sails out of Port Canaveral, Harmony from Fort Lauderdale.  If flying in, transfers are slightly easier in Fort Lauderdale.

5 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

 Near the end of the cruise, a guy on the elevator commented that everyone on the ship and their mother is from Canada lol.

No Canadian fathers on the cruise?

8 minutes ago, tonyfsu21 said:

To my point, why are we paralleling loyality to booking a suite? I am very simply stating that the Pinnacles need to be somewhere else (whether it be the diamond lounge or another designated location) and not intermixed with people who have paid for exclusivity. It is of no concern to me how many hundreds of thousands have been spent over the course of X years to gain Pinnacle status. That’s wonderful and these people should be recognized but I just don’t think they should join the ranks of people who have spent lots of $ to enjoy an experience that is a cut above the average. And FYI for the $ I am spending (minus this time around because I was comped due to a casino error) it doesn’t take me a Pinnacle lifetime to spend $100k+ cruising RC when booking these loft suites it’s easy to cruise a few times a year and spend $30-40k. To my point, it’s apples and oranges. 

Because there is limited real estate on a ship and in all cases the Suite Lounge used to be available to others before becoming a Suite Lounge including OA class.

With respect, you didn't pay for Suite Lounge exclusivity.  That has never been policy.  So is the issue that it's called "Suite Lounge"?  If they kept calling them Concierge Lounge but kicked Diamond Plus out how is that any different?  It's just a name. 

3 hours ago, Todd W said:

As a Texan I have to chime in on this as well.    While the state as a whole is deemed conservative,  why the heck does that make any difference as to the opinion of the port?    You can easily read multiple threads here and other sites as well when it comes to cruising out of Galveston.   While the port itself has it's challenges, nearly everyone who's cruised out of there "generally" speaks very highly about the locals who are cruising on the ship as being some of the friendliest and polite people theyve ever met.    

With 3 cruises out of Galveston complete I can confirm Texan's are great to cruise with.  The TABC laws on alcohol while in port and on bringing back bottles is the only true negative.    Distance to a major airport is no worse that Port Canaveral and possibly the next gripe with Galveston. 

I'm not sure I see the problem.  

I can see it in Concierge Lounges on ships that don't have a Suite Lounge such as Anthem. I can see the hoards of D+ and P plus suite guests creating a very packed CL.  

RCI has already alienated some of the D+ level by converting CL into SL and denying D+ access to the very room they used to be able to access simply by changing its name.  That I think was a reasonable measure to create a better suite experience.  As a new D+ member myself I'm okay with this but it does have many long term D+ members talking about this "reduction in benefits".  As more and more CL disappear across the fleet I can see how this is being interpreted by those D+ folks.

Pinnacles tend to gravitate to certain sailings, especially "hometown favorites".  For Galveston or Bayonne I suspect P numbers are elevated compared to FL where there are many cruise ports and even more ships to distribute the P load across. 

In many cases I see Pinnacle in the D lounge despite an SL right across the hall.  In some cases I think they are there for the social aspects of the DL where friends who haven't made it to P are hanging out.  

I've only had SL access on Oasis class ships.  I'm not sure I even noticed there was Pinnacle present on those occasions.  I know of one P guy I met on my 1st RCI cruise and a year later saw him on Harmony in the SL.  We talked and joked at the SL bar for hours.  I certainly never felt like they were impacting my use of the SL or the Suite sundeck on Oasis class.

In my opinion Pinnacles have paid their dues by sailing a lot and I mean a lot.  Royal needs to reward such loyalty and the hundreds of thousands these folks have paid over the years compared to someone who drops $6k every couple of years for a GS.  As such I am fine with the current system.  

55 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

You know you have a cruising problem when you see numbers like that and think, "Wow, an ocean view balcony cabin just for the body! And a promenade balcony per lens!"

::raising hand:: Hi, my name is Joe...

This occurs daily.  New transmission?  That's a 7 night cruise to the Caribbean!  That sweet lens Art Sigma just released, that's an Alaska cruise!     New hardwood floors?  That's a Hawaiian cruise!

45 minutes ago, Hockeyman55 said:

For those curious I am shooting with a Sony A7iii, the iSkate and Columbus pictures I was using my Sony 70-300G lens. Just got this camera in April and love how much I can crank up the ISO for the lower light pictures and still get some pretty sharp photos. Also with me I brought my Rokinon 12mm fisheye lens and Sony 24-70 lens. Photography is a pretty big and expensive hobby for me, I do quite a bit of theme park photography also. 

Indeed.  I'm pretty heavily vested into my Nikon full frame.  The camera body is easy, it's the lenses!

I have the Rokinon 12mm and 14mm which for the price are great lens and f2.8 to boot.

Sony is really doing a great job taking on Canon/Nikon and leading mirrorless advances.  If it weren't for the lenses, I'd be pretty tempted to jump ship (pun unintended).

Traveling the world and experiencing different cultures and demographics is one of the benefits off cruising.  

To suggest that non-Brits avoid Southampton or non-Americans avoid US ports is very isolationist.  As a non-Brit I intend to sail from Southampton next year as well as other European and Asian ports and I'm looking forward to cultural experiences beyond my own.  That's how I grow and learn to embrace other cultures rather than avoid them as you suggest.  

The Voom perk was still present on Adventure 5/5/18 and Serenade 3/30/18 so until I see it myself, I'm righting this off as internet gossip.

Bring from the ship.  On some ships they are set up just inside the ship just as you step off.  On other ships they are setup on the pier and scan your card right there to obtain the pool/beach towels. 

Make sure you have your card scanned when you return them so you don't get charged the towel fee for not returning them.