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Traveler

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  1. Wow
    Traveler got a reaction from WAAAYTOOO in 05/2024 - Israel cancelled !   
    With this approach Royal need to cancel all cruises in the Caribbean from July to October as it might be cancel due to hurricane and you don't want to wait for the last minute to see there is a new hurricane . People are buying expensive flights and non refundable hotels ...
  2. Confused
    Traveler got a reaction from michaelp1446 in 05/2024 - Israel cancelled !   
    With this approach Royal need to cancel all cruises in the Caribbean from July to October as it might be cancel due to hurricane and you don't want to wait for the last minute to see there is a new hurricane . People are buying expensive flights and non refundable hotels ...
  3. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from PPPJJ-GCVAB in If you were in charge of RCCL, what changes would you make?   
    1. Two more  food places open until late , one with healthier food one with comfort food.
    2. Private Island in Greece. 
    3. Year around ships in the warmer part of Europe/Middle East/North Africa.
    4. Develop more ports for Oasis/Icon ships.
    5. Few adults only ships.
    6. Renew the questions in Love and marriage , new missions at Quest.
    7. Add a way to see the full cruise compas from the app ( I know its the most complicate request as it involves RC IT).
    8. Add patisserie to the ship with fresh desserts.
  4. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from 4ensic in Rhapsody assisting in US Citizen evacuations...   
    Considering that in Israel you have 20% Muslims citizens and (some of the serve in the army) I don't think there is any issues with the crew docking in Hifa.
  5. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from WAAAYTOOO in Rhapsody assisting in US Citizen evacuations...   
    Haifa port is a secure area. During this conflict Hifa itself was nearly trageted or hit. Regarding after leaving the Israeli water, I will just say that there is an American aircraft carrier cruising near the Israeli shore,  another one is already nearby. 
  6. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from Matt in Rhapsody assisting in US Citizen evacuations...   
    Considering that in Israel you have 20% Muslims citizens and (some of the serve in the army) I don't think there is any issues with the crew docking in Hifa.
  7. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from steverk in Rhapsody assisting in US Citizen evacuations...   
    Considering that in Israel you have 20% Muslims citizens and (some of the serve in the army) I don't think there is any issues with the crew docking in Hifa.
  8. Like
    Traveler reacted to RoyalGreek in Rhapsody assisting in US Citizen evacuations...   
    Once again Royal Caribbean steps up to do the right thing with its various relief efforts.  As a "Loyal to Royal" Diamond Plus and Stock Holder cruiser, I am very proud of this company.  My wife and I were on Empress for the first relief sailing to the Bahamas following the hurricane there.  It was truly something to see how the crew and company stepped up to help in a time of need.
  9. Sad
    Traveler got a reaction from Shari in Odyssey not visiting Israel   
    Dose not look good now , but maybe something change in few days.
  10. Thanks
    Traveler reacted to FionaMG in Odyssey not visiting Israel   
    Hoping things will get better as soon as possible. Stay safe.
  11. Sad
    Traveler got a reaction from WAAAYTOOO in Odyssey not visiting Israel   
    Dose not look good now , but maybe something change in few days.
  12. Thanks
    Traveler reacted to WAAAYTOOO in Odyssey not visiting Israel   
    Stay safe, @Traveler
  13. Sad
    Traveler reacted to Nicci in Odyssey not visiting Israel   
    We are on the Holy Lands cruise, and we’re supposed to stop in Haifa(Acre) and Ashdod (Jerusalem) in a few days. The captain just announced (paraphrasing here) about half a hour ago, that we will not visit Israel due to the geopolitical situation, decision taken together with security experts and in view of the safety of passengers, staff and ship. I am sure there are disappointed passengers onboard, but I at least would not have felt safe there right now.
     
    Instead we are getting to go to Bodrum in Turkey and Limassol on Cyprus
    RCI excursions will be refunded to onboard account, and New excursions will appear in app tomorrow.
  14. Haha
    Traveler got a reaction from Jmccaffrey in Star of the Seas   
    Finally we will be able to say " I went to the crown lounge in the viking crown on the crown of the seas"
  15. Like
    Traveler reacted to CruiseGus in Diamond Lounge   
    Impressive based on other examples of Royals IT department
  16. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from Jjohnb in Diamond Lounge   
    I am sure Royal tracking each type if customer expenses and revenue.
    We might think loyal customer not important as they might spent less or geting free drinks but if you look when you have many top loyalty cruisers and when you don't you can see that the loyalty cruisers tend to cruise more during off peak times. It's not hard to feel a ship during spring break and holidays , beat your most loyal cruisers and see what happens to the trans Atlant cruise and to the other off peak cruise ...
  17. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from Lovetocruise2002 in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Oh forgot about Internet.  
    As expected for Alaska it was very slow and I was glad I did not had to connect using teams or VPN as it would not wor. Also in land , using Tmobile got me very poor connectivity.
  18. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from Skigoofy in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Day 7 - Victoria.
    The sun rises over our last cruise day. We slept finally until 8 but it's only because my spouse came under the weather , we quickly checked its not covid and I went to bring some food from 270. After a while she felt better and we went to pick our pictures (finally we remembered to pick our free pictures) I must say the photographer on the Ovation are doing better job than other ship  , or it's just the diet we done before the cruise 🙂 ).
    We did not know if we want to visit Victoria or not,  after all its only in the itinerary due to the John's act , a filler like Nassau... We decided to go anyway and wow , it was a very good decision. The city is very beautiful with European filling and many interesting building. It was also a sunny day which is also a plus. We took the shuttle (15 $ for all day use) although you can walk (around 15 - 20 minutes). The shuttle dropped us near the beautiful Empress hotel 





     
    From there we walked over the Government st ,on the way we did some whales watching excursion,  this time we got to see more than their tails.

    We came to the local Chaintown which we decided it's a good time to eat lunch.

    We found a nice resturant with lunch offers and got ourself noodles and a combo dish . Both were very good. The resturant name is Fan Tan caffe.


    We did our way back in a parallel street



    We went to the parliament house and decided to call it for today and took the shuttle back to the port . And no we did not eat the Poutine, not before the yearly checkout:-)


     
    Hey what do you say can I work on the ship ? Here is my own first towel animal thanks to the cruise director program that explained how to make them 

    Tomorrow  leaving the Ovation 
     
     
     
  19. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from Skigoofy in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Day 5 Stika .
    We arrived early to the port (which did boy prevent for keep sleeping or at least trying). We did not jad special excursion for today just to go and visit Stila on our own as it seems easy place to do so. We went fir a quick bite and a coffee in the diamond club, I happy to say the coffee machine was working perfectly during the entire time.

    We went down to the pier to catch the complimentary shuttle bus to "down town" Stika , it took around 7 minutes and the driver share some information about Stika. We arrived to the shuttle center and took some nice pictures from the nearest view point, there was a queue there but we successfully took some photos. 



    We started doing our way to Stika national park , it's taken around 15 minutes in a very nice sidewalk which takes also to a boardwalk with a view over the water with many birds and other animals (we saw few seals and what we decided sea otters) 



     
    The national park center is the star point for easy round trips inside the forest that contains also many impressive totem poles polls. We spend 40 minutes there before starting our way back to the town center.




    Now who said tree Ents dose not exist ?

     

    We passed by the place were the salmons come to spawn , unfortunately for many of the is also the place they come to die , let's just say we skipped the Salmon chowder for lunch. At that time it started to rain and it never stopped, not heavy rain just annoying one. We decided it's a good time for lunch and we went to the small Russian restaurant that call Pelmeni , they serve Russian dumplings ( this is more like tortellini or some may know it as Kreplach) they serve it with or potato or meat topped with vinegar, hot sauce and sour cream. They cost 9 $ for a plate which is one of the best deals in town.

    It was tasty. There are also many food trucks around selling different chowders, crab sandwiches and hot dogs.

    I think from all our 3 Alaskan stops Stika is the most beautiful . 
    We had enough of the tain so we catches the shuttle back to the ship. Dinner was at the WJ we found several good things there Today we finally got to see Spectra. As always story line was not that important but they really took advantage using all the equipment and technology of the 270, impressive

     
  20. Wow
    Traveler got a reaction from Skigoofy in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Ice cream cost money in the WJ. Remember it use to free ? 
     

  21. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from FireFishII in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Oh forgot about Internet.  
    As expected for Alaska it was very slow and I was glad I did not had to connect using teams or VPN as it would not wor. Also in land , using Tmobile got me very poor connectivity.
  22. Like
    Traveler reacted to ScottD in Oasis- second time is a charm 10\1-10\8 from NJ   
    Not much to add for the day. We made it kind of a lazy day, ships been rocking pretty heavily since yesterday. Still swaying a lot at almost 9pm tonight. Captain also announced we are having a very slight propulsion issue and it'll slow us down enough to cause about an hour delay to PC tomorrow.  No biggie for us. Had some lunch at WJ..me and the boy had burgers and chicken fingers, I added some mac and cheese and he got spaghetti.  All was fine...nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about. The Mac was really good,though.  Wife and I went to the Love and marriage show, the "old" couple was married 62 years, and were frickin hilarious.  That was the first time we've actually gone to one and it was definitely fun.
    One thing I noticed between this cruise and the one in January is the people. The people on this one have been a bit ruder,kids a bit less....watched I guess. 
    Also.. @SweetPeathank you for asking,the kid seems fine. Hasn't even mentioned it...even after we've played about 7 rounds of that damn mini golf. 
  23. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from SweetPea in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Oh forgot about Internet.  
    As expected for Alaska it was very slow and I was glad I did not had to connect using teams or VPN as it would not wor. Also in land , using Tmobile got me very poor connectivity.
  24. Thanks
    Traveler got a reaction from WAAAYTOOO in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Oh forgot about Internet.  
    As expected for Alaska it was very slow and I was glad I did not had to connect using teams or VPN as it would not wor. Also in land , using Tmobile got me very poor connectivity.
  25. Like
    Traveler got a reaction from MaryS in Alaska here we come , Ovation 22 -30 September.   
    Embarkation and some thoughts.
    Last day came quick, although we got another day day before our flight we still had to go to the airport to rent a car.
    I schedule a transfer with RCL (28 $ PP) and we did self carry of the luggage , we both love the fact that the luggage is with us until the last minute and no need to think what to leave for the morning and how to pack the left over to take with us. What we did not took into consideration is time we had to wait for the elevators. As always I was sent to bring some food , as lesson learn from pervious cruises we took some cutlery the evening before so I will have less things to carry. Around 7:50 am we went out with the luggage to go to floor 5 and wait for our number to be called. it took us 25 minutes to get into elevator and even that it was to first take the elevator up and only then go down , for sure we saw issue with the elevators before (which made us just use the stairs) but at the morning it was something else. Once we finally went down we continued to the terminal , it was very easy and no elevators were needed 🙂 .Exiting the terminal was very quick , the immigration officer just wanted to see we have US visa (for the last time as we just got a waver) and after 5 minutes we were out. We locate the shuttle , no one bother to checked if we have tickets or not, once the buss was full it started the way to the airport which took around 25 minutes. The shuttle is arriving to the shuttle bus center and no to the terminal itself which means you need to walk for extra 10 minutes to arrive to the terminal. We took the shuttle to the rental center and got our car. We knew the hotel will not be ready yet so we secure our suitcases and went to a near buy store to purchase several things in our list. For hotel we took the Holiday inn express and suites in shout center , its 10 minutes from the airport , new hotel and walking distance from many restaurants and a mall. its just a cross from the Green river and adjust to the green river trail which we did part of it. 
     


    We got to do early check in , the hotel rooms are very nice (bigger than most of the holiday inn express which I stayed in) it also had a small refrigerator and microwave and most important two , yes two working elevators. We walked over to the local cheese cake factory for lunch and later got back to the room . Tons of restaurants around but we were tired and went with something we knew will be good. 
    At the morning we eat the basic breakfast did checkout and went back to the airport , everything went OK and we went on a 2 hour flight to LA followed by 13 hours flight back home which went mostly by sleeping and watching some movies.
    Several thought :
    The ship - Ovation is a nice ship , there were some places it felt crowded but I guess it its due to the weather mainly.
    Elevators - Something was wrong there , at least two elevators did not worked and it elevator seems to be very slow , good we could use the stairs most of the times
    MDR - We went to the MDR only once since we were with My Time Dinging and it only started around 7 PM , the one time we went we got a very nice service and the food was tasty and enough , the main issues are the lines to the MTD if you reserved a time slots , the lines were crazy.
    WJ food - The WJ buffet was never crowded which was nice , food was OK , it seems that quality went down comparing to pervious years , somethings were missing.
    Cabin - We were at ocean view cabin , it was clean with ton of places to store our luggage and other stuff.
    Bar services - No issues , never crowded and the service was very good.
    Entertainment -   We saw several show , nothing to write home about , missing a big Broadway and ice show , the Spectra show was very nice from technical perspective. 
    Weather - Weather was not as cold as we thought - light coat was enough, no need special things for Alaska beside a good per of tracking shoes.
    Shore excursion - If there is one thing we are sorry not to reserve is an helicopter trip to the glaciers , we did planned to visit the glacier but it got canceled , I hope we will still be able to do it before it will be gone. I would suggest to make sure your cruise to Alaska is entering to one of the glaciers.
     
    Until the next time .
     
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