karl_nj

Hope you are enjoying your cruise! Glad you are aware of the issue, and happy to hear that there is a plan to recitify in the future. Thanks!

I was thinking about booking a cruise on Empress to Cuba for next August, and figured I'd take a look to see if there were any trip reports. Was thrilled to see there was a Twangster report, but it seems like all the photos are missing? Any idea what's wrong?

Easy mistake to make! One would assume that an article from 2018 was about a recent event! My guess is that whatever settlement that the lawyers wanted wasn't making progress, so they told their clients to go on TV to try to pressure Carnival Corp. In any case, I do feel bad for the people effected. It sounds like it wasn't handled very well by the cruise line. But I do think that all the cruise lines try to sweep this stuff under the rug. My mother-in-law had her iPad stolen from her walker on Anthem of the Seas in the main dining room. Royal basically told her it was her fault.

I think both mworkman and you were the ones that actually skimmed the article. He quoted from it. This article from 2018 is talking about an incident from 2017. Please read it again, more carefully. As you said, reading is fundamental!

Yeah... welcome to New Jersey.... I was afraid of something like this, which is why I always drive to the port if i'm sailing from Bayonne. I usually park at Port Imperial NJ and take the Ferry if I sail out of Manhattan, and I pre-arrange a car service if I sail out of Brooklyn.

If you haven't listened yet, there is a brand new CruiseHabit podcast, and Episode 1 is all about Celebrity Revolution, the new revitalization project similar to the one they had a few years ago when they went and "Solsticized" their older ships. https://www.cruisehabit.com/Podcast

fonemanbob said it was speedy with self-disembarkation. Otherwise it's not speedy, unless you use a porter. Back in April after my Anthemcruise, II didn't use a porter, but I should have. The line was slow and never ending.

Yes, looks like these ports are going to be great for craft beer. Especially Portland. But all the ports appear to have brewpubs, or craft breweries, or both. My family and I will be on the sailing right before yours. The only port I booked an excursion though Royal is for Bar Harbor. I thought about booking a tour privately, but I was worried about getting off the ship on-time since it's a tender port. I've been to Saint John and Halifax before, but my daughter was quite young at the time (age 1 and 2) so we didn't do that much. Just walked around a little in port. Last time in Halafax we didn't make it up to the Maritime Museum, so we plan to visit there this time. We'll just walk up there, I recall there being a beautiful walkway along the waterfront. Last time in Saint John we went to the Tim Hortons and a small museum. This time we plan to take a long hike down the Saint John Harbour Passage to see the "reversing falls". By this point in the cruise, I'll probably need a several mile walk! In Portland I hope to check out "The Holy Donut" and a few breweries and brewpubs.

Yeah, on Majesty they will send you a Fax with your account summary at the end of the cruise. ?

Yup. Especially since the only one that Royal still serves after the menu changes is the Strawberry one. No need to wait for the 2nd formal night, just order a strawberry daiquiri. Then you'll get some rum included too. But before they changed the menus, there were some more interesting varieties.

Yes, that is true. However the points would then be worth less if you only have a Freedom - only 1c per point instead of 1.5c, and also no way to transfer to travel partners like United and Hyatt. Complicated transfers to airline programs for international flight redemptions, or transfers to Hyatt for hotel stays are generally the best way to get most value from the points. But 1.5c though the travel portal for flights is pretty easy and not a bad way to burn the points. You can also call Chase and book cruises or WDW trips at that redemption rate.

Twangster, Makes sense, thanks for the detailed explanation. It's always difficult to find data on the height of ships, everyone seems to only care about interior volume. I totally missed that the two height measurements on wikipedia were not equivalent. I wonder how tall Anthem is. I guess it doesn't really matter, as she does fit under the bridge. And when you are going under the bridge, it always seems like you will barely make it -- even if you are on a smaller ship like Celebrity Summit... -karl

That is correct, but Brooklyn is part of NY, and QM2 also needs to go under the bridge.

I don't think they claimed that they were going to reduce prices to offset the lack of OBC. The way I read their release was that the non-refundable price would continue to be cheaper then the refundable price. Which is sort of silly, because why else would you chose non-refundable if it wasn't cheaper? There is no way they were going to reduce prices to take into account the lack of OBC, because non-refundable OBC doesn't "cost" them as much as "real cash" (non-refundable OBC, at least). You have to spend onboard in order to use it. That $14 cocktail doesn't cost them $14 to produce, part of it is profit. In addition, the OBC for the non-refundable fare would block adding OBC from something like the Shareholder Benefit.

They must be waiting to see how well it works out for Princess first ?

I ended up booking an excursion though Royal at Bar Harbor for this specific reason.

Are we sure that isn't a myth? I know that no Oasis Class ship has ever gone to NY, but is it really because of the bridge? QM2 sails out of NY most of the year, and Wikipedia claims that both ships are 72m (236ft) tall.

Not that it matters anymore, due to the vacation schedule issues, but the mini-suite on the newer NCL ships since Breakaway is basically the same as a regular balcony, but with a huge bathroom.

I hope they ended up with very loud neighbors...

Terminal C at EWR is nice. But then your stuck flying United...

Yes, there were one or two other salads available, over the 7 night cruise. One was pretty interesting, it had a few different colors of carrots in it, which I enjoyed. They also had a strawberry chilled soup on one day. My point is that with the older menus, there would be both a Ceasar salad AND a rotating salad every day. Mojo had the Spinach Salad and the Ceasar Salad. Saffron had the Roman Vignole and a Ceasar, Shittake had a Garden Salad and the Caesar. I don't go on a cruise to eat a Ceasar salad every day, it was nice to have some variety. It was the same thing with the chilled soups. Mojo had the Watermelon and Raspberry Soup, Saffron had the Banana and Rum soup, Shiitake had a Mango and Pineapple soup. Now if you wait until lobster night, you can basically get a free virgin strawberry daiquiri as your soup.

The bar at 270 on Anthem had some interesting mock-tails. I forget what was in most of them. One I've seen before, a POG, which, i think, is Pineapple, Orange, and Guava juice. My son seemed to like that one. My daughter had the Polynesian Punch which was some sort of fruit juices and sprite. But they mostly went with Virgin Frozen Strawberry Daiquiris and Pina Coladas.

Disney still has "included" room service, w/o an extra free. It's NCL that started everyone on this whole charging for Room Service nonsense.

Just disembarked Anthem yesterday. I took a photo of the room service menu. It says $7.95 per room delivery. I didn't try ordering room service, I rarely did even back when it was free.

Just got back from a wonderful cruise on Anthem. In general, the cruise exceeded my expectations. The ship was beautiful, and handled spring-break-sized crowds of mostly fellow NY/NJ residents with ease. It was great to have the kid-free solarium "pool" area, along with the indoor and outdoor family pool areas. And the family pools were not filled beyond capacity, unlike Disney Cruise Line (I'm always wary of letting my kids swim on DCL, since it always appears to me that the pools are dangerously over capacity.) However, not a big fan of the "new" MDR menus. Way too many "everyday" items for both appetizers, main courses, and desserts. And the every day items were always boring. Most of the time the only salad available was a Caesar wedge. I'm not sure why they don't rotate though some other more interesting salads. Or, why not do something with more veggies and a vinegrette if you are going to only offer one salad every day. And the fish of the day had the same issue -- the fish changed every day, but you get it with the same exact sauce. mashed potatoes, and veggies every single day. They only had a cold fruit soup one day, and it was the strawberry one. I feel the previous "spice" menus had more variety, and more interesting choices. It almost feels like they are trying to make the MDR more boring to convince you to go to the specialty restaurants, much like NCL.