MuttMutt

It seems similar to what the Bahama's was trying to do. They want to say they don't want the business because there are too many people. Yet the ships that would fit don't want to go there anyway. Eventually the local's will see places that only thrived because of the ships coming through close up and when it's their favorite restaurant they always went to on a birthday or anniversary that is the one that closes they will complain and moan. They will also likely have people who were once able to make a living move away because the jobs they made great money at don't do a quarter of the business they used to. It will heavily effect their economy to say the least. In 5 years or less they will be repealing it or thinking about it. For me personally I don't see it as a loss. I would much rather just head out to Florida and spend a couple weeks visiting places than to stop in on a cruise. To me it's kinda like going to another town. I can do it any time I want and don't have to make plans ahead of time by a few months. If I can technically drive there I would also much rather do that. I often see itinerary that is stopping in the US and for me it's a waste of a day. I would rather stay on the water during that time and have a closer stop at a different port. Plus if I am in Florida I will probably be planning to spend a few days being underwater for a few hours seeing wrecks or reefs. For instance I can see the stop in Key West being turned into a second stop in the Bahama's when the ships come out of New Orleans which will be much more attractive to a lot of people from the US anyway. And the stuff going out of MD and NJ are stopping in Orlando and Charleston most of the time. The only way I see these being attractive for a lot of people is if they are traveling from outside the US and taking a cruise, otherwise if it's a 7 or 8 hour drive (not to mention the train ride that is also possible in that area) who really wants to go down and spend 8 hours off the cruise ship in Charleston or Port Canaveral? The worst one that I find is this one https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruises/itinerary/8-night-southeast-coast-perfect-day-from-baltimore-on-grandeur/GR08BWI-3213887477?sail-date=2021-03-26&currency=USD&country=USA where you end up spending almost 20 hours futzing around in US ports... Kick them both to the curb and along with CoCo Cay you could easily turn that into a stop at Labadee and Falmouth IMHO. Which would be much more attractive to me for an 8 day trip, there would be one less stop but an extra day on the water. The bad thing for Key West is once the cruise lines make changes they will probably find they make a little more cash dumping them and when the decision is changed back the lines won't really be interested in making the stop anyway.

Well a little bit of good information. Looks like some conditional provisions have been met. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/crew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html Currently Grandeur of the Seas is the only ship marked as "Red" Personally I see the timeline for stuff to be something to the effect of having all the facilities and such onboard and in order by the end of December, then being allowed to do some "test" sailings in early to mid January. Not sure from what I have read but I am thinking the CDC will require each ship to go through a test and do simulations where all crew have the ability to deal with the simulation directly and not just observe. Then the 60 day window starts which would kill everything till at least mid March if not further with the new administration in the drivers seat. Then again with the new admin in place I can see attempts at forcing nationwide shelter orders in place. IMHO that will cause a major revolt and some things could change even more drastically after that.

Sure. Odds are my 5 day out of Galveston will be canceled. Gonna roll that into an 8 day if it's still listed and if that is canceled gonna try and roll that into an 11 day. Can't live my life in a bubble. I know someone who won't even go to the store to get groceries or anything. All has to be delivered and wiped down etc. I head to the store and use a P100 set of filters. With all the screening they have to do I doubt it's going to be an issue on the ships. Plus could be fun going through all the dogs and such. Cause you know they have to go through multiple simulations for training what they need to do

Been drooling over some of the 10 and 11 night southern Caribbean cruises but not an option for me right now honestly. If stuff gets thrown for a loop again and I end up with FCC it may be the next choice though. Honestly wish they had some leaving out of Galveston that went down that way. Seems like everything that leaves Galveston always hits cozumel and a couple other points.

Pretty self explanatory and I am sure a lot of people will be in the "cause it was somewhere to take a vacation" group but I have to wonder if there are others with different reasons. For me it was something I always thought would be interesting but would never be able to afford. Then when my wife passed away it became something to get me out of the house and keep me from pulling my own hair out literally. About a month after my wife passed and was cremated I received part of what was left of her burial policy and didn't know what to do with myself. My wife was from Jamaica and we had talked multiple times about getting on a cruise and then stopping in Jamaica and dropping off a power chair because she was having a hard time walking. I took the same route we had looked at which left from Galveston, TX and went to Cozumel Mexico, Georgetown Cayman Islands, and then Falmouth Jamaica where I dropped off a couple bags because I was going to be back in Jamaica a couple months later. When leaving Jamaica I stood on the deck as the ship was leaving and cried long and hard because my wife didn't get to see home again. The whole time we were married we were supposed to go down and were supposed to have been give the trip by her aunt as a wedding gift but it was never the right time. My first cruise had only been planned for a couple months but having something to look forward to helped me keep going and in a way my next one is slightly similar. The day I booked the next one I felt like I have a little something to look forward to doing and started planning and reading to be ready to go. In a lot of ways to me it's more the trip than the destinations though being able to be in good water for diving will be a big advantage.

It all depends on what you want to do. I have a Cannon T3i and love it for most stuff and thought about getting a case for taking it when I dive, but after hearing the horror stories about having a camera end up flooded from having a piece of hair or something like that on an O-ring I opted for a cheap off brand GoPro. The kits really are great and I got mine a couple years back at Sam's club. You can also find the kits second hand some places and honestly for a teen and family that may be a good option. A Cannon T2i is still a decent camera and can use just about any lens intended for a Cannon DSLR camera, the body by itself is about 100.00 and figure 50 per lens and you don't have a bad kit. Newer camera's get higher megapixels and such but the lenses don't change all that much unless you start getting really high end stuff. The biggest thing is get a circular polarizing filter for taking pictures outside for sure but just about any picture will benefit from it. https://photographylife.com/lens-filters-explained As far as places, I have a bad taste in my mouth over one of the big groups in NYC, LeisurePro is the name of that place I dealt with and the Electronics/Camera arm is Adorama. Had purchased a brand new item and they kept giving me the run around when on the very first dive a gauge was flooded. Ended up contacting the manufacturer directly who had no issues getting it fixed and LeisurePro said that was impossible to do as well and that I could only deal with them. After dropping nearly 1000 on stuff they could have been a lot better. So I would avoid them like the plague.

Didn't notice about anything other than water but didn't pick up a drink package. Honestly it was super easy for me to carry around a vacuum insulated 40 oz steel water bottle and have it filled up with water or tea or whatever. Not sure how that will change with all the stuff currently going on though. Often rather than taking multiple cups they had filled they would often just put some concentrate and water in and send me on my way. Generally didn't have an issue while off the ship with that as well as a hydration bladder. I know the policy does state that you can carry on 12 "standard size" cans or bottles per stateroom of water, juice or whatever so it should be simple enough to carry on some bottled tea. Just looked and on the Adventure of the Seas 5 day cruise they have a 12 or 24 pack of Dasani the 12 pack is 11.00 and the 24 pack is 17.00 though I am sure prices may vary a little bit it should be similar.

Right, and I understand about not wasting a lot of time but also figured it would be much like any other lodging where wifi at the room could just suck and a repeater of some sort could boost it to a fairly usable level with the added benefit of having a tablet and phone on at the same time so I could make a call over wifi while surfing a little bit on my tablet. Once of the things I have and use works much like CPE on a wifi based network and shows up as a laptop since it uses a laptop wifi card. But in some ways it's just one of those wonder what will work things, for a while I actually worked with long range wireless links, like in the 10 mile range on 2.4Ghz so to me it's honestly fun as well. I have a pair of 10 dbi gain omni's I have and was looking at as well but not sure about the looks when they xray something that looks like a cross between a billy club and a stick of dynamite with the blasting cap inserted. Could toss it all in my the bag with my dive equipment but not sure if it's worth the effort. And I understand the deal with TOS and all... Honestly I need a shirt that says "I void warranties and TOS" for when I walk in to the electronics stores, LOL. I bought a new phone with my wife one year and while they were doing paperwork I had already effectively voided the warranty by rooting it before we had even left the store. But I do my best to not need to void stuff nor cause issues. If you are using a computer with a USB WiFi adapter and have a the internal you should also be able to do something similar to the phone app while in the room. Can't remember the exact thing/terminology but it's a bridging or something (rarely use it to be honest) built into the windows OS. Which gives me something else to think about... Have an old board I have been meaning to build a custom FreeBSD image to use as a repeater or whatever. But thanks for the info, gives me a few things to look at and think about.

So just wondering if anyone has used a repeater of some sort for in the room and internet. I'm a geek and honestly could sign in on multiple devices as I choose but figure that they probably look at the MAC address if the device signed in and then just serve data to it. But figured I would see if anyone else has tried this. First trip on Liberty I didn't even bother with it (my wife had passed away 6 months before going and honestly I didn't care about being connected) but this time there are a few things I would like to do. If nobody has tried I will however be sure to report back in February.

While they may not actively be cruising I can imagine there are certain types of work that are being done. And some of that work will also require them to move around and make turns to ensure that things still work correctly. Something as simple as replacing a piece of navigation hardware or updating some software will mean lots of checks because if they are going along and it acts up bad things can happen. And in a lot of ways the ships are more like a power plant than a car. They don't just get mothballed and left to sit.

I am probably one of the few who could probably hop off the dock and be at my excursion point. In fact after dragging my gear into the port area I met up with the operator and filled out some papers and then hopped on their boat to head to the shop, then got back on that boat to go hit the water. Drift diving is the easiest excursion you can do outside of walking into town and laying on the beach. The only bad thing is you have to have your certification before you go though it is a pretty exclusive group. Out of the 3000 or so people on the ship (Liberty of the Seas) I think we had 18 on the excursion.

Planning for my second cruise Adventure of the Seas, Leaving Galveston on Feb 5th. Here is hoping that things settle down and a vaccine is available before then. First one was last year October 20th on Liberty of the Seas.