GKMCruising

1 hour ago, KristiZ said:

There are two chunks of cabins blocked off, one set on Deck 4 and one set on Deck 9. Haven’t figured out the Deck 4 ones yet, but Deck 9 is what the crew calls The Ward. It’s where the new crew coming onboard quarantines for two weeks before starting work

I noticed this on Ovation last month - one section of Deck 6 was blocked off. I assumed it was for isolation cabins in case of emergency, I didn't even think about needing some for new crew coming on board.

On 10/1/2021 at 5:33 PM, PG Cruiser said:

How I wish there were people who would do that for me...

Right? Someone needs to bite the bullet and get a communal one for all of us going on the inaugural Wonder sailing.

There's no set menu - it's going to change daily. Usually an assortment of olives, cheese, and other antipasto, along with pepperoni and cheese pizza, and then one or two specialty pizzas that rotate daily.

22 minutes ago, JohnK6404 said:

once again our cabin is on Deck 8 near Central Park - too convenient

That's exactly why we booked deck 8 on our Harmony cruise next September. We originally had deck 8 for Wonder as well, but when we switched weeks so we could do the inaugural, all the deck 8 insides were full, so we wound up on 9. Either way, definitely my favorite neighborhood to stay in on Oasis class ships.

14 minutes ago, Pooch said:

Ok I can’t figure out the acronym.  
Ooh ooh:

Yet Another Something Bahamas Cruise Live Blog????

 yet another short Bahamas cruise live blog 

I tried to Google it and looked at the post like 3 times before I saw it.

17 minutes ago, WRSmith2PhD said:

We have stayed at the Hyatt House Fort Lauderdale Airport - South & Cruise Port several times and will do so again in November.  On-site parking for cruisers, shuttle service to the ship (and back).  Places to walk to as well.  We hope this helps!

How much cheaper is their daily parking compared to the port?

12 hours ago, Jill said:

Agree we all need to plan. Our current plan in 3 weeks is to check out of our FLL hotel at 10:30 and head for Miami. Park by 11:30. Get out of car at 11:45 and get in line for our 12:00 time. 

If I might mildly hijack the thread for a minute - suggestions on a good inexpensive hotel in FLL, ideally one we could leave our car at and get shuttled to Port Everglades? We normally fly in but now that we've got a small one the cost of plane tix isn't worth it, so we're gonna drive down from GA the day before and stay the night in a hotel. This is gonna be for the inaugural on Wonder in March.

I'd love to know this too. I'm tempted to try out the UDP on the Wonder inaugural, but I guarantee my 2 year old isn't going to eat $200 worth of stuff from Chops and the like.

Wonder of the Seas - March 4th

Harmony of the Seas - September 25th

I haven't, but my wife said she's been on the deck before and watched people running down the pier just after the gangways had been pulled and the ship had begun moving away from the dock... so yes, it *can* happen.  

23 hours ago, Andy & Sheryl Unwin said:

But on this trip, Freedom OTS was gleaming like never before. More than that, any surface that had public contact was sanitized heavens knows how many times per day.

No kidding. On Ovation a few weeks ago, we saw staff with flashlights/blacklights going over the glass on various handrails and surfaces to make sure there were no spots that had been missed when wiping down.

They've cancelled most of their recent calls to Haiti - when they resume stopping there is anybody's guess. 

Sitka - This was a stop that only happened due to COVID. Originally we were scheduled to go to Victoria, but due to the Canada restrictions, the itinerary changed to include Sitka instead, and I'm glad it did. This was a really neat stop, with lots of options to check out. Most of the tours were some combination of time spent at two or three different points of interest, so we looked through and decided on one that went to the raptor center, the totem park, and one of the native clan houses.

The raptor center was first, and definitely a must-see if you're in Sitka. There was a short presentation with one of their bald eagles, and then time to explore the rest of the facility, including the flight center, the outdoor enclosures, and the hiking trails. Unfortunately, the bulk of the trails were closed due to bear activity. I asked one of the staffers how many bears you had to see in Alaska to close off a trail, as I'd assume bears were just a fact of life in the area. He said they normally have one or two on the area, but this season they'd been seeing 6 or 7, including a momma bear and cubs. They'd even had one walk across the parking lot just that morning around 8am when the staff was getting there. Additional fun fact - the raptor center is featured on the Nat Geo series "Alaska Animal Rescue" on Disney+, which we've checked out since getting back.

After leaving the raptor center, we headed to the totem park. You could go check out the exhibits in the visitor center, or you could go walk the trails. Again, some of them were closed due to bear activity, as these trails apparently connected to the raptor center trail section as well, but we were able to walk most of them and see the totems as well as check out the pink salmon running in the river. We took a quick lap through the visitor's center, and then hopped back on the bus for a ride to the last stop, the clan house.

This one, unfortunately, was a little disappointing, simply due to COVID. It was advertised as a tribal dance experience, and while we had a nice presentation and a couple of songs and stories by one of the natives, but we didn't get the full tribal dance performance - I assume either due to low staffing or social distancing protocols. 

Overall, another awesome day in Alaska, and for a very reasonable price. If we hadn't been limited to RCL provided excursions, we'd have probably tried to work the science center in as well, as we had plenty of time left in port after our tour was done, but that'll have to wait for another trip.

Skagway - Part 2

I know the "default" excursion in Skagway is the railroad, but we wanted to do something different as we didn't think our 2 year old would enjoy just sitting on a train for 3 hours. Instead, we decided to book the musher's camp and s'mores experience. Unfortunately, due to COVID and the reduced number of tourists in port this year, they weren't offering the full experience where you actually got to ride in a dog sled - our guide told us they actually didn't expect to get *any* visitors again this year, so they had to scramble last minute to even get a handful of sled dogs and a few staffers in to run the excursion at all. 

The drive out to the camp was incredible - absolutely beautiful views, just like everywhere in Alaska, and our coach driver was a wealth of information and fun trivia about the Gold Rush, Jack London, and all things Skagway. It was actually kind of nice with the reduced crowds, there were only 7 of us on this particular excursion so it was very intimate.

Once we arrived at the musher's camp, we got to hear all about the history of sled dog racing and got to interact with one of the dogs - the rest stayed nside the fenced in area. It would have been nice to interact with more dogs, but again, just one more thing they weren't able to do because of the reduced operations due to COVID. They only had 7 or 8 dogs on property, whereas he said they normally have way more than that. Also, I was a little jealous - apparently they take one of the dogs onto the Princess ship that comes in every week and do an onboard experience.

We still got to sit around the fire and make s'mores though, as well as walk up a short trail to a waterfall overlook and grab some souvenirs before piling back on the bus. We were running ahead of schedule, so our driver actually stopped at one of the photo overlooks along the route back to town, as well as took us by a couple of extra points of interest in town instead of going straight back to the ship. 

Overall, an excellent excursion at a reasonable price, and I'd love to go back when they're running at full operations to actually take that sled dog ride and get  more time to play with the dogs.

Skagway - Part 1

I'm an avid hiker and trail runner, so I wanted to find a good solo adventure for the morning before our main excursion in the afternoon. I did some research and found a bunch of different trails listed, but settled on hiking up AB Mountain as it was close to the port, looked like a decent workout, and I could easily get a shuttle there and back for not much money.

Let's just say I might have underestimated that trail, at least given the time of year and weather conditions. I thought I'd be all the way to the summit and back down in around 4 hours, instead it took me closer to 5. My GPS showed that I was about 4 miles in (a mile from the summit) when I turned around. The fog up top was really thick, I could barely see the trail markers, and I knew I had to get back to the ship for my later afternoon plans. It was a great hike, super intense, just a shame that it was so foggy - apparently on a clear day you can get some outstanding views.

Special shout-out to my shuttle driver, Ann, from Dyea Chilkoot Trail Transport. She loaned me a can of bear spray (thank goodness I didn't need it) and waited on me at the trailhead even though I wound up getting back almost an hour later than I expected. She simply asked if I could give her a little extra since she sat and waited, which I didn't mind, especially as the round trip shuttle was only $20 to begin with.

If you want a challenging hike while in Skagway, definitely try this one out, but I would advise being in really good shape and being OK alone on a trail - I didn't see another person the whole time I was out there. And yes, I did have to use the ropes in the photos. They were mildly useless on the way down - I slipped and slid so much it wasn't even funny, and completely destroyed the cheap cotton gloves I took for the hike on all the rocks.

Juneau - We did the combined tour of both the Mendenhall Glacier and the Mendenhall gardens nearby. I'd have loved a little more time to hike at Mendenhall on my own, but as we had our 2-year-old with us, all excursions had to be booked through Royal, and several of them were off-limits to anyone under 12 due to COVID and operator policies.

If you go to the glacier, I strongly advise taking the short hike down to Nugget Falls. We had roughly an hour, and we had enough time to go to the falls, take photos, get to the overlook trail, and then grab a souvenir from the gift shop before getting back on the bus.

The tram tour through the gardens was fun - not something I think I'd go out of my way to do again next time I'm in Juneau, but it was a neat excursion nonetheless. The tour guide driving the tram was very knowledgeable and pointed out tons of plant life and mushrooms, and the view from the top was great. Just be warned, the grade going up (and down) is rather steep, so it can be a bit of a bumpy ride.

Definitely a good combo for the cost - as much fun as a helicopter tour would have been, I wasn't going to shell out $500/person for it... and it got cancelled anyways due to fog, much to the chagrin of a couple people who wound up on our tour instead.

I didn't want to shell out for VOOM, so I couldn't live blog during our trip on Ovation a few weeks ago, but I figured I'd share my thoughts and pics from our excursions, as that's what I took the most pics of. I'll split it into 3 or 4 multiple posts - one for each excursion.

22 minutes ago, D Alt said:

Bam! Just like that I received the invoice from my twitter request. 

So if the base cruise fare/room price is higher than a new offer, I can request OBC or an adjustment before I fully pay or do you mean if the total price is better today? 

Total price. All those random discounts  and credits from when you originally booked won't apply.

18 minutes ago, barjpoe said:

Unfortunately, I think Royal has stopped producing the 'heavy' 3D ship Ornaments. We just came off Odyssey and the only ones they had were round 3d ones.

They're ok , but don't sit on the shelf. 

My guess is COVID shipping delays with it being a new ship. They still had the "heavy" ornaments on Ovation a few weeks ago.

On 9/12/2021 at 7:31 AM, starbrat said:

We have a SC cruise in April with an 8 year old. This is disturbing to read. I sure hope they figure out the boarding/testing thing for SC families. It’s RC so i’m guessing trial and error will have it figured out by then.

It sounds like an issue with the terminal based on our experience on Ovation a couple weeks ago. We weren't Star Class, but they ushered us right to the front of the line when they saw we had a toddler.

3 hours ago, Tiffeven said:

On night 1, we had every intention of eating at Coastal Kitchen, but with kids, things don't always go as planned.  I felt bad calling last minute and canceling in lieu of having food delivered to the room, but Sunil didn't make us feel bad about it at all and was so quick to adjust to what was best for our family.  On another cruise, the little ones were super fussy at Chops, and we had only had our appetizers and were still awaiting our entrées and desserts.  We could have stuck it out and made it through the meal, but we asked if we could just have the rest delivered to our room.  They quickly accommodated this, and because we made this change, the little ones were able to rest which put them in better spirits.

Even if you *aren't* Star Class, don't be afraid to ask the staff for accommodations, especially when it comes to kids. My daughter was so jet lagged and tired from the initial travel go Seattle for our Alaska trip that she had a full blown meltdown in the MDR the first night. I took her out (of course we were seated in the very back corner) and tried to get her calmed down. Once it became apparent she wasn't gonna settle, our wait staff quickly offered to have our whole meal sent up to the room so we could eat and she could get in bed.

11 minutes ago, PG Cruiser said:

They do.  I've chatted with crew member who were fellow Filipinos.  They sort of shared this "insider" information about being tested regularly.

 

Yup. I asked our waiter on Ovation, she said everyone gets tested a day or two before the end of the cruise, and then I'd imagine there's a decent amount of random testing as well.

1 hour ago, mattymay said:

If not Wonder, then Oasis #6. 

I believe it can fit, but may get in the way of some of the ferries that use that side of the harbour to dock.

It can 100% fit a the new Brisbane terminal. I feel if ever it did happen it would go there.

At this point though a campaign for ANY ship will do! Let's see what this ban being lifted means for cruise ships, hopefully they mention something as the ship ban is tied to the international border ban, previously set to expire Dec-17.

I know the current plan is to have Ovation come down once the Alaska season is over, but they still haven't gotten confirmation yet that they'll be allowed.

13 minutes ago, emmef said:

Part of the reason for that not typically being shared here is that this is a Royal Caribbean FAN page.  It is not run by or supported by Royal Caribbean.  You are best off mentioning them in your Crew Survey.

If you just want to share with other Royal cruisers the people who were great at their job, this is a great place for that. Not sure that any crew will see it though, if that is your goal.

No, not trying to get the crew to see it, just like spreading the word about good crew members so people know who to look for on their trip.

28 minutes ago, FManke said:

All a part of working with the public. You've got to have some thick skin. I'm sure he's used to it.

No kidding. The only good thing about having to wear a mask at work is that customers can't read my face as well when they say/do something exceptionally stupid.