Al Miller

So for my Anthem cruise on 2/4/23 they seem to only be offering Surf and Stream tier. Really good BF discount by the way at $15/day. I wonder if this is just a CP snafu or are they perhaps phasing out the Surf tier as Starlink rolls out.

They can't leave well enough alone. Now day two at Labadee has been replaced with Porta Plata. Which is mostly no skin of my nose, but some folks at lunch were lamenting the loss\refund of yet more excursions they had already booked. I know there are probably extenuating circumstances we are not aware of, but jeez. I was initially impressed that they had a plan so quickly in place and everyone had so much time to plan. They've undone a bit of that here IMO.

That ping looks horrendous. Hope that gets worked out.

Selfishly, I am excited to go to Labadee on a cruise from NJ. It seems to be a rare happening since the restart. they say we will get equivalent of 1 day of cruise fare in refundable OBC. So not bad. I feel for those that are missing out on perfect day if that was thier main reason for booking.

1 hour ago, twangster said:

The choice to do the CBP thing on the ship or on shore is in the hands of CBP.  They don't tell a cruise in advance, the ships finds out when CBP tells them that morning.  

It was in the CC on Monday or Tuesday and the CD had an instructional video up Tuesday as well. I'm sure they do the surprise ones, but they knew about this one for several days. They just had a poor plan and the terminal was not prepared.

15 minutes ago, Adriana said:

The last call was actually at ten in the morning. Looong after that, they announced that there were still 624 passengers on board. If everyone did get off on time, it would have shaved a few hours. However, it still would have required a three to four hour get off/get on process. I do think they learned a lesson. Too bad we were the ones who had to take the lesson instead of management figuring it out (or maybe did and went for it), but God willing will not happen to others. @Aggravation and @Al Miller, I really feel for you. I was inside, I cannot imagine how you dealt with being outside and if you have migraines or dehydrated now. 

My two cents... They severely overestimated how many people would get off in Miami. Basically having 2 hours for the few who wanted to go into port and 30 minutes for what had to be at least 3000 passengers.

Also, and I have nothing to back this up, but I got the impression that they needed to get everything done by 10:30 because the terminal staff was then needed elsewhere. At one point when we were still on the ship at about 10:45 they anounced that they were waiting for word from the terminal when they would "restart" the immigration process. Like they stopped at 10:30 to go do something else. And then not until they realized what was going on at our terminal did they start getting staff back to our terminal. I wonder just how quickly the 5 missing passengers were actually accounted for and how long we simply had to wait for staff to get back to our terminal. I was nowhere near the front of the "last call" group and they were still scrambling to open up more facial recognition scanners when I came through.

38 minutes ago, Adriana said:

I wonder what the atmosphere is going to be like later. I came to the thermal suite to decompress…lady next to me is snoring up w storm! Right after getting back on, I went to the Windjammer. It was mobbed (and I was among the first getting back, like among the first hour). They made an announcement for people to vacate their table as soon as possible. I fully get it; so many coming in needing to sit, get it. Buuut, all I could think of was that all these folks have been waiting for up to five hours, we finally get to sit down and have something to drink and bite to eat and you say to hurry up and get out. The air in the room was not pleasant. Again, I get it, but could have been said nicer, even an added “please help make room for others.” People are not amused, I bet there will be plenty of drinks sold tonight! This will be an interesting evening. 

I figured as much. I just hit up Sorrento's. They got pepperoni in stock finally! They've been out all cruise. Maybe that's why they had to stop in Miami. That's where all the pepperoni is!

We were talking while waiting. Its like having a bad embarkation and bad debarkation Jammed into one day in the middle of your cruise. Royal just shouldn't do the itineraries this way. Is there some rule that they have can only have a certain number of sea days? Or do they have some quota with the ports that they need to fulfill for better rates? So they just tack on an ill-advised port stops like this for no real reason?

BTW, according to a terminal manager, the main hold up once we got in the terminal was they had 5 passengers unaccounted for and they had to shakedown the entire ship to find them. He was a good dude but they were totally unprepared for a ship the size of Anthem to do a quick turnaround disembark\re-embark.

And back on board at 2pm... What a disaster. In the written instructions and the video Mario the CD made they hammered home over and over "If you are not going into Miami, do not come down until 10am. Otherwise you will have to wait for up to 2 hours in the terminal.(we should have been so lucky) So me and about 3000 others did as we were told and got in line at 10am. And waited for an hour on the ship. Shocking that after 3 straight port days most folks just wanted to relax on the ship. No one saw that coming... But we did get off the ship eventually. And then the terminal seemed shocked that 4500 people needed to disembark, the majority of which need to have somewhere to wait. So they pulled out a couple thousand folding chairs and we sat for 90 minutes in the lower terminal. At least it was air conditioned and there were restrooms close. This is the best we would have it for the rest of the afternoon. Because then we moved to the actual line from hell, on the sidewalk in front of the terminal. Hot, humid, no place to sit. 90 minutes spent here as well. And by this point people who disembarked early were returning from excursions and were getting in line too. Whoever said that I "should not let this ruin my cruise" is right. And I've had a great time. But this pushes pretty darn close.

Then this needs to be made clear in the booking process. This is actually worse because it means Royal knew this would be the case and still made the brilliant call to book Miami last. Royal basically said "Screw your vacation, we are going to schedule a worthless port of call in order to ruin half of one of your days with us. You're welcome!"

Verbatim "In accordance with United States customs and border protection (cbp) law, all guests are asked to complete immigration upon arrival to Miami Florida. This inspection is mandatory for all guests, even if you are not planning to visit Miami." And this whole convoluted plan of going to stations around the ship and wait to be called. What utter nonsense. If this is how it is going forward then Miami needs to be dropped as a port of call. Only for embark and debark. I am still absolutely fuming over this!

So on Anthem out of NJ this week and since it's an 8 day they added a stop in Miami. And they are telling us that everyone on the ship has to get off in Miami and go through security. Even if you had no intention of getting off in Miami. At 7:30am! Is this normal? Cause it seems like BS to me. Why add the stop at all if this is the way the passengers are treated? This is punishment for booking an 8 day itinerary. If this is how it's always been, I super regret booking the Feb 4th 8 day now. Such crap. Like I didn't hate Miami enough already...

I have thought about this on Anthem since this is basically my "Home" ship. Assuming they can't upgrade the pods, they could easily get rid of La Patisserie and move some of the retail around to maybe free up that Regalia store next door on Deck 4. That would be a decent amount of space. I can't imagine La Patisserie makes all that much compared to a Playmakers. Another option might be to relocate the Bionic Bar and shore excursions on deck 5 and use that space.

The bolognese sauce in the WJ was shockingly good. Maybe because it sits for hours on the low heat. I think I got at least a little of it every time we went to the buffet. Sometimes not even on pasta. Just a little bit on the side.

Trying to reduce my sugar intake and the lemon cookies were pretty great for that. Those were my "go to" to take back and stash in the cabin for snacking.

A few initial nit pick negatives: Taller does not excite me. Seems you just take more ports out of the equation. No chance you are getting that class into Bayonne now.

Longest Ship yet and still only two spots for elevators? You have to spread that load out. Come on Royal!

No mention of single cabins? I would have hoped that Quantum ships would have shown them the viability of this option. They sell out nearly instantly. Opportunity missed again and just pushing some of us to try NCL sooner.

Good points: Glad they still have a music hall. Aqua dome looks sick. Windjammer looks big. Casino looks big. Lots of unmarked spots still, so i am hoping for some new dining concepts. Big plus IMO, unless I missed it, NO Johhny Rockets! Hooray.

They got the big splashy stuff out of the way as expected. But I want more details about the little things, which I am sure will come. I am pretty excited, but This ship might not be for someone like myself. It really hammers "Family" harder than any previous class for sure.

PS - Any idea on "To Dry For"? I'd love a passenger self serve laundry, but I have a feeling that's not it.

Danny's last name is not Harr. It's Genung. His grandfather started the agency and his last name was Harr. But he gets that a lot . And also, just as an aside, you need your sea pass card to get off the ship and back on. They scan it both ways. That way they know when everyone is back. Even at Coco Cay. So don't forget to bring it to the gangway or you'll be heading back to your cabin to get it. Also, the digital key functionality is technically still in beta and it's a bit flakey with a lot of phones. I would not rely on it. Hope you have a great cruise!

On 9/29/2022 at 12:19 PM, mike2608 said:

On my RC app I was able to make a couple of reservations on my time dining, both times @ 1830 hrs. Is this legit? On Symphony OTS in 2023

Our last cruise we had the same thing. Two random nights 6:30 was available. So even though we had 6:45 the other nights, we showed up at 6:30 every night and we were seated right away. YMMV.

3 hours ago, bobroo said:

Yesterday Bermuda ended it’s required mask policy in the cruise terminal.

You can call the $40 Bermuda travel Authorization fee a visa or you can call it extortion. I believe that Royal should just add this fee to to the port taxes and fees we are already paying. Then there would not be an issue of turning away passengers at embarkation.

This! It's just a port fee now.  It's like any other tax. No matter how temporary they tell you it is, they will find a way to make it permanent. Just be sure to tell that local trying to sell you something that you did have $40 to spend, but the local government decided they needed it more than you.

Most public libraries can help you out with this. Most will charge you per page but it's generally cheaper than a staples or kinkos.

Just a hunch, but I'm willing to bet that if you know far in advance and you go to the head waiter, they can hook you up with a one night different dining time. Even if it's "Off the Books." They live and die by that rating you give in the post cruise survey and this would seem like an easy way for them to make sure they get that. I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but I've seen them bend over backwards for MUCH more unreasonable requests than yours. I think they will be willing to help you out.

They don't store your card from sailing to sailing. Which personally I don't mind since with fraud and defective chips and stripes, I seem to get new cards, numbers and expiration dates all the time anyway. So it reminds me to make sure my info is current.

I wouldn't put much stock in this article. It is specifically written to antagonize a particular audience in order to get clicks. It has factual errors that show the author does not know the subject matter. Quantum of the seas was NEVER royals largest ship. By a large margin. That's an easy google search to confirm but the "Author" could not be bothered. And that's just in the first entry. If you look hard enough you can find someone, somewhere who will say that any ship in question is "the worst ship ever." Just line them up and knock them down. It's click-bait 101 followed to the letter.

Yeah, they've had nothing but Non Sales for nearly a year now. I think it's the price we pay for the fares being so low for so long after the restart. Now fares are creeping back up and the sales are basically in name only. The trend wont stop until demand levels out or dips. Until then we should probably just get used to it.

You wouldn't have the dreaded Norton anti-virus free trial or some sort of firewall trial software on the new laptop would you? Just something to look at.