YoungFamilyExplorers

Answering my own question here but yes there are plenty of monkeys at Shipwreck bar. They come out around noon though so if you’re there before that you’ll likely see a lot of mongooses.

Anyone have issues with this cruise? It suddenly got dropped from my list of future cruises!!!

Anyone have any great recommendations for excursions here? We did the train the last time and it was fun but we’d like to see more of the island and or some great beaches if possible. thanks!

Has anyone been here recently? I'm curious as to whether the monkeys are still around? Thanks!

oooh...one more please???

Interesting. We’re pretty new to Royal and the previous few ships have all had true mini fridges. It was a much better experience because food safety was never an issue. Sometimes you just want to bring back something from those speciality restaurants….

We just got off Navigator and our room no longer had a mini fridge. It had a “cooler” which definitely didn’t really cool anything down. It certainly wouldn’t be safe to store any leftovers. Is this a new change? It’s the first time we’ve seen these….

Well the cruise is now over. After making a very late port at Ensenada on Day 2 of the cruise, we headed northward and spent our day at sea in the Santa Barbara Channel. This was much farther north than we initially expected to be heading, but Captain James announced that it was outside of the area affected by the storm. We spent the day circling the waters in the channel and the water was very calm. At night we headed back to the Port of Los Angeles and definitely sailed through a part of the storm causing it to be pretty rocky. We got back to port safely though. thanks for all who responded!

This has been a very interesting cruise so far. There have been three “alpha” calls since 4am. One resulted in a medical evacuation via USCG helicopter. We were literally offshore from Ensenada just circling in the water when they decided to evacuate this individual. We veered north back to the border and a USCG helicopter was able to land and bring aboard the individual to take them to a hospital in San Diego. Now we’re back on track heading south again toward Ensenada to make our port time at 7pm. I’m assuming that this is more of a formality since we’re required to make an international stop and are trying to get out of Mexico ahead of the storm.

For those who are interested the word is that they are planning on changing the order of our sailing. day 2 will be in Ensenada for a very long port day instead of our day at sea day 3 will be at sea instead of a port day at Ensenada. I suspect we will be going far west to avoid the storm thanks to all who replied!

As of now we haven’t heard anything and are preparing to board in about an hour and a half. I’ll keep y’all updated on this unexpected change!

Thanks for the reply. Does Royal prorate a cruise that is shorter than was scheduled?

Sorry for the repeated posts. I posted something similar in the roll call section.... We're about to leave for our sailing on Navigator for a 3 night to Ensenada tomorrow. It now looks like Hurricane Hilary is going to be directly in our pathway. We're still a bit new to sailing and have never had this experience before. Any ideas how Royal will handle this situation? I'm thinking that at the very least that Ensenada will likely not happen. Or will they cancel it altogether? I know that I'm asking people to predict the future, but I didn't know if anyone has gone though a similar incident before....

On this sailing and realizing that we are about to sail into a potential hurricane…. Any word on how RCI will handle this?

Considering this tour for our short excursion on Navigator. A couple of questions 1) For those who have done it.....is it worth it? 2) What do they forbid you from photo/video'ing during the tour? thanks!

Thanks all for the input. This last weekend where 10 people were killed and 9 more shot and injured at the races in Ensenada seemed to be more random than targeted. The videos that are floating around of this is clearly shocking and shows the gunmen firing wildly into the crowds. It's really too bad that the government lacks control over the violence there.

Has anyone ever had a port at Ensenada cancelled for safety reasons? If so, where were you rerouted? We're scheduled to go on a weekend cruise in August and theres a port day in Ensenada. With the recent mass shooting from cartels, I wonder if there will less appetite for this port. We've been here before and it was never our favorite port to begin with, but with the rampant violence we're thinking that staying aboard might be what we opt to do. Seeing as its the only port for this short weekend cruise it would be a bit disappointing.

Hi All, I wanted to poll the collective wisdom of the group. We have a 7 night southbound Alaska cruise coming up and wanted to find out from those who are experienced with these ports about recommendations for excursions or "must dos". Also interested in the "never do agains"! Any recommendations for activities that are not Official RC excursions? We have two elementary school aged kids so that may factor into recommendations as well. Again the ports are 1) Seward 2) Juneau 3) Skagway 4) Haines 5) Icy Strait Point 6) Ketchikan 7) Vancouver Thanks in advance!!

Why are you assuming that it is norovirus?

For your viewing pleasure….

I'd definitely not bashing the utility for a survey or an outlet to make improvements. My complaint is about the harassment that the staff feels that they need to make towards guests and telling them that they need "all 10s". Its awkward and very unpalatable. If RCI is concerned that some people may think that a 1 means the best, rather than the worst in the rating (which I could see), then give passive instructions about the survey and its importance to the company. I'd be fine with a single one sheet included in my departure instructions on the day before disembarkation day. But the current strategy of active harassment by employees is doing the exact opposite of its intended effect for me. I would much rather have the staff focus on the quality of the job that they do rather than making their primary job seeking 10s.

We heard it in: - MDR (from head waiter, not our waiter or assistant) - Multiple staff at Windjammers (including the balloon guy) - Giovanni’s (from manager and waiter, who then proceeded to give us a 5 min speech about why he wasn’t responsible for poor service….in fact there were two speeches by him) -MDR person who was on the loud speaker - Cruise director

The fact that there were many different people who performed many different duties on the ship who all used the same verbiage with us “please give us all 10s” tell me that this isn’t an organic ask from each of them but rather coaching from management. Regardless of what was told before to the crew about emphasizing the importance of the survey, it’s now apparent that the directive from management had now changed to tell cruisers specifically what they should write in. Again, very distasteful from the management to push this directive.

Weird. Very inconsistent experiences. We were lectured on a daily basis about the “give us all 10s”. We also had a server who disappointed us at Giovanni’s try to reason out to us why his disappointment should not be reflected by a score lower than 10 on the survey…twice during the meal. It was a lecture by him that he felt the need to interrupt our meal to give us!!