JLMoran

Now that's interesting, as one of Jimzim's complaints was that on Seaside, the dining room (and I assume buffet) was not particularly helpful with his wife, who required a gluten-free menu. Different ship, I know, and Meraviglia has been in service a few months longer than Seaside, but one would think that if they had managed to nail that down on the second-newest ship that they'd have figured out how to apply it to the newest one earlier on.

I saw some 9- and 11-night Southern Caribbean itineraries out of Florida, mainly on Serenade plus a couple on Adventure and Navigator, in early 2019 (Jan to May), but nothing in late 2019.

Just watched his video that mainly covered the cabin. He was so positive about the overall cabin experience I was honestly surprised when he ended the video by saying it was the worst cruise he'd been on out of all 43! I'm in the process of reading the full written review now, but it's definitely not looking good just from what I've seen so far in his bullet lists of the pros and cons. Will finish reading it tomorrow, but it does seem that at least from his definitely American point of view, MSC hasn't cracked the American market yet and is still pretty solidly European in nature and flavor. I could still be OK with something like as long as I know it's what I'm getting into, but it definitely has to be known and clearly understood up front. @DocLC, will you be posting a full-length review, either here or on your web site? Since you were in Europe and that's supposed to be MSC's dominant region, I definitely would like to hear the details about what they did better and where they fell short, even after making the mental allowances for it being a cruise that caters to its mainly European audience and not so much an American one.

Just had this show up in my YouTube notifications. Watch it and tell me this doesn’t smack a little of... desperation? Trying too hard to impress? I mean, have any of you heard of any of the people name-dropped in this video? And what the bloody hell is an “influencer”? Seriously, does anyone here think this was an ideal way to show off the new ship to prospective new passengers? I came out of it feeling like it was some desperate effort to say, “Hey! We’re hip! We’re cool! Look at all these possibly influential people we found in a web search who we were able to convince to take a promotional sailing with us!”

If the one Set Sail Pass has both your names, then you should be good. I had asked a similar question a couple of weeks ago and confirmed that's how it is on some ships, while other ships will give each passenger their own Set Sail Pass. Main thing with having one pass with everyone's names on it, is that you can't board until your whole party is together. You'll also need a valid form of government ID in addition to the Set Sail Pass -- a passport is highly recommended (either the card or a full book; latter will let you fly out of the port if you have the misfortune to miss your ship or have an emergency requiring you to get home ASAP), but in the US you can also get by with a driver's license and official copy of your birth certificate. The exact document you will use is something you should have indicated while completing your online documentation forms in order to print the Set Sail Pass. Don't bring something different than what you said you'd be using. As for emergency contact, have you purchased a wifi package? If you have, and you own a current smartphone, you should be able to set up wifi calling on your phone. That will allow you to make and receive phone calls over the ship's wifi, even when the phone is in airplane mode with wifi enabled.

Interesting. If they offer this itinerary at a time that better lines up with school schedules or over the summer then that could be an option, as long as it's to ports we won't have visited yet; my wife and I both agree that repeated trips to the Caribbean should visit at least a couple of new ports each time until we've been to all at least once. Repeat visits aren't forbidden, but we want to see all that's out there and be able to figure out where we'd like to visit again for different excursions that show us something different than the last time. I'm kind of like @Sabrinaklai, @Sweety, and @Boston Babe in being tied to school schedules for a few more years, at least for trips for the whole family. In another couple of years, when our older daughter is in her 20s and our younger one in her late teens, we can start looking at more "just the two of us" trips that leave from ports other than Cape Liberty. By then we'll have the security cams installed all over the house to make sure there's no crazy partying going on. ?

One thing to keep in mind, whether you use Uber or Lyft -- If you have the typical suitcase and carry on for each person, you will need to use the "XL" option that provides a mini-van, van, or SUV. The regular service is specifically described as not being a large enough car to store any significant amount of luggage. There's a premium for "XL", but nothing unreasonable; about $20 extra with Lyft when I priced a ride from FLL to our hotel a few miles away.

@twangster, it's not just the fact that Oasis ships are basically floating resorts that's a negative for me. It's all the other effects that decision on ship design has introduced: Very limited ports of call on any Oasis itinerary, because so few ports can handle a ship that massive Moderate to significant cost premium vs smaller ship classes (partly because they're the new shiny, I think mostly because of everything on offer that's included in the fare) Impossible to get a trip more than 7 days without doing a B2B, and all of those itineraries are 3 port days, 4 sea days Since I have to fly to FL for any cruise that departs there, that impacts my vacation budget. The cost premium, short itineraries, and limited ports make doing a cruise on an Oasis class ship much less appealing to me for those factors more than anything else; seeing the design of these ships and how they're clearly meant to make the ship the destination was basically the straw that broke the camel's back for me. A big part of this is my mobility limits. I only have so many years left before spending hours walking around places, taking in the sights, and soaking in the culture are going to be history for me. So I feel a real compulsion to get the most out of every vacation I take and make it something more than just sitting on a beach or visiting the local honky tonk. Eventually I'll be past that point, and then maybe a ship like Oasis class will work better for me. But until then, it's smaller ships and at some point river cruises for me. To paraphrase Hamilton: "Why do you travel like you're running out of time? Seeing all these places like you're running out of time?"

Driving this morning was totally fine. A little uncomfortable getting in and out, but no real pain. I do think I overdid it a bit yesterday. Knee seems a little less stable / more prone to twinges and slight popping when I take normal-length steps this morning; I'm going to be taking it slower today, not do the stairs nearly as much, and definitely not cooking dinner (although last night's Rarebit with a really good Belgian-style Quadrupel was quite tasty ?). I do have to work today and the rest of the week, but at least I'm able to do that from home and I can use the recliner with my laptop as needed.

A massive venue like this, with an unquestionable theme of "come park your butt in front of some TVs and spend hours watching them while drinking beers and eating pub food, and maybe dump some money into video games while you're at it" is definitely shaping up Symphony to be the most "the ship is the destination" kind of ship that RC has made yet. For a certain kind of person (definitely not me), they won't have any reason to ever get off the ship until disembarkation day. "OK, honey, the kids and I are heading off to enjoy the local Mayan ruins, do some snorkeling, and hang on the beach for a while. You have fun staying on the ship and watching your foosball or whatever it's called." ? The more I learn about Oasis class and its progression, the less inclined I feel to actually sail one of these behemoths. If I want to stay in a resort, I'll go to an actual resort, no floating required.

Oh, and also able to sit at my computer desk for lengthy stretches without major discomfort. Actually got my taxes going yesterday, though I'm still waiting for a couple of papers to show up before I can finish.

Doing pretty well. Over the last two days I've progressed to taking the stairs the "normal" way, both up and down; still pretty slow going down, but the knee has no problem holding my full weight now while bending. Still being careful not to overdo it, and tomorrow will be the big test -- driving! The knee itself still looks fine, apart from some yellow bruising that wasn't there a couple of days ago and only showed up yesterday. I guess the area needed some time for the inflammation to down before the bruises could show. Going to see about sleeping in my own bed tonight instead of our recliner, maybe even without pain meds since that driving effort will be in the morning, to get the kids to school. Second surgery is one week from tomorrow, so I'm definitely glad at the rapid pace I'm healing up from this surgery.

True at Disney and maybe Universal (been too long since I've been there, but I want to say they did charge for their Fast Pass equivalent). Not true at places like Six Flags; there, you pay for a Flash Pass if you want priority access to the rides. So there is precedent, albeit with places that aren't exactly known for being top-of-the-line.

? One of these things is not like the other... ?

If Alexander Schmidt is still on Freedom, he just got a rave review on a Ship Mate review posted a couple of days ago.

For the tickers, I’ve found they don’t correctly update the countdown clock that’s part of the image. Not sure if this is an issue with how the software for these boards works (it might immediately download the image and save it on the server to reduce bandwidth usage), or a bug in the cruise-ships.com software that generates the image. I basically gave up on the countdown images, especially since they take up a good bit of space. Now I just add extra text lines to my signature in small font size, listing upcoming and completed.

Yeah, before you know it they’re gonna start charging me to play at the casino! Oh, wait... ?

Making progress. Did the stairs today, just once and really slowly since the “good” leg is the one with a fused heel, ankle, and shin. But managed it OK and so far no pain meds except for bedtime. No bike yet, the knee isn’t quite ready to have nearly full weight bearing down on it yet. Standing up still hurts / pops slightly if I bear down with that leg too hard or too fast. But seeing as I’m 3 days post op, it’s good progress!

Not to hijack the thread, but The Tick has had a long history. Originally a comic book satirizing superheroes. Then an animated TV series in the late 90s / early 00s. Then a very short-lived live action TV series with Patrick Warburton as the lead. And today a reboot of the live action show that’s only on Amazon.

Welcome to the RC Blog, @SeasTheDayNJ! Fellow New Jerseyan here, also inside an hour’s drive to Cape Liberty. Hope you and your husband enjoy Anthem! Don’t forget it has the solarium indoor pool area that works just great on chilly sea days, so you can still get that “we’re on vacation!!” vibe going almost as soon as you’ve boarded. ?

I feel sad for you that you don’t get the reference to The Tick. Your life is missing so much joy and mirth! And you have no excuse for not seeing it back in the day! From the Wikipedia page: “The Tick was also shown on Teletoon in Canada as part of its Toonaholics Anonymous block in 2001.” I sentence you to a YouTube search for all things “The Tick animated”. ?

To paraphrase The Tick (animated one, not current Amazon show): ”Foreign Exchange spreadsheet... boring... losing... CONSCIOUSNESS” ::thud:: I work in the financial industry and I’ve even had to write a UI for an FX Exhange system, but the actual mechanics of FX and how to optimize currency conversions? Well, let’s just just say it’s a good thing I wrote the system’s user interface and not the underlying services and back-end interfaces to actually do the legwork. ?

Even when the specs on paper look better, there will be key differences. The $300 phones won’t have optical image stabilization, or they have it for photos but not video. Or that image sensor that matches the current iPhone’s 12 MP size lacks the IR filter or deep channel filtering, or doesn’t support the DCI P3 color space the newest phones support. Or the OLED screen doesn’t have the same level of off-axis color preservation, or has more rapid burn-in. Absolutely none of those features are must-haves for a lot of people, of course; but those are the details underlying the big names that explain the steep price differences. They’re also why people like @twangster and I continue to pony up that $1,000 every couple of years. For us, the improvements in the cameras or screens or whatever, especially in combination, are too compelling to ignore because they’re a key feature set that we use all the time and that we’re willing to pay for to reap those improvements.

This sort of strikes me as being in the same vein as Carnival’s “Fun Ship 2.0” effort. Those are some serious upgrades for a Voyager class ship, even more than what Adventure got. Some of it (the bungee launcher and laser tag) is stuff I couldn’t consider as a guy with mobility limits. But things like the Players Sports Bar that will match what’s coming to Symphony of the Seas is a great idea; match what’s on the biggest and newest in a scaled-down manner, and draw the folks in from the 3-4 nighter to a full week with similar or same experience.

Current year phones from any of the big vendors that are considered remotely high end (Galaxy S8, iPhone 8) are several hundred dollars at minimum, and often push the $1,000 mark. Top-tier models like the iPhone X or Galaxy Note 8 actually cross the $1,000 mark. Considering all the often bleeding-edge tech in those devices – ultra HD OLED screens, 4K cameras with dual lens setups, large capacity / high speed SSD storage, biometric sensors for user authentication – the price shouldn’t be that surprising. The market has shown it’s more than willing to pay those prices, so the manufacturers continue to charge them. That said, carriers like TracFone sell older model smartphones from a couple of years ago that aren’t too-tier by today’s definition, but are certainly more than good enough for a lot of people. My wife has them as her carrier and she typically spends only $100-$150 every year or two for a new smartphone.