F1guynz

14 minutes ago, zillono said:

I'm wondering if anyone going to the Escape Room alone.

Hi, you book a date/time for the escape room and you will be paired with others who booked for the same time.

Normally the escape room runs with 12 people. We booked for 2 on Independence and were paired up with other families who we did not know.

The families lawyer has done a good job with the media as they keep referring to a "Wall of windows" and "childrens play area"

The accident location is near an area for children but is not actually a childrens play area, 

9 hours ago, twangster said:

The updates may have implemented changes to detect and thwart the use of travel routers on board

I found this on Indy recently. It didn’t matter too much as we just logged off/on as required.

i am not sure why they go the trouble of blocking it as you would think the percentage of guests using a travel router would be minute

The ships we have been on have always arrived on time but there is always the risk of inclement weather or ship issues delaying arrival. Our friend is on Ovation at the moment and the ship was late arriving by 90 minutes due to bad weather.

That said, we always book to fly home on a 11:10 am flight from Australia and have had no issues making it to the airport by 9 am and insurance covers us if we miss it.

Assuming the ship arrives on time you should be able to start disembarking as soon as 7 am.

I guess a lot of it comes down to how risk adverse you are, if your appointment is unmissable maybe schedule for the following day.

43 minutes ago, Shanenz84 said:

The other interesting thought is will it have a dock/pier built

I think they will built a pier as it would just make it that much easier. Apparently there is an Oasis 6 due in 2022 so maybe we will be lucky enough to get that.

I was recently on Independence of the Seas and now Freedom class is my favourite kind of ship. There is some talk to Quantum coming down our way once Asia get Wonder of the Seas. I am not a big fan of Quantum class so I hope we can get a Freedom class as well.

Looking forward to their announcements for the 2022 season in 2021. 

I am interested to see how the organise ship visits to the Island. With the money being invested you would expect they would want a ship there every one or two days which would mean you would need a much larger presence in the Australian market all year round.

In the past we have added the tip to the sea pass card, but now because we buy a dining package the gratuity is included we don't add extra.

2 hours ago, mattymay said:

I think its almost definite now that we will get Quantum

I hope not. Having both Ovation and Quantum would be too much. We were on Independence a couple of weeks ago and I much prefer this class of ship to Quantum class.

If Quantum comes to this part of the world hopefully Ovation will go somewhere else.

We made reservations for Sky Pad on Independence but we didn’t need to as there were no queues. You could just walk up and use it. It might be different if traveling during school holidays but I used it a few times on our cruise. The people running it were just sitting around waiting for people to turn up.

Laser tag is on for a couple of hours or more most days. It seems to operate in teams of 8 and you just wait for the previous game to end. There were no queues here either.

We did north bound a few years ago and enjoyed it. We spent a couple of weeks in Alaska after the cruise and headed up to Coldfoot for a bus tour as well as Denali National Park. The advantage I see going south bound is you would end up in Vancouver. We really loved Vancouver and would love to spend some more time there. 

Hi,

Our cruise finishes tomorrow and we have had a great time. I think overcrowding is more related to the time you cruise. If you are on board when school holidays are on then the wait times can be longer.

We have had no issues with overcrowding on this cruise, I was just able to walk up to the prefect storm and use it when I wanted. Same with the Sky pad. The gym was never busy so had plenty of treadmills to pick from. The pool deck did get busy on warm days but we don’t use them so it was not as issue for us. Not sure when they got busy.

we never had any problems finding a seat at Windjammers when we ate there.

If you want good seats for the ice show or Grease then go a bit earlier or if you are in a Suite the seats for both these venues are excellent. (If you don’t have a Suite and not all the seats in this area are not taken linger around the area about 10 minutes before the show starts and they will open the remaining seats to everyone. You should be able to nab one then)

I am sure you will have a great time on your first cruise and will immediately want to book another one, that’s what happened to us.

4 hours ago, markm said:

Are there lockers in the changing rooms, if so do you need to provide you own lock

There are a.limited number of lockers available, the steam rooms on Indy are on deck 11 but you ave to go to the Spa main reception on deck 12 and ask for padlock and key. They will swap the padlock for your sea pass card which you will get back when you return the padlock and key.

We are on Independence at the moment. On our credit card I see the pre authorisations applied. We have paid our on board bill with casino winnings so these charges will eventually just drop off our credit card.

As gratuities are built into the fare when booking from Australia / NZ we don’t have a daily gratuity charge, only charges for on board purchases.

We are currently on Independence and I can confirm they are definitely separate.

There are six showers in the men’s changing room / sauna / steam room. All but one are cold water only.

I suggest taking a large orange cone and placing it on it the table.

These are used to ward off people for just about anything nowadays.

We are on Independence at the moment and there are two ATMs on board, one dispenses USD and the other dispenses Euros in €50 denominations which you then take to guest services to break into smaller notes. Maybe Allure will be the same when it is here for its European season.

We have also used ATMs on shore to withdraw money from our travel currency account.

From memory when we sailed on Ovation as there is no MDR two of the dining rooms are reserved for MTD and two are reserved for traditional. If you book MTD you will not be able to use the traditional or vice versa. There are also other included restaurants around the ship you can eat at.

not sure about the balconies but our suite had a fridge.

book the iFly and Pixels in advance if you can as then you will be secure in the knowledge you have a booking.

The  bumper cars get busy and the queues can get quite long. From experience everyone goes at the beginning of the session but by about half way through a lot of people have a go and leave. I would observe the first session to see if this happens for you.

On embarkation day they were running the bumper cars and there was no queue. I would suggest checking this out if you get on early. When in Sydney we normally get on board about 10:45 - 11am.

if you want to go for a swim before everyone has boarded and the pools get busy pack your swimwear in your hand luggage.

We have taken 12 cans of coke on board without issue as RCI allow it. You will have no trouble with this.

Have a great cruise when it is time, Ovation is a fun ship.

We are currently on Independence and I would say the mattress is firm but comfortable. I do find the pillows rather large for my liking? I take sleeping pills while we are away as I am a light sleeper and noises and changes in environment tend to keep me awake otherwise.

If the cabin is not a solo cabin could PhantomWolf just add is Mum as a second passenger and become a no show for the actual cruise?

We have cruised out of “Rome” (cruise lines call it Rome but is about an hour away) and had no issues with communication. We travelled down from the Cinque Terre by train to catch the ship. Italian trains are disorganised but they will get you there. We had an allocated carriage for our trip but the carriage was not attached to the train when it arrived. They just put us on another carriage where we had to stand most of the way.

I don't think I would be in favour of this. While on the surface it sounds like a good idea it would ultimately devalue the loyalty program as there would be many more people at higher levels in the scheme. The cruise line would then need to make it harder to obtain different levels as it would be to easy go get points.

You saw the same thing with airline loyalty schemes where they made it easier to earn points from credit cards and other sources. As a consequence they had to increase the number of points you needed to get a free flight.

Hi, I believe It is only available on certain ships and only for cruises 7 nights or longer.

57 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

you only live once

If it turns out you can live more than once can you transfer your crown and Anchor points to your next life also?

I wonder if it will have an iFly or fuselage zip lining. 

  I have yet to get any of the emails as much as I have tried! 

About a year ago i randomly got a Crown and Anchor newsletter but I have never received another since. 

Once I have booked a cruise I normally get the cruise planner emails but that is about it.

even their Facebook updates that I get are infrequent, I certainly don’t see all their posts.

Luckily this site keeps us abreast of most major events / sales that are happening.