Adventure Ocean

[Amanda Seabock]

Just got off of a 7 day on Navigator. We have two kids, aged 10 and 6. Each was given one three-hour session at the kids club. Now, we were able to get more than just the guaranteed time. But not much and certainly not enough. This was… stressful. The kids love being there and frankly, we love the downtime. This wasn’t a vacation. This was taking care of my kids on a boat. RC was not staffed and I spent a ton of money doing what I pretty much do at home. 

[Flowrider]

We were on the same one with you, fantastic cruise!  There were minimal slots available for the adventure ocean.  Didn’t care though honestly.  We had a ton of fun with our kids! Lots of Flowrider time, rock wall, sports courts, card games, hot tubs, chatting with other people, and not to mention all the good shows and activities that were planned! We hardly had any down time!  Our kids are 7, 10, 13 and 15.  Older ones hung out with us too and didn’t even do teens club.

Navigator crew seemed very low staffed.  I think it’s because they have had much lower capacity levels on a day to day basis on the Navigator.  The Christmas cruise is an obvious bigger draw and higher capacities were a given.  Not feasible to expect RC to hire more crew for a week or two just to cover everything.

 

 

[smokeybandit]

AO is by far the first thing that needs cleaned up after the CSO expires.

[SpeedNoodles]

31 minutes ago, Flowrider said:

 Not feasible to expect RC to hire more crew for a week or two just to cover everything.

 

 

Nor can they, I'd imagine, since they have to quarantine on the ship before they can go into service.

[Patchy]

Sorry, I’m not familiar with the CSO’s impact on Adventure Ocean staffing and/ or capacity.    Can someone please educate me?  Thanks!   

[twangster]

2 hours ago, Patchy said:

Sorry, I’m not familiar with the CSO’s impact on Adventure Ocean staffing and/ or capacity.    Can someone please educate me?  Thanks!   

The CDC created technical instructions for cruise ship operations during the public health emergency we find ourselves stuck in.

Those instructions distinctly create operating parameters for fully vaccinated and more stringent parameters for unvaccinated.  

Since the vaccines are available only for a subset of children the result is that kids clubs are unvaccinated venues.  Even if some children are now fully vaccinated, there remains the potential for, and in the real world, the presence of unvaccinated children in the kids clubs.  

That means these areas have more restrictions placed on them per the CDC guidelines.  

As guest capacity has been allowed to increase the restrictions on kids clubs remains the same.  More kids vying for the same limited availability that existed when ship capacity was 25% means that they have to implement limits on time slots offered for kids.  

The "Perfect Storm" occurred over the holidays when there are historically many more kids compared to any other time of year.  Many more kids vying for the same number of limited time slots created a situation over the past few weeks where they could not accommodate every child in the kids clubs.  Every child was eligible for one time slot with additional time slots available on a daily basis as each ship could handle the number of children on that particular cruise on a space available basis.  

This should ease as we move into January since traditionally fewer children sail in January (more kids are in school) but we won't know that until cruises sail in the weeks to come. 

Spring Break could be another "Perfect Storm" time frame since more kids cruise during spring break.

[smokeybandit]

It will be disappointing if they're following strict capacity and distancing rules for kids in AO come spring break time.  Most kids are living normal day to day lives in schools and at home.  But in AO it's still March 2020

[BowTieBrigade]

That cruise was really disappointing and it was in large part due to lack of real communication from RC pre-cruise and what appeared to me to be lack of planning for the number of passengers.

I knew not to expect laser tag, but only because I had asked about it on RCB message boards, and only after I had hyped my kids up for it. I did not know the escape room would be closed. (I also ran into people in the elevator on day 5(!) who were still trying to figure out how to get into it.) Nor did I know AO would be limited to one guaranteed session. This made it extremely impractical to plan anything (trips off the boat, for example) because we did not have reliable child care. 

This is only my second cruise, so I wasn't sure what to expect re: ice skating. But I was shocked that RC's method was for people to line up and hope to get in, with no reservation system to come back later in the week.

The end-of-cruise kid covid testing was a nightmare. On Adventure in August, we were given a 15-minute time window to come for testing, which resulted in literally no wait time. Navigator gave all families instructions to come between 9 and noon, resulting in a half hour line and yielding security being called on a vocal objector to the wait.

There was an injury to one of the performers in the Showgirls show, resulting in the remainder of the performances being canceled. I am still confused that there was no understudy.

Though there were three family hot tubs, 1-2 were regularly closed. The last night, they were reportedly open until 11. I confirmed this with the pool staff early in the evening. When I brought my 6 year old up after dinner (something he had been looking forward to all day), we were told the hot tub was closed for cleaning and none of the closed hot tubs would be opened to compensate.

I don't know if the bar staff was exhausted by the end of the cruise or what, but on day 7, we went from Schooner to R Bar to the pub and could not get a waiter to take our drink orders. We wound up in Playmakers and, after a full quarter of the Pitt game, finally went up to the bar to ask if they had waiters or if we needed to order from the bar. There was apparently one waitress for the entire restaurant.

It was a real shame. I liked the ship and can only expect I would have loved it had it been fully operational. The staff was pleasant, as always. But we walked onto Navigator with an Alaska cruise booked for the summer and with plans to choose our next-winter cruise and we walked off with a call scheduled with our travel agent to discuss our options for canceling next summer. It seems to me RC wants to expand its passenger count without either staffing up to compensate or reducing the price in recognition of the reduced services, and that is not a business model to keep customers happy.

[Patchy]

Thanks, @twangster for the explanation.   I’m sorry to hear about others’ experiences as well.  @BowTieBrigade, do you suppose your challenges (and which ship was that on… Freedom?) were due to improper capacity planning, or because there were crew members who were sick / quarantining?   Also curious if you know what the capacity and/ or passenger count was on your sailing?  Thanks!

[BowTieBrigade]

9 minutes ago, Patchy said:

Thanks, @twangster for the explanation.   I’m sorry to hear about others’ experiences as well.  @BowTieBrigade, do you suppose your challenges (and which ship was that on… Freedom?) were due to improper capacity planning, or because there were crew members who were sick / quarantining?   Also curious if you know what the capacity and/ or passenger count was on your sailing?  Thanks!

I was also on Navigator; sorry I didn’t lead with that. I’m assuming it’s due to two factors: all of the prior sailings were only 3-4 days and this was the first 7-day it had been on, and we were running appx 75% with protocols that are based on flat numbers (e.g., 4 kids in the nursery, regardless of the number of babies on board). I have no information about staff infection rates other than Puerta Vallarta allowed us to dock and had previously denied other ships entry due to their infection numbers. 

[BeachGal]

34 minutes ago, BowTieBrigade said:

I was also on Navigator; sorry I didn’t lead with that. I’m assuming it’s due to two factors: all of the prior sailings were only 3-4 days and this was the first 7-day it had been on, and we were running appx 75% with protocols that are based on flat numbers (e.g., 4 kids in the nursery, regardless of the number of babies on board). I have no information about staff infection rates other than Puerta Vallarta allowed us to dock and had previously denied other ships entry due to their infection numbers. 

BowTie, sorry you had some struggles. There is nothing worse than a kid who is looking forward to something, only to not have it happen.  I was on the 7-day inaugural cruise at Thanksgiving.  It was their first revenue cruise (two done in early Nov. for TAs and big wigs).  Were there some glitches?  Sure, but most of us took into account that it was a new staff and a new set of itineraries.  I loved all the scavenger hunts and activities that the Cruise Director's crew put on for kids and families.  There always seemed to be daily activities for the kids.  Bartender-wise, I never had an issue with getting a drink, and they were always willing to make a drink my way(anyone want a 'Kat-tini'?).  Did I have a crummy excursion in Mazatlan?  Yup, but that just makes me want to come back and try it again.  I'm grateful to be cruising/traveling, and am willing to give the crews some leeway until they figure out the daily (or so it seems) changes that come at them from the CDC.

[Matt]

I was on the same cruise, and my kids were also locked out of AO on 2 nights. I think we got lucky in that we got our kids in the first 5 nights through a combination of dumb luck (calling up and there was space) and asking for additional reservations.

As a parent, I'm frustrated they scaled up ship capacity, but AO capacity is stuck at whatever percentage is what at back when ships were sailing with ~40% capacity.

We anticipated this problem, but that's because I follow the industry so closely. 

Royal has started warning parents, albeit after we departed https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/12/29/royal-caribbean-warns-omicron-cruise-ships