KarateMan

I really doubt that pirates would target a cruise ship. Far too many people onboard for them to be able to control them.

We did go through pirate waters on our last cruise through the Suez Canal and I can assure anyone that there was lots of security on the ship, some specially trained and came onto the ship just before we went though the pirate waters with water guns and lots more equipment in huge boxes specially for pirate trouble.

They have attacked cruise ships before and have made several documented attempts to capture them.

All they have to do is start shooting passengers with their AK47's and they have complete control.

Unfortunately the powers operating in the area are not tough enough on pirates in my opinion. Capturing them and releasing them is not the way to go. Perhaps if they kept disappearing without a trace on the high seas then they will stop their barbaric and cruel acts of piracy. Just think of how the poor crew members feel and their families feel with people held hostage by these barbarians for months on end. Any money they get goes straight back into fighting their cause.

I still cant believe there are people out there that are brazen enough and daft enough to break the rules and not understand the consequences of their actions. It really makes the blood boil to see and hear acts of stupidity as it should make everyone's blood boil who upholds and obeys the rules.

The OP original post is above with the Facebook statement, below is the policy statement from RCI:

 

What not to pack

For the safety of our guests, the following items are not allowed on board our ships: irons, coffeemakers, candles, illegal drugs, flammable liquids, explosives (such as fireworks), weapons (including knives, regardless of length), powerboards/extension cords and electrical transformers.

 

My guess is they have made this mandatory because only they know what can be used on their power generators and what can be plugged into their power points. The Electrical theory to answer most of these posts would require an electrical engineer from RCI to answer, because only they know the technical detail.

 

As a member of a Community Fire Unit through training we do not use a 240v household power board on our generators they can get hot, melt and can catch on fire. Would I take an AU power board or extension cord on RCI or overseas ship using US EU power supply and use it, NO.

Thanks for the reply re 240V power boards which got laughs from other members when I made comment about them.

As for keeping items fully powered it has always come natural to me. I am able to go away for lengths of time without camera batteries going flat or even my mobile phone going flat. My shaver is just a $60 price range Remington sold at Big W that seems to have 100 min worth of charge in it.

As far as having the mobile phone on all the time. Hey I grew up in the 80's when we went out as kids there was no mobiles and you had to go to peoples house if you wanted an update or to see them or use a phone on the wall. Those were the days you could get through life without being constantly on call all the time and dependant on technology. Easiest thing to do on a cruise is switch off your mobile home. All your friends and family back home know your having a good time!

I am not disagreeing at all with any of the valid suggestions being made' date=' they are informative, however I do not like the abusive terms used to put forward that information......

 

[b']Originally Posted by KarateMan

Of all the ridiculous and stupid things that people do this one would stand out as bizarre, idiotic and completely ridiculous. The mind boggles just to think of why people do it, what goes through their mind and exactly what planet or parallel universe they are living in.[/b]

 

Were these extra sentences necessary? I don't believe they were. If you are passing on relevant and factual information, you don't have to brow-beat people as well. :(

I cant see what is wrong with using expressions and terms as such. I found it incredibly surprising that people would not have the common sense to realise that it is a major safety issue. All these sorts of terms are printed in media daily and used in news stories, tv news and current affairs as descriptive terms for situations.

What words would you use to describe people who use their mobile phone whilst driving, words to describe people who drive without a seatbelt, words to describe someone who would discard a smouldering cigarette driving through bushland.

All of the above situations are a defiance of common sense and logic and would call for a description to emphasis a point or sense of importance that the subject brings up.

To cut the long story short power boards on cruise ships is so mind boggling to me I fail to understand how others fail to see the safety implications associated with it.

How ever did we get on when mobile phones did not exist. It was in my lifetime.

In Australia where the power is 240V the power boards often match. Therefore the boards they take on a ship could easily overload if someone was daft enough to try and use it to overcapacity. If they are obnoxious enough to take a power board on heaven only knows what other devices they intent to smuggle on board.

This can't be a serious posting!!!!

Of course it is serious. It should be common sense.

There is only 120V of electricity in those cabins unlike the 240V we are used to here. You cant just plug any powerboard into their system. You don't know if its a dodgy board and if the + and - terminals are in the correct place.

There is only limited amount of power that goes to each cabin and unless you know what amount of power each device is going to drain from the system and multiply it by the number of passengers doing the same thing its best you keep quiet. Playing with electricity is dangerous. Cruise lines have every right to ban these devices. It is foolish and irresponsible to take them and a reckless indifference to the rules and other peoples safety.

Ok, here is a question for you.

 

A room has one power point; we are a family of 3.

 

I have 3 digital cameras (two of them go underwater) and a Video camera,

 

My dad has a digital camera ,

 

Me and my dad both have shavers, and cell phones, plus a notebook computer.

 

How do we charge these things up, while we are on a 10+night cruise???, we use a Power board and we have been using a Power board on all 14 cruises we have done.

It is extremely easy.

I have a battery shaver too and on a single charge it can last an entire week (7 days) and 2 shaves per day with 1 hour to charge.

Cell phones - again easy. Switch the keypad sounds off and operate in battery saving mode. Switch the phone off at night to conserve power. Use a usb device to charge it from your laptop or ipad.

cameras again very easy. Always have two battery packs per camera. Lithium batteries are the best and last the longest. Personally I can use a SLR camera and a single battery can last over several 1000 photos and movies and a single charged battery can last for 30 days. Perhaps you have invested in poor equipment. But with cameras simple turn off the warning sounds and beep. The operation of cameras can be done without warning sounds. This saves power. On cameras use the view finder and switch off the LCD. You can shoot better pictures without the LCD and all the shooting information is in the viewfinder.

In your case it is probably cheap equipment such as poor performing batteries and power hungry equipment on the wrong settings.

As for laptops, notebooks etc. Again 6 hours worth of operation on battery. Rotate charging times and switch off when not in use. I seriously doubt anyone who pays money to go on a holiday will spend the entire duration on the device when there at 101 things to see and do.

Just a quick question.

Does anyone know if Princess still has shore excursions to Torres Del Paine National Park from Punta Arenas, Chile? I am booked on Golden Princess next march and excursions are available but this one is not showing despite the Princess website stating it is an option. I am guessing it is too early for this excursion to be showing.

Cost is not a prohibitive option for me to doing excursions like this and I prefer to spend my money with Princess and have the security of having the ship wait for me if I choose their excursions.

Just about every company, organisation or business in the world comes up with gimmicks to make sales. No big deal really and nothing new. If the deal is right for you at the time take it, if not leave it. It cant be any simpler than that.

There was a time before the GFC where cruise lines like Celebrity, HAL, Cunard were all double the price of the lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean. I always remember P&O and Princess being slightly in between the two.

The worst thing anyone can do is take offence at a critical review of their favourite ship. Its just a ship and bad reviews happen. Those people should just dry their eyes and move on. Far better to be on your favourite ship and enjoying it than dwelling on the things other people have to say about it.

Things could be worst. I have done tours around Europe where the bus had early starts and the hot water was only turned on after we departed, I have had hotel rooms without pillows and even rooms without water at all. This is all modern day Europe if you take a budget tour around it. Even the food is random between places.

With cruising the trick is not to set your expectations too high an get to know what market you are going for.

Forget all these over rated TV shows like celebrity chef, my kitchen rules, forget about Gordon Ramsay and all the hob nob chefs you see on TV. You are NOT going to get that on a cruise ship. I think social media and the reality TV era has greatly increased peoples expectations of certain things.

Reviews help but they should not be treated as gospel.

Would I travel on Carnival Spirit after seeing the reviews? possibly not. The only drawback I would have is hoards of children running around. That's not my idea of a holiday.

I cant see why other people should get upset or offended by another persons review. Its not the end of the world. On every cruise there are bound to be extremely happy passengers and extremely unhappy passengers. Normally people who cruise a lot have a benchmark of what to expect so at least there is some credibility of comparisons to other ships with this review.

I personally would not expect much from Carnival. A quick investigation into the line from various sources about cruising quickly reveal it is more your mass market everyday cruise line. It does not promise to be anything luxurious or high class.

Looking at this persons previous cruising experience and noting Costa of all lines certainly leaves questions to be answered. Costa certainly does not come across as professional and reeks of incompetence and sloppy unprofessional style. Pretty much all reviews I have seen on Costa rank it as below 3 star level and none of their ships are on par with the rest of the mass market industry. For a cruise line to sink a ship says a lot about its level of professionalism and management. Even more intriguing is that this person has also sailed on HAL which by all standards is ranked somewhat higher than the likes of Carnival.

I see a problem where wear people are expecting all cruise ships and lines to be the same. Clearly they are not and there are distinctions between them. You could not compare a Ibis hotel to an upmarket Sheraton and I am at a loss as to why people seem to think cruise ship classifications should all be the same.

You will need to let us know how long you want to stay in Australia for and if money is any obstacle to your travels. To get the best advice from everyone it will be helpful to know how long you want to stay. It could be expensive getting to some places or it could be done at a budget. There are plenty of wildlife parks around areas of Australia that are well worth a visit if you want to see the native animals. The zoos will probably only show you what you can see anywhere else in the world so you are probably best focusing on native parks in this country.

One option would be to tell us the places you are staying at and people here will know straight away if there is a local business or tour company in the area that specialises in day adventures for what you are after.

500 more --------- that's a LOT of people! I have been reading the reviews of the Reflection and the knock on that the extra passengers had on there.

I have to admit, we were thinking of going on the Azura next year, but when we checked it out we saw that the ship carried more passengers than its sister ship from Princess and had more passengers than the Silhouette by far and not a lot more space. A shame - we really DO want to do an August cruise on P&O as we loved it the last time. :)

Wait till you try any of the original Princess Grand class ships and then compare. I have to admit I love the design and facilities and size of them but adding 500 more passengers turns the ships into no-go ships for me and they are on my "do not cruise on" list. I have been on Sapphire Princess (exactly the same as Azura/Ventura) and Sapphire only carries 2,600 passengers. Until you have been on the large ships with less passengers you have no idea what you are missing out on and how much more relaxing it is. Mere words on a forum simply cannot describe how great it is.

Too many bean counters have ruined these ships and I will happily sail with the competition to avoid these new oversized monsters.

As I see it the decision for me comes more down to ships size. The larger ship with less passengers will always win out over the larger ships with more passengers. I have tried the Azura and will not be returning to it. While I like the ship and the design and facilities it is just far too crowded. All of those ships in its class are now off my list of acceptable ships to cruise on.

When the new P&O one comes out I will be tempted to try it to make up my mind. I may even try the Princess versions first. If I like them great and if I don't like them then I will not be back on them simple as that.

Having a good cruise is easy to do and if that means avoiding certain ships then that is exactly what I will do to enjoy my holidays.

Think of it this way. Some people like to go away into crowded cities and shopping malls with masses of people, others like to go away to a relaxing retreat in the middle of nowhere where there is not a care in the world to worry about. I am in the second category.

I have to agree with the original post. I have been on both Azura and Celebrity Solstice and Celebrity wins hands down. There is literally no comparison.

P&O still know how to run a great cruise line. There are many things they can do better than Celebrity. If you want the best of P&O then you need to go for the smaller ships like Aurora, Oriana, Arcadia and possibly even Adonia and Oceana.

I am in the top loyalty club with P&O and finally tried Celebrity this year and was just blown away as to how good it was. It was modern, trendy, innovative and was so personalised and outstanding that I would go back in an instant. Right now P&O are playing catch up. If P&O wants to compete with the likes of Celebrity then they can do without ships like Azura and Ventura. To all the passengers who lost their cruising virginity on these ships they are bound to like them and are likely to defend them. However the more experienced cruisers who have known P&O in past years they will all agree with this. P&O still have a great cruise line but with ships that do not measure up to the competition then P&O will soon find they will lose passengers to the competition.

The new ship may be ok but it is still large. I think I will have to wait and see to judge it. At this stage the only P&O ships I will sail on are Aurora, Arcadia, Oriana, Adonia and Oceana. If there was a choice between the Vantura/Azura and a Celebrity ship I would always go Celebrity.

Are there many tours that "sit down for hours for lunch"? All the cruise ones I've seen, as well as private ones, have been pretty tight with lunch schedules so as to see everything necessary, (and not waste the guide's time ;-) ).

Probably not in New Zealand but I have been on a lengthy meal in Hong Kong before a laser light show where the guide had to almost physically drag passengers out as we were running late on the schedule. It is random but many excursions do have meal breaks if they are long.

Hi, I have not been on a lot of cruises but it seems from the "roll call" forum I was looking at for the NZ cruise we are going on in December a lot are banding together to organise their own cruise.

 

I quite enjoyed the RCI tours on my cruising on the Liberty in Europe even though a little pricey.

 

What have others experiences been doing self organised tours rather than the ship tours?

Maybe they have been there done that and still wish to explore and are looking for other options apart from the usual popular places.

You can go back to a port many times and always find something new to do. Another reason is the congestion of coach tours and the time delays waiting for passsengers. Some people do not want to sit down for hours at lunch stops when they can eat on the run. There are many reasons people look to do their own things.