RobInMN

1 hour ago, shipgeeks said:

I saw a reference today to a cruise in which the teens knew it was time to get back to the ship, but the parents didn't seem to care, so the teens went back without them.  Parents did not make it.  Anyone have more about this?

1 hour ago, time4u2go said:

What ship? What cruise line?

1 hour ago, njkruzer said:

Saw the same thing in several places.

It was a Reddit AITA post. No other info. AFAIK, the OP was a new account and hasn't posted any follow up.

I'm a fan of AmaWaterways. I have not done any of the other 3. We've also done far more ocean cruises than river cruises.

There have actually been a fair number of threads in the last few months where people are asking about what is the "best" or compare x & y. I would start there. Look for these types of threads.

That said, I've don't think I've really see anyone post anything negative about Ama or Scenic. And maybe not Avalon? Ama, Scenic and Viking seem like they are talked about the most. Viking has very mixed reviews. Some love them, others hate them (especially their payment policy).

Most people seem to find one they like and stick to it, which is why we've never done the other 3. I get the impression that most companies are more similar than they are different.

We like the cabins on Ama (especially AmaMagna). Love that they have multiple (up to 5?) excursion options per port. that tours are typically broken up into small groups (like <20?) even when doing the same thing. Really like that walking tours are broken up by active, normal, and gentle. All excursions are included (with rare exceptions). If you are into biking, they have bikes on board and will have some bike tours as excursions. Excursions are led by local expert guides. We are not big drinkers, but beer & wine is included for lunch & dinner, plus a cocktail hour. Food is very good, if not a bit fancier than our pedestrian tastes.

This is not to say that other companies don't have these also.

While I don't know if having drink packages involved would make any difference, swapping rooms is a non-issue. Usually it sounds like it involves needing to split parents in 2 different rooms with kids, and things like that. I've never done this personally, but reading this board, it sounds like GS couldn't really care less where people sleep. You could either have them switch your rooms where you only have access to 1 room, or they can give you additional cards for the other room so you have access to both.

If your DW & MIL are good with the refreshment package, you can call. Phone agents can book the DBP for 1 person, but it sounds like they usually require the other person to get the refreshment package.

There's "all aboard" time, and there may be a hard "the ship must leave the dock" time. I'm pretty sure the captain has some discretion as to how long to wait. If the dock needs to be used by another ship. Is the dock going to close. How long to wait before it will affect the next port. etc.

There is also ship excursions vs. independent or no excursion.  Ship excursions are in contact with the ship and there is a guarentee that the ship won't leave without you or in extreme circumstances, rejoin at the next port.

We were on a ship excursion and 45m to an hour late getting back. It was after "all aboard" time. We (bus) were literally the last people back on board. We were whisked through the port area, no shore side security check. my wife & I were only had 2 people behind us boarding the ship and when the last person's seapass card was scanned, the security officer announced "zero zero", and there were muffled cheers. and they immediately pulled the gangway.

There's descriptions on this board of what happens when someone misses the ship. I would be surprised if that process begins even at "all aboard" time. My guess is it doesn't start until the captain has decided that the ship will leave by a certain time, and security will likely wait until the last minute to do what they need to do.

If I remember correctly, what happens is that 2 security officers with body cameras wait outside the passenger's cabin. When they are radioed to proceed, they turn on their cameras and record the time and who they are and what cabin they are entering etc. They then enter and look for passports, medication, and if an infant is involved, they may grab some diapers and formula. These are then left with the port agent and the ship leaves. My guess is that this process probably takes at least 20 minutes by the time they get stuff to the port agent.

Pretty sure everything booked in the cruise planner is automatically cancelled and refunded when the cruise itself is cancelled.

While I can't really answer your direct questions, a few years ago, my wife & I started getting annual interruption/cancellation and medical insurance through Steve from TripInsuranceStore.

There's a sub-forum just for Insurance:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/499-cruisetravel-insurance/

Might want to ask there.

We did Chichén Itzá from Cozumel on a RCI cruise last fall. As said by others, 45m ferry ride, 10-15m walk, and a 2 hour bus ride each way. It's a long day. It was a 9 hour excursion that actually ran longer than that on a 10.5 hour port stop.

I am not familiar with Progreso, but Google maps says it's 2h15m each way. Depending on how long you are in port, it seems like it should be doable, especially since you don't need a ferry ride.

I was also thinking the same thing @c-leg5 said about full or not posted, and also suggest checking for  a private tour. 

3 hours ago, pontac said:

 

 

That was 2022.

 

I was there in March 2024. Lots of river boats  moored behind Movenpick, not one ocean boat. Some one said on this forum that the ocean boat terminal at Movenpick was now closed. All I can say is that it was the main mooring for river boats. They used to moor by the Centraal Station. Not now.

 

It's true though, at busy time river boats may moor at further out places.

Interesting. I know that Amsterdam voted to kick the larger cruise ships out of the Central area, but I thought that was for some number of years from now so that a new cruise terminal could be built further out. Jewel of the Seas is still using it this season. However Royal Caribbean won't be going out of Amsterdam after this year because they won't be doing the fjords cruises that they run out of there due to new UNESCO emission regulations for the most popular fjords that will be starting.

7 minutes ago, keishashadow said:

Likely, the best option. Set it and forget it.

 

 If she forgot to sign into pkg and started posting videos, wouldn’t go over well with her parents once that cell phone bill came due.

Make sure to put her phone in Airplane mode when on the ship. And depending on cell phone plan, may need to make sure it's in Airplane mode in foreign ports also.

Yes. You can either purchase 1-4 people their own internet or you can purchase multiple devices for 1 person. 

When you purchase multiple devices for 1 person, it is cheaper. The number of devices is the number of simultaneous devices connected, not the total number of devices you might want to use.

Once you've connected with the maximum number of devices, to switch devices, you have 2 options:

1) just connect with a new device. This will kick off one of the other devices. Most likely the one with the oldest connection.

2) explicitly log off one device and then log in with the new device.

If you purchase a device for each person, then each person can switch devices all they want without affecting anyone else. But it costs more.

Sounds like you could get along with just 2 devices. one for you and your DH, and one for your GD. Or just one that I would guess your GD will monopolize, but that you and your DH could use when you need to.

Not quite the same thing, as they knew we were doing a cruise.

A couple years back I found a really great deal on the 2 BR AquaTheater suite on Allure out of Galveston (cruise was last September). I asked our daughter if she and her bf (now fiance) wanted to go. Of course she said yes. That's all that was said. Nearly 2 years later, other than dates, or discussing excursions, she never asked asked a single question until the night before we left:

her: "Is our room close to yours?"

me: "right across the hall" (technically the truth if you know the 2 BR AT layout)

her: "did you get us a beverage package?" (She's thinking refreshment)

me: "we got you covered"

My wife & I actually had talked about whether or not to lie if she asked too many questions, but she never did. She never even used the phone app to look her room up.

Go down the day before. Night in the hotel. Still nothing. Just looking forward to the cruise.

Next morning, get an Uber to the port and get dropped off at the suite area. Not sure she really paid any attention to where we were. My wife was chatting with them as I checked in with the shore Genie, who then whisked us up to the suite lounge.

her: "did you guys move up in status or something?"

Since we knew Genie Jay was going to show up any minute, the jig was up. And told them we were doing a Star suite.

her: "you kept that secret for 2 years? I don't even know you!"

 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

We had a great time. Jay was awesome!

6 minutes ago, pontac said:

The hotel nearest to where most river boats moor is the Movenpick; boats moor behind the hotel https://all.accor.com/hotel/B4I7/index.en.shtml

Not quite. Immediately behind the Movenpick is where the ocean cruise ships dock. We stayed there before a Royal Caribbean cruise. I could look into the bridge from my room the morning of the cruise, and we literally just walked next door to check in for the cruise. Current Google Maps photo shows Jewel of the Seas docked there.

From what I recall from 2022, river cruise ships appeared to be docked in many places. The closest to the Movenpick is that you have to walk East from the hotel a 1/2 block, then cross an in-fill restaurant, then walk west a few blocks over a canal entrance bridge, then either down some steps, or walk another block to a road access where you then walk back East a block. But like I said, there appeared to be river ships docked in a number of other locations.

I do recall that Viking had a seemingly permanent table set up in the lobby.

For access to the Amsterdam Cruise Port, Movenpick can't be beat. But it adds 25 minutes walk to anything else in the Central Area.

There is already a thread dedicated to this subject:

While I believe it's rare, shows have changed, but I am pretty positive that none have ever swapped or rotated. They are basically permanent. 

The only one I know of is that Allure started with Chicago and switched to Mama Mia at some point.

1 hour ago, Hoopster95 said:

Blue Puffin is first class, it’s small group (15 people?) and they took Care of their customers.

 

I’m with them again tomorrow in Hommingsvag, so really looking forward to the North Cape!

We did the North Cape tour with Blue Puffin in 2022. Nothing but raving reviews all over the Roll Calls. They did an excellent job! I believe that for that tour, it's just a husband & wife team (plus drivers). We had the husband in our bus and at one point, passed his wife in another other bus going the other way 🙂 (did things in a different order). 

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

Before we left, I bought a Samsung remote on Amazon for $10.  I have newer model Samsung remotes at home, but they don't have a Source button.

 

While the Samsung remote works great for RCI cruises, we bought a universal remote that we pack with the Firestick for travel in general. Not everyone uses Samsung TVs. I think LG is the second most common one we've run into. It's a distant second.

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

Now for the tricky part.  I never was able to get wifi to the Firestick previously.  I have heard of using the browser app on the Firestick, but I could never get that to work. 

 

This time I turned on the hotspot on my Android phone, and I was able to piggy-back the wifi to the Firestick!  The hotspot will not start in airplane mode, so I just exit airplane mode to turn on the hotspot then go right back into airplane mode and the hotspot stays active. 

This is what we do. Even if you can get the browser to work, you would have to do it every single time you wanted to use the Firestick. It is FAR easier to just set it up to up to use you phone's hotspot (or a travel router). Also, once you have it set up, then you just need to get you phone connected no matter where you are, ship, hotel, etc.  BTW, as you indicate, my wife's Samsung Galaxy S22 will let you turn Airplane mode back on, but my S20 will not. I can still hot-spot the WiFi, but I have to leave airplane mode off, so I disable Mobile Data instead.

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

With vpn we can access everything except YouTube TV, but I have a GPS spoofer for that

 

What I find works with YTTV is to run the VPN on both the phone as well as the Firestick itself. I don't know if I did something wrong when I tried just one, but since I did both, it's never failed and now I'm afraid no to. 🙂 As I think you are aware, if you run YTTV on a device that has a GPS, that will override the VPM location, and if you attempt to disable it, YTTV will refuse to run.

Ah! GPS Spoofer! I'll need to look into that! There's been times I've wanted to watch something from my phone where I don't have access to a TV to use the Firestick. I was watching a college football game on a plane using YTTV and after about an hour, it kicked me off as being out of area.🤣😡

14 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Can you plug a firestick into the TV in the room?

Yes. Most cabins' TVs have the HDMI ports accessible.

You should bring a Universal remote so that you can get access to a 'Source' button.

On newer ships' that have TVs with the interactive UI  (not sure if Oasis has this), you will also need to unplug the network cable and power cycle the TV. When the network cable is plugged in, it will auto-launch the custom UI and you usually will not be able to switch the source.

17 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Will the rooms have network TV though? my recollection is room TVs were very limited

No. They do not have network channels and what they do have is so limited it is useless to us. That is why we travel with a Firestick and a universal remote.

7 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Thanks all. Hoping i can at least stream on my phone 🙂

Again, I highly recommend a VPN service. I use ExpressVPN, but any will work as long as they have servers in the US.

You can stream fine. We do it all the time.

The NBA finals will be on ABC and FUBO. If you have HULU+Live, YoutubeTV or any other cable/satellite that has your local ABC station, you can stream the game. I would highly recommend getting a VPN so that you are not geo-locked.

However, I will warn you that from my experience, if you attempt to watch YoutubeTV on a device that has a GPS, the GPS location will override the VPN, and if you attempt to turn off your GPS, it will refuse to work. I don't know if any other service does the same.

If you have a firestick (or Roku?), it does not have a GPS, so that's what we primarily use anyway.

Also, I swear I've read that some people have reported that for some major sporting events, they will make them available at 1 bar, even if they are at odd hours due to the ship's location. I would kind of think a game 7 would qualify? But I certainly would not count on this.

Adventures by Disney's affiliation with Ama is exactly why we chose them in 2019 for a 3 generation cruise with 9 of us. It was not a Disney chartered cruise, but figured if it was good enough for Disney, should be good for us. We did Rivers and Castles from Nuremburg to Luxembourg. Our niece was the youngest at 10, my parents, the oldest (80's). There were a number of kids, probably a couple younger than her. There were 2 family groups larger than ours. I can't say that any particular age range stuck out with me. Ages ran the gambit.

My wife & I did the Grand Danube on AmaMagna in 2023 (From Vilshofen to Giurgiu). We were 54 at the time. First week was designated as a "Wine Cruise". Not sure if that had anything to do with it, but we felt the age range screwed younger that first week than the second week. We were probably right in the middle the first week, and maybe slightly on the younger side the second week. The second week's itinerary probably is not as attractive to the younger cruisers, so that might have had something to do with it. There were no kids on either week. Guess would be that the youngest might have been mid 30's?

We also did a Christmas Markets cruise on Grand Circle in 2022 with my family (minus our daughter this time). While overall the largest age group was probably older than us, there was a wide variety of ages and families, and the crew made a comment about having the most kids they've ever had on a cruise.

So, from my limited experience, while the cruise line you choose has a lot to do with it, as some don't allow kids at all, I think certain itineraries might lend themselves more to families or younger cruisers than others.

12 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in Tromsø, Norway, from the end of May to the end of July. During this time, the sun doesn't set above the Arctic Circle, and days can last up to 1,600 hours

 

https://www.visitnorway.com/things-to-do/nature-attractions/midnight-sun/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsPCyBhD4ARIsAPaaRf2Ht69cBzNzKA4z3g1Qljo22FpgXkmrt99MwUN4vDpNy7iKCbtKuRoaAlfUEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Keep in mind, Norway does Daylight Savings, and the ship has likely changed to Norway time, so true "midnight" is actually 1:00 AM.

We did the Arctic Circle cruise in 2022, and went North of the Arctic Circle only a few days after Summer Solstice. I stayed up to 1:00 AM to take pictures. Posted some in this forum previously. We crossed the Arctic Circle on Thursday, and they announced on the ship that the next Sunset would be Monday 🙂, when we dropped back south of it.

18 minutes ago, barbeyg said:

@twangster, and @Hoopster95, thanks so much for the great photos/videos and taking us all along.
 

Quick question on the Twizy in Geiranger.  How was the fit for the back seat rider? 

Chels of Trev and Chels can show you:

32 minutes ago, rncruiser said:

If I recall, you will need a picture of each person you are checking in that is acceptable to the app. I believe it will need an uncluttered, preferably white, background. 

Correct if you are doing the full check in. This post and thread is only about selecting boarding/check-in times for everyone in your party. You go back later to complete the rest of it.

4 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

When they did the double points deals after the shutdown, many took advantage to move up, and now royal is left with a lot of D+ and Ps along with all the perks of those levels.  It makes much more sense to shift part of this new burden to X to allow space for the families that tend to spend more on WiFi and beverage pkg.

We did that. We took 125% FCC's and parlayed that into a 24 night B2B Arctic Circle and Iceland & Ireland. Add to that an 8 night cruise to celebrate our daughter's HS graduation, and then pretty much only because of the double points deal we scheduled a 3 and 4 night cruises mid way between other trips. All in JS's. 39 x 4 = 156. Went to D on the 8 night, then D+ on the 24 night B2B. 🙂 

1 hour ago, Coral said:

On my Christmas Markets cruise - we had normal excursions and then free time to visit the markets. It was a good mix. I definitely felt like I saw the ports that we stopped at. I had full day excursions in Vienna, Munich, Regensburg, Bratislava and Salzburg that involved seeing the port sites. Our Christmas markets trip wasn't just Christmas markets.

Thanks! That's good information. Like I said, my only Christmas Markets experience was on GC, and they only do 1 excursion, with no options. So I am guessing that some of their normal excursions were replaced with the Christmas Markets. 

1 hour ago, AspiringCindy said:

I'm guessing they will change the original plans. Mason Jar would be a great add-on!

What restaurants were on the 2020 refurbishment plans?

Here's the original Press Release from 2019:

https://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1403/new-amplified-adventures-on-royal-caribbeans-allure-of-the-seas-to-make-a-summer-splash-in-europe/