Lane Hog

I'd thought the same as well. The family has also left Cozumel.

I feel worse for the family -- they have to live with how he died, and at this point, I have to believe this is the case. Some say taking him on that trip was a questionable decision, but it's letting him be unattended for just a few moments that's what was inexcusable and ultimately at issue. We share in the caretaking for my wife's parents who both have varying degrees of dementia, and would never think of letting one of them wander into a bathroom unescorted or monitored. You never know if there's a second exit. it's just short of two weeks without a confirmed sighting, and the island itself is 90% natural jungle. It could take years to find his remains, if at all.

Galveston's great to sail from. Admittedly ground transport to/from can be a challenge, but it's worth it to me to avoid the congestion you find in the Florida megaports.

It was reported the GPS necklace was also only good within 30-50 ft of his wife's phone, which makes it sound like an AirTag wannabe.

Didn't see this posted anywhere... feel free to merge if it's already being discussed https://nypost.com/2024/04/07/us-news/royal-caribbean-passenger-edmond-solomon-missing-in-mexico-vacation An American cruise passenger, who was recently diagnosed with dementia, vanished while he was on vacation with his family in Mexico Edmond Bradley Solomon III, a 66-year-old South Carolina resident, had taken the trip down to the Caribbean on Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas and had planned to spend the day at port in Cozumel, Mexico, according to WCBD-TV. The former VA critical care nurse had disappeared minutes after getting off the ship at the Caribbean port last week. Solomon and his wife Mimi disembarked from the ship around 1:30 p.m. on April 3 and stopped for a restroom break before leaving the terminal when the nightmare unfolded. “When my stepmom, Mimi, came out, he wasn’t there,” Miller said. “She thought he might still be in the bathroom so she waited for him for a few minutes. He didn’t come out.” A family member with the couple had gone into the bathroom to check on Solomon but discovered he wasn’t there.

Is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge really a limitation on what serves Baltimore? The two channels over the tunnels should be able to accommodate larger cruise ships.... charts show 45 ft drafts on the south tunnel, and 50 ft on the middle tunnel. Duh. Disregard.... I forgot about the bridge at Annapolis with almost the same name as the CBBT.....

Not that exact brand, but have used something similar. Worked fine for all our electronics, which had switchable power supplies.

There's nothing about this which would imply National Security is at risk. The major ports of national significance are all on Open Water or have tunnels carrying traffic under the shipping channels. You would be hard-pressed to isolate Norfolk San Diego Long Beach and Bremerton. Charleston is a little bit questionable but the bridge that is involved there is safely footed on land.

Biden has already declared this a Federal responsibility. Competing with private industry might not be a concern -- the Corps of Engineers does the planning, not the work. This won't be a case of lowest bidder. It will be a case of who can be onsite first with the right equipment. The only matter right now for private industry is how much of a premium they can extract. I'm there with the three month estimate.

Desantis authorized evacuation flights paid for by the State of Florida.

Taxpayers are already footing part of the bill for chartering planes or now cruise ships...... What actually gets assessed back to the evacuee (or their employer / insurer) is the market rate of a full fare airfare or ferry ticket prior to the need for an evacuation. Most people who can afford to be tourists or live overseas can figure out a way to pay for that. If they can't, then perhaps they shouldn't be living in a potential war zone...

Do the math of the cost of two packages and it might be cheaper to be go ala carte. Our son and daughter in law were with us on our Alaska cruise -- he wanted the drink package, and she didn't want the refreshment package. Since she's the financial comptroller in their household, he was allowed a budget of whatever the drink package cost. Think of it as the Dave Ramsey Envelope System for Cruising. Somehow, he came in well under budget. Win-win.

I wonder if the increase in kids on the ships when you don't expect them is due to the educational parallel to "work from anywhere" policies -- which is the increase in remote learning options for public schools as well as homeschooling or online charter schools where the kids can do their coursework when/where they want. When we were traveling by RV during Covid, we found a half dozen families in a campground near Yellowstone who had all hit the road during "remote school" so there's no reason to think that hasn't been happening with cruising where the availability of wifi is so much better.

So... I'll be Devil's Advocate on scooters. In non-accessible rooms that aren't a suite or larger, parking a scooter in the room might wind up blocking the exit for the room's occupants. Do you block the room, or partially obstruct a hallway? Back in June on QOTS, there were almost always three or four scooters overnight in our hallway on 10.

United and Delta have both canceled service to TLV thru the end of October. UA did add some flights to Athens for those who need to get in/out of the region, and is still flying to Amman, but I'd think both could see cuts if things escalate up north.

I'm good with the change -- all my kids are adults... my granddaughter who has cruised with us tends to be like the others mentioned here -- old for her age.... My guess is that any 16-17 year old who figures out how to blend in will be just fine.... Fall Break with Columbus Day the following Monday is a real thing in parts of the country who go back to school before Labor Day...

Nah, you're making the right choice for you by salvaging your vacation while holding the policy to the letter.

We were on QOTS two weeks ago (19Jun-26Jun). I'd describe the quality of the food as Golden Corral with Flair, including the main dining room. Presentation and service in the MDR were great, but the quality simply was not there. Outside the food, the ship was fine aside from the wait for elevators, and that's going to be cyclical on any ship at peak times.

There's nothing great within the Icy Strait Point complex itself, your odds are going to be better in Juneau.

Not a JS, but our interior accessible virtual balcony on Quantum had one US outlet at the nightstand, two US outlets at the vanity plus a a Euro outlet that we were able to use a non-voltage adjusting Euro to US converter plug for our 220v capable chargers...

Yep, I've seen that on Carnival as well. Royal ships only have forward and mid elevator banks, even on the Oasis class. Carnivals ships of comparable size to Royals have elevators forward, mid and aft. It may work out to the being the same physical number of elevators, but the perception is you spend less time walking between venues that are aft on Carnival than you do on Royal.

We travel with two laptops, three tablets and none get locked up. They go in a drawer when leaving because yes, room doors get left open sometimes... the only things in the safe are our passports and wallets.

Our grandkids just sailed with us on birth certificates from Seattle to Alaska and back. Zero hassle. Had there been an emergency Alaska is still the US, there's absolutely no hand-wringing over flights home. And yes, you can leave Canada without a passport and re-enter the US without a passport if its an emergency. I have to laugh at the extent some people go to in justifying their own way of doing things...... My granddaughter has a passport, but couldn't find it. So we went with the BC's. Took a little longer at check-in but that was it. We were 10 minutes later getting on board,and may need therapy for that 10 minutes not spent in the Windjammer.....

I'm sending this from Quantum... our sofa bed stayed out all week, but that was our choice. The steward offered to set it up at night and was always visible in the 6-8pm hour doing other rooms. Honestly, we weren't ever in the room during the day long enough to need the sofa.

Are you positive it's a charter and not just a group reservation on a scheduled flight? What's the flight number? If it's 4547 at 0625 or 8061 at 1500, those are regularly scheduled flights, and you should have no problem checking an extra bag for a fee. However... if those are operated with regional jets, there may be a limit as to how many extra bags you can check.