Engineroom Snipe

Yes, the clearance for Walt Whitman is about 137 feet.

Sonar detected vehicles in river. Not good.

So far, two people recovered. One is critical, one walked away without injuries from the water. Currently known is that there are at least seven more individuals know to be unaccounted for.

I know it sounds out there but the Battleship New Jersey mooring is available since the museum was just floated to a dry dock for inspection and maintenance. No way to get provisions onboard or luggage though

I was thinking the same thing. That is a heavily used bridge.

Going to be a trend like European river boat cruises where they have to design a method of shortening the stacks and upper navigation towers to get past the pesky bridges. Where there is desire to make a profit, there is a way. We just might see Royal keep those older ships afloat if only not to lose market out of Tampa and similar height requirements (Baltimore and Charleston). MANY cruisers can drive to those ports and Tampa is a lucrative retirement cruise port. $$$$$$

@WhaleTailFlCruiser Thank you. That could be an issue. Hard to raise a bridge that is permanently built with no moving parts. 🤣

Really torn on this subject. In some ports, Royal says to take your SetSail Pass with a government issued ID. In Nassau, we took our SetSail Passes with our US driver licenses and photocopies of our main passport page which has our pictures and information. We used our SetSail Passes with the passport photocopy with no problems. Just trying to reduce our possibilities of losing our passports. We figured, worst case, the authorities, upon entering the port security, would contact the ship to verify our information if they thought it was questionable. The ship could retrieve our passports from our safe and prove our identities in a worse case scenario. I also can agree that it would be very beneficial to have the physical passport in hand if sh*t hit the fan for some reason.

I agree that five years is an eternity in the cruise business right now. Almost all of Royal's ships only require 34 feet of draft which Tampa can handle. Even Oasis Class and Icon Class are designed for existing port depths. They make the ships longer and wider but the drafts stay the same. Are there any smaller bridge requirement out of Tampa? Parking, dock lineage, and boarding capacity will more of an issue. My question is, could Tampa possibly handle an Oasis class? I have never cruised out of Tampa. If the port can handle a larger ship, rest assured, they will still be cruising from Tampa for decades.

Understand your vibe. We do not need water slides, dry slides, Merry Go Rounds, climbing walls and everything that would be fabulous for a young family with children. Royal is moving towards a younger target crowd and we understand the demographics. Boring with no drama is good for us! I feel you in your quiet lounger watching the sea go by. We all have our own style. 😁

@Another_Critic, Got to agree with you, absolutely no, maybe a yes, probably, is it a full moon? So this is another Royal policy, are they going to enforce it? If I was a gambling man, the house makes the rules and I would probably lose. 🤣

Maybe the passengers on board did not have enough time to reschedule anything off the ship and just decided to stay put. I have been to Nassau enough times that if we get off the ship, it is only about two hours or less to stretch our legs at the local shops. Were any shore excursions offered or was the change in itineraries too late to book something?

I agree someone could supply a drink to a minor. This case was different that the passenger provided their SetSail pass and was questioned if it was "hers". Royal can scan the card and instantly get a picture of the guest without inferring or accusing the person of falsifying their identity. After scanning, it would be found that they were of age to drink and be eligible to be in an adult venue. I have been on Royal ships where they would scan my SeaPass at an event and saw my picture display on their small tablet as they scanned it.

Too funny as spellings are so similar. Savor, Sabor, Flavor, Slober, it is tough to keep up with them all. As long as they have a good time and meal, they can call it anything they want. 🤣

Perfectly understandable. For many hours during the day onboard, we only have our SeaPasses. We only have tip money when we start to drink which is in the afternoon. My wife will carry her phone if she is waiting for an important update or message. I tend to leave mine behind in the cabin as much as possible. You are on vacation and I think it is unreasonable to have to show your passport a second time when the ship already has it on file. Your daughter's picture should show up when her SeaPass is scanned and that is associated with her passport. Sigh......, no common sense in this situation.

My prices were per day per person, sorry for not including that.

The deluxe drink packages vary from about $80 to $110 retail according to the size of the ship. There is an automatic 18% gratuity added at the end of the check-out process when purchasing. Discounts are available throughout the year and range from 10% to 35% if purchased before the cruise. The best deals tend to occur on the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The prices can be all over the place and depends on your ship, time of year, and Royal's fabulous "dynamic pricing" (sarcasm intended).

Preaching to the choir. Just treating people the same way you would like to be treated goes a loooooo.....nnnnn.....ggggg way in any situation. Again, this only seems to come with experience in law enforcement and security. The training budgets are almost non-existent and good examples from experienced mentors are hard to find. I make no excuses for this behavior as it has been described.

@Ourusualbeach This is the difficult thing being in any position of power over people's rights. When exercising power by the color of law or in this case, the color of sea, experience is the most important thing. An experienced person would have known that a drink would not be served to a minor. To take this a bit further, if a Royal bartender handed this drink to an unauthorized person, they are breaking their own policies. So bizarre for a person to accuse someone of using someone else's SeaPass. What is next, do I have to show you my passport? Oh, by the way, I did show you my passport when I boarded this cruise so what is your next move? Something happened that caused such an intense scrutiny during a cruise which resulted in an over reaction by Royal. Since this is reported over multiple ships, it was BIG. I do not know the trigger but this seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to an incident. As we have all stated, Royal lets so many policies go unenforced. There is always something else going on beneath the surface on these things.

BINGO!

10K more....Ouch!

@A&L_Ont, We have discussed this. I know exactly where you are coming from. The CEO has gotten his wish. Royal cruises have approached the costs of rival vacation experiences. Time to consider the rival vacation experiences because the pricing advantage that cruisers used to enjoy is evaporating. Enjoy the experience no matter what or where you go.

So, in conclusion, if a staff members walks by, looks the other way, looks at the deck, looks at the sky, etc., their is not much a passenger can do about bad behavior or policy non-compliance. A passenger has to do the same or choose another cruise line. A new cruise line might do cast a blind eye to the same behavior. As I stated earlier, these are policies and not law. We are at the mercy of the cruise line to decide when and if they enforce their own policies. The best observation I can make is that profit will reign supreme over policy compliance unless the cruise lines suffer financial loses due to policy non-compliance. I posted elsewhere about how check-in times were enforced in a haphazard way and it does not seem to matter at the ports that I have been to in the past year. As passengers, we should not have to be policy enforcers on our vacations. Anyone being told what to do or not do will be perceived as a "bad man." "No one knows what it is like to be the bad man......." (Who's Next, 1971.Behind Blue Eyes),

Is this the reason why the food service seemed to be much better fare than what we were getting on board at the Windjammer? I have made previous comments about why is the food so different from onboard the ship? Now I know why. The island chefs make a great day at Coco Cay!

That is how many fans of the rock bands of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s felt when they went to the live shows. 😇