Engineroom Snipe

Even in the fog of the premium beverage package, let us receive a limited view of your perception of dining. Since you have a specialty dining package, it is even more pertinent to get your viewpoint. I always value first person reviews, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly". (1966. Sergio Leone director, Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach).

No argument about your post from myself. These snippets are statements you will read over and over to justify higher prices on CC with once-a-day room service and reduced MDR food availability (compared to cruises of less than five years ago). I have three cruises booked for this year at very reasonable prices. All of them are now being sold for 100% to 110% more than I booked them. I have to wait and see how they go. I would not expect to pay 100% more than pre-pandemic prices and see service and meal quality deteriorate.

This was my evaluation too. Short and to the point. I have watched the prices rise by exactly your quoted numbers in the past year. Everyone keeps saying, inflation, post-pandemic financing of debts, staff hard to find, "RCI is entitled to make a profit", the law of supply and demand, etc., etc. I do not have problems with those arguments. I expect the increased prices to overcome any of these difficulties and at least get us back to pre-pandemic service and food. Surely, 35% to 100% increases in cruise prices should be able to do this.

Oh, I hope this is not the case on my cruises. If nothing else, I could always make a meal from the salad bar. 😭

If they cannot accommodate such a humble request, we are all doomed. 😉

I started to laugh when I saw "krab" as in Crusty the Crab's Krabby (sic) Patties! (Spongebob Squarepants) 😁 Except their Crabbie Patties were supposed to be delicious to the point of addiction. 🤯

After reading factual feedback from recent cruisers like yourself in this thread, RCI's main reason for limiting items to the menu was to decrease the time of the total meal experience. In doing so, the assumption was the meals would be delivered faster (and hot). So far, it appears that it is starting to be a change without rewards for the customers. 🤨

There are multiple postings about how a three-night package makes sense on smaller ships that only have one or two special dining options. Eating in the same restaurant every night tends to defeat the purpose of trying different meals (almost like MDR for extra money). I would most likely use this option on one cruise before expanding it to an unlimited package.

My April 2022 cruise on the Anthem and September 2022 cruise on the Oasis, reflect your experiences. The Anthem was an 8.5 and the Oasis was a 5.0 on a one to ten scale. This was before any menu changes. 🤔

My wife makes the best mashed potatoes, an artform she learned from her mother. I can see you now in front of the serving dish marked, "Mashed Potatoes", taking one look 🤔, are those mashed potatoes or baked potatoes? "What, no gravy?" 😖 It will be a long walk to the dining table after that. 😭

I have an inside guaranteed cabin fully paid for (most people do by about 90 days before their cruise.). My invitation to bid came via my TA yesterday, 74 days before the cruise. I put in minimum bids but the likelihood of cabins being free is very low. Almost any current offering is for "inside, connecting inside, outside, and connecting outside. Even those seem to be "grayed out" (unavailable) every other day when I do mock bookings. Two of the offerings only have one cabin each onboard. Ultra-Spacious Ocean view and Spacious interior (about 233 square feet as opposed to 147 square feet). I just need a place to sleep, shower, and change on this trip. Oceanview balconies were an option, but the starting bid was $700 for two people. On this particular cruise, I was looking for a different itinerary and low price. I would have paid upfront for a balcony knowing they are in short supply on smaller and older vessels, but it was not important enough to justify the price in my evaluation. Your chances of getting a neighborhood balcony GTY on an Oasis class is much better than mine. 😜 i would not get my hopes too high since the occupancy levels have been at 100%+ this year.

Even better, just stare at them from 1000 yards away. 😁

As far as the clogs go, forensic plumbers will be brought in and use DNA analysis (yes, small intestine villi constantly slough off with the you know what during the digestive process). The truth always comes out in the end 😁. If necessary, RCI will spend more than the fine just to embarrass you from doing it again. Messing with RCI's plumbing will put you in arrears 😯with them. Enough said on that subject. The current lifeboat seating design which piles them three high was created by a penny-pinching bean counter who said, "What choice will they have anyway? They either cram themselves aboard, like sardines in a floating can, or they can go down to Guest Services to complain and get an OBC (knowing that the OBC is only good for the current cruise)."😬 And NO, @Biker19, they will not have enough time to transfer the OBC to the casino and cash out. 🤣

"I refuse to get into the lifeboat unless I can vape freely." 😤 The remarks and retorts from that captive crowd will probably make anything said here look truly diplomatic and tame. 🤣🤪

Your husband could easily change careers and be a professional negotiator or marriage counselor. Sounds like a win-win situation. Smart Man. 🤓

There are design limitations of what angle (list) the lifeboats can be deployed. In the case of the Concordia, the decision to launch the lifeboats should have been made far ahead of this angle of limitation. While I am a mechanical engineer, hydrodynamics and static release angles are best answered by a marine architect. All of the lifeboats I have observed during my walks are designed to be launched absent of ship's power. If you notice on your next cruise, they rest upon angled slides so that gravity will move them away from the ship at the appropriate moment. This is where the list of the ship is important. If the ship's list is greater than the designed angle, the lifeboat would have to be "pushed off". A fully loaded lifeboat on the Oasis class is 45 tonnes (just over 100,000 lbs!). It weighs more than a fully loaded 16-wheel tractor trailer. They are not designed to be "pushed off". There are also life raft canisters that look like big plastic barrels. The ship has these for the crew and extra ones in case of emergencies such as a lifeboat failing to deploy. Even if the ship sinks, these canisters have special automatic releases that sense water pressure and will float to the surface and deploy. You will also notice that there is a wire from the special release mechanism. This wire can serve two purposes, one is to monitor the release mechanism and notify the bridge that a canister was deployed. Some canisters have a small mechanical charge which can be remotely activated by the bridge BEFORE the ship goes under water to release them at will. There are a few on this site who might be better equipped to answer this question.

I should add, it is very important to describe the brand of baby wipes and what type of bio-waste did they contain? 🤢

As many "Bubble-heads" in the Navy would say before nuclear submarines were invented, "You have to pop the snorkel for some fresh-air". 😁

OMG, there are no salmon slices for my Windjammer breakfast! That is the last straw! I will NEVER cruise with RCI again! 😱😰😁🤣🤣

1. Rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries, Nickel Cadmium, and Nickel Hydroxide batteries are used by vapor pens. Nickel Cadmium has slowly been phased out as it contains materials deemed to be hazardous for disposal. Nickel Hydroxide is popular because it is cheaper than" Lithium-Ion". The Nickel Hydroxide does not last as many "vapes" as Lithium-Ion batteries before recharging. The potential for all of these batteries to overheat in vaping pens is the same. The resultant "fires" when they fail have different intensities. 2. The steamers and irons are not allowed because each cabin is rated for so many "watts". The hair dryers provided by RCI are designed to not exceed the allowed "watts". The electrical design aboard ships is completely different from National Electrical Codes used for buildings and dwellings. When the wires start to overheat due to abnormal current demands, the cabin could lose all power. RCI would have to destroy the cabin in order to inspect the physical wiring and replace it if it were damaged since the cabin is installed in a modular package when the ship was built.

Most people without an electrical or electronic engineering background will make the same mistake. Vape "pens" need to heat the vapor 'coil' to almost 525 degrees F in order to start the process. The voltage is constant so in order to ramp up the wattage (voltage x current = wattage), the amperage is extremely high for the process. While computers and phones normally do not have extreme wattage variation designs for normal usage, the vapor pens demand a high current over a short period of time. Vapor pen manufacturers even warn about this possibility and state that their pens need to "rest" in order to dissipate this heat between vapes. Do you know how many minutes they recommend? 🤔 How many people read manufacturer warnings? 🤣 This is where batteries start to heat. 😟 Low voltage , high wattage, and high current stress the polymer barriers within the lithium-ion batteries. Once the barriers start to degrade and fail because the temperature ratings have been exceeded, there is an uncontrolled chemical reaction that is intense and hot. 😰 Airline attendants are given special training, "hot mitts", and containers to control such situations. 😁Cabin attendants do not have this training or equipment. 😱 Comparing constant wattage demands of phones and computers to the high instantaneous demands of vapor pens is truly "apples to oranges". The heat differentials and dissipation factors are completely different. Physics and mathematics are my specialties after five degrees and over forty-years of work experience. I would enjoy answering any other questions about power, electrical equipment, electronics, mechanical systems and computers in general. "Its my bag, baby" (The movie, Austin Powers).

Vape devices operate anywhere between 335 degrees F to 430 degrees F. A few battery failures (some use Lithium-Ion) or device malfunctions in the cabins will get RCI's attention.

You are correct that you did not bring up anything about health studies. I did. If breaking the rules or ignoring policies onboard affect my health or safety, I will elevate the issue "up" the ladder of accountability as necessary.

It is a slow day. ☺️

Nice. "Beware of RCI's Cash Generators on your cruise, they are everywhere." 😱