ATG

8 hours ago, helen haywood said:

My previous home town, Washington, GA had a direct hit from Helene.  The whole county is without power or landlines.  No stores open as no electricity.  No gas stations open.  I feel terrible.  I heard from my closest two friends briefly yesterday…but not since as they need to conserve cell battery.  They can charge the phone in their car but I don’t know how long that takes.  No matter how much preparation I would have made if I still lived there…I would never have expected to be without power for days!

 

Once when I lived there the power was out for three days…but that was in the winter…and there were stores open!  I hear Augusta, Lincolnton and Thomson (nearby towns) are equally decimated.  I wish there was something I could do!

We drove through Thomson on our way. The Loves gas station right at I-20 was open, but the line was at least a mile long yesterday. The fast food places on the other side of the interstate were closed. Cell phone service has been spotty. I’m not sure if it’s damage to the towers or just so many people using them. We’re hoping to find gas this morning.

We are currently at a hotel in Covington GA tonight. The hurricane went through our neighborhood in South Carolina early Friday morning. One of the weather sites listed the wind speed at 82 mph at 5:37 am. That’s about the time a very large tree fell and missed our neighbors bedroom by about 10 feet. Our short street had 5 trees across the road. Luckily several of our neighbors had chain saws and got them taken care of. Lots of other trees down but only minor damage to one porch. They estimate no power for about a week.

We decided to find a hotel for a few days. On I-20 between Augusta and here the traffic was slow but moving. We tried to get gas but all of the stations were out. Hopefully, by the time we leave they get more.

All in all, we are thankful none of us had more damage. We have great neighbors, we all got together last night for dinner. One neighbor has a gas range and we all brought stuff from our refrigerator- it will mostly need to be trashed after a week. It was a strange menu, but good to get together.

We have read about the devastation in North Carolina. I hope they can recover quickly.

40 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

There's really no benefit to adding passes to wallets since a screenshot is just as good. I wouldn't sweat it.
 

In the past I’ve been able to see my guaranteed cabin assignment in apple wallet. That’s the only advantage I know of.

I booked it for Wonder and was able to get some times booked but not all. Hooked doesn’t appear for dinner but does for lunch.

We’re leaving her in great shape for you to enjoy. We both love Wonder. We’ll be back for a B2B in January/February and then again in march. The beds were the most comfortable we’ve had on any ship. Food was great and service friendly. The only thing we didn’t love was the Crown Lounge- kind of dark and no windows. But lots of other places to go.

On 9/19/2024 at 9:18 PM, Luckynana said:

 

Hey Ken...here's a question for you.  I'll be on Wonder in February, and I had wanted to have dinner at "Hooked", but it only shows that "Hooked" is serving lunch, not dinner.  Does your cruise offer it for dinner?

 

For those of you that just came off of Wonder, was dinner available at "Hooked" for your cruise?

 

TIA

We’re on Wonder now and I brought this to the officer’s attention when we were there for lunch. He was very surprised when I showed him the app. He promised to look into it. 

1 hour ago, bobmacliberty said:

That was fun.  Short, but fun.  We went to Bermuda once from Port Liberty.  The seas on the first day going and the last day coming back were very rough.  All outdoor decks closed.  I think I have a horizon video like yours.  Micheline swore never again.  I'd like to go back, but I think I'd need to go solo. 😁

 

Thanks for doing this!

What time of year were you cruising? I’d love to see Bermuda but don’t like too much movement.

We’ve talked about taking this cruise but we weren’t sure if we would like Vision. Your commentary and pictures are very appealing. We may book when the new sailings are announced.

I’ve had a strange thing happen. We’re on Wonder in March and I’ve been looking at specialty dining. Neither Hooked or Izumi (non-hibachi) show up in the cruise planner under dinner but both show up under lunch. I called and they said it wasn’t available any day for dinner. I first thought maybe they were remodeling but since I can book lunch that doesn’t make sense. Any idea what could be happening? I guess I’ll try to book after we board.

I’ve had the same problem with my Wonder cruise. I called and they tried to fix it but couldn’t. I just tried again this morning and was able to book what I wanted. Royal’s fabulous IT strikes again.

12 minutes ago, poocher said:

Sadly we are among the shorts at MDR dinner crowd.  I like to get dressed up now & then but hubby just doesn’t.  He would if I insisted but I know he hates it.  He wears a nice button down shirt & clean neat shorts.  We keep our elbows off the table, chew with our mouths closed, don’t talk with food in our mouths or too loudly and use our napkins.  It’s the best we’re gonna do🤷‍♀️

I’d be happy to sit next to you any evening.

1 hour ago, orville99 said:

We are well past FPD on our 10/5/24 6-night on Adventure, and to date have received nothing from RCL swapping out some place else for Labadee. We did this exact itinerary in July, and they rerouted us to Grand Turk. I'd be fine with that again, but I'd like to know before we board so we can either pack our snorkel gear or leave it home.

We have Freedom on 11/3 and it still shows Labadee. Our Adventure in January changed to PDCC months ago. But so far no CocoCay shore excursions. I don’t really care, but would like to know.

3 hours ago, grod19 said:

TY.  That would be perfectly acceptable to me

We often travel with our adult children who have their own cabin. We get a suite to use as our gathering spot and they get an interior. We get them keys to our suite. These are for the door only. They must use their interior room keys to charge anything. So, they carry 2 keys. Not a big issue for them.

You will have the same issue- two people need to carry an extra key.

On Anthem the only children are going to the Solarium Bistro. The entrance to it is fairly close to the entrance to the Solarium, so most of the Solarium should be adults only. Note that the age is 18. On a Symphony cruise this spring there were lots of older teens (18+) in the Solarium. Nobody was checking to see if they were old enough. I guess if they had caused problems the staff would have checked.

11 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

Wow. These pictures are wonderful. I’m packing and getting excited.  We decided not to do the railroad in Flam as DH wanted to do the Viking village instead.  But we still get a waterfall.  

We did that excursion earlier this month. The Viking village was interesting- they had places you could sword “fight “ and throw axes. Their clothes were authentic but unless Reebok was around back then…. We also did the North Star there and the views were spectacular! One of the neatest things was the 2 guys on jet skis that used the ship wake to jump for a very long time. We were at dinner and watched them.

9 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

How do you know which configuration you're getting? I'm looking to book Odyssey and considering a JS, and would like to know how to tell the difference when choosing a room.

I believe they have different codes - J3 and J4. We have been on Anthem for a b2b and changed cabins. The first on deck 8 had a half bath and a full bath with toilet and tub/shower combo. The second on deck 10 has a half bath and the other has a tub and walk in shower. We’ve decided we like the deck 8 design better. We looked at quite a few you tube videos before picking.

Tonight was formal night on our Anthem cruise. Some people dressed up but I saw several adults enter the dining room in shorts and nobody gave them a second glance.

You actually get 2 24 hour periods. We use our 4 spread out over the cruise. To use it you create a login by entering the first name, cabin number and year of birth. I’ve never needed to go to the voom desk, the system doesn’t care who is actually using it.

38 minutes ago, ReneeFLL said:

I wonder what the reason is? Time for some scissors. 😁

On the Celebrity thread about loungers on balconies it was mentioned that people had reclined them too quickly and hit the balcony door and cracked it.

50 minutes ago, coachmike1959 said:

Yes.  We will inform the attendant that we will not use the room so he can skip service. 

Of course i will leave his tip on my account anyways.

I would add to the 2br suite attendant, he’s cleaning for more than he is getting. We have done this cabin on Mariner class a couple of times and love it. Lots of room to relax.

Anthem left about an hour late. There were taxis zooming up to the terminal until about 5:00. 

38 minutes ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Thankfully not affected  by the global IT outage.  Our office not impacted.  Our local major supermarkets - I had to go to both straight after work -  not impacted either.  

Hope no-one is suffering major travel delays.

It was quite late when everyone got off Anthem. Right now there is a very long line outside the terminal waiting to board. Luckily, it is a gorgeous sunny day.  I’m so glad we’re not flying!

We’re on Anthem docked in Southampton and they just announced that Microsoft has had a major, worldwide outage. To check your airline since many flights are delayed. They are having issues getting people off the ship due to it. Boy am I glad we’re doing a b2b. Hopefully they can fix it soon.

On 7/8/2024 at 12:25 PM, Ellis1138 said:

For LHR to Southampton:

We used Gunwharf Executive Travel, based on the recommendations here, the reviews and also the fact that it was the only company that replied to my inquiries. I booked an SUV because we had 2 checked bags, 2 large backpacks, 2 bags of medical equipment and then the personal item bags and didn't want a repeat of an Uber time when a car came that was too small to fit our stuff.

 

The SUV with a meet/greet at Heathrow to our hotel in Southampton was 190 british pounds.

 

Our driver was Marc. He was great at emailing and allaying any worries I had. I did have to put WhatsApp on my phone so that he could contact me on the day of scheduled pickup. The car was large and comfortable and held everything.

 

From our Southampton hotel to Horizon Terminal:

I had downloaded the Southampton Radio Taxi app. The morning of the cruise, I used the app to book the ride. The driver was on time and it was very reasonable, like 20 pounds with tip.

We also used Gunwharf and they were great. Marc had me text when we cleared passport control and was waiting for us by the time we did the long walk to baggage claim and made it into the terminal.  He was very friendly and we had a great conversation. I would definitely recommend him to anyone. The cost was very worth it to us after the long flight.

52 minutes ago, little britain said:

But your seapass card which is your key to everything on board the ship clearly does not state MTD. It shows you on a set table at a set time which is traditional dining.

Knowing that TA I wouldn't put it pass them to make errors.

 

What did you GTB say? Guest ticket booklet.

I just looked at my GTB from RC and it says MYTIME very clearly. In our case the change is 15 minutes later and we get to go directly to our table and not stand in line. We’re quite pleased. The reason we stopped doing traditional dining is that one was too early and one too late. A set 7:00 works for us.  We are also on the next sailing, I wonder what we will get then.