LakeRooseveltBrews

15 minutes ago, What A Market said:

Same as your cruise. 
Puerto Plata cancelled due to expected high winds at the time of our departure. 

Being a nerdy engineer, when the Captain announced we were skipping Puerto Plata at 9am on Feb 18^th and sailing straight on to Miami, I wanted to consider this interesting implication I will discuss here and that is how much less fuel Riviera will burn in the journey home.

The instant the announcement was made, I checked the Navigation Display.  It said there were 701 nautical miles to Miami.  By foregoing stopping at Puerto Plata, we immediately gain 8 hours to cover the remaining distance.  Thus, we can travel at a slower speed, and thereby do so using less fuel.

At 9am Atlantic time on 18-Feb, there are 46 hours before our arrival in Miami at 6am Eastern time and thus our average cruising speed would be about 15.2 Knots (nautical miles per hour).  If we had left Puerto Plata at the originally scheduled time of 5pm, there would be 38 hours before our Miami arrival and we would have to average 18.4 Knots to make our 6am docking.  

This translates into fuel burned.  A ship obeys a cube law relationship of horsepower versus speed – halve the maximum speed and the horsepower is cut to 1/8^th of the maximum speed horsepower.  Assuming Riviera uses 100% horsepower at 20 Knots (the maximum speed I have seen on this cruise), then we can fill out the table below:

So, by skipping Puerto Plata, Riviera will use about 2/3^rds the horsepower-hours had we stopped and thus burned about 1/3^rd less fuel.  I am not saying that is why Oceania bypassed Puerto Plata, DR today – I do not doubt the difficulties in maneuvering a 15-deck high ship in a narrow channel with a bad crosswind – I am just saying that doing so gave the company a bonus in the economic bottom line.  Just an interesting observation.

1 hour ago, BWV said:

Thanks so much for the warning - I think I'll put a couple of tiny jars in my luggage just in case.

They also appear to have run out of Splenda sweetener.  They have Truvia but not a packet of Splenda to be found in Terraces at lunch today.

2 minutes ago, What A Market said:

This is what a standard pour looks like for wine. Pretty consistent across all bars. When poured, the server has no idea of our drink package. 

Wow!  I need to go where you're going.  So far, my pours onboard have not been that generous.  (Horizons or Martini bar).  

3 hours ago, What A Market said:

Oops, forgot a major point for today’s festivities. The ship is hosting a Super Bowl party and showing the game in Horizons. You can also watch the game on the TV in your room. 
 

Several months ago, I booked my specialty restaurant reservations and ended booking Toscana for tonight. Oh well. The DW has zero interest in football. She will probably tolerate me watching the second half after dinner.

We originally had Red Ginger booked for tonight, but once we realized DH's Chiefs were in the Super Bowl, we changed our reservations to last night, instead.  Surprisingly, we got a single table rather than shared even after changing it so recently.  

3 hours ago, chpal said:

Hi,  I know there was some discussion awhile ago about the delivery (or not) of the Oceania tote bags.  Did you receive one in your room?

We did not get a tote.  We spoke to long time Oceania cruises last night (Concierge class) and they also did not get a tote bag.  

3 hours ago, What A Market said:

Last night was dinner in Red Ginger. It has been too many years since our last opportunity to try this specialty restaurant. Love the whole routine of the chop stick presentation and the tea service. (Although we wait until the end of the meal to order our tea.)

 

I had the vegetable tempura, the tuna tataki, the watermelon and duck salad as starter courses. For the entree I had the miso sea bass. All were as good as I remembered. 

My exact meal last night, as well.  It was very good.  I'm taking photos, too, for my executive chef son.  

4 minutes ago, ORV said:

I would put my phone in airplane mode ASAP. Did you verify with them that it worked on Oceania? 

Yes, we have both their 30 day "Cruise Plan" of which Riviera is a ship that is supposed to have this service as well as their International Plan.  I confirmed that it is showing on my AT&T account.  It is simply not working on my phone and only text on DH's.  I can see "cellular at SEA" in my location bar which is supposed to be correct.  We have turned off our Cellular Data to avoid data usage charges but their instructions on using their Cruise Plan state specifically not to use Airplane Mode.  It would definitely not connect in that status.  We'll see how it goes and I'll address this with AT&T when we return.  

Thanks!

6 hours ago, loriva said:

@zentand @toolworkerare also scheduled to be on your sailing as part of a B2B prior to the start of our cruise on 20 February.  @LakeRooseveltBrews--did you decide to do a B2B as well?

 

Would love to hear a few more details on the resumed muster drill.  And activities on board--especially trivia.

 

Most of all, we hope everyone enjoys their cruise and we look forward to seeing Riviera ourselves in 9 days!

@loriva  we did not do the B2B (unfortunately).  We are in the middle or repairs to our Hurricane Ian damaged home and didn't feel like we should be gone for 20 days (10 days was about what we thought would be OK).    Also, DH has jury duty scheduled for right after our return and we didn't think they'd take kindly to using "going on an extended cruise" as a good excuse. 🙂  

We will be going to one trivia session this afternoon.  The evening one is during our Red Ginger reservations, so we'll miss that one.  We will report back in on how trivia was later.  

1 hour ago, What A Market said:

Hi loriva 

All I’ve got right now (from Currents) is a first name: Cruise Director Steve.

Eventually I’ll come up with last name, unless someone beats me to it.

 

Cruise director is Steve Campbell.  We find him a bit hard to understand over the intercom, but fine when he's on stage in front of us (for instance, this morning at the Enrichment Speaker talk).  

In other notes, Internet for us has been spotty.   Different types of problems, so we never know if it's our devices (or walking over one another, even though the first is definitely logged off), or what.   Also, our phone reception which we paid AT&T for their "cruise package" has been horrible.  We are supposed to be able to both text and phone, and we put it on both our lines.   We can sometimes text one another.  My phone will not text anyone other than DH.  He can text friends & family...... sometimes.    I cannot.  We cannot call at all.  So, I'm not really sure what we paid AT&T  for.  Frustrating because we told family and house sitters that they were going to be able to reach us.   Lesson:  don't trust AT&T.  

Otherwise, the cruise has been great so far.  Seas are somewhat high and quite windy out there, and they closed the paddleball and golf areas due to the winds.   

We are on board as well.  We noticed another hour taken off our first port (St. Kitts).  It had originally been 9:00 a.m. when we booked, changed to 10:00 a.m. a few weeks ago, and now showing 11:00 a.m. on our TV interface.  We have one of the longer shore excursions booked (through Oceania), so it will probably take up our entire time in port and we won't have much time to look around on our own.  

On both www.cruisemapper.com and www.cruisetimetables.com, it shows only Oceania Riviera in port on 2/17/23, so hopefully that means we will be docking at Old Town?  It seemed surprising to me that there would only be one ship in port on any given day, but we can hope?

1 hour ago, MEFIowa said:

Did E. Caribbean on Sirena 11/22. Wife and I really engaged each stop, either in the port city (Roseau) or on an excursion (St. Vincent & Puerto Plata). As for St. Barts, too bad you didn't walk to Fort Karl which overlooks Shell Beach. The view amazing. We went to the other fort, too, though it is used by the local police. And we spent the afternoon enjoying Shell Beach, covered in shells, not sand.

MEFlowa - I read your trip review and couldn't tell if you did all your ports on your own or any on an organized excursion?  We have booked one excursion to go to Nevis from St. Kitts, but nothing else yet.  Any recommendations?  Thanks!

Glad to hear you had such a great trip and looking forward to your review.  Would love to hear about what you did for shore excursions and how you would rate your choices for those.  We will be embarking in just under 4 weeks.