AFS1970

We started the day kind of eaely and decided due to luggage to take Uber instead of taking the train. It was just under an hour ride to the port. We got in about half an hour before our scheduled time and walked through the lines fairly quickly. Embarkation went smoothly, the port staff were friendly and helpful. Many announcements about finding your muster station, but nobody directing you to where they were. We were.looking for B4 and only figured it out when we saw B3. We went to our muster area and were directed into the casino. The safety instruction was brief. Even with this there were bunches of announcements telling people to go find their muster stations and check in. Then we decided to try and find the Lido for some lunch. Easier said than done thanks to the new smart elevators. I understand there are no separate freight elevators and they were doing their best to deliver everyone's luggage. My knees aren't the greatest and DW tires easily. At least we can walk if we have to. I can only imagine how the passengers in wheelchairs & scooters were fairing at the mercy of this crowd management system. Several times we pressed our floors and waited, and waited, usually either getting on any elevator that looked like it would get us half way there or finally taking the stairs. We did make it to the Lido and the Marketplace and the food was good. The lines were not as long as we feared, except for pizza but that was because they were running out and cooking more as fast as they could. The pizza was kind of bland and a bit undercooked. The pasta & Tuscan Beef were pretty good. Then it was off to the shot glass trading event, my first time doing this event and it was fun. We had a good group on this cruise that was all organized at [the other site that shall not be named]. Then off to a group photo with those of us that bought the T-shirts designed by one of the cruisers. After that we watched the sail away from our balcony and relaxed a bit before dinner.

This is my first attempt at a live review. I am not sure how much of an update schedule I will maintain, but I am giving this the old college try. Cruising with me is DW AlranaEris, who I will be encouraging to join me in posting at least some pics, if not reviews throughout this thread.

OK, on a happier note, here are some of the events that have been posted over at [THAT OTHE SITE] I do not know what some of these are and others I have never heard of before. Saturday September 16 (Departure Day) 2:30 PM Frizzante Bar - Shot Glass trade / draw. Bring a shot glass and we will draw numbers to see which one you come away with. Saturday September 16 (Departure Day) 3:45 PM Lido Deck - T-Shirt Meet & Greet & Group Photo This is primarily for those that bought the T-Shirts (at the other site) made by one of the cruisers but I am sure the more the merrier for the meet & greet part. Sunday September 17 12:30 PM Frizzante Bar - Dead Duck Swap This is a sort of swap of rubber ducks but there are some sort of complicated rules about stealing ducks and dying ducks. Friday September 22 (Time TBA) Frizzante Bar - State Themed Gift Exchange This is a white elephant/ grab bag sort of exchange with all gifts being from your home state. There are also several Slot Pulls organized by different people. Saturday September 16 @ 10:00PM Sunday September 17 @ 11:00AM Sunday September 17 @ 3:00PM Wednesday September 20 @ 10:00PM Thursday September 21@ 12:30PM Friday September 22 @ 3:00 PM There were also some other events a few of which filled up, like a cabin crawl. However, those are the ones that DW gave me to post.

DW & I will be on board also.

I have been watching Lee on the news, one track has it hitting Nova Scotia the other has it hitting NYC. However, I suspect any changes to the itinerary will be based on if we are in front of the storm or behind it. So far, I have not seen any models that show a location past Wednesday. I am no expert in oceanic navigation, but I wonder what options we have if the storm is coming up from the south. If we avoid Canada for say the Bahamas but the storm is there, do we have an option to move around it?

On the one hand I can see not having to honor an obvious glitch, but their site does seem to have an awful lot of obvious glitches. I once got a piece of furniture for about 2/3 price because it was mislabeled. There is a longer story which isn't relevant, but the store had to honor the price because of a consumer protection law. That being said, the cruise contract specifies jurisdiction and even if it didn't internet law is hardly a settled matter with states arguing over who is in charge and where the internet resides. Now since some folks wanted a conspiracy theory, here is mine (completely tongue in cheek). It is not that they were going to survive on all these sales, they just needed to show a good number for single day income. So, they release a glitch, count it as a statistic, then issue the refunds they knew they were going to have to anyway, but do so quietly.

Fair enough, they may not have been notified. However, where I work, I routinely notify USCG for land-based issues that may eventually impact coastal waters, I have seen them pull up in SUV's to check out what is going on.

Probably the Coast Guard needs to be notified because they are the regulatory / enforcement agency for maritime law.

I agree that restaurant music should be incidental, in the background and not the focus of the event. Unless of course you are at a dinner theater (are those even still a thing?) and in keeping with that instrumental is usually better. I suppose as different generations grow older, out definition of classics or oldies will change. Of the play list posted above, really none of them would be my choice in a steak house, which to me is a different setting from a pool party of even sail away.

Sounds like a fun road trip. We sailed on the Conquest out of NOLA in 2005.

@Haljo1935 I am not on FB either, but since DW is, I get to know about events. I will post details for some of the events here later.

Probably not hard to fix, but maybe not a cost priority.

Being that the Venezia was not designed for an American, or even a European crowd, are there different buffet rules in Asian cultures that would account for this design? Are we just trying to figure out our way around something that was not designed for us?

Taxis are still king in NYC, but Uber is changing that. In NYC Uber is regulated like a taxi, they need taxi plates and taxi licenses. However, Uber is still allowed to price by zone and surge. I have had some luck walking a block away in Manhattan and getting an Uber, although I have never tried this at the cruise terminal.

Isn't that more like a sad shuffle?

Thanks again. We are in CT (just over the border). We will probably take the train into GCT, as there are no good interstate busses for us, and we are used to taking the train into NYC. Although we are close enough that we could just Uber to the cruise port. Sometimes finding a driver willing to go to NYC is hard, because most local drivers can't pick up a return trip to CT. So that is not a great option. So we essentially have the flip side of your trip.

I am many cruises away from my next loyalty tier, so buying FttF is probably the only way I will see these benefits. Although I find myself agreeing more with those that don't think I should be able to buy what they earned. That being said, I am not convinced they will be of much benefit to me. For $130, I can get on a slightly shorter line at the usual time, but the whole ship leaves at once, so other than getting to hog a chair faster, not much interest there. Dropping off bags isn't a deal breaker for me, as most of my luggage is checked, if I have a carry on it would probably be something I want to keep with me. If I can afford to drop it off, I can just check it. The priority Karen line (in person and the Bat-Phone) are only good to me if I plan on complaining, which since I hope not to have anything to complain about every cruise, seems like planning to fail. I have thankfully only had to complain once, and that was on RCI, ad it was really more of a question than a complaint. On Oasis they canceled an Ice show with no notice, and we realized when our printed docs didn't match the daily schedule. I have probably jinxed myself by writing this. Since I am trying MTD for the first time, other than some specialty reservations I have already made, that priority feature isn't going to help me. And for this cruise, since I am not flying home, I really don't care when I leave the ship. I have seen others here on CC who swear by leaving as late as possible. I realize everyone's milage may vary, but for us, at least on this upcoming cruise, I can't see spending the money.

If I suggested to DW that I carry my passport myself and, in a carryon, she would just use that laser beam vision to let me know that she holds those documents, and they go in her purse. But thanks for the encouragement!

I like topic specific forums because here I can post about cruising, and nobody cares what sports team I root for or who I voted for in the last election. On social media everyone knows everything about everybody. I am 41 days out from my cruise, I know this because I looked it up yesterday and saw 42. I had forgotten about the Doc Dance, but now fondly remember getting that envelope on our first cruise.

I am somewhat in doubt of the need for a carry on aboard a ship. On an airplane, this is for the few things that I might need on the flight, which for the most part is reading material and maybe a few snacks. As technology had made reading and other entertainment into smaller devices and the ship is full of snacks, I am not sure unless I was coming right from the airport that I would need to have a separate carry on when boarding a ship. If I do have one, it will be small and likely a backpack. On a recent hotel trip I noticed a lot of people gathering in the lobby with a week's worth of luggage, some keeping hold of the wheeled carts that are in limited supply. Most sating areas had available seats that were blocked by piles of luggage. I can only imagine what it would have been like if others had wanted to sit down.

This being a new ship, I will have to figure out how the buffet works when I get on board. This will likely be a combination of the physical layout and the attitudes of my fellow cruisers. While camp #2 sounds like a nice place, I can see that if I were on the line in camp #1 and waited patiently for my station to come up, and someone asked to cut in just at that moment, I might be a little annoyed. Not enough to stat an epic carnival brawl over, but still annoyed. One thing I have noticed about most of the cruise vlogs I have seen, with few exceptions most of the buffet footage is shot when it is closed and there is no food lid out or people standing on line so it is hard to gauge this part of the cruise.

We have a (new to us) 14th deck balcony with no roof, I haven't looked to see if we are on the statue side yet. I know there are a couple of meetups, one for trading ducks, a shot glass exchange, some sort of slot pull. All being coordinated over at the thing that claims to be a book but isn't. As I don't do Social Media, I leave that sort of thing up to DW. I have thought about trying to put together a family feud team, since you need 4 to compete. DW doesn't want to do that but I think it might be kind of fun.

42 days out and getting that cruising itch. DW found someone on social media who made T-Shirts for this cruise, so we bought them. Also doing the Cruise Ducks for the first time. Since there are no more formal CC receptions on most lines, anyone on here got any ideas for anything interesting?

Thanks for the great review. We will be on board going to Canada in 42 days.

I am not sure you could call a 15 drink a day limitation "all inclusive", I honestly have never counted my daily drinks so I have no idea if this is high or low, but any limitation seems like it would work against becoming drunk and disorderly.