amindu

2 minutes ago, MagnoliaBlossom said:

Some are already out, through April, I think.  I booked on the Viva in January.

Yup, looking for end of May/June.  Hopefully some good ones from Galveston

Is there a thread or anyone know the timeline that discusses when the remaining 2026 calendar will be released, right now they are only showing Hawaii sailings?  Thanks. 

Just now, wreckem2013 said:

Allure is going in for a massive Amplification in 2025.

Yup we sail her from Rome a month after her amplification, looking forward to it.  

5 hours ago, GJustice said:

Well, the "new" ones are available now and all that's "new" is Allure replacing Harmony in March 2026 with a couple of additional itineraries to the same old destinations.

 

Guess I'll have to surrender and start flying to FL since the 4th busiest port in the US (Galveston) won't see more destinations next year. Or I guess I can defect to one of the other TX based lines 😞 

Really? that is very disappointing, I would much rather have Harmony or Symphony over Allure. I wonder if they start losing market share if changes will be made now that NCL is also sailing from that port.  I had friends that went on the Prima and they loved the ship and all. 

On 12/29/2023 at 9:42 AM, SUgwoz said:

Agreed, I take trips that require a lot of planning and coordination which ends up being a great experience seeing the world.  I cruise for the opposite.  Usually there is a day where I essentially do nothing.  While on a trip to Japan, I am likely walking 25k+ steps everyday not wasting any time.

 

That's a big part of the growing demographic they are targeting.  For families, cruises mean available food, kid's are perfectly happy with pizza, hot dogs, chicken tenders, fruit.  Parents don't have to go find a restaurant and spend $10/meal.  Activities always available for different ages, can split up easily.  Always close to room to be able to change/rest/ect.

 

The money being spent on Icon class and Oasis class is for amenities targeting families, not focusing on fine dining/adult only oriented experience.  Veteran cruisers will be disappointed that they are paying for amenities that they will not use.

You are spot on. Before 2019 we cruised and did destinations. Post Covid and with a 4 yr and 2 yr old my wife has absolutely no interest in destination for the exact reasons you mentioned.  We book 2-3 cruises a year and only on oasis class. 

Have to agree with OP we were on Odyssey a couple weeks back and echo the sentiments regarding the quality of food and mentioned in the survey as well.  I actually got really sick a couple times due to the food which has never happened before.  
 

Also ate at CK a couple times and the food quality was definitely better there. 

1 hour ago, SG65CB said:

The lobster tails are prepared differently in CK. When we were in CK on lobster night they served the CK lobster tails, and they also brought us lobster tails from the MDR so we could try it both ways and see which we liked better. This was before they started charging for extra lobster in the MDR.

which one was better?

Do pinnacle folks get priority over those in JR Suites?  Just found out the ship has 120 pinnacle vs 75 capacity in CK?

7 minutes ago, cookooclock said:

Icon has been out for a while now. You mean Star?

Sorry yes I meant Star 

Icon is out 

Hi All we are on Odyssey in a JR suite (2 adults 2 kids) if there are reservations available all week we will put our name down.  Question is if one night my wife isn’t interested in going can I take my brother instead with me in her and kids place? Do they like scan your sea pass and know the faces of everyone in that cabin?
 

2nd question are you also limited to one lobster in CK the night they serve lobster? 
 

thanks 

25 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

Think about Sundays from Port Canaveral, subject to change.  

I am hoping either its similar to the initial pricing that was on Icon before the crazy increase or once its released, Icon drops in pricing.  One can hope.

2 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

Everything I've seen points to 7 nights Caribbean with Perfect Day, alternating east then west week after week.  

 

There may be an initial inaugural 4 night cruise but until they officially release the ship and open up bookings we won't know for sure.   

Thanks

Just now, OCSC Mike said:

 

7 night Caribbean sailings almost assuredly from PC. I'd expect them to be just about identical to the current Wonder sailings.

Thanks 

Any idea on if Star of the Seas will be doing 7 day sailings or shorter 3/4 day sailing? Is it safe to say it will be similar to Icon and situated in the Caribbean? 

30 minutes ago, micruiser2002 said:

I agree, I do not know why so many want to use a shuttle.  

I use it, as i have a 2 and 4 year old and don't have to lug around car seats.  Private transportation with car seats is usually a lot more expensive. 

6 minutes ago, TTEllis said:

Yes, yes, yes and yes. 

First trip to Aruba? Going to Eagle Beach..... only way to go. Nice!!

When you walk out of the security area at the pier they'll be local guides selling tours you tell them you and your family need a taxi to Eagle Beach. They'll hook you right up, you'll be on Eagle Beach GREAT family beach in less than 15 minutes. Taxi's are very safe even though I take the city bus to Eagle.

Nice taxi van for everyone to fit in. You can work out a deal coming and going. Plenty of taxi's bus stop is right there. No worries getting back to the ship, Eagle Beach is not far from the pier.

 

Passions Beach Bar, best grilled chicken panini with goat cheese sandwich and seasoned fries I've ever eaten in my life. 

Great bar great food and drinks nice people. 

You'll go back. Have fun.

Thanks so much !!

Any advice here where can you pick up taxis on the return portion back to the ship? Thanks 

On 11/13/2023 at 12:28 PM, Nike4000 said:

@Pattywac and @Ideb - we just returned from our cruise on Royal's Harmony of the Seas & we did the glass bottom boat and monkey/sloth excursion. It was fantastic! We had a great time, plus there was a bonus stop at a Roatan chocolate factory!

 

Highlights from the excursion:

• Darby, our guide, was amazing! Lots of wonderful insights into Roatan and it's culture. Plus there were prizes for answering questions correctly! Who doesn't love interactive guides?
• The bus wasn't the most comfortable, but it had air conditioning and was fully functioning. I'll take it! We had every seat full, including the jump seat and the bus handled the hills and traffic without a single issue.
• The chocolate factory was our first stop. Decent restrooms and the chocolate was great. Plus, there were a bunch of little shops to explore, which was nice. Large bottles of cold water were $2, so we stocked up on a few.
• Second stop was to see Monkeys & Sloths. Our guide (not Darby), who looked like he was about 12, shared tons of great information and spent time talking about some of Roatan's natural medicines and treatments, in addition to educating us about the monkeys & sloths. Plus, we got to hold a macaw & have our pictures taken with it on our own devices - no forced fee for the photo like some other places. Holding the sloths was so awesome. The one I was holding tried to steal my hat, very slowly. It was fun to experience. They also had decent restrooms!
• Third and final stop was the "glass bottom boat" which was really a semi-submersible. We've had bad, bad, bad experiences with these in the past, but this one was a-okay. First, it had air conditioning, which made it tolerable. Second, we actually got to see thriving sea life and some amazing coral reefs. No bathroom on board, you had to hold it.

The bad parts of the excursion were:

• Three people were late to the meeting point, so we had to return to pick them up, which added an hour to the excursion. That hour was spent in traffic, which SUCKED! One guy kept trying to get a chant going of "Leave them" and heavily criticized Darby for going back throughout the rest of the tour.
• Food was not available outside of the chocolate factory. With the 5 hour duration of the excursion, it's a long excursion to not have a lunch break or some sort of snack included.

Overall, we had a great time and will definitely consider this excursion again for future visits to Roatan. Darby was fantastic, we'd make sure to request Darby again on future trips.

Hi thanks for this summary would you say this would be something that a 2 and 4 year old would enjoy?

Hi All we will be in Aruba in a couple weeks from my research we will go to Eagle Beach specifically be asked to drop off at Amsterdam Manor walk down and rent chairs and Palapas from Passions beach bar which is near the hotel. Is all this correct? 
 

Also will there be a taxi to fit 6 of us 3 adults and 3 toddlers, and are the taxis safe there? How about the return do we just go to Amsterdam Manor and there will be taxis waiting or do we ask the hotel if they can call one? 
 

Thanks 

44 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

If you have an Android phone, specifically Samsung Galaxy models, you can WiFi hotspot your WiFi connection. Apparently this is not an option for iPhones. and I can't speak for other android phones.

Might be a good idea to set up your WiFi hotspot ahead of time. You can't have Airplane mode on, so turn that off. To make sure you don't cellular roam the hotspot, I turn off Mobile Data. Then connect other devices to your phone's hotspot.

I've done this on a number of cruises and other trips now, including using my Firestick. 

 

We travel with a universal remote, so we can program it to whatever TV the cruise ship or hotel has (Mostly Samsung and LG) so that we can change the input source. Not all TVs have a button.

 

On newer ships (like Odyssey and newer), you may have to unplug the TV from the wired network, and then reboot it (unplug it and back in). This will prevent the custom home screen launcher app from running which can block you from selecting an input even with a universal remote.

 

Which remote do you take?

4 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Harmony shows as leaving march 2026 but nothing is shown yet replacing her. More obviously to come. 

Maybe Icon, LOL

1 hour ago, GJustice said:

That's my understanding, but as I said, I've not started shopping around yet.

 

Realized after I posted this that there's another batch of Caribbean itineraries coming out in a couple of weeks. Waiting anxiously for something new 🙂 

In Galveston they just have the Harmony, not sure it will change much.  Plus rumor is that is for the Star

Dec 5 - Star (Icon 2)

Feb 14 - Short Caribbean and LAX (UT, WN, AN, LB, FR, MA, NV, AD, JW)

Feb 14 - Northeast (SY, OY, LB, VI)

Feb 21 - Other Caribbean (SY AL, EX, JW)

32 minutes ago, Pinballs83 said:

There is a button under the TV that brings up a menu with the source option. It's not on the remote. Every time you turn off the TV you will have to select the source again with the button on the tv. Short press scrolls, long press is enter. 

 

The TV slides out so it's easy to access on this ship.  Same thing on oasis.

Going on odyssey in 3 weeks would it be similar setup? For win 11 device would a surface pro fit that profile or do you take an actual laptop?

14 hours ago, twangster said:

I will say that back in the day when I first used an AC750 and also a Hootoo device Voom speeds were limited to 4 Mbps down and 2Mbps up.  With those kind of speeds the performance of the travel router didn't matter so much.

 

With the faster speeds that are available on some ships the Starlink speeds are now exceeding the performance of these compact travel routers.  So while they may work, they may have lower throughput or will become a bottleneck compared to joining the ship WLAN directly.

 

I've been playing with my AC750 and have discovered you can't set the 5Ghz channel, it mirrors the 5Ghz channel that you set it to join.  This means that the radios are doing double duty transmitting and receiving on the same frequencies so it uses the RF spectrum twice for the same data flow, effectively competing with itself, at least for the hardware version I have.  

 

If you set the AC750 to join on the 2.4Ghz band then you are inherently limited by the nature of the 20 or 40 Mhz channels in use which may result in lower throughput compared to what Starlink is making available on the ship when connected directly to the ship's 5Ghz radios.

 

I am seeing my AC750 top out at around 35 Mbps up and down where as I sometimes get three to four times that download speed when connected directly.

 

It stands to reason given the age of the AC750 family of products and their compact size that performance may not have been a huge design goal.

 

Being limited to 35 Mbps may work for some but if you are moving large amounts of data it's a pretty big hit to take.  

 

I'm going to play with it some more at home on my gigabit fiber service but at the moment I'm not overly impressed with the performance of the AC750 now that internet speeds are becoming larger.

 

But on a ship isn't this a mute point?  Unless the new Starlink exceeds 35mbps up and down, even if it does for most i imagine streaming, internet etc would be plenty?  

Nvm i think i see the point you are making that with the use we would be getting 10% of actual output so the device would be useless.