pretzlaff

We are on the Explorer now on its transatlantic. To me, Royal’s food took a turn for the worse about 2 years ago. We did 4 Royal transatlantics last year. The food on this trip is the same as last year, so no improvement. 
 

I was hoping that things would improve, but they have not. 

Bonsai--  I love your fridge.

Just a quick note on disembarking in Fort Lauderdale. 
 

The schedule showed 7am for self getting off. We got in line at 5:45. They started at 6:15. 5 minutes thru immigration. Many, many cabs waiting. Got to the Brightline train station in 15 minutes. Tickets in hand and in the waiting room at about 6:45. 
 

Good cruise. 

I hate to take them off my bill entirely, but I might go to customer service and have them reduced back down to $16/ day. 

On her now and still in the Med. I think we get to Florida on the 12th. 

Another option is to chat folks up while you are waiting in line to get off and see who else is going to EWR.  If they have limited luggage like you, then maybe the 4 of you can share one of the private taxi things at a total of $69.

No idea what a 'real' cab would cost if you called them.  Hard to believe that you would save that much.

No signs.   I asked about 3 staff as I was headed that way.

We just did Cape Liberty to EWR yesterday getting off RC’s Jewel.  We were “self assist”.  Lined up at 7:15 for the scheduled 7:30 time, but only allowed to leave the boat about 7:45. 

Royal has a bus that has an 8:15 meet time in the theater. Given luggage and immigration, I suspect it left about 9am. Cost was $27/ person. It sold our 4 days before docking. We were on a 17 night transatlantic. 
 

I checked Uber in the morning and they were about $100. 
 

Taxis are funny. You leave the terminal out the North(?) door and take a left. Go across the street and into a chain link fence area. There are no “real” taxis that are yellow and say taxi. The coordinator offered us $69 for a private car or $22/ person in a 25-ish person shuttle. We took the shuttle. It took 15-20 minutes to load everyone.  Cash or credit cards. 
 

The trip to EWR took about twice the time it should have at maybe 50 minutes. There was a detour because of traffic and dropping people off at a hotel first. Bad shuttle and bad roads. 
 

In retrospect, the extra $20 for a private car would have cut the wait and drive from over an hour to about 20 minutes. We will do that next time. 

The fyords of Greenland really are the highlight of this transatlantic. 

I am with Renee and Gumshoe currently on the 17 day Jewel. Quiet and boring can be a good thing.  This is mixed with the occasional whale or iceberg sighting. 
 

We are headed into a large sound on the southern tip of Greenland today. You won’t find that on a four day cruise out of Florida. 

We did both the Symphony and the Jewel transatlantic in the last 2 months.  The internet was not good.  There were parts of the ship that never had a signal. Then other parts like our cabin, it would come and go.

Sooner or later, I would get tired of waiting for websites to load and simply give up.

I was only browsing websites and not really demanding much.

Frankly, it does not seem much better than before the new system.

If you attempt to work, it will end poorly.

Things have improved this morning. I notice on speed test that we are now bouncing to a server in Madrid, no longer Miami. 
 

ping is 181, down is 9.00, up is 3.00. 

We are on the Symphony now and about half way across the Atlantic. 
 

starlink is not good. Near Florida it seemed ok, but it is almost unusable now. 
 

speedtest says a latency of 179, download 0.38 (with dips to 0.00 during the test), and uploads of 2.86. It took 5 seconds to load cruisecritic after twice not finding the server. 
 

i was really looking forward to it, but at best it has only been as good as the old system and now seems worse. 

We are four days into the east bound cruise, and will be with you on the west bound in October. We will probably get the package for the fall because the regular food has been disappointing so far on this cruise. Seems like poorer quality and lower cost ingredients to me.  
 

There are a ton of specialty places on board, so a UDP package would give many options. 
 

Also, while I hope it is different in the fall, this boat is packed and there are A LOT of kids. The Windjammer is particularly crowded and loud. The specialty places would be quieter. 

The funny part is the 'take any test you want'....bring a picture, do whatever...no supervision....we trust you not to download a picture from the internet......this really isn't about health....this is really about theater....

We just got the Blue Chip veranda offer.  I have about $800 from a future cruise credit.  Can I use that for taxes?  Can I use it for wifi?  Do I do this before or after dealing with the Blue Chip rep.  Do they set it all up, then you can add things like wifi, then can you call the regular Celebrity telephone rep, and pay everything off with the FCC??  I do love me some free cruises.

You are asking a question of many people whose answer will often be 'why either or, rather than both'.

We will be on the Symphony and Jewel going over, and both again in the fall coming back.

The Royal spring transatlantics have been silly cheap.  Try to book one in addition to your Holland cruise. 

Another good day aboard.  Food, staff, and restfulness continue to be excellent. 
 

A couple of mildly negative things:
 

A little rocky today. The legs are getting a bit of a workout. The captain says that tomorrow will be worse. 
 

The wifi has been poor most of the cruise, and today it was almost unusable. 

Tonight’s view off the stern. 

The captain just announced that we will be here an extra hour and a half as they are doing some engine work. 
 

The cruise continues to be excellent.  Quiet, half empty, great crew, good food, and great views of the Canaries. 
 

get better Dee!

We passed Gibraltar at dusk with light fog. Saw a couple of lights and only the outline of The Rock. 
 

As Dee has said, it is very quiet and very pleasant aboard. 
 

They are doing a good job with all the elite members on the ship. They are only allowing suite guests in the concierge lounge. As such there are only about a dozen or so couples at any one time. Food is quite good as is the service. The hotel director came in last night for a few words with each table. 
 

Everyone else is in the Diamond Lounge but they have added a ton of space. They have blocked off the entire 13th deck bar as Diamond space. They have also blocked off all the space and bar aft of the Schooner Bar.  The food in both of those areas is the same as the Suite Lounge, varied, interesting, and well prepared. Plenty of waitstaff are in both larger areas, also. 
 

The Windjammer is quite good also. Everything is hot. Good soups and well done entres for all tastes. The desserts are also better than other RCCL cruises that we have taken this year. The coconut cream pie at lunch was really well done. At dinner, they had a bananas foster station. 

We are also aboard. 
 

Checking in was, indeed, very fast. No line at the door.  No line at the security screening. And no line for the check in rep. I think it was 12 minutes from getting out of the taxi to the Windjammer. 
 

There are apparently only about 1100 pax, so about half full. There are a total of 4 Barcelona transatlantic cruises, all sailing within about 10 days. So there was a lot of competition. 
 

The Jewel is a great sized boat and in very good shape. 
 

Looks to be a very pleasant crossing. 

Fly around. 

Thanks for the pic!  Makes things easier. 

Does anyone know yet how you will 'prove' that you took an at-home unsupervised test and got a negative result.  Do you just sign a statement to the effect, or are people going to show up with a negative test thingy.