Horn protocol

[veryseasonedtraveler]

We were on a Costa ship near another Costa ship. The two captains kept trying to outdo each other with their horns as we departed. Loved it. Just like driving in Rome. :)

[frankc98376]

Was surprised in Seattle that there was no ship whistle sounded for the safety drill. Our ferries always sound both the alarms and the ship whistle for any on board drills. One of the ferry Captains said in his pre drill announcement about the drill that alarms and whistle were required by law so those outside with small children may want to take them inside.

[St Pete Cruiser]

This past April, we had a noon horn blast every sea day promptly at noon followed by the Captains weather report.

[Scrapnana]

Since this thread has been resurrected you may have missed this....

 

Seattle received a complaint from someone in FLL about the "excessive" tooting (probably the Westerdam) that many of us love to hear. The captain was told to lay off the horn on departure. Very sad. Anyone who lives near the port and can't stand a minute or two of tooting once a week should live some place else.:rolleyes:

[NRFBQN]

A year or two ago we were on the Eurodam, leaving St. Thomas, and our captain sounded the horn to say goodbye to the Princess ship next to us. The Princess ship surprised us with a horn rendition of the Love Boat theme! It was so much fun! I keep hoping that will happen again sometime.

[catl331]

Princess always seem to play "Love Boat" when leaving Pt Everglades. Disney does play their "song" on leaving Pt Canaveral but the webcam system is not in the area where you can hear it.

 

Went on Disney in Oct. and there were many kids. I didn't enjoy the adult only area as I was looking for peace and quiet and I found 10 adults quite soused!

[Lizzie68]

Since this thread has been resurrected you may have missed this....

 

Seattle received a complaint from someone in FLL about the "excessive" tooting (probably the Westerdam) that many of us love to hear. The captain was told to lay off the horn on departure. Very sad. Anyone who lives near the port and can't stand a minute or two of tooting once a week should live some place else.:rolleyes:

 

Slight correction - to my knowledge that person does not live in FLL but has a little pull with HAL. One letter of complaint. It was.not hard to figure out who after his posts on here about the Westie horns.

[Scrapnana]

Slight correction - to my knowledge that person does not live in FLL but has a little pull with HAL. One letter of complaint. It was.not hard to figure out who after his posts on here about the Westie horns.

 

Oh, I hadn't heard that. I guess that makes me feel a little better (even though the outcome is the same:() because the people in FLL really seem to love the ships tooting as they leave port.

[sammiedawg]

You might be pleasantly surprised. Disney does a great job of keeping the kids entertained in their own spaces, and is absolutely strict about maintaining the sanctity of adults-only areas. And if you take a longer sailing particularly during the school year, there will be far fewer kids aboard than on the short sailings during school break periods. In any event, if you like HAL and X ships and service, you will adore Disney.

 

We like Some of the mainstream cruise lines but we did not adore Disney or the service which we found lacking due to too many passengers and not enough staff. I've never dared to post on the Disney boards.

 

The regular capacity of the Fantasy is 2600, most sailings including ours last month have 4000 on board. Presumably almost half are kids. The space per passenger is the worst I've encountered. I like kids and adore little ones but there were too many in too small a space. Main pool deck is wall to wall kids, shoulder to shoulder in the pools. This is also the noisiest area on board due to the blaring movie screen and the piped in canned music. Then there were the loud, frequent announcements that never ended.

 

The dining rooms are jam packed with tables and chairs, to get in and out we had to walk through the server station. The servers can barely get to the tables to serve the food, they frequently passed the plates from the head of the table. The servers ran ragged with too many tables and we didn't see food runners or extra help from the head waiters. Dinners were painfully slow. Noise levels were off the chart, especially in Animators Palate.

Cabins were not cleaned until early afternoon and a couple evenings we had no turndown service. We found our own clean towels on a service cart, the room "hostess" apologized but she was still trying to finish rooms after 9pm.

 

The adult areas you mention were kid free and quiet but we didn't find the adult pool area comfortable at all. The lounge chairs were uncomfortable, no padding.

We found refuge on the wonderful promenade deck where the cushioned lounge chairs were heavenly. It was quiet there for a few days until packs of loud tween kids discovered the area and occupied their time chasing each other in and out the doors and passageways. The tweens also ran up and down hallways and staircases at all hours.

 

We had a nice time with our extended family but found the service lacking for the per diem we paid.

[TAD2005]

We had lived for many years on Great Bay Beach in St. Maarten, right across the bay from the Pointe Blanche cruise ship terminal. Around 5 pm, we would sit on our patio and watch the many ships depart and we would hear them blowing their horns as they departed the dock. Disney would do their usual "When you wish upon a Star", and occasionally "It's a Small World After All". Princess would always blow the notes of "The Love Boat" opening theme. Other ships would do the "Shave and a Haircut...." and ships would respond with the "Two Bits". We loved that almost every day in St. Maarten. One time in 2005, we had 9 ships in port, which required 3 of them to be anchored in the harbour, one of which was the Queen Mary. We had a rule of thumb, when there were more than 3 ships in port, we cancelled all plans to walk to Philipsburg, or other places on the island. Nothing like 8 or 9 ships, with 2000+ passengers, effectively doubling the island population for 8 hours.

Edited June 3, 2016 by TAD2005