Has anyone been on a ship that was late after Dry Dock?

[wendyatpml]

We are on the first cruise after the Infinity was in Dry Dock. Someone on another thread said that they were on a cruise after dry dock and the ship arrived at the port late. It didn't leave until around midnight and missed a port. Has anyone else had an experience like that after dry dock?

[Project_gal]

We are on the first cruise after the Infinity was in Dry Dock. Someone on another thread said that they were on a cruise after dry dock and the ship arrived at the port late. It didn't leave until around midnight and missed a port. Has anyone else had an experience like that after dry dock?

 

We were on Infinity immediately following its dry dock in 2011. Yes, it was late being ready and, presumably arriving. It was horrendous - of any cruise can be horrendous.

 

Those of us with Celebrity transfers were collect "on time" despite everyone else being asked to delay their arrival. They then took us to drop off our luggage before returning us almost to where we started and dumped us in the Conference Centre. We would have been much better off staying at our respective hotels until later. Once we were collected from the Conference Centre and being told our rooms were ready, we were dumped on a ship that was not ready for us - and made that clear. We were almost the first on board and things may have improved later but we were made to feel distinctly unwanted.

 

Things really did not improve most of the cruise but, luckily, we made some wonderful friends on board.

 

On the first formal night, the Captain explained that it was taking so long to load the supplies and the tide was going against them that he said that whatever was not loaded by a certain time would be left behind. They managed to load everything but at the expense of knowing where anything was. We spent the whole cruise with work continuing on board, a shortage of items until they were found and a totally stressed out officers and crew.

 

Something had not quite worked when they installed Blu because the doors of our Royal Suite did not work properly all cruise. We would find our locked main door open all the time, most cupboard doors and the shower door kept swinging open, and, at one point, I got locked in the bathroom. That incident was made considerably worse by the total disinterest of Guest Relations. My husband resorted to physical force on the door which, consequently, had to be wedged open for the rest of the cruise.

 

In the Royal Suite, we suffered all the losses from the dry dock [e.g. removal of the in-suite PC] with few of the promised improvements [e.g. enhanced interactive TV] despite paying full price for the cruise because we had not chosen to book a cruise just out of dry dock having booked a full year in advance of the announcement. The improved soft furnishing were overshadowed by the tatty cabinetry where items had been removed but not made good. If such an announcement was made for any of our cruises in the future, we would cancel immediately even though this means that [being in the UK] we would loose our deposit.

[patty1955]

Our Panama cruise on the Millennium was after a dry dock. The ship smelled a little like paint, the clocks were wrong and some of the art work wasn't in place. Other than that, it was all good.

I remember that it was the Panama Canal cruise because they scrapped the newly painted ship while going through the canal and the captain complained about the cost for the repair while we were on the bridge tour.

[wendyatpml]

I had no idea of dry dock when we made our reservations. We really booked because of the itinerary. Hopefully we will be o.k. If we change our cruise, then we lose money on the flights. I will report back on Nov. 5 when we get home.

[Desertbelle]

Some years back we had a disastrous first cruise after a dry dock, on a Princess ship.

 

The worst issue was that the new engines they put in had a "breaking in" period and couldn't go full speed, so we missed many ports and only got half days at the 3 ports we got to (it was a 10 day 7 port cruise :().

 

Many things were out of use, even the pool was out of order for a couple of days because they were still painting and installing decking. The internet (which includes a lot of things you might not think of, such as ATM machines, television, etc.) didn't work until day 7 of the cruise. Carpet glue smells, paint smells, carpentry noise and dust was everywhere. Because it was a long dry dock, over 2 weeks, the crew was way out of practice, and it took a good 4-5 days for service and food to get up to snuff. Some people were so upset they were walking off the ship with their luggage in the ports...couldn't take it anymore.

 

I would never book a cruise after a dry dock again, until the price was something spectacular....worth the inconveniences that might occur.

[ShawninFL]

We were on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the seas for a 10 night cruise directly after a dry dock. There didn't appear to be any problems on the ship when passengers arrived. The only negative I can remember is that all the windows on the ship were filthy, especially in the Viking Crown Lounge. Based on our experience I never would have worried about having a trip planned right after a dry dock, but based on some of the stories I've read above, now I would think twice.

[julia]

Well, as the OP indicated, there was NOTHING mentioned about this dry dock when booking. If not for it being mentioned here, I would have never known. I'm not fretting about any of it, but I will NOT be happy if the ship is "out of sorts" for this cruise. I already know that we won't be dining in Tuscan!

[Blue Lagoon]

Our first Celebrity Cruise in 2005 on Millennium was actually a no show. Thankfully, the rumor mill was turning on Cruise Critic and the news was out that the ship would not be at the Barcelona Pier so we weren't too horrified. The ship was still in drydock and not in Spain like first anticipated due to a strike.

 

Buses were waiting to take us to hotels. Our hotel was out of the way and not near any tourist attractions. We were given a breakfast at the hotel and a daily voucher to eat at the mall across the street for another meal. One day, there was a tour that we paid for (arranged thru Celebrity) that took us to Montserrat. Most of the time was gathering people up from various hotels and we only had a little over an hour at the site. When the concierge phoned to ask how we enjoyed the excursion, I told them that we had so little visiting time and a portion of our money was refunded.

 

Between the hurricanes and no luggage tags for disembarkation, it's amazing we sailed with Celebrity again - 27 cruises and counting.:D

[SeaCBear]

When we did our first transAtlantic on the RCL Mariner of the Seas, it was just out of dry dock. It arrived in Miami on time, but we were quite late leaving port, and there was still quite a lot of work happening on board as we sailed - carpet work, floor work around the pool, painting, etc. But, nothing that spoiled our cruise - it was a wonderful vacation.