Alaska cruises

[jamesnnb]

Any one recently returned from Alaska cruises that can report if ship was full or?  Full crew or what? Any cancelled events on board? 

Edited June 16, 2022 by jamesnnb
Incorrect word

[erinsmom03]

I'm curious to what the responses will be... we are on Serenade next month.

[Biker19]

13 minutes ago, jamesnnb said:

Any one recently returned from Alaska cruises that can report if ship was full or?  Full crew or what? Any cancelled events on board? 

Look up Ovation and Quantum related threads from the main RCI section drop down menu - perhaps post this in one of the existing live from threads.

[reallyitsmema]

20 minutes ago, jamesnnb said:

Any one recently returned from Alaska cruises that can report if ship was full or?  Full crew or what? Any cancelled events on board? 

I was on the May 16th sailing of Quantum and we had right around 4,000 passengers.  As far as crew, hard to say if they were short staffed due to Covid, staffing, or both. 

[gdwest]

May 23 on the Quantum had 4,100 passengers.

[smokeybandit]

Serenade last week was 95% full and was going to be over 100% in coming weeks

[Travel R]

I'll be on Serenade in less than two weeks, so have been following all of the reports/reviews from the various ships sailing in Alaska (on CC and elsewhere).  Most that have stated numbers have provided figures around 95%. Since my sailing is just before July 4th, I am hoping it stays at 95% - not that the 5% difference is going to make much of a difference anyway.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

Edited June 16, 2022 by Travel R

[BirdTravels]

3 hours ago, jamesnnb said:

Any one recently returned from Alaska cruises that can report if ship was full or?  Full crew or what? Any cancelled events on board? 

We are just off the Quantum. We had 4100 passengers onboard. The ship’s capacity is 4180 guests double occupancy (4905 maximum capacity guests). Of the 4100 passengers, nearly 800 were kids under 18 years old. 

 

You can go through the Daily Compass on my live post to make your own decision on "events" you are interested in. 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by BirdTravels

[luv2cruise668]

We were on the 5/27 sailing of Radiance.  It was about 50% full.  It was nice, as it wasn't real crowded.  There wasn't much big entertainment on board but that didn't bother us too much.  Other than less crowds, we didn't really see any difference.  Staff was great!

 

[missaud]

We were on the Ovation a couple weeks ago. We were told there were about 4000.

[twangster]

As we approach peak Alaska cruise months expectations are full ships at capacity.  May and early June, late August and September are not peak Alaska months so actual guests counts during these times are meaningless.  

[dsvd79]

We were on Quantum 5/30- 4095 passengers

[Kathscof]

10 hours ago, luv2cruise668 said:

We were on the 5/27 sailing of Radiance.  It was about 50% full.  It was nice, as it wasn't real crowded.  There wasn't much big entertainment on board but that didn't bother us too much.  Other than less crowds, we didn't really see any difference.  Staff was great!

 

Ooo we were too! Captain Marek said there were something like 1560 on board and capacity is around 2400 something?

[Vera/Lee]

Do I need to download the ArriveCan app and have a printed QR code from them before I get on Ovation leaving from Seattle?

[Joseph2017China]

Ships are sailing as full as possible, until they reach full.  Capacity is dependant on how many people book.  So in May, when school is on, ships might be less, but in the Summer, they might be full.  Also, the lifting of restrictions and testing will help getting the international guests back.

[barbeyg]

Our Ovation cruise in May was about at capacity.  We didn't eat in the dining room, but the Windjammer was packed the few times we were there.  We had specialty dining more often than not, and those restaurants were not that crowded.  Staffing really didn't seem to be an issue on our cruise, except in the dining room, as some in our private group indicated.  

 

No cancelled events on our cruise.  But the Solarium Bistro was not open our week.  I've seen some comment that it has reopened now.

[irishgal432]

We were on Quantum last week.  Ship full capacity, Goddess cancelled, Starwater cancelled one night because of the power failure/small engine fire, cruise director and activities manager "unfit for duty' due to protocols, first genie "unfit for duty", second genie positive for covid, long lines for ice cream, glacier viewing cancelled due to large icebergs, long lines at guest services throughout the voyage with minimal guest staff reps.

 

 

[Ferry_Watcher]

59 minutes ago, irishgal432 said:

We were on Quantum last week.  Ship full capacity, Goddess cancelled, Starwater cancelled one night because of the power failure/small engine fire, cruise director and activities manager "unfit for duty' due to protocols, first genie "unfit for duty", second genie positive for covid, long lines for ice cream, glacier viewing cancelled due to large icebergs, long lines at guest services throughout the voyage with minimal guest staff reps.

 

 

Appreciate the very matter-of-fact assessment.

[smokeybandit]

1 hour ago, irishgal432 said:

We were on Quantum last week.  Ship full capacity, Goddess cancelled, Starwater cancelled one night because of the power failure/small engine fire, cruise director and activities manager "unfit for duty' due to protocols, first genie "unfit for duty", second genie positive for covid, long lines for ice cream, glacier viewing cancelled due to large icebergs, long lines at guest services throughout the voyage with minimal guest staff reps.

 

 

On Serenade last week, everything went smooth. We also couldn't get right up to the glacier due to ice, but that's par for the course this time of year. The juggler/comedian headliner show was the worst on board show I've ever seen though.

[Ferry_Watcher]

17 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

On Serenade last week, everything went smooth. We also couldn't get right up to the glacier due to ice, but that's par for the course this time of year. The juggler/comedian headliner show was the worst on board show I've ever seen though.

Worst show I ever saw was on a HAL Coastal from Vancouver, BC to San Diego, where it was to start a many week cruise to South America.  I am guessing that the singer boarded the ship in one of the OR or CA port-of-calls along the way.  Thankfully, she only had the one show.

The show consisted of the singer who had a Media slide show, video clips of herself preforming from about the age of five (5), through her teens and adulthood.  It was so bad we eventually walked out (after I pleaded with my husband to 'wait a bit longer' in hopes that the show would improve and we wouldn't appear rude.  Sadly, the show didn't get any better.

[therealblackknight]

I was on Ovation for the 5/20 cruise.  Not sure about capacity but seemed rather full to me.  Bistro was not open.  Did seem to me that they didn't have a full crew but that's just my feeling, I don't know anything for certain.

[Eddie Wilson]

7 hours ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

Worst show I ever saw was on a HAL Coastal from Vancouver, BC to San Diego, where it was to start a many week cruise to South America.  I am guessing that the singer boarded the ship in one of the OR or CA port-of-calls along the way.  Thankfully, she only had the one show.

The show consisted of the singer who had a Media slide show, video clips of herself preforming from about the age of five (5), through her teens and adulthood.  It was so bad we eventually walked out (after I pleaded with my husband to 'wait a bit longer' in hopes that the show would improve and we wouldn't appear rude.  Sadly, the show didn't get any better.

 

Ferry,

 

That sounds EXACTLY like an entertainer we saw for about 15 minutes while sailing Serenade in 2019.  

 

She had a singing/dancing video of herself, including as a background singer in Vegas shows and/or maybe an impersonator of Celine Dion.

 

The video was too long, and as it kept going on and on I mentioned to DW, why does she have to tell the crowd she is so great in the long video, why not just come out and win the crowd.  

 

It it was not good, to the point many,many, many people walked out prior to us or at the same time.

 

The entertainment in the Central lobby every night was a band from Mexico called “Switched On” and I told them they should have been the headliner, they had bumping crowds every night.

 

Switched On is a FUN show, great music, get people dancing etc.  They are still regularly on RCL ships, as a matter of fact they were the first band called back for the first sailings out of Bahamas in June 2021 when RCL started up.

 

Eddie

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by Eddie Wilson

[BirdTravels]

21 hours ago, twangster said:

As we approach peak Alaska cruise months expectations are full ships at capacity.  May and early June, late August and September are not peak Alaska months so actual guests counts during these times are meaningless.  

So, the fact that our Quantum cruise in May sailed just under capacity is meaningless?

 

I think that it is significant in that there is high demand in the so-called non-peak season (i think that you are asserting that the ship should be empty). And I think it is significant that the cruise line is allowing the ships to fill to demand and not controlling capacity. I think that it is significant that there were nearly 800 kids on our not-peak-season-cruise (with a large number of unvaxxed kids).  

[whitshel]

We are in the Quantum right now. I'll let you know. My guess is we're at 99.3428% 🤣

 

 

[volk904]

We were on the Senerade the first week of June.  Ship was pretty full. I would guess most in Alaska are in the 95%+ range. I don’t think any ship will be at 100% because they have some outside cabins set aside for Covid quarantine.  My brother spent the last 5 days in his back to back in one.  
i read that last week the ship could not get close to the Hubbard Glacier. On our cruise we got really far back. Guess it is luck or the draw.   We did enjoy the cruise.