How was Joy cruise into Fiona?

[Maplemoose]

I was booked on the Sept, 23 cruise of Joy from NY to Canada but cancelled it quite a while ago. As this cruise was intimately involved with the Fiona visit to the Maritimes I am curious to know what the effect was on the cruise vis-a-vis port cancellations, diversions and delays. I think today was disemebarkation day in NY. Can anybody who just disembarked provide a quick review of how it went? TIA. 

[mking8288]

Joy currently in-bound, was barely moving at just 1 knots, appropriately 50 miles south of Nantucket, MA about 7+ hours ago on Marinetraffic.  Currently out of AIS tracking range but from very limited data available, should be on on westerly heading off Montauk, NY for NY - with early 4 a.m. local time ETA at Pier 88 ... thus, should be picking up the pilot boat at 2 to 3 a.m. offshore on the approach to Lower Bay.

 

  Following info was indirectly relayed via another CC friend of ours (thanks, M & A) as they are in touch with the ship - "left ... Friday and took two sea days towards Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Port call canceled and proceeded to Cornerbrook, Newfoundland (very small town and really not much there ). Then Sydney, Nova Scotia was canceled and two days to get to Halifax, that was last Wednesday. Then ... at St. John, New Brunswick. (No) thanks to Fiona, their itineraries were all mixed up. "

 

Surprised that nobody on that sailing, supposingly with big #'s for the Roll Call and Meet & Greet/Mingle ... no one posting periodic update and status report(s), etc.  Perhaps, ran into poor high orbit satellite coverage and signal issues in the north Atlantic ... 

 

Hopefully, we'll get to read more about their journey tomorrow and/or later this week ... 

[Maplemoose]

Just refreshing the post so anyone from the Joy Fiona cruise might see it now that they are home....hopefully! 

[The 4 of Us]

Very rough seas during first couple of seas days from Fiona.  We missed two port stops due to Fiona.  Prince Edward Island was cancelled and we went to CornerBrook New Foundland for a few hours instead.  Got off the ship and was handed a 2017 tourist guide.  No excursions and nothing to do there except walk into town and back to the ship.  Then Cape Breton was also cancelled and we had another sea day.  Very dense fog with the fog horn blaring every 2 minutes for about 36 hours.  We did stop at the next 4 ports as scheduled.  Sea was rough and skies very cloudy for our last sea day from Ian but ship was moving very slowly.  So weather was not our friend on this cruise.

Ship is beautiful,  immaculately clean and well-maintained and staff is excellent and very friendly.

[Grampy M]

The service staff was excellent, as were the meals, complimentary and specialty.  The ships control / navigation staff kept us out of harms way, following @ adequate distance Hurricane Fiona, and heading into the remnants of Ian.

The seas appeared a bit rough the 1st few days, but the Joy being a huge ship with stabilizers, handled it just fine. "Vomit Bags" were stationed near the stairways, I never saw any used, nor did I see anyone looking seasick.

The (Late Sept / Oct) weather was on the cool and overcast side for most of the cruise, therefore the majority of the 60+ YO passengers did not venture topside. 

For a few days (at sea) the Fog was quite heavy, my wife loves the sound of the foghorn, we generally slept with the balcony door open.. The cool temperature and the sound of the waves and foghorn was perfect for sleeping. 

I think they only sold 18 VIBE passes, we never saw anyone (other than bartenders) in the VIBE.  The 1st 2 Ports, Charlottetown PEI and Sydney were canceled due to the damage they sustained, Corner Brook Newfoundland was substituted. Regrettably for the folks of Corner Brook, our arrival was a surprise to most folks, the word had not gotten out.  Therefore many businesses missed an income opportunity.

The visit to Halifax highlighted the damage the town sustained from Fiona, but by the time we arrived, power was restored and they were ready for us.

The Joy brought the 3 millionth cruise passenger to St. John's New Brunswick. The port treated us to a fireworks display:

The fireworks display was excellent, but pointed out  shortcomings in the design of the Joy which I as a passenger  consider quite disappointing:

The Joy being similar to the other Breakaway / Plus class ships, the announcements are VERY difficult to hear, the audible quality is low, and almost nothing can be heard from the public areas, like the extremely noisy Atrium or any dining facility. Fortunately a shop owner in town told us of the pending fireworks @ 8:30PM, several passengers on the ship never heard the (apparently solitary and inaccurate) announcement that stated teh fireworks would be on the port side (not forward port), and missed seeing the fireworks.

The fire works display (in front of the ship) could only be seen unobstructed outside from:

1) The Haven
2) The Vibe, for this cruise only 18 passes were bought, so not only was this 100% wasted real estate, it was locked and NO passengers were there to view the fireworks display.
3) Some viewing could have been from the Laser Tag area, but it too was locked and unavailable, this and the ineffective announcements of the fireworks are (IMO) the responsibility of the cruise director and her team.

Thus the BEST viewing would have been from off the ship.. I wish I would have realized that ahead of time.

The decision to use Portland Maine as the immigration port had merit, (not use the more dysfunctional Manhattan to avoid folks missing their air travel) but the implementation on the JOY was a disorganized mess, part of this is due to the Cruise directors inaudible announcements, and part is due to NO CONTROL of the disorderly overcrowded immigration lines. The only efficiency was reserved for the HAVEN folks that were escorted to the head o the line(s). Some folks complained they were not processed until 4:30PM, and opted to miss the port.  Sad for them as Portland is one of the better ports to visit. The weather for the visit to Boston was predicted to be rain all day, heavy rain did not materialize, but Boston is Boston, not really a fall color port.

The return to Manhattan was uneventful, we traveled at a mere 10-11 knots, the seas (from Hurricane Ian's remnants) appeared extremely rough, but plodding along on the massive Joy was quite smooth compared to how the seas looked.  again when we ventured topside we were essentially alone.

Embarkation and Disembarkation in Manhattan , is improved somewhat from years past, but Manhattan still DOES NOT adequately handle the # of passengers these large ships bring.  We have sailed the GEM out of Manhattan, it was a breeze in comparison.

 

Edited October 5, 2022 by Grampy M
fog