Details on Back to Back process

[nycruise1]

I found it helpful to read other people's accounts so thought I would share ours.  It was on the Elation and though it may be the oldest unrefurbished ship in the fleet we loved the cruises VERY much.

We received a standard letter in the room the final sea day directing us to go to one of the lounges the next morning at 9:15.  There were also transit passes if we wanted to leave after docking to explore Jacksonville.  It directed us to contact our current room steward if we needed help if we were switching rooms.  Thankfully we were not and left our usual mess 🙂 in the room.

After breakfast we went to the meeting lounge and there was the standard setup of breakfast pastries, water, juice, coffee and tea.  There were 60 of us so no group picture but there was the Cruise Enjoy Repeat sign and the photographer took an individual picture of us together next to it and sent us each a complimentary photo to our room a few days later.  The hotel director also sent us a small fruit basket and the bottle of champagne they normally give out.

2 employees came around with the scanner they use when debarking and scanned our old cards and gave us the envelope with the new ones.  Probably around 9:30 then and they were still calling late zones but we were free to leave the lounge and roam around the ship.  Around 10 I went to guest services to apply some gift cards but our new folio was not active yet so they said to come back later.  Also was not working at the kiosk yet.  That was where debarking was and I saw and chatted with the cruise director and a port services guy.  He said they normally clear the ship by 9:45 but there was a 15 minute delay.  2 passengers had not left and they checked their room and found them hung over.  Must have been a blockbuster night as he said they were brought to medical.  He did say that since they were accounted for the ship was officially cleared even though they were still temporarily aboard, and boarding would begin at the usual 10:45.  Bopped around the eerily empty ship a bit and then stopped by the lounge again.

In the time I had left they broke about champagne and mimosas with filled glasses and opened bottles sitting out.  Sat down with a few other guests I recognized, who brought some of the bottles to our table, more people joined us, and we had a good time!  Finally about 11 people were walking in with their boarding passes and an employee said we needed to leave since that lounge was a muster station.  We decided to get our own muster out of the way for this cruise and went to our muster station but it would not read our cards.  Employee said that sometimes happens for a while with B2Bers and we should come back later and we did about an hour later and it did then.  Dont remember when we went back to our room but when we did the card worked.

As for the experience of being on our first B2B it was a 5 day followed by a 7 day.  They seemed different which was nice since 2 of the 3 ports were different on the 7 day, there were 2 additional menus at dinner, of course the passengers had turned over, and we even had a new steward. The only issues that had cropped up was midway during the first cruise the assistant maitre D asked about our dining preferences and we requested the same early seating and table which he later confirmed.  But when we got our new cards they assigned us to a different table in a different section.  We went to Dining Inquiries and our original table was taken but they were able to seat us there as they switched the table number for us.  So our old table number was at a different table and our new unused number was at our original table.  The steward also did not make up our room on embarkation day even though we had evening service.  He apologized the next day and it was no big deal. 

That is about all I can remember but feel free to ask any questions.