NOT SUCH A "JOY"OUS CRUISE

[bkrickles1]

10 minutes ago, Sinbadssailors said:

It's still annoying. 

And doesn't happen on other lines.

 

 Also, land hotels don't require you to check in before your room is ready.

Are you sure it doesn't happen on other lines? I mean it's only recently that they reduced the amount of stewards and went to once a day service and, I believe, rccl and carnival have done the same recently. 

With that being said, how could they possibly have cabins ready much earlier than 3:30? 

1 - 1:30PM was the average time cabins were ready on most sailings I've ever gone on, so it's not really a big deal and it makes zero sense not to check the bulk of your stuff with the porters. I get to the pier at 8:30am so I have a chance to board around 11am and start my vacation. I don't "need" my cabin until I'm ready to pass out around 11pm. Lmao 😂 

I sailed Joy last summer and I'm going again in 33 days and I believe most of the complaints made by the op are due to having higher expectations than the current cruising climate can achieve and not enough planning/research of the ship your sailing. 

It's not the old days where you could just walk on board and enjoy everything without much thought. It takes a little work nowadays. 

[UKstages]

 

16 minutes ago, carohs said:

At worst, some luggage has fallen into the ocean and subsequently retrieved. 

 

um, yes, that would be pretty bad.

 

note to self: if trying to convince somebody to check their bags with a porter: on't-day ention-may e-thay uggage-lay in-ay e-thay ocean-ay.

 

15 minutes ago, carohs said:

I've had success too at getting into the hallway and at least getting my room key even if rooms aren't quite ready.

 

on NCL, you're actually given your keycard onshore at check-in.

 

21 minutes ago, carohs said:

I'm not sure on NCL, but even if doors are closed they're not locked.

 

in my experience, they are often locked.

 

22 minutes ago, carohs said:

Instead you chose to inconvenience your fellow passengers who would have liked to use your table to eat a late lunch.

 

oh, gosh, i'm not hearing that at all. they camped out at one of the available spots NCL made available for them to camp out at on embarkation day. perhaps they have limited mobility and can't walk very well, i don't know. i don't think they chose to inconvenience their fellow passengers. i think they made a conscious decision to not carry their bags around the ship.we have countless other posts on this board where people recommend not toting their luggage around. perhaps they were being considerate. their bags were probably loaded with electronics and medication and other necessities and may have been too heavy to lug around the ship. we just don't know.  and no matter where they decided to camp out, whether it be on a sun deck or at a bar or in the buffet, they would be occupying a space that others could use. again, it's embarkation day and you've got 3 or 4,000 people unfamiliar with the ship, roaming about the ship, trying to make the best of it. 

\

23 minutes ago, carohs said:

And chilling on the Sun Deck isn't an option because???

 

there are a number of potential reasons, from malignant melanoma, to rosacea, to cataracts, to basal cell carcinoma, to squamous cell carcinoma to hair damage.

 

and some people are just not sun people.

 

 

[mugtech]

52 minutes ago, bkrickles1 said:

Are you sure it doesn't happen on other lines? 😂 

 

Did a cruise in April on the 3,200 passenger Explorer of the Seas and in June on the 4,000 passenger Liberty of the Seas(Royal Caribbean), on both cruises our cabins were available by 1:15

[bkrickles1]

7 minutes ago, mugtech said:

Did a cruise in April on the 3,200 passenger Explorer of the Seas and in June on the 4,000 passenger Liberty of the Seas(Royal Caribbean), on both cruises our cabins were available by 1:15

I have heard differently and I'm sure the cutbacks have affected the other lines similarly. How could it not? 

And both explorer and liberty are smaller than Joy. Explorer has several hundred fewer cabins, I believe. 

My point was more that it's not a big deal to wait a little longer. There's plenty to do and plenty of space to park yourself. 

I carry my backpack all over the ship and still have enough energy for 12oz curls. 

[carohs]

2 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

 

um, yes, that would be pretty bad.

 

note to self: if trying to convince somebody to check their bags with a porter: on't-day ention-may e-thay uggage-lay in-ay e-thay ocean-ay.

 

on NCL, you're actually given your keycard onshore at check-in.

 

in my experience, they are often locked.

 

oh, gosh, i'm not hearing that at all. they camped out at one of the available spots NCL made available for them to camp out at on embarkation day. perhaps they have limited mobility and can't walk very well, i don't know. i don't think they chose to inconvenience their fellow passengers. i think they made a conscious decision to not carry their bags around the ship.we have countless other posts on this board where people recommend not toting their luggage around. perhaps they were being considerate. their bags were probably loaded with electronics and medication and other necessities and may have been too heavy to lug around the ship. we just don't know.  and no matter where they decided to camp out, whether it be on a sun deck or at a bar or in the buffet, they would be occupying a space that others could use. again, it's embarkation day and you've got 3 or 4,000 people unfamiliar with the ship, roaming about the ship, trying to make the best of it. 

 

there are a number of potential reasons, from malignant melanoma, to rosacea, to cataracts, to basal cell carcinoma, to squamous cell carcinoma to hair damage.

 

and some people are just not sun people.

 

 

Yup you're right on the first point. I kinda just laughed at myself for that one. But there's netting; plus electronics aren't in our ported luggage so we take that risk. I'd forgotten about the key cards, so yup even less reason for us to need access to staterooms early.

And while true that we just don't know, I'm not frustrated at any one particular cruiser, but at the statistical improbability that all the people lounging at the Cafe have a legit reason to be there. Most are able-bodied and more than capable of not contributing to the general chaos that is embarkation day. It's pisses me off when a party of more than 4 hold their plates until their food gets cold struggling to find a place to eat. Or a solo cruiser who is unable to get a drink refill because of the high possibility of losing their seat. But of course we just don't know who is capable of moving, making it impossible for me to demand anyone move. So the last time my kids ended up on the floor near the sports courts eating their pizza which they had no issue with, and we enjoyed the fresh air. But that's not really an option for a lot of people either. It pisses me off, but by now I expect it. We deal with it and move on in the moment, but when I see it posted here I immediately jump to "oh you're one of them." My problem, I know.

People who are not sun people who are cruising are beyond my comprehension. 

[ChiefMateJRK]

34 minutes ago, carohs said:

It's pisses me off when a party of more than 4 hold their plates until their food gets cold struggling to find a place to eat.

The solution is simple.  The Joy buffet has a bar.  One goes straight to the bar and then they wait/search/buy a table.  The designated driver sits at the table, while the rest get their food.  Then, when the first one gets back, they swap.

 

ETA: perhaps that should have read "designated drinker."  Either one works... 🤣

Edited June 20, 2023 by ChiefMateJRK

[ChiefMateJRK]

34 minutes ago, carohs said:

People who are not sun people who are cruising are beyond my comprehension.

What would you suggest that they do instead?

[scooter6139]

3 hours ago, carohs said:

 

People who are not sun people who are cruising are beyond my comprehension. 

 

My wife and I are not sun people at all.  No use for sun loungers at all.  Probably why we mostly cruise to Alaska!  And if we cruise to Mexico or someplace else sunny, we usually stay inside.  The Observations Lounge works really well in both warm and cold climates.

[mugtech]

5 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

 

And both explorer and liberty are smaller than Joy. Explorer has several hundred fewer cabins, I believe.  

So it appears that NCL cut back a higher percentage than Royal Caribbean, sounds right.

[ChiefMateJRK]

23 minutes ago, scooter6139 said:

My wife and I are not sun people at all.  No use for sun loungers at all.  Probably why we mostly cruise to Alaska!  And if we cruise to Mexico or someplace else sunny, we usually stay inside.  The Observations Lounge works really well in both warm and cold climates.

Thanks.  There are many who for medical reasons (either past history, or just being educated) avoid significant amounts of sunshine.  I would suggest that those who find great enjoyment in being baked by the sun should probably just go and lay on a beach somewhere.  Does that other poster really think that this is what cruising is all about?

[curlstravel]

I am in my 70s and have been on 53 cruises and I have never had a problem on any ship on embarkation day. I check my bags in before I get on the ship and carry my backpack for my necessities.  I go to one of the sit down restaurants and have a nice leisurely lunch. There is plenty of room for my backpack, as well as my husbands. We have never had to worry about sitting in the sun, because one side of the ship is always shady. If you  go down to one of the lower decks Like deck 8 they have wonderful lounge, chairs, and couches to sit on.  There are also plenty of bars and lounges that have tables and chairs if you want to go sit and relax indoors.  Even if you choose to bring your luggage on find a nice, quiet place to sit down, and relax and enjoy your day.  Read a book or chat with the people you are with.  People watch.  Look at the scenery.  I am a firm believer of making your own fun. Life happens but how we deal with it is up to us.

[vadersprincess12]

22 hours ago, mugtech said:

The Prima crowd will be happy you found it better than the Joy.  If you gonna book 6/11 cruise out of NYC expect plenty of out of control kids, goes with the time and territory.   Only took one cruise leaving 6/1, nothing in July or August.  And you best check ahead of time on certain January cruises, some fun groups cruise during a school break.  The Beatles stuff sounds worthwhile, glad you had good comedians, I get really tired of the cruise humor about eating constantly, not having to worry about drunken driving etc. 

 

We've decided that we will schedule future cruises during times when kids are in school.  We have grown kids who knew how to behave in public when they were younger.  We are in our 60's and it's just too much for us now (no grandchildren).  

 

One of the comedians was Dean Edwards who was on SNL for a while.  He's very funny.  We saw him on the Prima in May and he has different material on the Joy.

[vadersprincess12]

19 hours ago, YVRteacher said:

It’s interesting because this is what happened on the Bliss as well. People sat on the floors at the entrances to each passenger deck waiting for rooms to be ready.  NCL is providing secure luggage drop off on each cruise so passengers with any carry on luggage can drop it off for the afternoon and explore the ship unencumbered.  No need for floor sitting! Your drink card (I mean room key) works right away… 

The luggage drop off wasn't offered to us.  As a matter of fact the Cruise Director announced numerous times that our staterooms weren't ready and we should wait until our deck was announced before going to the staterooms.  

[vadersprincess12]

19 hours ago, carohs said:

 

Yeah I don't really understand this mentality of having a diminished experience just because rooms aren't ready yet. Or the ridiculous number of people who just wait at the buffet taking up tables from those who embark a little later and would still like to sit and eat. There's so much more to do, see and experience on a ship, why waste the time waiting for a room? For us, the only thing we need our room for is to unpack and sleep. It doesn't matter if we accomplish this at 1pm or 7pm, we go about the day enjoying the ships amenities and if theres a lull we'll check if we've got luggage and take the opportunity to unpack. But we certainly don't wait around for it. 

I didn't say our experience was diminished because we couldn't get into our stateroom right away.  There isn't much to experience or enjoy when people are packed in line sardines in all of the open public spaces.  We had lunch in the dining room and then there was still over 2 hours until we could into our stateroom.  There are very few activities going on during embarkation.

[vadersprincess12]

16 hours ago, Sinbadssailors said:

 

It's likely because few plan for this very long delay in accessing the cabins.

 

On the Bliss, we were told that all-aboard was 3:00 in Seattle - and yet the cabins weren't available until 3:30.

Doors were closed to passenger areas so no quick drop of the carry-on possible. 

 

So we were in the buffet with bags and, once we read the Daily, faced with carrying said bags to luggage storage on 6 (or waiting for a slow elevator on embarkation day), then make our way back to 6 to get our bags(by a certain time and likely a line)when cabins finally opened, and trudging to our cabin on 14. Carrying bags up 7 floors or again wasting time at aforementioned slow elevator. 

 

We just didn't expect this on the first day. And that's how we ended up hogging a buffet table for hours.  Nearly 50 cruises on 6 different lines over 20 years and we've never been kept from the cabins for so long. Never a half hour after all-aboard. 

 

This isn't passenger friendly. It's not normal practice, and it never occurred to me that it would be so different on NCL. The fact that their passengers think it's normal means it's rarely mentioned here.

 

It does make for a disappointing start. Our cruise got better and we ended up having a great time and we'll know for next time.

 

But why annoy people on the first day? 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Sinbadssailors ~ on the Prima in May they did have an area to drop off anything you didn't want to carry around, but again, that was not offered on the Joy on our sailing.  And, we didn't have to wait as long on the Prima either.

[vadersprincess12]

10 hours ago, psuboater said:

I was also on this cruise and sorry to hear you didn't have a good time. We were also on the Joy out of LA in Feb and had the same long wait for rooms day of so we were better prepared. We ended up seeking refuge at the outdoor bar on 8 to avoid the crowd. We also booked Ocean Blue on embarkation day to avoid the max crush of people trying to figure out dinner. We got to eat al fresco waving good bye to Lady Liberty which was a treat! My only major gripe of this cruise was disembarkation- which was highly disorganized (which makes sense of why rooms are so delayed). 

We've done Bermuda 4 times- twice in June and twice in May and crazily enough it's been better in May. Honestly the weather reports leading up to the week were so bad I didn't have an expectation of any sun. We skipped the beaches this time but had a lovely catamaran Day 2 and actually got into the water for a long amount of time (a first for us!). The very dark tan I am rocking in a very rainy very cold Seattle back home right now says to me we didn't do too terribly. 

 

NCL can be great--- with the right research. We had a much better time on this cruise learning from our quick cruise in February. However, as they promote "do what you want when you want" it can be disappointing for many. 

 

psuboater ~ I totally agree, as in my post, with the very disorganized debark process.  It was the worst we've ever experienced on over 30 cruises.

[vadersprincess12]

9 hours ago, Sand and Seas said:

We saw them holding luggage in the casino.  They had a roped off area.

Sand and Seas ~ was this on the Joy sailing?  Just curious because there weren't any announcements or anything and we can't read minds !  😂

[ChiefMateJRK]

11 minutes ago, vadersprincess12 said:

There are very few activities going on during embarkation.

Were the bars all closed?

[Sand and Seas]

2 minutes ago, vadersprincess12 said:

Sand and Seas ~ was this on the Joy sailing?  Just curious because there weren't any announcements or anything and we can't read minds !  😂

We were on both Joy and Getaway in the last two months.  I think it was Getaway??  Sorry I can't recall for certain.  We just kept our shoulder bags with us.  

[vadersprincess12]

8 hours ago, carohs said:

What's annoying? Trudging your bags all day? That's what porters are for. We selectively keep what we need and can easily carry around the ship; everything else goes to the porters. I really have yet to hear on here anyone experience theft or loss. At worst, some luggage has fallen into the ocean and subsequently retrieved. 

I'm not sure on NCL, but even if doors are closed they're not locked. I've had success too at getting into the hallway and at least getting my room key even if rooms aren't quite ready. Could you have left your bags just outside of the stateroom?

So what I'm hearing is carrying your bags around was too much of an inconvenience to be able to enjoy the ship. Instead you chose to inconvenience your fellow passengers who would have liked to use your table to eat a late lunch. And chilling on the Sun Deck isn't an option because???

 

Land hotels often don't have check in until 4:00. So 3:30 seems more than reasonable to me. 

 

You do you, but none of these arguments is enough for me to decide not to have a good time on the ship and waste my first day of vacation just waiting around. 

Carohs ~ We dropped our bags with the porter; we only had two carry-on bags so carrying them with us was not the issue.  Keycards were given to us at check-in at the terminal so we had them already but when we are told that the staterooms are not ready and they don't want us going there before our deck is called, we pay attention to that.  We don't feel that we are entitled to go against their guidelines.

 

Chilling on the sundeck would be an option if there had been a place to sit and chill, so there's that.

 

Land hotels do have later check-in times, but because the cruise lines do staggered check-in for 5,000 passengers and have to start around 11:00 that leaves a lot of idle time when there is no seating available and no real activities going on.

[vadersprincess12]

7 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

Are you sure it doesn't happen on other lines? I mean it's only recently that they reduced the amount of stewards and went to once a day service and, I believe, rccl and carnival have done the same recently. 

With that being said, how could they possibly have cabins ready much earlier than 3:30? 

1 - 1:30PM was the average time cabins were ready on most sailings I've ever gone on, so it's not really a big deal and it makes zero sense not to check the bulk of your stuff with the porters. I get to the pier at 8:30am so I have a chance to board around 11am and start my vacation. I don't "need" my cabin until I'm ready to pass out around 11pm. Lmao 😂 

I sailed Joy last summer and I'm going again in 33 days and I believe most of the complaints made by the op are due to having higher expectations than the current cruising climate can achieve and not enough planning/research of the ship your sailing. 

It's not the old days where you could just walk on board and enjoy everything without much thought. It takes a little work nowadays. 

Hello bkrickles1 ~ I am the OP.  I thoroughly research all of my trips.  I've cruised Carnival, Royal, Princess, Celebrity, Disney, and NCl.  We have done 5 cruises this year alone, prior to the Joy sailing, so we are well aware of the current cruise climate.  We didn't have these types of issues on the Prima in May or any of the other sailing this year on other cruise lines, so it's not our expectations, it's NCL's operation on this ship.  We have NEVER waited so long for a stateroom to be ready that we had to wander the ship trying to find a place to sit or some activity in which we could participate.  

[vadersprincess12]

5 hours ago, carohs said:

Yup you're right on the first point. I kinda just laughed at myself for that one. But there's netting; plus electronics aren't in our ported luggage so we take that risk. I'd forgotten about the key cards, so yup even less reason for us to need access to staterooms early.

And while true that we just don't know, I'm not frustrated at any one particular cruiser, but at the statistical improbability that all the people lounging at the Cafe have a legit reason to be there. Most are able-bodied and more than capable of not contributing to the general chaos that is embarkation day. It's pisses me off when a party of more than 4 hold their plates until their food gets cold struggling to find a place to eat. Or a solo cruiser who is unable to get a drink refill because of the high possibility of losing their seat. But of course we just don't know who is capable of moving, making it impossible for me to demand anyone move. So the last time my kids ended up on the floor near the sports courts eating their pizza which they had no issue with, and we enjoyed the fresh air. But that's not really an option for a lot of people either. It pisses me off, but by now I expect it. We deal with it and move on in the moment, but when I see it posted here I immediately jump to "oh you're one of them." My problem, I know.

People who are not sun people who are cruising are beyond my comprehension. 

 

Carohs, glad to see that you realize you are the issue with your thoughts of "oh, you are one of them".  We are in our 60's and I have a recent knee replacement so trudging all over a packed ship can be an issue.  And there are some of us who cruise who are not "sun" people.  Some of us can't be in the sun for long exposure due to medication side effects, so please don't judge before you know the circumstances.

[hallux]

9 minutes ago, vadersprincess12 said:

it's NCL's operation on this ship.

I think the cabin availability as you experienced is to be expected on NCL ships for the foreseeable future, I experienced it on the Escape (same size ship) in March and others have reported the same from other ships of that size.

[mugtech]

30 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Were the bars all closed?

Not everyone considers a bar an activity.

[mugtech]

35 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Were the bars all closed?

They could have camped out in the public restrooms, very comfortable seats, water available.