Dan

I'll say St Barth's just to be different.

Don't forget all the other ships sitting out there waiting. I read on CC that the Majesty of the Seas went into Miami on Thursday to drop passengers off, but also let anyone stay on board no charge who didn't have anywhere to go once they were off the ship. Amazingly only 700 stayed on board. I imagine most people who were from the Florida area on the ship probably wanted to get home and take care of things before the storm, while anyone travelling probably felt like they would be better off on the ship out of harms way, instead of trying to find a hotel to keep couped up in during the storm. I had read that the captain of Majesty said it would be minimal services on board (no shows, and very little else going on), but there would be food, and no doubt the casino would be open. I had read another ship, doing a short itinerary, was going to stop in Galveston to replenish supplies, but otherwise was just staying out until Monday or Tuesday. Then there's the Carnival Glory out of Port Canaveral. It left there last Saturday (Aug 28th) on a 7 day cruise, and won't be back until Tuesday the 7th. I wonder if those people get credit for a 11 day cruise in their past cruiser program LOL. I feel for the people who should be boarding a ship this weekend, and will be getting much shorter cruises, but some are getting pretty sweet compensation, especially on RCI. $500 per stateroom credit, plus 50% off a future cruise. I'd take that deal. Hopefully all our Floridians on the board are safe, and have had or will have very little disruption to their lives as the storm goes by.

Good for RCI for coming up the that credit and alternate plan for the Navigator and Enchantment. What they don't say is what is happenning with the people on board now? Do they get to stay on until Monday, or is the ship popping into port and dumping the people off quickly, then leaving? I noticed yesterday that Carnival was leaving one of their ships out until after the storm. I don't understand why RCI didn't do the same for the Majesty and Sovereign. I mean, if they are cancelling the following cruises, why add a few thousand more people to the mess down there, when they could just as easily have kept the ships out until the storm had passed. At the very least, the cruise line would have a ship full of people spending money, instead of them giving out all these credits, and then sailing a ship full of crew sailing around in circles waiting the storm out. It would be a hardship on some people to have to stay onboard a few days longer than planned, when they might need to be home, but considering how little options there are to get out of southern Florida right now, where would most of these people go once they get off the ship anyway.

That's probably the best thing to do. Go see the maitre d' as soon as possible after you board.

I don't know enough about St Thomas to name that part Red Hook, so I can't say, but I do know that Kelly's pic is centred on the area half way up the right side of my pic below.

That Dolphin Beach Resort sounds like the name of the place we stayed at in St Pete's in 1993. It was nice, the rooms were big (we had an efficiency, with a kitchenette), and it was on the beach. Nothing upscale or anything, but nice for the 5 or so nights we stayed there. We've also stayed at the Adams Mark in Clearwater Beach, but it might be a little pricey for a pre-cruise stay.

But there's nothing stopping these agents from either sending a gift to the ship for their client, or arranging a third party gift certificate at a retailer in the client's home town, or even sending a check to the client directly as a rebate once payment has been made. The only problem is they can't advertise it.

I was just reading the passport site at travel.state.gov, and didn't see anything about pre-1985 birth certifcates.

I was just reading the passport site at travel.state.gov, and didn't see anything about pre-1985 birth certifcates.

I think all the cruise lines should just drop the pretense, tack the 10 bucks a day onto the price, and call it a service fee, instead of a tip/gratuity. Then we don't have to worry about it. How much of this actually filters down to the staff is questionable though, but you know that there is a chunk of people that will tip extra anyway, and those that skipped out on tipping before will now have paid it.

I think all the cruise lines should just drop the pretense, tack the 10 bucks a day onto the price, and call it a service fee, instead of a tip/gratuity. Then we don't have to worry about it. How much of this actually filters down to the staff is questionable though, but you know that there is a chunk of people that will tip extra anyway, and those that skipped out on tipping before will now have paid it.

A couple of the above sound like my previous experiences. We were on Westerdam in November 95, and were sent to St Bart's instead of St Maarten due to previous hurricane damage. We had this happen again in Nov 99 on the Grand Princess, when St Maarten again was damaged. This time we went to San Juan. We also were kept out of Sydney Nova Scotia due to hurricane remnants, althought this wasn't decided until 7am and we were already in the harbour. We just couldn't dock due to the wind.

I swae some people take so many pictures, that if they stitched them the way jbond did with that St Thomas pic a few weeks ago, they would have every inch of the ship, the islands and the sea LOL. The most I've ever taken was about 5 rolls on a 10 day Panama cruise. I took about an hour of video on the Grand Princess, but that also was the entire "If I Were Not Upon The Sea" skit too. I was more into taking pics of the ship on our first 2. The Victory I think I took about 7 shots of the ship, and the video was 4 minutes long LOL

In my completely biased opinion, you can't get the whole "Niagara Falls experience" if you don't go to the Canadian side. Having been on the New York side many times, it's just another town, which happens to have this attraction "over there somewhere". (But, at least there's no traffic LOL). Niagara Falls Ontario is a total tourist mecca. Clifton Hill, Lundy's Lane, The Skylon Tower, Marineland. Some of the finest golf north of the Carolinas. Tax free casino winnings LOL

But then, I think that's also a misperception based on the size of the ships. For instance, how many tiered aft decks did most of those smaller ships have? 3 or 4 at the most, and sometimes just 2. The Grand has 4. There's the Terrace Pool on Aloha deck, with the Lido, Sun and Sports decks all tiered above that. But, it also has a few decks of aft balconies below that. I imagine the Diamond and Sapphire are a little more pronounced with this, since they don't have the Skywalker's Lounge suspended over the stern like the Grand. Sounds like the best of the old and new to me.

While I can see how balconies have contributed to some people not spending as much time up on deck, and possibly socializing, I still can't see how balconies have taken away from open deck space. Most of these new ships, simply by their size, have acres of open deck space on the top decks. The fact they have 4 or 5 decks of balcony cabins doesn't take away from open space. It could be that there isn't as much square footage per passenger up on those decks, which makes it more crowded, but I don't think the presence of balconies has anything to do with that.

I was always surprised at how dark it was outside on the ship at night. Like many, our first cruise came with some comparisons to "The Love Boat" TV show. I was actually disappointed that our ship wasn't all lit up like the one on the show. We had the big string of lights from bow to stern all lit up in port, and as soon we left port, they turned them off LOL

Jeff, the only part of my post directed at you was where your name was mentioned. The last line. The rest was a comment on the many times I've read this topic discussed where people say that their version of fun is the only way. It's not for anyone else to say if someone who sits there with a cell phone and chats away, or types away on a laptop, or goes to the internet cafe is missing out on the point of a cruise (i.e. not having fun). Frankly, it's nobody's damn business what other people choose to do for their vacation (or even if it's a working vacation) Maybe it's not the way things were done way back in the golden era when the Carnival Fantasy was new, but then neither were balconies on 70% of the cabins, and that's sort of taken off now. Just because one doesn't want to partake of such things doesn't mean it's bad for somebody else to want to, is all I'm saying.

This is one of those topics that always amaze me. Not that this has degenerated into anything, but the many times I've seen this discussed over on critic, it always does (not that topics degenerating into attacks is new there LOL). The idea that people staying in touch can't possibly be enjoying themselves. That the only way to be having fun is to not have a clue what's happenning anywhere in the world. "My god. Look at that guy sitting there with a drink by his side, and his laptop out. Why can't he forget about work and have fun?" What other way to enjoy work, I say? LOL If he is even working. Maybe he's typing out his next CruiseCrazies review as it happens, so as not to forget anything LOL "No way do I go online from the ship. I go on a cruise to get away from everything" This same person 4 months previous: "Hey, so and so, thanks for coming online from the ship and telling us how much you are enjoying yourself. Glad you are having a good time". For me, the internet is part of my recreation activities (as is singing and golfing). I sing on ships, and someday, I'm going to golf at one of those fine Caribbean golf courses. So, what's wrong with sharing with my so-called board family who don't happen to be lucky enough that particular week to be on a cruise? Other than what I mentioned above about people who talk really loud into cell phones (which happens everywhere), I couldn't care less if somebody is calling home to check on relatives, or negotiating the merger of Coors and Molson. Jeff, tell me you would refuse if Verizon asked you to be the "can you hear me now" guy on a ship? LOL

As long as I don't hear a constant cacaphony of those stupid ringtones all day, I don't really care that much whether people talk on cell phones. It would just be nice if people didn't TALK SO LOUD THAT THEY CAN BE HEARD ON SHORE WITHOUT THE CELL PHONE. Really, if someone is talking in a normal conversational voice on a phone, than you are actually hearing half the talk as when 2 people are talking at the next table.

Not that I recall anything there near as pretty as in this picture, but how about Limon, Costa Rica?

Well, considering the gutless way our thankfully former leader handled it, I'm not surprised how some people look down on us now. Instead of deferring to the UN like a coward, all he had to do was say Canada cannot participate because of our commitments in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and that we remain committed to the fight against terrorism. In fact, at the time the Iraq war was starting, a Canadian ship was in command of the multi-nation (including the US Navy) naval task-force in the Arabian Sea. And even though we weren't "participating," we still had ships attached to the carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf, and were providing more support than most members of the so-called "coalition of the willing" (according to US Ambassador Cellucci) Nobody in the US government (or any American citizen with a clue) really thought Canada had anything to contribute to Iraq militarily anyway. They just didn't want our hopeless group of imbeciles lead by Chretien to act like we were against them. Of course, why would Americans think we were against them, when Chretien calls Bush a moron, and his press aide says she "hates those bastards", with no punishment. That's the kind of stuff that makes the news in the US. I wonder how many people in the US know who Major Harry Schmidt is?

Uh, what I was "huh-ing" about was where Rosie said "900 of America's poor". I think it's been quite a while since a President was voted into office by a majority of the popular vote (not that popular vote has anything to do with it anyway). Jeff, you should be a campaign worker for Kerry. You can help them win the same way the left beat the right here in Canada in our recent election. By saying how bad the other guy is without saying what's good about themselves. I think once people think about that (a strong assumption there that people think before they vote), it might not be such a landslide against Bush. Although, I'm betting Kerry will win his own state LOL. Too bad Gore didn't, or Florida wouldn't have mattered.

huh??

Wow, I would have thought they'd do this on HAL, given the age of the team LOL.