Joanandjoe

Pat and Howard, welcome to this Crazy board. We're not the biggest cruise board, but we're the friendliest. Post often, and soon your inside stateroom will be upgraded to an outside, then a veranda, etc. Have fun here--we do!

Me, too. I would have needed to download a version of Flash; but we're not allowed to download software at work without using our IT department. Thanks anyway, Mrs. Sully. I tell people that I won the lottery once, a long time ago. When? The day I met Joan, of course. Joe

What's the competition? Unless you regard Cunard as being a luxury line for its upper class PAX, Crystal is the only luxury line that uses large ships. Regent has 700 PAX ships, but that's not considered a large ship. Everyone else in the luxury field-Seabourn, Sea Dream, Silversea-uses ships with under 300 PAX. We may try Crystal some day if the price is right, even if it lacks some of the things that other luxury ships have, such as flexible dining, drinks included, no tipping, etc. Until they got rid of their oldest ship, Crystal was the only luxury line with inside cabins. They're still the only luxury line that has lots of "obstructed view" cabins. Having said that, they are supposed to have excellent food and service, and the only large scale shows on luxury liners.

If they can't get a name such as "Byron Tate" correct, imagine what they would do with a complicated name such as Leonidas Stephanopoulos?

Interesting review for us, even though we're unlikely to try either Carnival or Royal Carib. We were a bit surprised about your reaction to the Midnight Delights: most cruise lines have cut the midnight buffets down to their dessert extravaganza (chocolate and ice sculptures) and maybe one or two other buffets per cruise. On other nights, they pass around munchies. It's irrelevant to us: on our 60 plus nights at sea, we early birds have never been awake enough at midnight to want food, so we've never tried either the buffets or the munchies. (Plus, Joe is allergic to chocolate, so we'd need to avoid the dessert buffet even if we were hungry.) Usually we're asleep long before midnight. We had heard that RCI standard rooms, even on the newest ships, are tiny, and that Carnival has larger rooms. If there isn't much of a price jump, why not try a line such as Princess, Celebriity, or HAL?

I've been under tremendous pressure at work (left the house by 7:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday, home after 9:30 p.m. both nights, left the house at 7:10 this morning), so this is my first chance to welcome you home. It sounds as if you had a decent trip, even if you didn't like RCI as much as Carnival. Joe

s73645, welcome to this Crazy board. We're not the biggest cruise board, but we're the friendliest. Post often, and soon your inside stateroom will be upgraded to an outside, then a veranda, etc. Have fun here--we do!

mccruiser, welcome to this Crazy board. We're not the biggest cruise board, but we're the friendliest. Post often, and soon your inside stateroom will be upgraded to an outside, then a veranda, etc. Have fun here--we do!

ncdebe, welcome to this Crazy board. We're not the biggest cruise board, but we're the friendliest. Post often, and soon your inside stateroom will be upgraded to an outside, then a veranda, etc. Have fun here--we do!

Policies regarding getting cash at the casino vary from line to line. Some charge, others charge unless you make a pretense of gambling, others don't charge at all. If in doubt, take travelers checks and cash them at the front desk.

Congratulations on getting your cruise docs. We hope that your problems have been ironed out, and that you will have smooth sailing.

sinkers 22, welcome to this crazy board. Post often, and soon you'll go from inside to outside, to balcony room. This isn't the biggest cruise board, but it's the friendliest.

Susan and Harvey, welcome to this crazy board. Post often, and soon you'll go from inside to outside, to balcony room. This isn't the biggest cruise board, but it's the friendliest.

Good info, John. The price seems low to me, especially since they're also fixing the pier. Maybe the rest of the cost will be covered by grants and donations. Maybe you can start a thread about your memories of this great ship.

I'm not sure why you brought up this two year old thread, Joey. Apparently we treated Bicker so harshly that he stopped posting. As it turned out, he was right about Celebrity and RCI, wrong about Carnival; and the price fixing wasn't quite as fixed as was feared at the time.

I didn't vote, because the most convenient tipping I've had--choice 3, included in the (Radisson) fare-- won't work on most cruise lines. Lines other than the high end lines compete very sharply on fares, and a line that included tipping in the fares would have an advertising disadvantage--the fares simply wouldn't be as low as their competitors' fares. There's no question as to what was the worst choice: the old HAL method, where there were no tipping guidelines. Automatic tipping works only if, as is the case on Celebrity, one is given vouchers to hand to the staff. We normally give much more than the minimum anyway. Joe

If you've seen the Intrepid, you would wonder how they could clean and paint if for that little, much less refurbish the interior spaces and provide better viewing for the planes. Recommissioning the ship would probably cost more than 10 times as much. We're talking about a 900 foot long ship that is loaded with electronic and mechanical equipment, and has been moored in one spot for 25 years! http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/intrepid/

The new one is much more politically correct. That looks like a lot of work.

Wow, btate, to someone who has never seen a towel animal or even a picture of one, that looks very strange.

Storied military ship, museum to be renovated<] Friday, July 7, 2006; Posted: 10:05 a.m. EDT (14:05 GMT) NEW YORK (AP) -- The USS Intrepid is steeped in history: the aircraft carrier took part in major battles and withstood repeated kamikaze attacks during World War II, and later saw duty in Korea and as a recovery ship for NASA. For the last 25 years, Intrepid has served a quieter purpose as a floating military museum, docked in the Hudson River. Now, the aging ship will undergo an extensive overhaul. Governor George Pataki said Thursday the state would add $5 million to city and federal funds, totaling $58 million, for an 18-month project to renovate the USS Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. It will close in the fall. "Yes, it is a museum that tells the story of heroes of the past, but it is also a home for the heroes of today," Pataki said at a formal announcement of the plan on the ship's flight deck. The 27,000-ton carrier, nearly 900 feet long, will be towed to a drydock for repairs -- most likely the former military ocean terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey, said Peter Shugert, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. The work also would include dredging 13,000 cubic yards of riverbed mud and upgrading pier 86, where the ship is moored, he said. All warships undergo periodic overhauls and refurbishing due to the effects of salt water corrosion, whether from constant motion or simply sitting idly in port. Intrepid officials had hinted a year ago that the ship needed some work after 25 years at the same location. The ship has become one of the city's most popular tourist attractions since real estate millionaire Zachary Fisher saved it from the scrapyard in the late 1970s and moved it to pier 86, next to the cruise ship terminal on Manhattan's West Side. Over the years Intrepid's deck has become filled with an impressive array of historic aircraft and other war artifacts. It wasn't known what would happen to those aircraft, ranging from a Russian-built MiG fighter to an American SR-71 high-altitude spy plane, during the renovation.

We won't have the Intrepid next to us for our 11/25 cruise out of NYC. The ship will be sent to drydock, possibly near the Cape Liberty pier in Bayonne. See our new post on the repairs to this aging but wonderful aircraft carrier..

Jack124, welcome to this crazy board. Post often, and soon you'll go from inside to outside, to balcony room. This isn't the biggest cruise board, but it's the friendliest.

Sorry, we can't help. On eight cruises, we've never had a towel animal. What are they? Towels folded to look like animals? I would think that the stewards have better things to do with their time.

cherole, welcome to this crazy board. Post often, and soon you'll go from inside to outside, to balcony room. This isn't the biggest cruise board, but it's the friendliest.

Veronique, welcome to this crazy board. Post often, and soon you'll go from inside to outside, to balcony room. This isn't the biggest cruise board, but it's the friendliest. I, too, love your screen name. Somehow the name Veronique always seemed to carry with it a sense of mystery and adventure. As for couture, if you can afford haute couture cloting, more power to you; but I suspect that haute couture is a dream, not a reality.