Conference abbott::cruise_travel

    Just a general reply. Your description of crowded flight down and
    disembarkation is accurate for normal cases. I know that it is really
    not much fun. I do not consider the first and last day of a cruise
    or any vacation as vacation. It is strictly travel time.
    
    Believe it or not, I've been on other cruises and RCCL's handling is
    as good or better than any other cruise line. If you take an air sea
    package then don't expect too much.
    Try going through Jamaica for a cruise, your will then consider
    what you went through as paradise in comparison. 
    
    Almost all flights going to Miami for 7 day cruises are full from
    Boston. If you want, you can take your $250 credit for cruise
    and arrange your own. That also means you will have handle your own
    luggage to the ship. Since any other flight will probably be full also,
    you will have to go first class. Figure $1600 per person for round
    trip first class plus taxi plus porter etc. If you really have money
    to blow then it would be better, myself I will live with the short
    trip in crowded seats and take the $3,000 I save and use it for another
    cruise.
    
    I know the whole process of getting too and from a ship for cruise 
    is not that much fun, but if you think that others are better than
    RCCL then you are in for a rude suprise. The only way around it is
    to completely handle all your own travel, this will however almost 
    always cost you a lot more than the air/sea credit provides for
    any cruise line.
    
    Just a note, the air/sea program for any cruise line is normally
    the area with the highest levels of complaints. It is a basic problem
    of needing to provide the service and also keep the costs down.
    
    I agree with entertainment. Some is good, some awful, true of most
    lines. Usually on a large ship the cruise staff has a lot of talent
    and can put on excellent shows. The trouble is the lines like to
    bring in big names to brag about. Typically it is someone who was big
    a long time ago. Example we had Jerry Lewis one time, his stand up
    act has to be one of the worst ever !!! absolutely awful. A lot of
    times the entertainment ends up being slanted to older members  or
    some specific segment. We went on the SS Norway of NCL years before
    and their entertainment was supposed to be the best, I thought it
    was awful. The best entertainment that I enjoyed was on Song of
    AMerica because the cruise staff did most of it and they were good.
    The did not bother bringing in big name has beens.
    
    We are going on Sovereign again in JAN, 94. We mainly like the 3 days
    at sea and just relax, the agressive discount deals were also the
    main reason. I am hoping that Haiti settles down and the reopen
    Labadee before our cruise, Coco Cay is a pretty nice island but
    not nearly as nice as Labadee. I want to try Majesty or Monarch but I
    will not pay a lot more for same date. 
    
    On ship's motion the Sovereign is very large and usually very stable
    as your described, but if you hit one of the more severe weather
    fronts it will definitely rock and roll plenty enough to get people
    sick. ON our last cruise on Sovereign we had pretty good weather, the
    week before they hit a storm and one evening it was so bad that only
    about 30% made it to dinner, they were all too sick. The larger ships
    are much more stable but than can rock if the weather is more
    severe.
    
    Overall I found your description of the cruise to be very accurate
    from my experience. My basic definition of cruises as vacations is,
    take the number of nights and subtract 1 and that is the vacation
    part. The rest is not fun. Example 7 night Sat to Sat cruise.
    Sun to Fri is the good part, both Saturdays are the bad part needed
    to get to the good part, that is one reason I stay away from 3/4
    night cruises.
    
    					Harold C.
    

��    Almost all flights going to Miami for 7 day cruises are full from
��    Boston. If you want, you can take your $250 credit for cruise
��    and arrange your own. That also means you will have handle your own
��    luggage to the ship. Since any other flight will probably be full also,
��    you will have to go first class. Figure $1600 per person for round
��    trip first class plus taxi plus porter etc. If you really have money
��    to blow then it would be better, myself I will live with the short
    Whoa, there.  It's quite a jump from the air package is bad
    to $1600 per-person is your only alternative.  If you're
    planning in advance, you can get air prices that are
    competitive with the $250 credit.

    I've been so screwed by RCCL on their air, that's it's worth
    a few dollars to me to make my own arrangements.  

    RCCL once flew us back from Acapulco -- the boat docked at
    8:00AM Sunday, we got back to Manchester at 3:30PM Monday.
    Part of this was in a packed '27 charter with what must have
    been 8" seat pitch.   I could have made better bus
    connections. RCCL must think people are idiots;  that somehow
    if the cruise is OK, people will ignore the rest.  To
    paraphrase the old joke, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how
    was the cruise?

    I far prefer to make my own air arrangements.  This let's me
    choose the dates and times that I want to travel, and let's
    me fly out of Manchester, rather than Boston.  (I can defray
    some extra cost just with the savings on airport parking.  I
    can also choose a preferred airline for frequent flier
    mileage.)

    As you mentioned, you write off the travel days as not being
    really vacation.  To me, if I can change things enough that
    I don't have to write off two travel days, that's worth a few
    dollars.

    With regard to the base note, I too find RCCL's photography
    offensive.  You're the customer, they should be doing things
    for you.  They should try asking 'may I take your picture',
    instead of forcing themselves on you -- I,'m taking your
    picture whether you like it or not, because it's a profit
    center for RCCL.

    Few things are more annoying that waiting in a line to get
    off the boat in some port, only to find out that the line is
    caused by the photographer stopping everyone to take their
    picture.  If some people want this, that's  fine, but where
    is the express lane for this customer?   I just tell them
    I'm in the witness protection program, and I can't have my
    picture taken.  

    Whenever I hear their commercials with the tag line
    'you have some royal Caribbean coming', I always wonder
    if I have to bend over for it.

    The reason I gave the $1600 figure was it is first class. It is
    normally either first class or cattle class, period, with some
    exceptions. anything you can get close to $250 is going to have
    the same poor seating and probably the same bad food. Unless you
    go at a strange time of day you will end up with a full plane.
    With all the cruises going out on the weekend and other travelers 
    the plane is going to be full, at least out of Boston.
    
    To beat the credit of $250 means the round trip airfare has to be
    about $240 per person. Anytime I've gone the cheapest available were
    non refundable super savers at about $300+ round trip. Of course
    there are specials down to $200 but not always. Almost all low end
    fares are not refundable, if you book in advance and then get airfare
    in advance then you are stuck if something happens to plans.
    When done as air/sea then you just have a deposit up to 60 days
    ahead and it is all fully refundable. The biggest advantage to doing
    your own is controlling the schedule, I think this would be more
    important for departures down in the Caribbean. Everytime I've gone
    to Miami with RCCL I've always got very good times and always non
    stop. I would agree that making your own arrangements from a smaller
    airport like Manchester would be a good idea, but from Boston
    you usually do no better unless you spend money.
    
    If you do your own then you have to get your luggage to the ship. 
    RCCL's automatic handling of luggage from plane directly to ship 
    is very nice. I cannot believe anyone would think finding your
    luggage and then dragging it to a taxi or the bus, then drag it
    on ship after getting to port would be
    better than not having to worry about it at all. I've been
    on the buses many times, I am 5'11' and there sure is no extra space
    but once seated I was always comfortable. A cab would provide more
    space but then you would have all that extra handling of the luggage.
    
    I fully agree about the photographers, it really makes you mad when
    you walk off at a port and release the reason the line moved so
    slowly was due their picture taking.
    
    On return the option of checking in baggage at the truck at the terminal
    should not be thought as something bad, it is really a nice feature.
    The alternative is drag it to bus/cab, go to airport, drag it more
    and check in. The only disadvantage to checking in at truck at port
    on return is it is only available for the airlines with a lot of 
    passengers on the ship. The only way to get out of not dragging
    your luggage at all is to get a porter which there are usually plenty
    of.
    
    If you setup your own flight then do not get cute and time it
    to late in afternoon on departure date, try to get there early or
    maybe the day before. If your flight is delayed beyond the time
    needed to get to ship then you better hope there are air/sea passengers
    for your cruise on that flight. The ships will typically delay 
    departure when a flight is late with air/sea passaengers. Even
    if the ship had to leave I would bet these passengers would get
    overnight accommadations and a flight to first port. If you do
    your own and miss the ship then you will certainly pick up
    all costs and have to make your own arrangements to get to
    the first port. Either way you miss at least 1 day or more of cruise.
    
    I've gone down the day before one time and did not like it much.
    You end up traveling, going to hotel, checking in etc. Usually
    not much to do, then next day get up, get to ship etc. Ok I guess
    but nothing great.
    
    There has not been a time that I've gone on a RCCL cruise
    (all were out of Miami from Boston) that I could have done any better
    on the travel arrangements myself. No matter how you get there the
    good part of the cruise doesn't start till after the lifeboat drill,
    in my opinion.
    
    I agree that if coming from a small airport then try your own
    arrangements even if the costs are a little higher. If going
    on a cruise out of Jamaica then I would definitely do it.
    If going out of Boston then you will probably do no better for
    arrangements, spend more money and then do all the leg work
    with luggage. I looked into it a few times, each time I did the
    cost of making my own arrangements added up to $200 to $300 more
    than if I used air/sea. None of the arrangements I could have
    made would have been better either, and no luggage handling.
    
    One cruise magazine had the right idea, if cruise lines would
    actually give a credit for the actual amount for air/transfers which
    would normally be greater than the credit, then more people
    would make their own arrangements and be happier.
    
    Another trick recently has made it harder to do your own in some
    cases. The normal credit is $250, but on some of the best specials
    from RCCL and some others the special is cruise only at very low price
    with air/sea added on for only $99 per person. At that point you may
    have to spend $500 more just to do your own arrangements. I believe the
    reason the air/sea is so cheap is this allows them to offer
    low price cruises on difficult dates and not have to refund 
    some money to people who booked a long way in advance with guaranteed
    lowest fares. THe guarantee is on cruise only, with the $99 air/sea
    the reality is the $99 comes from the cruise only to bypass
    the guarantee, kind of cute, hah!
    
    The $1.50 cokes and higher prices for everything else is one
    way the cruise lines are making up for the holding line on basic
    cruise prices. I still cannot complain, my first cruise was in 1985,
    the cabin stunk (2 verticle bunks), the cost was $2600, the
    air/sea program at that time by NCL on SS Norway was really bad, not
    anywhere as nice as RCCL, whereas my last few cruises I've had
    nicer cabins, much better air/sea program, etc., 10 years later and
    I've spent $2000 to $2200 instead (all prices for 2).
    
    From these notes I have two suggestions.
      1) Get your self a really bright and unique label for luggage, it
         will make it easier to find in the area before going through
         customs.
      2) If a bunch of people complained about the photographers holding
         up people then maybe the cruise lines would control them better. This
         problem is not unique to RCCL, they all do it.
    
    Even though I cannot control all negative aspects of my cruise or
    any vacation that is, I am still looking forward to cruise number 9
    in Jan 94.
    
    				Harold C.