The Cruise Ship and Cruise Line Discussion Thread!

Any new photos of RCCL's 4th Oasis-class ship - unofficialy Symphony of the Seas?

Also, we've seen the name on an aft block of the build, but not the bow section.

 

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Update.

Hey,

I've actually cruised only twice, but on Oasis of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas. It was crazy awesome! Can post some pics from Anthem later - went to Bermuda this past August

We enjoyed our first cruise last week though we didn't get to do a lot of what the ship offered with a 3 and 1 year old. I am looking forward to going when they are older and can kind of do their own thing. Also for myself i'm curious about the Independence of the Seas and attending their 70k tons of metal cruise.

We enjoyed our first cruise last week though we didn't get to do a lot of what the ship offered with a 3 and 1 year old. I am looking forward to going when they are older and can kind of do their own thing. Also for myself i'm curious about the Independence of the Seas and attending their 70k tons of metal cruise.

Funny, I was just going to mention 70k tons of metal. I want to attend next year, but am going to try and play it if possible.

In just 12 days, we head out on RCCL's "Liberty of the Seas" with a group of 300 bears, bear family, and bear lovers.

 

oh, and ~2900 other passengers who aren't part of our group. -- they aren't gonna know what hit em

 

 

I'm one of the other 2900 passengers LOL! Less then two weeks to go!

 

Ultra Nate??? I love her, she will be on the ship the entire time??

 

I just found out a friend on facebook will also be going on this cruise, he is going with your group!

 

I believe She IS!

 

tho her performance (and the meet and greet cocktail party with her the next day are supposedly "Private" for our group.. but if you know someone in the group. . . .. just sayin. . . LOL (never hurts to ask)

 

trip report coming in the next few days. . .

She was on the ship until Roatan. . and actually spent some time chilling by the pool with the group: (that's her on the right)

her performance was OMG amazing too:

In just 12 days, we head out on RCCL's "Liberty of the Seas" with a group of 300 bears, bear family, and bear lovers.

 

oh, and ~2900 other passengers who aren't part of our group. -- they aren't gonna know what hit em

 

 

It's an interesting time for a cruise, as I am in mourning, but one of the very last things Mom told us, is that she was "sorry for screwing up our trip", and that we should go anyways. . . so been burying myself in trip planning (and work, and food, and exercise. . basically anything to take my mind off the grief).

 

Gonna try my best to have a good time, regardless of circumstances.

 

Have our outfits laid out for what we already KNOW is planned specifically for the group on this Ship:

 

White Party (with live entertainment from Ultra Nate)

Red Hat Pool Deck Party

5th Element Disco themed party - followed by late-night disco takeover (RCCL knows we're coming when our "private" disco shuts down).

"all the Singlet Ladies" midnight private pool party.

 

and that's not even mentioning the Excursions. . and the sight of big ol bears on the Flowrider. . . .

 

I'm determined to have fun, and will post trip report when we're back if folks are curious.

 

I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is going to be an unforgettable trip. I hope you find the healing and distraction you need. I too would like to see a TR of your cruise. Make sure you get plenty of reaction photos!

Truth be told, I didn't get many reaction shots, because for the most part, folks WANTED to hang out with the group.

oh sure, there were those that stood on deck 13 over the pool and gawked and took pics, but after the 2nd day, that really died down. . and funnily enough, those that did come back over and over, were straight couples, where the guys kept stealing glances down at our group

there was one very sweet old lady who asked us if "ladies are allowed in the pool".. . LOL. . lemme tell you, when a bunch of bears get into a pool? the water level goes WAY up. .we couldn't touch bottom most days!

really, the only complaints I heard, were people bitching to the ship employees that Studio B was in use for our group a couple of night. . not sure why that was a complaint tho, as the Ice Skating was open a couple of times during the day, and they did use Studio B for the ice show one evening.

but I'll try to get a trip report up by weekend.

we did have a wonderful time. .tho got a bit of cruise ship crud now. . . . so resting a lot.

and only broke down once (in Cozumel, in the chocolate shop, when I came across the chocolate soaps, and memories of Mom hit me hard, since I always brought her back weird soaps from our trips. . so upside is we left quickly without buying chocolate)

we DID all wear Mom's red hats, and toasted her with MaiTai's at the pool. .and a dear friend made us both pins, that we put on our Lanyards, so Mom was with us the whole cruise

^ I'm sure you got a shot (or more?) of you in those red hats of your mom's?

That was an awesome way to honor your mother, Bert. Very nice and fun.

^ I'm sure you got a shot (or more?) of you in those red hats of your mom's?

That was an awesome way to honor your mother, Bert. Very nice and fun.

us and our friends in Mom's Hats:

Nick and I by the pool - toasting w/ a mai tai

His is a cowboy hat covered in rhinestone sparkles, and mine is a felt tie under the chin deal.

Our Friend Marcella in Mom's Taffeta piece

Marce's Hubby Neal wearing Mom's glitter cap

Anjeanne in Mom's 70's vinyl DY-NO-MYTE hat

in Johnny Rocket's getting lunch

you can see the pin of Mom on Nick's lanyard..it's from her wedding photo.

^ WOW!

Your mom had (and you now) some really AWESOME hats and caps!

And that looks like a great way to do a cruise too!

^ WOW!

 

Your mom had (and you now) some really AWESOME hats and caps!

we had a separate carry on just for the hats. . LOL

Looks like it was really fun! Can't wait to hear more.

Good for you, Bert...you really needed that after the loss of your mother.

What a cool way to honor her too...the hats and Mai Tai's - woot!!!!

Well I was also on the Liberty the 19th and it was an amazing ship! Entered the Worlds Sexiest Man contest and SANTA won! Everything about the cruise was great and cant wait to cruise again!

^ While it's a very large ship, but I'm surprised we didn't see each other (you don't look familiar to me).

We kept running into many folks who weren't part of the "bear" group, but kept seeing them on the ship.

did you see our group? I assume you did if you went to the Adult pool or adult Hot Tubs

I'm still fighting Cruise Crud, and spent most of day in bed today, hence my goal of having trip report up by weekend.

I will say that overall I very much enjoyed the ship, but there were 3 areas that needed definite improvement:

1) the food in the main dining room was surprisingly mediocre.

Oh, it wasn't *bad*, but it wasn't GREAT either. . and several things they had listed were not as advertised, mainly deserts (that wasn't a creme brulee, that was flan, and that wasn't a Frozen Strawberry Souffle', that was mousse. . and that absolutely wasn't Baked Alaska. . I realize they are cooking for thousands of folks, but that was a slice of ice cream cake, with marshmallow topping. . . ew).

I'm guessing it was to "push" guests towards the upcharge restaurants, and to be fair, both Givonni's Table, and Chops were EXCELLENT (the Mexican place, not so much, tho the Margaritas and fresh Guac was good).

2) speaking of upcharge restaurants, we ate at Johnny Rockets twice, and both times it took nearly 2 hours. . . once when we were in port, and there were LITERALLY 3 other folks there. We complained, and were told "this is the experience Guests want". . . um. . no, we wanted a burger and shakes. The sides come out immediately, and the shakes about 30 minutes later, then, seriously almost an hour later for the burgers. I guess they wan't you to not feel ripped off that you are paying $12 for a milkshak ($6.75 cover, and $5 for the shake). . . but yeah, we didn't bother going back after the 2nd time.

and

3) The Cruise Director.

I don't want to imply any kind of bias. . but he seemed *extremely* uninterested in our group. To the point that he never came by to ANY of our functions to even say hello.

When our group is 320+ people, and were renting out Studio B (twice) for evening parties, taking over Star Lounge (3 times) for meet and greets, and heck, even having the Helipad roped off for us so we could get a picture?

He damn sure SHOULD have stopped by and greeted us.

*that* annoyed me.

anyways.. those are minor things in the scheme of things. . and again, hope to have the trip report up in the next few days once I'm feeling better.

Helipad pic. . we're in the front, right over the "F" in woof. . I'm in green w/ my arm around Nick.

3) The Cruise Director.

I don't want to imply any kind of bias. . but he seemed *extremely* uninterested in our group. To the point that he never came by to ANY of our functions to even say hello.

 

When our group is 320+ people, and were renting out Studio B (twice) for evening parties, taking over Star Lounge (3 times) for meet and greets, and heck, even having the Helipad roped off for us so we could get a picture?

 

He damn sure SHOULD have stopped by and greeted us.

 

*that* annoyed me.

Wait...they had a male cruise director that wasn't gay?

Or maybe he was, but he was into twinks versus bears?

That's almost like having a straight steward on an airplane flight.

3) The Cruise Director.

I don't want to imply any kind of bias. . but he seemed *extremely* uninterested in our group. To the point that he never came by to ANY of our functions to even say hello.

 

When our group is 320+ people, and were renting out Studio B (twice) for evening parties, taking over Star Lounge (3 times) for meet and greets, and heck, even having the Helipad roped off for us so we could get a picture?

 

He damn sure SHOULD have stopped by and greeted us.

 

*that* annoyed me.

 

Wait...they had a male cruise director that wasn't gay?

 

Our straight friends got into the Love and Marriage game (which he hosted), so we stayed to watch that. . and he made *many* references to his wife while doing the game show.

(and yes, we were the ONLY bears from the group that stayed, as he didn't not pick a gay couple, so many who had gone to see it got up and left)

3) The Cruise Director.

I don't want to imply any kind of bias. . but he seemed *extremely* uninterested in our group. To the point that he never came by to ANY of our functions to even say hello.

 

When our group is 320+ people, and were renting out Studio B (twice) for evening parties, taking over Star Lounge (3 times) for meet and greets, and heck, even having the Helipad roped off for us so we could get a picture?

 

He damn sure SHOULD have stopped by and greeted us.

 

*that* annoyed me.

 

Wait...they had a male cruise director that wasn't gay?

 

 

Our straight friends got into the Love and Marriage game (which he hosted), so we stayed to watch that. . and he made *many* references to his wife while doing the game show.

 

(and yes, we were the ONLY bears from the group that stayed, as he didn't not pick a gay couple, so many who had gone to see it got up and left)

Maybe he voted to make cruises great again...

Something a bit out of the ordinary

I recently had a mini-cruise with "Fjord Line" From Bergen, Norway to Hirtshals, Denmark. So i thought i would share some photos with you. The ship i sailed on was the almost new (2014) MS Bergensfjord. The ship leaves Bergen at 13.30 and arrive in Hirtshals the next morning at 08.00, then you can choose to stay on the ship up to "Langesund, Norway and back, or you can spend the day in Denmark. Since the ship don`t leave for Bergen until 20.00 you have 12 hours to spend in Denmark. I choose to spend the day in Denmark and drove to Aalborg. Then the ship Leave Hirtshals at 20.00 and arrive Bergen 12.30 the next day.

This is the ship i sailed on

Here is the route: Bergen-Stavanger-Hirtshals-Langesund-Hirtshals-Stavanger-Bergen

Here it comes (crappy photo from my car)

My cabin

Bathroom

Easy to remember where your car is on the car deck

View of Bergen from my cabin

Some photos from around the ship

One of the restaurants

Lounge in the front of the ship with big windows so you can enjoy the view

A delicious and cheap! Mojito (at least cheap by Norwegian standards...)

Beautiful view

This is where passengers without a car board the ship

This used to be a Tapas bar, but have now been converted in to a sportsbar

Sailing past my hometown "Haugesund"

The "Karmsund" bridge

Avaldsnes church opened in year 1250. To the left in the photo is the Avaldsnes viking village, they have reconstructed the viking village that used to be there based on the ruins found at the site

LNG tankers laid-up

A little lounge

This is the self-service restaurant

The buffet restaurant where I had a delicious breakfast

This huge painting used to hang in the dining room of the Norwegian America Line`s ship "Bergensfjord" built in 1956

You can see it in the background here

Waiting for the ship in Hirtshals

Hirtshals lighthouse

Time for dinner!

Really tall chairs

This is the BEST steak dinner i have ever had!

All Norwegians favorite thing...

CHEAP ALCOHOL!

They also have candy, chocolate, clothes, perfume, tobacco and so on

A model of the ship

Arriving Bergen again

Nice pictures! I did the trip between Langesund and Hirtshals back in 2014 with the same ship. Definitely a very nice ship for short/overnight trips.

Bonus points for featuring Bergen in your report!

what a nice ship! (looks about the same size as the 1st Celebrity ship we went on)

Nice to see so many options of things to do on board, even for a short trek!

and great pics.

Cool TR, love all the Scandinavian ferry options.

I miss the overnight ferry, from Stockholm to Helsinki.

^^^^ This route looks great, the ship looks wonderful, and that room you got, looks...

That was a nice looking ship! Thanks for sharing!

This isn't really a cruise ship but it feels kinda like one so here's a little bit of a TR.

So I had decided to go on a day cruise to Tallinn on 13.3, as I'm interested in transport and Tallink-Silja had just opened a brand new ship called Megastar, that took you between Tallinn and Helsinki in just 2 hours (the trip is 80km or about 50 miles), faster if the gulf of finland isn't frozen (and it wasn't on that day). It replaced the Superstar ship that got sold back to it's homeland Italy, and now the Megastar does the service that the Star ship used to do when Superstar was still in service. So while Star is in Helsinki, Megastar is in Tallinn and vice versa. Anyway, since Star is an older ship (built in 2007) they replaced it's services (the more popular times) with Megastar.

Now Megastar is an amazing ship in terms of design. While it is larger than Star, it manages to fit so much more in it compared to Star, and has something that Star doesn't have; an airplane business class style sitting lounge. Of course, for extra price you can go in the business or comfort lounges but on Star, if you didn't pay extra you would have to sit in the restaurants if you didn't get a cabin. The sitting lounge does have limited seating, however if you go monday-wednesday you can have a four person table all to yourself. The area doesn't have any reservations. The sitting lounge also includes good wifi (good enough to watch youtube videos at high quality) and USB ports for charging as well as normal outlets for charging your laptop. Of course, legroom is great.

Here's a pic pulled off wikipedia because I didn't get a good angle on the whole ship:

The ship has a Buffet, a more standard restaurant, "Chef's kitchen", "Fast Lane" the company's own fastfood place that serves for example high quality burgers and fish n chips, Coffee & co which is a cafe and a Finnish Burger King. There is also a Pub and a Bar (whatever the difference is).

There's also a two story tax free store "Traveller superstore" which includes all the alcohol and all the overpriced huge bags of candy you can imagine. There's also a lobby store for more souvenir-y kind of stuff. The traveller superstore conveniently also has a checkout on the lower floor that leads directly to one of the car decks, so you can take your shopping cart to your car. (hanging around in the car deck isn't forbidden on this ship)

There are also cabins if you want, they cost on average 30€ per one way and have basic things like a bathroom with a shower and four beds. If you pay 5€ more you'll get an outside cabin with a window to the sea.

And here are some of the pictures I took (sorry for the toaster quality):

I really don't know where I am but I know where I'm going so I guess it's fine

This is the inside of the brand new terminal that just opened

Up the lit af escalators

This is the larger waiting area for the ship

There's also a balcony but it's still under construction as the terminal itself is brand new

This is the view, it would probably be nicer if it wasn't March, the worst month for scenery in Finland

Boarding! The walk to the ship was only 20 metres or so which is exceptional.

Nerd shot of whatever those are

There's the burger king

Here's the sitting lounge, first I took this single seat

But after remembering nearly no-one got on the ship I took myself a whole table

It's the Baltic sea!

Here's the culprit for why McDonalds is 95 million usd in debt in Finland, crispy thick cut fries, unlimited drink refills and burgers that taste like food

This is a Big King XXL, so kind of like a big mac but bigger and more fresh

You can buy Carlsberg here (Also the ad says "how about a beer as well" but with a g at the end to make it a burger king pun) All the ads were in Finnish, Estonian and English.

All the surfaces were made of something shiny so my camera couldn't take a pic without it looking like I had slapped a million glam filters on it.

The stairwells

Traveller superstore, also incredibly shiny

Anyone up for 1kg full of over 5000 kcal?

And of course there's the overpriced chocolate (1.30€ more expensive than in Finland for example)

Or a 6.5€ packet with like 8 chocolate covered oreos

But for some reason this Tallink brand vitamineral water ripoff only cost 1.50€ which is cheaper than even regular sodas in Finland (it was pretty good too)

Here's the cafe area

There's the baltic queen, which goes between Tallinn and Stockholm

Here's the Fast Lane area

This is the uppermost car deck, unlike most ships hanging out on the car deck isn't actually forbidden since you can take your shoppings to your car through here. You also board and disembark through here.

This is the D-terminal in Tallinn.

Bonus pic: that limo is a crime to humanity

I didn't take any pics on the ship the way back, but here's a little goodbye pic to the Megastar

This is a night pic of the new helsinki western terminal

That's all the pictures I took, thanks for reading this little report!

^ Thanks for sharing! I am down to 60 days until my next cruise, I cannot wait!