Jim Bellomo

Day 5: We don’t see a glacier but we still have fun

by Jim Bellomo | Aug 6, 2019 | Uncategorized

If you have been on an Alaskan cruise, you know that one of the big days on board is the day you see a glacier from the ship. There are four big glacier viewing areas and they are controlled by the U.S. government with permits so that not every ship can just go wherever they want to go. This is a BIG deal. It’s the reason many people go to Alaska. We have been to all the major glaciers that ships go to and have seen calving (where the front wall of the glacier breaks off) and it is awesome. We were really looking forward to showing the grandkids a glacier and the rest of the ship (especially those who had not been to Alaska before) were excited as well. Which brings us to our glacier day experience.

We were scheduled to go up Endicott Arm (an arm is a long fjord that has a glacier at the end of it) to the front of Dawes Glacier. Long story short—we didn’t get there. Here’s a map to give you an idea of what happened to us.

Dawes

Sadly, as you can see, we did not get to the Dawes Glacier. We didn’t even get close to it. We didn’t even get to where we could see the glacier. I have indicated above about how far I think we got based on what I know we passed and didn’t pass. I checked on Google Maps and where I am pretty sure we stopped was about 15 miles from the front of Dawes Glacier.

We started up Endicott Arm at 7:00 am (which is REALLY early for glacier viewing based on other cruises we have done). Most go during the midday. We went very slowly (that’s normal) because there was some ice that had broken off from the glacier in the water of the fjord. I should mention that Endicott Arm is probably the narrowest of the Alaskan fjords that ships go up. So around 9:00 am, the captain came on the ship’s public address system and announced that due to ice in the water, this was as far as he could take Ovation. We then proceeded to sit in that spot (which I guess was where I marked on the map) to go around and around looking at a waterfall. After about an hour or more, he made another announcement that we were heading for Victoria.

So what was supposed to be a day of seeing amazing glacial sites turned into another sea day where we had to find something to do to entertain ourselves and the kids. And since the day after was also a sea day before we got into Victoria, BC on Thursday (Day 6), we had a lot of entertaining to do. So we found lots to do. See our photos at the bottom of the page. But first, here’s some pics of the non-glacier.

A panoramic view of what we could see up the fjord.

Some shots of the fjord at the point where we stopped

This is the amount of ice the ship couldn’t go through?

Other captains we have sailed have sailed through much more ice that this.

Sad

Here’s what I think happened with Ovation and the glacier and fjord. The US Government in its many entities hands out permits for the cruise lines to sail into the various glacier areas. These permits are passed out on a grandfathered-in basis. The longer the cruise line has been in Alaska, the better choice they get of where they want to go. For instance, Holland America has been in Alaska for years and years and they get Glacier Bay (the hardest one to get). Princess and a few other lines have Glacier Bay permits as well. Others go to Hubbard Glacier (Kathleen’s favorite), Tracy Arm and what we got…Dawes…the bottom of the list…because it is so hard to get into and has most of the ice that stopped us from getting there. Cruise lines bid on permits each year for a few years down the road.

My belief is that RCI had planned on moving Ovation to Alaska from Asia in 2020 not this year. But Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) did so well with Bliss last year, selling out and them bringing NCL Joy here this year that they pushed Ovation up. Which meant they didn’t have space for berthing in Ketchikan and that they had to take the bottom of the barrel when it came to glacier views. Next year RCI has announced that Ovation will go to Glacier Bay but my guess is that they had the permits set up for next year long ago but then when they decided to come a year early, they took what they could get.

I was ticked we didn’t go up the fjord all the way to the glacier. I thought the captain was a wimp and said so but on second thought, I don’t think he made the decision. I think that was a corporate decision made by RCI. But what really ticks me off is that this was as far as Ovation has gotten all summer long (we checked other reviews of earlier cruises and other Cruise Critic Roll Calls for previous cruises) and yet they still sold Northstar Glacier Views (remember Northstar—the big arm that shoots up from the ship) for an additional $50 per person on their website, pre-cruise. If they really didn’t think they were going to get up to the glacier, that was just wrong. I spoke to one woman who paid the $50 for the Northstar at the Glacier but was NOT offered (at least as of the sixth night of the cruise) any kind of refund for that “experience.” That is just wrong.

That’s my theory. If anyone else knows differently or has a better theory, let me know. Now here’s the pics of those kids having an awesome time. They didn’t even know we missed the glacier.

In the morning the kids tried roller skating.

Mason has his grandpa’s sense of balance.

Maylee on the other hand, loved it. She loves everything.

And she always looks cute doing it.

And her brother loves her.

But later in the day, Mason TRIUMPHED on the Flowrider. More about that tomorrow.

The glacier was God’s great plough set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth. —Louis Agassiz

Day 4: Finally livable but still crowded

by Jim Bellomo | Aug 5, 2019 | Uncategorized

On the fourth day of our cruise we awoke in Skagway, Alaska, a tiny town that had less people than the ship we were on. Which by the way is part of the problem Ovation has. The ship had too many people on it. Not that other ships can’t handle that number of people, but Ovation really can’t. It just had a hard time handling the number of people we had on board. I think I already mentioned that there were (with all cabins full) almost 5,000 people on board, 1,000 of them kids. I had a thought when we were in Seattle moored next to Celebrity’s Solstice, a ship we have sailed on (or one of her almost identical sister ships) many times. Sitting next to each other, the two ships (Ovation and Solstice) don’t look that much bigger than each other (Ovation has two more decks). In fact when we were onboard I noticed that Ovation was built at the same shipyard as the Solstice class ships. And they are very much alike.

One of the things I have always felt I didn’t like about the Solstice class was that they only had two banks of elevators—one at the front of the ship and one in the middle of the ship. On Solstice (with slightly more than 3,000 people when it is full) it just means you have to walk further to get to an elevator. On Ovation with almost 5,000 people, it means that people wait and wait and wait for an elevator on a 16 deck ship. An example: I almost always take the stairs on a cruise. I do that to fight any weight gain from all the food and drink. Kathleen with her hip replaced can’t do that (one day I climbed 58 flights–yes I am nuts) so she takes the elevator. Normally I arrive after a four or five flight climb to find her waiting for me at the top of the stairs. But on this cruise, most of the time, I could climb 10 or 12 flights of stairs and then have to wait another four or five minutes for her elevator to arrive. That’s nuts and just a symptom of the problems Ovation has. I heard so many complaints about the elevators, it just got old. And this is the same reason that we were hearing announcements about eating quick in the buffet. The buffet is the same physical size as Solstice (or not much larger) and feeding 2,000 more people.

But no matter what the crowds, today we took the White Pass Railroad up to the top of White Pass and followed the same trail as miners did in the mid 1800s. It’s a great excursion and one you have to do at least once when you go to Alaska. We (Kathleen and I ) did it back on our first Alaska cruise in 1999 and we wanted the kids to experience it. They seemed to like it although I think they got a little bored with the historical stuff. I do need to say that never once did they complain. Yes, I am a proud grandpa.

When we returned from the train trip, we took a short walk around the town and headed back to the ship. Because Ovation was moored at the very end of the pier, it was a really long walk in windy conditions. When we got back on the kids really wanted to go to the buffet and grandpa got outvoted so off we went. Surprise, there was an improvement in find a a place to sit. Because so many people were still in Skagway, we easily found a table but sadly, the food was just as bad as it had been before. Cold burgers, cold hot dogs, lukewarm pizza and warm plates for salads. It was just sad. How could a food program that produces pretty good food in the dining room be so bad in the buffet.

After lunch the kids and grandkids wanted to try rock climbing and we hoped that there would be less of a crowd than there had been a few days before and we were right. Only trouble was that the first time they had done rock climbing a few days earlier, Maylee (who was well over the 42 inches they require to rock climb) was denied because she is only five (she turns six in three weeks). But why deny her now and not on the second night of the cruise? I don’t understand. Consistency Ovation!

Dinner was in the dining room and we had a really good time. The kids were tired (and so were we) so we met Bob and Judy for an after dinner drink and the kids went back to their stateroom to watch a movie on TV. It was a much better day.

I love this family so much

And this little girl

Even when she puts her face in my lens

This is what the train looks like

And a bunch of waterfalls on the way to White Pass

Waterfalls

And a ghost bridge

Are you spooked

Especially when it runs out

You can see the front of the train from the back

And there were some gorgeous flowers

Fully in bloom

Really pretty

I mean really

There is more than one train. A lot of trains actually

And more waterfalls

Everywhere

And then we got back to the town

And saw helicopters

And snow

Then I watched Joel…

Jenna (my beautiful daughter)..

and Mason (my awesome grandson) go rock climbing

More rock climbing fun

Joel on the way down

Jenna on the way down

The newly renovated Celebrity Millennium. Bob talked to someone who was sailing on her in town and heard it is beautiful

The end of decent day in Skagway

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. —John Muir

Day 3: Things kept getting (a little bit) better

by Jim Bellomo | Aug 4, 2019 | Uncategorized

On Monday morning, we had another half day at sea as we didn’t get into Juneau until 12:30 pm. During that time we had our Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle. I made the words Cruise Critic a link to my previous explanation of what Cruise Critic is so if you aren’t sure, you can pop back over and check and then close that window and come back here.

The Meet and Mingle was both interesting and eye-opening. The crew member hosting the event was the Groups Coordinator. Kathleen and I were two of the first people to arrive and she made the mistake of asking me how our cruise was going…I told her. Now, not in a nasty way, just the unvarnished truth of why I felt this was one of the worst cruises we have been on. She handled it well but offered me no solutions. She was SHOCKED about the announcements in the buffet (to please eat quickly and leave) and not surprised by my other complaints about scheduling and reservations. The Meet and Mingle itself was very nice. The Activities Director came by with a bunch of freebie stuff to give away in a door prize raffle. There were about 15 parties there and about 30 people and I think someone in every group got something. I won the first drawing and grabbed a bottle of wine that we drank at dinner the next night.

We got to meet a lot of nice people that we had been conversing with online pre-cruise and I was thanked a number of times for my Seattle expertise and recommendations. (If you are ever coming to Seattle or cruising from here to Alaska, check out my “My Seattle” website.)

Someone finally explains how “to do” RCL

One of the people we got to meet had posted a lot on the Roll Call and since I had helped her with her pre-cruise Seattle activities, she helped me understand Royal Caribbean and this cruise a little bit better. She is a long time RCL cruiser and asked me how our cruise was going. When I told her how disappointed we were, she was surprised. She said her party of more than 20 was having a great time and she asked me for specifics. When I told her about the buffet she said she wouldn’t know since they never went to the buffet…or the dining rooms. They were Diamond Plus on Royal (the second highest level in their loyalty club) and so they ate many meals in the Concierge Club (only open to those people at that level and to those sailing in suites). She also said that she had purchased the “Ultimate Dining Package” for everyone in their group. That means that they could eat breakfast in the Concierge Club and lunch and dinner, every day in specialty restaurants.

When I mentioned the fact that we couldn’t get the kids or the grandkids reservations to do many of the activities they wanted to do or had to stand in line for an hour to do something, she replied that they didn’t have to do that since they had pre-purchased what RCL calls “The Key.” “The Key” is like a Disney Fast Pass. It lets you jump the line numerous times on just about any activity or in making reservations for any activity. It costs approximately $30 per person, per day. So that just showed me that to really enjoy this cruise, Grandpa (me) screwed up. I should have sucked it up and spent another $3,000 to get both the Ultimate Dining Package and The Key for all of us. Excuse my French again, that’s bullshit! Cruising is becoming (or has become) a caste system with haves and have-nots increasingly separated more and more every day but that’s a subject for a whole other column.

Note added later: Since I originally wrote this my good friend Bob (who was on this cruise with his grandkids) added something I hadn’t thought of when it comes to “The Key.” How do you explain to a child under eight when they wait patiently in line for 30-45 minutes to ride a bumper car or go roller skating and then are told they have to wait another 15 minutes because these kids with “The Key” get to cut the line and ride multiple times before others get to ride once. Later in the week, while watching my grandson on the FlowRider, I overheard some folks with “The Key” saying how they had done the iFly experience three times on that cruise…while my kids could not get a reservation to use it even once. Sorry but this is just wrong.

We were arriving in Juneau at 12:30 so after the Cruise Critic event, we went to get ready and to meet the kids for lunch before we got off the ship. And here is another example of RCL just not getting it.

The majority of people on board have families. We were told that we needed to meet for our shore excursion at 11:45 in the Royal Theater. The only trouble was that not a single (insert my favorite expletive here) food venue was open before 11:30. Has anyone reading this ever tried to get a five year old and an eight year old to sit down and eat in less than 15 minutes? It’s NOT possible. Especially when you can’t even get into a venue to eat until 11:30. Luckily for us, the pizza place opened at 11:20 so we were able to grab a couple of slices and find someplace to sit and eat it. We then proceeded to the theater, got checked in for our excursion and were told to sit and wait for 45 minutes (we didn’t even dock until noon) in a section of the theater. I think the funniest thing we saw while waiting was a dad come in from the pizza place (quite a walk away from the theater) carrying six plates of pizza to feed his kids. Great scheduling RCL. BTW: I didn’t want RCL to schedule the shore excursion later, I wanted them to open the food venues earlier. If they have more than 1000 people (that’s how many were in the theater) that need to eat before they leave, then open the restaurants and the buffet at 11:00. I just don’t get it.

For our day in Juneau I had pre-purchased a package of two trips (one for Juneau and one for Skagway). The Juneau trip was a combo of whale watching and a quick stop at the Mendenhall Glacier. Both of these were great. Once we were out of the theater, we were off the ship in minutes and found our bus and got on board. One of the most comfortable large buses I have been on and our driver was hilarious. One bad (grandpa-type) joke a minute. Mason loved him. He is still talking about his jokes. We drove to a nice size boat, boarded and headed out to find whales. I think all-in-all we saw about 10. I never thought I could be blasé about seeing whales but we have seen so many on this cruise. We also got to see sea lions, an otter and a few bald eagles. I think the kids got tired of it after a while but they did enjoy it. Did I mention I have the best grandkids in the world? They are so patient. I don’t think I heard them even once complain about waiting in line.

This is the Northstar.

And speaking of waiting in line, we saw in the schedule that the Northstar had a non-reservation session after dinner so we went up and stood in line for about 40 minutes to take a 10 minute trip straight up into the sky and see from a higher vantage point what we could already see from the deck. The kids seemed to like it so that made it worth the wait. We thought it was just OK. Especially since all we could see was Juneau but it did give us something to do after dinner.

That brought an end to our day so I will finish with some quick post-cruise thoughts. Day three was the best so far and I started warming up to Ovation. It’s still too crowded and I still hate the buffet but things got better today.

Maylee is excited to go whale watching in Juneau

So is Mason

And the whales are excited to see them

Lots of whales

Even a mother and calf

Lots of whales

Whales showing their tails

See what I mean

We head out further into the channel

And look up to a massive glacier

Sea Lion City!

An Alaskan landscape

Sea lions can be really lazy

They never seem to do anything

See the sea otter in the water?

Maybe it’s the weather that makes them lazy

See the big guy in the water…

Here comes some company for him.

And I thought he would get a bite, but he got a kiss.

The big glacier on the way back

The kids at the Mendenhall Glacier

The grandkids at the Mendenhall Glacier

The Mendenhall Glacier

The waterfall from the melting Mendenhall Glacier

You would not believe how much this has receded since Kathleen and I saw it the first time in 1999 on our first cruise.

Joel and Maylee look at the Mendenhall Glacier

Back at the ship, Millennium has arrived with her new paint job

And so has a rusty Princess ship

The kids wait to ride the Northstar on board Ovation

The Juneau gondolas

In the Northstar after a 40 minute wait

Worth it for this family pic.

Nature did not put whales on this earth to splash kids while stuck in a pen. —Jane Velez-Mitchell

Ovation Schedules

by Jim Bellomo | Aug 3, 2019 | Uncategorized

Sorry for the quick second post but I wanted to put up the schedules for our second day on Ovation of the Seas so I could point out the total disfunction in their scheduling and systems. You can see my full report on Day 2 here.

Here are the two sides of the day 2 schedule. This was a sea day so there was nothing else to do than what you see on this sheet. If you click it twice it will zoom in so you can read it. The sections highlighted in yellow are the dining times. The pink highlight are things kids can do but remember, there were more than 1,000 kids on board and they show Table Tennis open play for instance. Ever play ping-pong with a five year old? That doesn’t last long not to mention that there are only four tables for 1,000 plus kids. There are also age and height restrictions which were enforced randomly (our 5 year old granddaughter was allowed to do rock climbing on Day 1 but not on Day 2 or after that. Try explaining that to her). Roller skating was limited to no more than 25 people on the floor at any one time. I get that but to schedule that for so few hours is nuts.

DAY2-1A

Day 2-2A

Also, please note the purple highlights. These are things happening (some only once on the cruise) during the early (which was full of kids) dinner seating. This was a VERY common occurrence. During this time only two of the pools on board were open. The indoor pool and the Solarium (adults only) pool.

Day 2: Not a lot of improvement

by Jim Bellomo | Aug 3, 2019 | Uncategorized

The first part of this was written on the afternoon of our second day on Ovation of the Seas. As you can see, things did not improve on day 2.

Breakfast and lunch this morning were in the buffet and the place is a freaking zoo. Seriously. We actually heard three announcements asking people to eat quickly and leave so others could sit down. (I HAVE NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE IN 28 CRUISES) The food is some of the worst buffet food I have seen. Really bad. Even the lemonade is beyond watery. It’s yellow colored water. So sad. The burgers were cold, the pizza lukewarm, the salads mediocre to say the least.

It’s not just the food. It’s the crowds. They are oppressive. And because of the poor systems for handling them on the ship, it makes it worse. We later learned that there were at least 1,000 children under age 12 on this cruise. That means that the ship was almost at full capacity. You could really tell on sea days and when you tried to get an elevator or in the buffet. And their systems and scheduling were ludicrous.

A pretty awesome area for kids that was almost IMPOSSIBLE to get into. It took our grandkids six days to find the area on the left open and available. RIDICULOUS!

What I mean by that is that everything is controlled and scheduled in a really poor way. Let me give you an example. After lunch on our first day on board we took the kids to the outdoor pool. It was a beautiful day and the pool wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be. There are three parts to the outdoor pool area. There is a large pool that is about 5 feet deep, a small round pool for younger kids. They can get in it and go around and around. And there is a bunch of water slides and sprinklers for kids as well. When we first went out and went to the pool, it was about 1:00 pm. The two parts for little kids were closed. When I asked a lifeguard when it was open and he said 2:00 pm. Great, we nursed the kids through an hour of swimming and ice cream cones and then went to see them open the kids area. Guess what, they only opened the little round pool that would hold only about 20 kids so a line quickly formed. We never did see the water slide area open—The one thing the kids really wanted to do. RCL—open your damn facilities. We found this to be true so often. For instance, the bumper cars which you have to strand in line for, are only open between 4:30 and 6:30 pm. And if you have early seating as we did, that’s when you need to get ready for dinner and eat it. Get it together people! We can’t count the number of times we have seen people wandering around empty venues with no one to open them. The activity staff on this ship must either have very few people or they get a lot of time off. Or it is POORLY SCHEDULED which I believe to be the case.

We have had a really hard time finding things for the kids to do these first two days. We took them to the “Ocean Adventures” Royal’s highly regarded children’s program and my daughter and son-in-law were met by some of the most bored and uninterested-in-children people on the ship. Their answer to what the kids would be doing, is a gesture and them saying, “playing in here.” Nothing was going on except some unruly kids running around while others were trying to play. No real supervision at that point. Add to that, that our granddaughter who will turn 6 next month was put in the 3-5 year old group while our grandson is in the 6-8 year old group. Our granddaughter is quite mature for her age, so she did NOT want be left in a room full of three years olds while her brother had a good time with kids more her maturity level. So that program was out the window for us.

Then we have a daily schedule for a ship where almost a quarter of the people onboard are under the age of 12 and practically nothing for them to do. I am going to put a copy of today’s schedule online when I get home and point out all the things that are available for kids (next to nothing). We ended up spending the entire morning in the arcade, spending grandpa’s money playing skeeball and air hockey and some free foosball. Even if the Kid’s Club had been viable for our kids, they have a limit of how many kids can participate at one time and they exceeded that regularly as many parents just want to dump their kids for as much time as possible.

Then this afternoon at lunch, the cherry on the top of all this. I asked Joel (my awesome son-in-law) to make sure it showed on his daily schedule that they had reservations for the evening show that night—Pixels. It was the only thing I had been able to reserve before the cruise. Nothing else had been available for reservation (even thought now that we are onboard we keep hearing crew ask us if we made reservations) other than shore excursions. I tried on a regular basis for at least 12 weeks prior to the cruise to reserve things like the iFly, the Northstar and other attractions and not been able to do so. The only thing I could reserve were things that cost money. If they couldn’t charge you for it, it wasn’t available to reserve online. I even went so far as to call Royal’s travel agent line and discuss with them why we weren’t able to make reservations. We were told not to worry, that we would be able to make reservations once on board. Excuse my language but that was BULLSHIT! At no time could we make a reservation for any of those activities but the only thing we could make reservations for was this show, Pixels. So I did. I made the reservations for us, my kids and my grandkids. And they showed up on our reservation cruise planner right up until we came aboard. Then all of a sudden when I checked at lunch time today, my kids and grandkids no longer had reservations. I went to Customer Relations and they couldn’t figure it out and all they could do for us was offer us the show tomorrow night, immediately after we get back from a day-long excursion. The show starts at 7:00 and we don’t get back in time to eat dinner before the show. The woman who arranged it for me suggested we drop by the buffet for dinner after the show. She obviously has never had hungry 5 and 8 year olds traveling with her. Just another screw up. It’s funny how the only things they have not screwed up is things we pay money for. All the shore excursions I paid money for are there just fine but the “complimentary” reservations I made at exactly the same time, disappear.

I now need say that when I went back to our stateroom later that afternoon, just before dinner, there was a phone message from the woman in Guest Services telling us that she had found four cancellations and that we now had our reservations back. While I appreciated her help, this never should have happened in the first place. The show, by the way, was excellent. The kids loved it. A really great multi-media show. And a great way to finish our second day which was a mild improvement over the first one.