Explorer of the Seas

We are considering a trip on RCCL's Explorer of the Seas next winter out
of Cape Liberty New Jersey. We would like feed back from anyone who has
sailed form Cape Liberty, especially in February. Does anyone know how
much parking is per day?? Is there a parking garage, or just a lot??
First/last two days of the cruise is at sea, is it warm enough to be
outside by the pool by the second day?? Any first hand experience with
this ship/port in winter would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Debbie

Deb wrote:
We are considering a trip on RCCL's Explorer of the Seas next winter out
of Cape Liberty New Jersey. We would like feed back from anyone who has
sailed form Cape Liberty, especially in February. Does anyone know how
much parking is per day?? Is there a parking garage, or just a lot??
First/last two days of the cruise is at sea, is it warm enough to be
outside by the pool by the second day?? Any first hand experience with
this ship/port in winter would be appreciated.

Here is the website for Port Liberty: http://www.cruiseliberty.com/index.htm

We cruised out of Port Liberty in Sept. and the directions on the
website are very good. Parking is very easy, but it is outdoors and not
covered. Cost is about $15/day.

sue

"Deb" wrote in message
news


We are considering a trip on RCCL's Explorer of the Seas next winter out
of Cape Liberty New Jersey. We would like feed back from anyone who has
sailed form Cape Liberty, especially in February. Does anyone know how
much parking is per day?? Is there a parking garage, or just a lot??
First/last two days of the cruise is at sea, is it warm enough to be
outside by the pool by the second day?? Any first hand experience with
this ship/port in winter would be appreciated.

First hand experience with the weather won't necessarily work. Because it
changes.

February weather in the NY/NJ area (where you sail from), and southward is
very dependent on the location of the jet stream. If the jet stream is far
up north, blocking the cold, and allowing southerly warm weather to drift up
northward, then it will be nice up on deck. Today was almost 50 degrees in
the NJ/NY area. I was on the golf course today.

A few weeks ago, when the jet stream was further south, it was allowing the
arctic cold to escape and drift south (like with the football game in Green
Bay). The weather in the NY/NJ area was in the low teens and below.

It all depends on the location of the jet stream. North of the jet stream
will be cold. South of it will be warm. But the jet stream keeps shifting.
It depends on where it is the week you sail.

So... if you can predict the location of the jet stream the week you sail,
then you'll be able to predict whether it will be nice enough be up on pool
deck.

The problem is... you can't. So you take your chances.

--Tom

I just cruised from Cape Liberty on that ship in January . We were in a
group and chartered a bus to the terminal , so I can't comment about the
parking , but I can comment on the terminal .

Let me also say that last year I cruised the NCL Spirit from there , and
everything went smoothly .

There was a problem on the Explorer , and that caused a huge delay with
embarking ... about 6 hours . The terminal is not big enough for larger
ships , and there were a great many problems resulting from this . The
Explorer holds probably twice as many people as the terminal was designed to
accommodate , so there was only enough places for about half the passangers
to sit , the rest had to stand all that time . In summer , people could go
outside , but it was freezing that day so standing inside was better . The
problem was compounded by the way the situation was handled by Royal
Caribbean or the terminal staff , whoever was in charge . It was a
surprisingly ineffecient example of handling a large group of people , and
the end result was a mass of people milling about with all their carry on
stuff , sitting in the isles and on the floor or anywhere they could find a
spot big enough . There was no information made available , although they
did provide some food.

We had to wait in 3 different lines to get our cabin keys during all this ,
so it seemed as soon as we got settled in some corner someplace , we were
called to go line up somewhere else , and of course after we finished in
that line had to find a new spot to regroup , which was difficult
considering it was standing room only .

There were a great many complaints about the situation , but there was
nothing the staff could do to make it better , as they just aren't prepared
to deal with things outside of the normal course of buisness.

Also , it appears that these problems are common , an employee told me it
was the third time this winter this had happened. She agreed the situation
was a real mess , but said that it was better than the first two times
because the first time they made everybody wait outside in the cold for
hours , and the second time they did things differently but that didn't work
out so well , either.

I assume things go well if there aren't problems , however they are not
prepared to deal with a less than perfect situation because of the large
number of passangers the Explorer can hold .

It takes about 36 hours to get to warmer weather .

Good luck , and enjoy your cruise !


"Deb" wrote in message
news


We are considering a trip on RCCL's Explorer of the Seas next winter out
of Cape Liberty New Jersey. We would like feed back from anyone who has
sailed form Cape Liberty, especially in February. Does anyone know how
much parking is per day?? Is there a parking garage, or just a lot??
First/last two days of the cruise is at sea, is it warm enough to be
outside by the pool by the second day?? Any first hand experience with
this ship/port in winter would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Debbie

Ray wrote:

Let me also say that last year I cruised the NCL Spirit from there, and
everything went smoothly .

Are you sure about that? I was pretty sure that Cape Liberty is
exclusively RCI (Royal Caribbean and Celebrity). NCL sails from
Manhattan.

There was a problem on the Explorer , and that caused a huge delay with
embarking ... about 6 hours . The terminal is not big enough for larger
ships , and there were a great many problems resulting from this .

The problem with the terminal is that once you are processed,
you need to take a bus to get to the ship. So if there are
delays, they are compounded by the staging of the buses. When we
sailed on Explorer a couple of summers ago, I don't recall any
lengthy delays but when we were on the pre-inaugural Liberty
sailing last year we had to wait at least an hour.

Bill

In article , Bill
wrote:

Are you sure about that? I was pretty sure that Cape Liberty is
exclusively RCI (Royal Caribbean and Celebrity). NCL sails from
Manhattan.

Other cruise lines have sailed from Cape Liberty. A couple of years ago
when we were embarking on the Celebrity Zenith from Bayonne, the QM 2
was also docked there.

--
Charles

In article , Bill
wrote:

The problem with the terminal is that once you are processed,
you need to take a bus to get to the ship. So if there are
delays, they are compounded by the staging of the buses. When we
sailed on Explorer a couple of summers ago, I don't recall any
lengthy delays but when we were on the pre-inaugural Liberty
sailing last year we had to wait at least an hour.

All my sailings from there including on Explorer went very smoothly. I
believe the embarkation the other person was complaining about was
delayed because the ship was delayed returning to Bayonne because of a
medical evacuation.

--
Charles

"Bill" wrote in message
...

Are you sure about that? I was pretty sure that Cape Liberty is
exclusively RCI (Royal Caribbean and Celebrity). NCL sails from
Manhattan.


No , I'm not sure ... maybe we sailed from Manhattan last year.



There was a problem on the Explorer , and that caused a huge delay with
embarking ... about 6 hours . The terminal is not big enough for larger
ships , and there were a great many problems resulting from this .

The problem with the terminal is that once you are processed,
you need to take a bus to get to the ship. So if there are
delays, they are compounded by the staging of the buses. When we
sailed on Explorer a couple of summers ago, I don't recall any
lengthy delays but when we were on the pre-inaugural Liberty
sailing last year we had to wait at least an hour.

Bill

Well , thats true , but the staging for the busses was nothing compared to
the 5 + hours we were left crammed in that room at the terminal without
chairs !

"Charles" wrote in message All my sailings
from there including on Explorer went very smoothly. I
believe the embarkation the other person was complaining about was
delayed because the ship was delayed returning to Bayonne because of a
medical evacuation.


That's correct .... the ship didn't get to port returning from the previous
cruise until about noon . Royal Carribbean said it wasn't their fault
because it was a medical emergency . I still feel they should be prepared
for stuff out of the ordinary to happen , thats just common sense. Maybe if
they didn't plan on turning over a ship with NO extra time built in for
delays, these things might happen less often. And in a terminal thats too
small to accomadate such a large ship , the inconvience a delay causes is
multiplied dramatically . We didn't end up going aboard until around 6:30 ,
and didn't set sail until 9:30 or so. Having arrived at 11 , this was an
awful long time to be left standing around.

Ray wrote:

That's correct .... the ship didn't get to port returning from the previous
cruise until about noon . Royal Carribbean said it wasn't their fault
because it was a medical emergency . I still feel they should be prepared
for stuff out of the ordinary to happen , thats just common sense. Maybe if
they didn't plan on turning over a ship with NO extra time built in for
delays, these things might happen less often. And in a terminal thats too
small to accomadate such a large ship , the inconvience a delay causes is
multiplied dramatically . We didn't end up going aboard until around 6:30 ,
and didn't set sail until 9:30 or so. Having arrived at 11 , this was an
awful long time to be left standing around.

Out of curiosity, did you get to your first port late? If so,
then you know when they leave at 5 and don't have a lot of time
to pad the time in NJ.

Also, if I recall correctly, they tell you that boarding time is
2pm. And the RCI website says "Please do not plan on arriving at
the pier prior to the specified time as the ship will not be
ready to board guests". While it sucks to have had to wait until
6:30, you shouldn't have gotten there so early. Maybe they
should have called local passengers and told them not to arrive
early (maybe they did?).

Clearly the Cape Liberty terminal is not as nice as it should be
and it really sucks when there are long delays. But it's not
clear what they can do differently with the current layout.
Should they have bussed everyone to another location during the
waiting time? There's really no good solution.

Bill