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Nice research ! Yup, @Matt did a great job researching that for us all! Saved me the trouble of actually booking a cruise that went to Coco Cay, taking the measurements, doing the table comparing features,... Seriously, though, this is probably the best part of the site. The sheer wealth of actual research and reporting back to us that @Matt and others like @monorailmedic and @mpoole3 (not to mention @bcarney, @WAAAYTOOO, @RestingBirds, @KLAconQueso of course, @Sailor_to_Cruiser, and all the other veterans who chime in regularly) do for all of us. So when someone new comes along and has a question like this, chances are pretty good that someone on the site is probably going to remember reading about just that thing, be able to look it up and double-check everything, and give back the right information to help the person asking that question. And with that, I submit what is officially my 500th post since joining this site 10 months ago. ?

To close this - I escalated, and escalated, and escalated until there was no one higher up to escalate it to ... and finally they agreed. It took what I consider an inordinate amount of time for them to accept my additional money, but they did. Now I'll have a balcony for 7 days to replace the 3 days in Old San Juan that we'll have to forgo pre-cruise due to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. To top it off, my airline waived the change fees so that we fly in the day of the cruise, so all in all this was a good Monday. :)

To your point, when someone asks me a question about RC in real life, I often respond, "I don't know, but I wrote it on the blog so I wouldn't have to remember!"

And don't get overly excited when they start announcing release dates. You can expect them to be delayed a few times. The 2018/19 schedules that were released this year I'm pretty sure were initially supposed to be released in January, but didn't start coming out til March, and it took til June to finally get the Australia/south Pacific schedule I was chomping at the bit for.

Let's see: First anniversary is paper -- tickets for a cruise, of course!! Second is cotton -- upgraded 1,000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for your cabin's bed Third is leather -- Ummm, I'm not gonna go there... Fourth is fruit -- The complimentary bowl of the stuff that comes with your suite booking! Fifth is wood -- Banister to the second floor of your crown loft suite! Sixth is candy -- That'll be the name of your genie! Seventh is copper and wool -- Of course, the bath and robes in the spa (they have copper tubs in there, right?) How far can we get with this? Ideas people (especially for the next few -- bronze, pottery, and tin!)

I throw all my medications and vitamins into a single small ziplock bag and haven't had any issues on flights or getting onboard. And I take enough stuff that it looks like I'm a drug mule...

Well Crap! "Honey, cancel the order for that sofa!!"

Ahhh, but to have room service deliver fresh coffee and croissants/rolls first thing in the morning (you decide when) and then enjoy them on your balcony on cruise days in your pj's.....nothing better.

I hate to extend this topic but I must comment. My wife has had hip replacement and needs a soft mattress otherwise she gets cranky the next day. And yes, we have an air mattress we take and we have also taken a memory foam topper with us. Most likely will take it again. I've been married too long to argue about luggage space. You remember the saying "If the wife ain't happy, then nobody is happy". Consider it self preservation. Don't tell her I said this. I'm scared of her....

WOW! A 3 nighter followed by a back-to-back-to-back! (looks like a 9 night, then a 5 night, and then?? I guess the itineraries are nicely varied) I can only dream of spending the better part of a month at sea on a cruise ship. Maybe when I'm retired, if I can convince the wife...

What if frogs had wings......they wouldn't bump their butts everytime they hopped.

A pack n play upstairs would be a tight fit. It would either end up partially (if not totally) blocking access to the bathroom or stairs. There is way more space downstairs with far less impact on getting around.

A different thought: additional time, moving again, and more money impact this option. Fly into Anchorage and explore that city as you recover from the long flight. Plenty of hotels and activities to choose from. Food - Jen's Restaurant is a must for dinner and breakfast - Snow City Cafe. Brew - Anchorage Brewing Company, Midnight Sun Brewing Company or Glacier Brew House. Also, recommend: a sticky bun in Talkeetna Roadhouse and in Aleyska, Seven Glaciers Restaurant (reservations? We got a table in the bar..).

I have always found that RCI is always on sale in Australia and New Zealand. I have never seen a cruise at full price. The sales seem to alternate between BOGHO, 30% off, South Pacific and the odd flash sale. I suggest that you book your cruise when you see a price you are happy with. Then If you have your email preferences set they will send you an email each time a new sale starts. If one of the sales has your cruise cheaper and it is before your final payment date you can cancel and rebook at the cheaper price for no penalty. (assuming you have booked through RCI direct, some travel agents will charge $200 to cancel). I normally cancel on the website and rebook the same cabin again as it will go back into the pool of available cabins straight away.

Sounds like it's time for a beer or two!

Here's my vent for today....So we are booked on Anthem in March 2018 in two connecting balconies at the moment (1 adult, 1 child in each room). Well this morning I happen to notice that there is a new Kids Sail Free promo which means this is now my way to convince hubby to get back into a suite. So I called RC right away with the understanding on my part already that by going from two cabins to one I will be paying a $100 service charge for the two people in the cabin that I will be cancelling and adding them to the other existing reservation. I was ok with that. Also, I have to mention that over the last two weeks, I have called RC on three other occasions inquiring about the switch to a suite and all three agents assured me that my penalty would be $200 (cause we have 2 in a room right now) and the remainder of the deposit in the form of a FCC. Ok, so I call this morning telling them that I want to upgrade (give them more money) and take advantage of Kids Sail Free and the agent tells me that I have to cancel both my reservations (and pick up a $400 penalty) to take advantage of the KSF offer. What??! I then continued to question him on how this would be different from me just getting a price adjustment (because I would not be incurring a penalty for that) and I also read the fine print on the KSF promo this morning and it said nothing about how it was for new bookings only which is what he kept telling me. I also let him know (nicely still at this point) that other agents had previously assured me that to go from two cabins to a suite I would only be cancelling the one reservation and he tried to tell me that they all gave me wrong information and that he had been doing this for years and he knows his stuff. So still not satisfied at this point, I requested to speak to a supervisor. He then put me on hold for about 10 minutes so that he could speak to a supervisor. Well as it turns out, he was wrong and I could take advantage of KSF and get a suite and just pay the penalty for 2 guests instead of 4. But....and this is where I got angry....as bad luck would have it, in the time that it took him to work all that out, their 3/4 capacity for this particular sailing had been maxed out! So now I can no longer put 4 in a room because of coast guard regulations and because he took so long to figure it out. Back to square one...I am not normally one to complain but I had to post this. Because just the other day I responded to another post about how most of the agents still don't know the rules around the new policies. Fingers crossed that some people cancel and I can call back....

How about a list of things NOT to bring in a carry on: your neighbor a goldfish in a bowl an uncooked ham a sofa Anyone think of any others?

We had an amazing time. I hope you will as well. We ended up not scheduling any shore excursions & just walked around every port. Bar Harbor was our favorite. In Bar Harbor, we found an amazing photo gallery (Katahdin Photo Gallery / https://katahdinphotogallery.com/). The guy had some awesome photos that we bought. He even takes care of shipping them home to us. We also visited the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor. If you like local t-shirts, check out Debbah’s Bar Harbor shop. I’m a big guy & was pleased to find some 4XL shirts! In Portland, I would recommend Gritty’s Brew Pub for lunch (http://grittys.com/). One of the local shop owner’s recommended it to us. My wife enjoyed her burger & beer, while I loved my fried shrimp basket. We found some amazing coasters with local photos from Peter Cordice (https://www.facebook.com/petercordicephotography/ ). He was selling them on a street corner on Commercial Street (I think it was Commercial Street). Both Bar Harbor & Portland had local ice cream shops that my wife & I meant to stop in after lunch but we never got around to that. Don’t make the same mistake we made . . . stop in!!!! St. John’s was OK. We explored there in the morning & went back to the ship to take a break. We ended up staying on the ship. Halifax was our 2nd favorite port. We walked all over the city. We stopped at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic & had lunch at Salty’s. If you go to the Maritime Museum, go up the second floor to see how crowded the Titanic exhibit is. We made the mistake of exploring the main floor first. When we were done with that a Titanic excursion group walked in & the Titanic section was crowded. We meet a couple who enjoyed their visit to the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. My wife & I are going to go there on our next visit. Bring your jacket, that couple said it was extremely windy . . . I got the impression that it may always be windier up there than it is around town. They also stopped by the Halifax Central Library that was just recently built. They were really impressed with it. We’ll probably stop there too at our next cruise. Be prepared for evening fog. We had 2 or 3 nights of dense fog at night. I thought it was actually a cool experience. We had fog almost the entire day on our first sea day. I hope you have as great of a time as we did!

Happy to report that early this morning I checked online again and notice that limit had been lifted. So I called RC right away to ask for the upgrade. In the end we are good, now in a suite with 1 1/2 bath and an extra pullman bed so the kids don't have to share a bed plus free gratuities for all Told the kiddies they would get their own room maybe next time lol. And yes, Matt, I booked with the NRD so it was my understanding all along that I would have to pay a penalty of $100pp for one of the cancelled rooms (not both rooms) which is what ended up happening. The remainder of my deposit goes to a FCC which can be applied to this cruise in a few weeks. Something interesting though, after reading bcarney's posts about his FCC, I did ask them what happens after I apply this FCC and sometime before sailing in March I decide I want to upgrade again, would my FCC be lost since already applied? They (agent and supervisor) assured me no it would not be, it would simply be reapplied by a supervisor since it is not expired and I am not changing the sail date or ship. They said this is done all the time. So what I have learned from all this is that the front end agents often do not know the rules and sometimes even the supervisor does not because with my case they had to go to a manager. With all this I was on hold for probably over and hour but worth it because it was good learning experience to not take the first agent's word for it all the time. And I may be in the minority here but I prefer to book and deal directly with RC because I can argue my own case and have control over my own booking. I blame it on my Type A personality lol.

If you still need any recommendations I live here in Fairbanks and can give some ideas. :)

For the most part I agree. The only time I really ordered room service for coffee was when we were on the Radiance sailing the inside passage. It was great to sit on the balcony and sip my coffee watching the scenery go by. IMHO if you're going to Alaska the Radiance class ships are the best way to go. Views everywhere on the ship.

When I used them I still had a few hours to kick back in town and relax before heading back to the pier.

Sure, but 1) who are you? A bit of preamble would be in order. Entering kicking and screaming and what should be expected on our end? 2) Where was your good? 3) Honestly, I do see this as a FAN site. Some may disagree with me, and that's fine. But I do think the majority are fans here. See, if you entered by saying, "I'm a fan, I love Royal Caribbean because, blah, blah, blah, but WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY DOING TODAY?" it's likely I would have reacted quite differently. 4) No one here works for Royal Caribbean, as far as I know. Maybe there are lurkers that do. None of the people that run the website do, that much I know. How are they in the know? By keeping themselves in the loop. That takes time and effort. Others can come here FOR FREE and benefit from their "hobby" and they gladly share their time and effort FOR FREE. So, showing some appreciation should be in order. Thanks for listening.

Lol...15 years ago we took our first cruise on Adventure and our travel agent convinced us to "splurge" on a balcony since it was our honeymoon. Fell in love with it and got spoiled and never looked back after that. And then, just this past August, many RC cruises later we went on Harmony to celebrate our 15th anniversary and I finally convinced my husband to get a JS. Thought that was going to be great! One month before the cruise prices for GS dropped and we upgraded for an extra $500 just to "try out" Sky class after reading many comments here I was curious. Here's where I am going to sound really spoiled....I loved the GS and Sky class! Kids now want to go on Anthem and we have booked 2 connecting balconies for the extra bathroom and beds and although I know logically this makes the most sense some part of me is finding it hard to "go back". I'be been checking daily for price changes on the Anthem. I know...spoiled but very fortunate already. But yes...careful with those upgrades. They can be dangerous lol. Already trying to prep hubby on booking a GS for symphony in 2019....

The type of plate doesn't matter, there are a lot of slobs onboard who will just drop whatever, where ever.

Yes in all cases, although you will tender, not dock, in Bar Harbor. It's also very easy and economical to rent a car in both Halifax and St. John and simply go it on your own. We did this to see Peggy's Cove and the tidal changes in St. John. Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor would require an excursion of some type and isn't all the expensive if done privately.

Apparently they did initially, but from what I heard from their last financial call the strategy has paid off with people now booking farther out and not relying on the last minute discounts.