Leaderboard

My approach to Maho Beach

I cruise solo often as my family and friends don't have my flexibility to travel like I do. I really enjoy solo cruising and it makes cruises with family or friends even more special and different. I used to travel for business a lot and became used to dining alone on business trips. Due to that it doesn't concern me to eat in the MDR alone. If you have a flexible calendar there are deal opportunities. I can't count the number of times I've asked someone to cruise but they can only go a certain week and rate are double that week. Being by myself I can sail in an interior cabin and have lots of room. That alone saves a lot of money, like getting free excursions, internet and drinks. Studio cabins tend to run ~75% of the cost of paying for double occupancy. Sometimes they restrict promos and inventory to solo cruisers despite requiring you to pay for two. In some cases I add someone I've cruised with before to a booking to get a cabin type or promo rate. Truth is if that person could go at the last minute they would be welcome to join me but more often than not they are a no show at check in. In those cases the taxes and port fees end up refunded automatically shortly into or after a cruise. I don't pre-pay gratuity in the cases where a 2nd person is added who might not sail. Studio cabins do not get double C&A points. Booking a non-studio cabin including 'Guarantee' cabins do get double C&A points. Not many ships have studio cabins and they go quickly. Sometimes they are only slightly cheaper than a regular cabin. Studio cabins are sometimes pretty small and if the price difference is small I'll go into a regular cabin and take advantage of the double C&A points. I love suites but just can't justify them when solo. There is something really nice about solo cruising. Do what you want, when you want. There are often single seats in the theater available as people space themselves out when they sit leaving one seat between them and the next couple. Sometimes there are single loungers by the pool available for the same reason. MDR service tends to be very fast when solo. If you are the type of person who is comfortable being by yourself solo cruising is great. Tons of happy people around and lots of public places but easy to slip away and have some alone time when you feel like it.

Actually sitting in the Battle of the Sexes game show now!!!

I can recommend my agent Heather, from site sponsor MEI Travel. She's good about returning calls emails quickly. Private message me here and I can give you her contact info. You don't want to just cancel the cruise, that will incur the penalty. You need to call and speak directly, or ideally let Heather or whichever agent you choose take care of that headache for you. In the conversation with RCI, the goal is get a cancel with immediate rebook so the penalty doesn't apply. I don't how that really works under the hood or if there's a special set of words you have to use to make it work that way.Yet another reason to let the TA make those calls and deal with those hassles.

Shout out to @monorailmedic site, Cruise Habit.com

I was curious as to whether I still kept my Sea Pass card and other goodies from my first cruise in 2008 on Sovereign of the Seas...and I did! Enjoy this blast from the past! SeaPass card Guest vacation document book complete with leftover luggage tags lol: More goodies: Cruise Compasses: I miss Sovereign so much, I hope Pullmantur is taking good care of her!

Jeez...looks like I hafta now put "MUST HAVE DIAMOND OR HIGHER STATUS" on my dating profile.

IT'S CRUISE DAY!!! I flew into Houston Hobby airport last night and stayed at an airport hotel. My hotel had renovations underway which has been a theme for me recently. It wasn't until breakfast when I saw the new lower 3 feet of drywall everywhere on the 1st floor that it dawned on me it was from Hurricane Harvey flood damage. I'm in my Lyft ride heading towards Galveston as I write this. Just over an hour for $50. ETA 10:10am. Light traffic on this Sunday morning and we made the terminal at 10:03am. Quick drop of luggage and into the terminal to check in. It looks like they just opened and there aren't many people here. A group of 15 headed into the Suites/Pinnacle/Diamond Plus queue leaving the Diamond/Emerald/Platinum queue just to me. I went to next available agent and... the computers went down. Around 10:30 they came back online one by one. Unfortunately for me and my neighbor our agent's computers didn't come back so they slid us over to working agents and away we went. I wasn't too concerned because I knew we had to wait for boarding anyways. Upstairs into the top tier waiting area it seems they had started boarding when I arrived upstairs but suffering from the same computer outage they had halted boarding. The upstairs area has a vendor area where they sell lanyards. I got some water from the dispensers and just sat down they started boarding again. By 10:50am I was onboard. Pretty easy boarding process despite the brief computer issue. This trip is already starting off a lot smoother than my last Galveston departure on some other cruise line a few years ago (before I switched to Royal). This seven night cruise will complete the Freedom class trilogy for me. Freedom . Independence . Liberty . Leaving from Galveston I have two sea days, Roatán, Costa Maya, Cozumel, a sea day then back to Galveston. Liberty has two primary itineraries. This cruise is the more western of these western routes. A nautical style map was on display in the Promenade. The promenade is adorned with a large Texas flag to greet us: Café Promenade was open so I had a roast beef plus a turkey sandwich. Let the food coma commence. With some time to kill before cabins are available I decided to check out a few spots. Main Dining Room Helipad (of course) It's an overcast day here in Galveston so I'll wait to take more pictures around the ship once we are in nicer weather. I was pleased to discover O3b based Voom. With that I can confirm everything Freedom class and newer has O3b Voom. With that it's almost time for cabins to be available.

Entertainment Backstage Tour. Saturday Night Fever is the main show on Liberty. This afternoon I took the backstage tour. Two of the cast hosted the tour today. No dressing rooms on Liberty, this wardrobe area is right behind the main set. Some of the sets and backdrops that raise and lower weigh up to 1 ton. They explained because the ship is made of steel and has a very rigid frame around the theater they can get away with such heavy set pieces. Many theaters on land can't take heavy pieces like this.

I don't know, I've started liking Krakken a little more and more...

LOL I agree!! and like @Sabrinaklai said, I NEVER win at anything. Except one time at a fundraiser I won a Doll House!! LOL Sold it for $200!

My review of the MSC Meraviglia will air on Cruise Radio next week (March 8th). I really did enjoy my cruise on MSC and have no complaints with regards to the ports and the price we paid. We also received excellent perks by status matching with our Royal Caribbean status. For a week, their new ships are quite nice and quite comparable to Royal's newest builds. There are just fewer complimentary activities onboard. In addition, since this was a winter cruise, we didn't have the opportunity to enjoy the ropes course or the water slides, which would add to the overall experience.

Day 2 Dinner, 1st Formal Night Menus are in the Diamond Lounge so I went up for a sneak peak. I've got two hours to decide. Thinking about a shrimp cocktail, Duck or Pork and I'm not sure about dessert. Feeling the pounds coming on faster than I am walking them off. Might just do some no sugar ice cream or skip dessert.

Cabin Tour! Deck 7 Interior Cabin 7441 This is one of the new cabins added during the last dry dock. Independence is going in for her dry dock soon and is slated to receive some of these cabin additions as well. They are consuming public open space and squeezing in a handful more cabins. For example what used to be a very large C&A loyalty area has been combined with the RC Online computer area freeing up space for more cabins. On my Freedom and Indy sailings many of these public spaces were lightly used. In my case I on deck 7 in an area with four new cabins. There are four outlets at the desk. Two European power points and two North American outlets. No USB power outlets. No outlets by the bed, just a telephone jack. The cabin electrical includes an energy saving card slot to activate the lighting and air conditioning. When I arrived the little cards to indicate 'privacy' or 'make up cabin' that you can stick in your cabin lock were stuffed in the card slot.

Unless I meet the girl of my dreams AND she is a Pinnacle, this is not going to happen anytime soon.

This area is actually our favorite area, if the Solarium is crowded we always come up here, even with the miniature golf it is still pretty quite. My wife drives a school bus as well as working at the school so of course we had to get this photo... Great pictures, glad I'm already booked in a suite for July of this year, I do agree on the Diamond lounge, it was a little small, but I loved the view, it was better than being stuck down on deck 4 like on some of the O class ships, @twangster we did find that if we waited a little there was an early crowd that left and went to the early dinner seating and then you did not have any problems getting a seat in the lounge.

IIRC from posts I saw here, about $20 for an 8x10.

While I haven't specifically gone Keto on a cruise, I do try and eat mindfully and save my empty carbs for booze :) I found it pretty easy to limit my meals to protein, veg and fat in both the WJ and main dining room. The WJ always had a platter of cured meats/cheese, a meat carving station of sorts (beef, ham, etc), vegetables, a mountain of bacon, salad station, etc. You should have no problem finding something Keto in there. In the MDR, I would ask the waiter to nix the starch and double up on the veg with my protein. There is usually one sugar free dessert on the menu in the MDR each night, although they probably wouldn't count as low carb just because they are sans real sugar. There is usually a cheese plate on the dessert menu though that may be a better option for you!

Thanks ellcee! I will check it out!

Those photos make me want to start applying sun screen now for our B2B on the Allure in 26 more days!!!

Dunno if it's the best but I used cruisedeckplans.com

Why is it that every time you're on a ship, I start looking at their itinerary! HELP!! Now instead of Freedom, I have to look at Liberty! LOL You make every cruise look better than the last one. Maybe I should look at Liberty, that's one of my Golden Retrievers name! LOL Keep the pics coming please!

We went with Fantastica. It was only a few dollars more but doing the math would have saved a lot. There was no Aurea available when we were booking and could not afford the YC. We are doing it as a group cruise with the family and one of our other rooms was $200 more for an extra adult. My parents were also pricing another room and it was going to be more until they added it to our reservation. So they seem to definitely reward bringing a group. So @SFLcruiser if you do go with the family make sure to call it in (I dealt with Travelocity who have been great to me) and you may get an even better price for each additional room you reserve.

cruisecritic.com is also a good one too. But nothing compares to @Matt's resources

Since ya’all know that I like to flaunt my status.....I’ve decided to show you all my cards I’ve acquired over the years of cruising with RCI...are you ready to feast your eyes on all these cards? Here they are!

Sorry to hear about your confusion. It sounds like you thought you were booking a regular room, but you were in fact getting a guarantee room. Couple bits of advice I can offer. First, a guarantee room is not bad option. I've done it many times with good results. Also, once they assign you a room, you can move to another room in the same category if there are any others available. Second, use a travel agent instead of calling direct. A travel agent can help mitigate miscommunication from RC, and generally make your life easier.

Thanks - I appreciate it! We are looking forward to a lot of breakfasts on our aft balcony - it looks amazing!

@accio7.....that's awesome...love seeing stuff like that!

Well Yes, but I also WIN... so I can spend $2,000-$3,000 and walk away with $10,000... I did this on Allure last summer... They really care about Average bet and time spent in the casino... When I was on Allure last summer I was on a huge Roll... I was doing so well one night I was spending $300 a hand for hours which really helped my average bet.. That cruise I was doing so well I was spending about 10 hours a day in the casino and the pit boss was joking with me that I spend more time in the casino then him lol. So bottom line they don't care if you Win. They care how much you wager and how long you spend per day gambling

Any meal can be ordered from the MDR and delivered to your suite at no charge AS LONG as the order is for delivery during normal MDR operating hours. I find breakfast to be particularly enjoyable. Be sure and clarify that you want REAL eggs.

Here’s a link to the podcast episode: https://player.fm/series/series-52225/bonus-010-msc-seaside-review-msc-cruises Cruise Radio is probably my second fave cruising podcast (after @Matt‘s, of course :P).

I'm Platinum and Proud!

I too went from RCI to NCL and was comparing the 2 dramatically. I was on an older NCL (the Star) and it was a horrible experience for me. I have heard that the newer ships are much better but considering it was refurbished the same year I was on it and still seemed run down means they don't put nearly the effort RCI does in making them better. I must agree O'sheehans is the best part of them. We found the food subpar and my wife did not have a great first cruise. I have convinced her to give RCI a shot before giving up and just in the research she has done she is beyond excited. 5 Days :o Great write up :)

So firstly, I wasn't hungry but now I really am. I can see why norovirus (or any virus for that matter) would spread so easy with people putting the tongs back inside the food. (This is why I ALWAYS reach in the back under the top layer to try and get the safer stuff. Thanks @twangster so looking forward to next week.

Onboard Seaside at the end of May, will definitely post my thoughts once I have been aboard. Two big reasons to try it for us - 1) the ship looks pretty cool on the ads, comparable to NCL/RCL/CCL with water slides, etc. and then 2) Price - Balcony with some of the included drink upgrades for about 50% of Oceanview on Harmony (priced both for the same week, prior to booking). Worth a roll of the dice to see what we think at that price point ....

Thanks! Here's a link to the actual suit, if you're interested -- note that the clearance sale from yesterday is now replaced with a new "clearance" sale at more than double the price (which, interestingly, matches the price that I saw on the physical tag when I was first shown that suit to try on and which I'd have been willing to pay). I have no idea why this suit is described as a "classic sharkskin"; it is neither shiny like newer artificial fabric sharkskin-style suits from the god-awful modern era, nor is it an old-style classic blend of wool, mohair, silk, etc. (see this short description on Wikipedia, which is my only reference, and notice how the stock image from Jos A Bank doesn't have any of that shine from the artificial fabrics or the texturing of the older style shown). The product description clearly states it's 100% 150's wool, so if there's someone with a lot more sartorial knowledge than me on these boards who can explain how this suit could be "sharkskin", I'd genuinely love to learn. Regardless, when I looked in the mirror after putting it on, I thought it looked really sharp and classy, even more than when I just had the jacket on to try the fit and I was just eyeing the fabric. I'm not someone who gives two particular figs about fashion, and I rarely dress up any more, but I definitely know what I like and think looks good when I wear it. And damn I liked this suit, I can't wait to wear it on formal night and get a photo or two taken!

I haven't gone yet (going in July on the Seaside) but I have been following all reviews and comments on many other forums. They all echo what @DocLC is saying. The main complaints are lack of variety in buffets for dining, poor customer service. The main takeaway I have so far, and my opinion is my own, is that you cannot compare it. If you go, you will need to go with the mindset that you are not cruising a major NA line and that there will be marked differences. That's not to say that it's going to be better than RC or worse. Just different. It's like someone cruising Freedom of the Seas and complaining that there is no Central Park or Aqua Theater. You just cannot compare it. I am pretty loyal to Royal. I'm a huge fan of the Oasis class ships. The reason why we are going this summer is part curiosity and part pricing. We are staying in a YC suite and the price of it was less than a JS on any Oasis class ship. However, hubby and I are going to go with the mindset that it will be a different cruise experience for us. For yourself, you have to ask, are you open to a non-North American experience? Are you open to different types and flavours of food? Are you going to be upset if they don't offer you coffee at the end of dinner and that you might have to ask for it? Are you expecting RC type entertainment or are you open to more of a European flair on stage (operas?)? If yes, then consider it. If no, then maybe stick with RC. Do your research. Know what you are getting into first.

Confirmed. Went onto cruisedeckplans.com and verified 10238 is a JS. OCD in me wouldn't let it go until I knew for sure.

To make things MORE confusing, when I added my boyfriend (who has the same address so he was linked to my C&A account since he is considered a household member), he got "Diamond" Status since that is what my true points reflect. So, I'm Diamond Plus because of my parents, and he is Diamond because of me. LOL. I hope that makes sense.

If you are stuck on land, you may not like this next post. It's time for a Windjammer breakfast. Windjammer bar: Fresh fruit as always: Lots of different breakfast choices Donuts anyone? French toast and waffles covered: Several flavors of pancakes, all covered: Chocolate overdose available on board: Scrambled eggs or scrambled eggs with Jalepeño and Salsa - because some like it hot. Lot of different teas.

No dining package. MDR or WJ all the way...

I had interior cabins on both Freedom and Indy that were pretty much mirror images of each other. This photo from Indy: I find my cabin on Liberty easier to get around the bed and to access both sides. This is largely due to the rounded bed found on many of the newer ships. On Freedom/Indy access to the right side of the bed is a bit of a pain. I noticed some elevator lobby noise on day 1 right after cabins opened up but haven't heard much more. I crashed early last night and wasn't bother by any. Any noise I do hear is coming through the door (not through walls) and like any cabin, any where, loud talkers or laughers in the hall can be heard as they walk past your cabin. Given a choice I'd take this new cabin on Liberty. Still has that new cabin smell.

IMO the RC excursion is a rip off. They are charging $29 pp for the water taxi and a lounge chair but you still need to rent an umbrella and no food or drink included. You can do this all on your own. The RC excursion would cost you about $261 (not counting baby) and you still have to pay for lunch. Take the same water taxi for $7 pp (3 and under are free), it sounds like you pay once and you still have all day access. According to Trip Advisor, you can rent 2 lounge chairs and an umbrella for $20. You could do this same thing on your own for under $130 (assuming only 6 chairs because my kids would share). The price difference would probably pay for lunch. Look up Twangster's live blog and the Independence Christmas blog he posted about Great Bay. I've been looking at Le Galion Beach too but I haven't seen any reviews after the hurricane which scares me away.

$28 before tip for 6 adults and 6 pieces of luggage!

Wife is relaxed as you can tell in the pic ?

Hello from the Adventure of the Seas! We are currently docked in St. Maarten, but checking in for a review on our day yesterday. We took a quick taxi from Old San Juan to Pan American Pier around 10:45. When we arrived at the port, we were able to go through a quick security check and board immediately after. One of the fastest I’ve experienced. The 12:30 pm check in time stated by RCCL doesn’t appear to be enforced. I did also notice that Platinum C&A and up were being allowed through the Suite/Pinnacle line. Upon embarkation, we made our way to the Schooner for a drink and to relax. Looking around the Promenade, the effect of the refurb was obvious. All of the furnishings and carpet looks brand new - the ship is very clean. We made our way to the Windjammer for lunch, and as expected the food was great. We noticed that on entry to the Windjammer there was a set of hand wash and dry stations placed outside, and thankfully they were being utilized! Nice touch!! The dryer appeared to come out the side of the faucet, which helps keep things compact and moving. After lunch, we hung around the ship until staterooms were ready right around 1:30 pm. We love our Promenade Interior room! As with the rest of the ship, everything in the rooms looks quite new. So far, I’m very impressed. This cruise we plan to eat in the main dining room each evening. We’ve had a hiccup getting a pair in our group seated with us, but hoping to finally get that resolved today. Dinner was great - others in my group raves about the prime rib and I really enjoyed a vegetable and polenta dish. After dinner we made our way to the casino, where I am happy to share I had some great luck on roulette! Thats all for now - about time to head in to st maarten for our tour!

HELLO from the Schooner! We’ve made it on board, and the ship looka wonderful. All furnishings have been refreshed and the exterior has been painted. She looks great! Stay tuned for a more extended update!

This will be a useless post because I've never cruised with that big a group, but my wife and I rarely pay for excursions. We get off the ship, wander amongst the little trinket shops, find a place to get local fried seafood and a local beer, and get back on the ship. We are exciting people.

We have wound up never buying the photo package. As a frequent cruiser, we get a "2nd picture half off" deal or something like that, which we almost always use. If I had a group of 4 or more in our travelling party, I'd consider this package. But for the wife and I, we use or phones for most of our photographic needs. (Note: I am imagining myself 20 years ago, hearing the phrase "we use or phones for most of our photographic needs" -- freak out) (2nd Note: On our just concluded cruise, they were training Chinese photographers on the ship. They always insisted on taking individual pictures of just me or just the wife. Does anyone ever buy those?) (Final note: here's an example of my poor photographic skills for your consideration and support or abuse)

Here is some good drone footage showing several of the beaches in St Maarten. The video is only a few months old so it should give you a pretty good idea of how they have recovered so far.