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Just an update... 12 days before the cruise and the onboard credit was applied to our cruise planner! I turned right around and applied it to the deluxe drink package. (still on sale by the way) . I'm a happy cruiser.

No problem with the questions.....happy to help. Chefs table.....I am trying to raise a couple of great home chefs, so originally planned to take the kids, but a fellow star class cruiser said "they'll be bored silly......send them to CK". We followed her advice and I'm glad I did. The kids would have been bored by the length of the service, and as entertaining as Andrej was, it wouldn't have been enuf for my two. Plus, I think their presence might (ok, likely) would detract from the experience for my fellow diners, some of whom paid some pretty big dineros to sit at that table. you know what would be fun? A kids chefs table! I don't mean the standard kids menu fare, but a great menu with very entertaining service and a kids-level introduction to each of their courses.......how awesome would that be for kids? I think I'll make that suggestion to someone.....

Day 2 (and the end of day 1) Ok... Just wrote a ton and lost it... Argh... We were tired and full after sabor so we sent Madison to the teen center (successfully thank goodness) and went to vintages for an hour. We love vintages as it is never crowded and we can try some wines. It was a bit frustrating how much the glasses have gone up...we were paying a fair amount over the drink pkg. Not sure if this is an oasis vs freedom class or just another year and prices rise. After vintages we headed to the aqua show. Amazing tumbling and diving but the show made no sense...at all lol. I really enjoyed it though, just like I usually like the ice shows. They say no pics so I just took a preshow one. We finished up the night in the champagne and schooner bars. I love the music in the schooner bar, but not really the bar menu. I know you can order other drinks but I never remember any! It was a fun evening and we got back to the room about 1230 to wait for the teenager to show up at the 1 curfew. For those interested, the 16 year old said it was super awkward at first in the teen center but she ended up with a group of girls playing dodgeball and wandering the ship. Must have gone well because we haven't seen her today. Day 2 started icky weather wise. I don't have a single pic because all I have done is lay on the deck chair! We got to the solarium at 830 and only a few chairs were saved... Probably because it was cold and drizzly. We got two chairs and huddled under towels. The solarium bistro was not crowded and great for breakfast, even when the crowds picked up at 10. The towel hogs weren't in force today, or they cleared them because most seats were filled. There are still empty chairs here and there but they don't have towels or they haven't been empty long. I predict tomorrow with better weather will be tougher. It is perfect today in a the solarium which means tomorrow will be too warm and I will probably do the sky deck. The weather finally cleared and the ? came out around 1. I will finally be warm after the Midwest winter!!!!!!!! Jane

First, a little background, for my first post here. I have been a lurker here for about a year, and greatly appreciate Matt and everyone who contributes here with so much great information. My first cruise was a last minute (well, two weeks before) booking to Alaska last August, joining my sister and her family...where I caught the cruising bug big time (the Casino Royale offers helped). Last week I booked for myself the July 4th Anthem group cruise, which looks really good, and I have a few questions about that. Is there a area here for discussion for group members here? I have seen the FB posting with some comments. I have purchased the DBP w/ Zoom (no Surf). I have read here a few times that people say that the internet on Anthem is very good. I do not do streaming much (maybe a some youtubes), but do check email, FB, and websites often. Will I go crazy with just Zoom, without Surf/Stream? I have also purchased the BOGO 2 Night Dining package (for the first two nights). Does anyone know if I could choose Wonderland as one of my options? I believe when I get on board, I can adjust the first nights restaurant. Thanks Ken (from NJ)

It is a ridiculous amount if storage. I overpacked and we still fit everything! And have empty shelves Jane

If you are on Facebook join this group Bermuda Bound https://www.facebook.com/groups/886000204754846/?ref=group_header. They have a number of locals on the page that do all different types of tours and will customize them just for you and your schedule. This group is a wealth of information. Since it is your first time to the island and you are only there for 1 day I personally think this is they way to go. I think @JLMoran is also on the Bermuda Bound Facebook group. My family has spent many summers (a month to 2 months) in Bermuda back in the 70's & 80's (Dad's work sent him there very often) and still try to spend at least one week a year. We have rented houses, stayed with friends, stayed at resorts & have cruised. My next trip I will be at Grotto Bay on April 7th for a week & I'm looking to do Anthem in Sept or Oct 2019. You will love the island no matter what you do.

Yes, they usually actually have a station on the dock or on the way off the ship to check out blue pool towels. Be cautioned, they will be checked to your Sea Pass card, however many you take, you have to bring that many back and check them back in, if not you will be charged for the towels. I usually go by the pool deck and get them and already have them packed instead of trying to do it while you walk off the ship.

You can see the beach/snorkel park along the right side of the photo .... this is the one that's an easy walk from the ship.

I take a shawl for the evening on deck. Then I leave it in the bar or the dining room. Then my husband has to go back and ask for it. Then I have to go to the customer service desk and see if it has been turned in. Then my husband tells me not to bring a shawl again because all I do is lose it. It's all part of the cruise experience for us.?

I'm hoping I'm on the right track here ...... We're on Freedom late March of 2020, and I know the "Amping" of Freedom is supposed to occur sometime near this time ... So, I was just on the web site and noticed that the month of February is completely unavailable ..... Hmmmmm, it would seem logical that this is the month for the AMP. I hope so, we'll be one of the first sailings after the amp. Check out the pic.

This is the same way we do it, that way there is no speculation. We take our DL and leave the passport in the room safe. 1 credit card and some cash.

I don't think you said, but I don't think it really matters with Royals fleet except on some of the smaller ships. Usually the main seating and MTD are in 2 different dinning rooms. On the bigger ships there are 3 dinning rooms, 1 per floor on floors 3, 4 and 5, so in this example 1 dinning room is reserved for MTD and handled with reservations or walk ups, the other 2 floors are for traditional dinning times. As far as times, traditional dinning is usually busier at the early seating, for MTD it is usually busy around peak times at a land based restaurant, IE., 7, 7:30, so if you reserve early you should be OK. If you go early and get hungry later there are plenty of places to get a snack at, if you go late go get a snack early to hold your group over, most people on here call it Windjammer reconnaissance.

We booked another cruise at NextCruise on Sunday 3/10/19. I left NextCruise and went into either MyVegas or MyKonami app on my phone and used 50,000 points to get a voucher for $100 OBC. I received the email immediately with the voucher code. I forwarded that email to [email protected] with my name and reservation number. I got home the evening of Monday 3/11 and went into the cruise planner and my $100 OBC was there already. Easy-peasy....

$399 - sorry!

The perfect expensive day ?

My guess is the space those large characters took up in the promenades will be replaced with more SALE tables of junk from china that people go bonkers over.... /end sarcasm

255 now.

I have not been on Brilliance but have been on Radiance and Jewel several times, both sister ships of same class. It is our favorite class of ships-classicly beautiful, not too large, and a "more mature" crowd without a lot of small children since it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the huge megaships. They have everything you mentioned except I can't guarantee Quest. I am just not sure about it. They are great ships for kicking back, enjoying a glass of wine in the schooner bar and dancing in the Centrum where the music drifts upward and you can look downward and watch the action. I spent 12 nights on the Jewel recently and they had a great Halloween party and some top notch shows in the theater. I don't think you will be disappointed.

@Ken23 Royal Caribbean offers a service that will shuttle you from one terminal to the next for free. We just did this when we got off Indy and boarded Serenade that same day. Just ask about it at guess services. This service is only for Port Everglade & Miami.. They will take you from one terminal to the next within the same port & different ports like i mentioned above. Only to RCCL ships...this includes Celebrity, Azamara and Silversea.

I remember taking a cruise out of New York City quite a few years back. I thought I was pretty smart trying to find a cruise that didn't coincide with a bunch of student holidays. We got on the ship and it was packed with Canadian kids on their school holidays. I guess I wasn't so smart!

OMG, I hope that I can find a pet sitter for all of these!!!

"Bermuda" and "Cheap" aren't really synonymous. Since it sounds like you have an overnight, you could do the Crystal Caves and/or Fantasy Caves; those are $24 per adult and one of the less-expensive things my wife and I did there last October. Definitely a "one and done" item, but interesting nevertheless. From the caves you could take the #1 or #3 bus to St. George's, then take the Orange Line ferry back to the dockyard. (see the last paragraph for more on this) You could also go to Horseshoe Bay beach for a good chunk of the day, although instead of the transit pass you'd want to just use the small shuttles / minibuses located just off the pier, right by the booth where you buy the transit passes. Costs $7 per person each way, and once at the beach you're under no obligation to rent a lounger, chair, or umbrella; you can bring towels (just don't lose them!) and then go in the ocean for no extra cost. Take the shuttle back to the ship when you get hungry and eat on board, since anything you buy food-wise will definitely not be cheap, at least at Horseshoe Bay's only on-site restaurant. If it's available (wasn't yet posted as of yesterday), you can use the transit pass to take the Orange Line ferry to St. George's; it's only available weekdays, but that shouldn't be an issue on the 5-night Bermuda as long as it's back in service for the summer months. In St. George's you can wander around and window shop, as well as walk the half-mile to Tobacco Bay Beach and just hang out there a while for nothing. Once again, when done you can take the next ferry back to the dockyard and eat on board to save money. This option really is only viable when the Orange Line ferry is available, as otherwise you have to take the other ferry (Blue Line) to Hamilton, and then deal with a 1-hour bus ride to St. George's.

Wow, for our May sailing on HOS our Chill Island Cabana is $1299

What the hell is that?

Small umbrella stroller for naps and to carry your stuff around. The big ones get in the way for you and others.

That stinks... milk shakes are cheap compared to alcohol! ? Poor business decision... RC should encourage drinking milk shakes as they will fill you up like a meal and prevent you from having too much of the more expensive food or alcohol! ?

Kümmelweck? What the heck is that? Food I presume. I will confirm the availability of this for the ou AND learn something new in the doing..... saw pixels and a hypnotist last evening and both were great! In room dining however, was not. Luciano said he would pick up from izumis for us, and the rest of the food had to come from one other restaurant only. Everything was cold. Not sure we would do that again. cocktails and appies seem to be a fairly regular event in the royal loft suite with three super cool, super fun fellow star classers. Another family have also joined in, so we are more like a posse. A lovely man by the name of Marion comes at 3:30 to take drink orders and keeps coming back to replenish the depleted. The posse is trying to sign up again for the chefs table, with the kids left in a suite for pizza and a movie. Loved the reserved seating at the shows.......Luciano meets us outside about ten minutes before to seat us and take our drink order. we are in noumea, New Caledonia today with no plans. Will likely get off and taxi in to the city for a look around.....we are having a lazy day.

Is there a curtain dividing the sleeping area from the sitting area? I know we’re talking tight quarters, and I’m prepared. But I just caught the eye of a curtain in some inside stateroom pics and thought that would be a nice feature. (I’ll be on the navigator). Also if anyone wants to chime in with why they love the inside rooms, I wouldn’t stop you from sharing. While I think I’m happy with my choice, it’s hard not to doubt oneself. We’re a family of four that has a 16 ft camper, so I’m telling my girls the stateroom will be like a ‘big camper’. (And they wanted separate Pullman beds so that actually kept us in the cheap rooms) I love how it kept our cost down and we can add some packages now. TIA!

Which ship? Some Izumi restaurants have a hot rocks option where you cook your own food on a super heated stone slab right at your table. One choice is beef. Not all Izumi have the hot rock options.

Agree with avoiding the hokey panning we did in Skagway. I did a search on "real gold panning in Alaska" and got lots of hits including this video:

We were on Brilliance over New Years and had a great time. It was our second cruise (the other being on the Radiance, the same class of ship). We're late 50's and as others have said there were not a lot of kids. The Park Café was more of a "corner café" where you could get sandwiches, pizza, sweet treats, etc. along with the basic drinks. In both it is in/near the Solarium. On cruising days we spent a lot of time on the balcony relaxing. I would visit the casino, my wife would go to the pool, we would get together for Bingo, trivia, etc. Having only been on smaller ships (Enchantment two weeks ago) I can't say whether its better or worse. Only that we've had a great time on all 3 and have 2 more booked. As for smoking - I, too, am an ex-smoker though I can deal with it. The main places on these ships is the casino and a spot by the pool. Because of the amount of smoking going on in the casino I know you can smell it outside the casino but not certain how far. I have not had an issue with it in our cabin (deck 8 on one cruise, deck 9 on the other).

It may not have all of the bells and whistles but I found Brilliance to be the prettiest ship I've been on and that includes the oasis class. There are windows everywhere letting in the sun and the Solarium is just beautiful. Because it's smaller you can easily find your way around and you get to know the staff and fellow cruisers. You'll have a great time if you go with a relaxed attitude. We're on Harmony next month as we wanted to see the bigger shows but I would defiantly sail Brilliance again.

@kevpeirce --- When are you going? I know the Orange Line Ferry to St. George had just been shut down for the season when were there in late October ..... Not sure when they fire that route up, so, definitely, double check before you go... What we ended up doing was taking the ferry to Hamilton, walking to the main bus terminal (a couple of blocks), then taking the #1 bus to St. George .... what was nice about that was that on the return trip on the #1, we were able to stop at the Swizzle Inn...... love that place.. We've been to Bermuda 3 times .... getting around that island takes longer than people realize, but, geographically speaking, it's relatively simple.

Before 9:00 am and usually after 5:00 pm you should be good. Between that...obstacle course, steeple chase and hurdles. Go down to deck 4 and walk around the perimeter that way...you will go up to deck 5 at the aft and bow, but you will be able to walk laps far better down there.

I purchased The Key for my cruise on the Anthem out of Cape Liberty NJ on Sunday (March 30, 2019). The price was $19.99 a day and I travel solo so that works very well for me...especially with the Voom WiFi. As far as I can tell, there is nothing on my Set Sail Pass that shows I have purchased The Key so I’ll be sure to bring my email confirmation with me. I’ll definitely report back with my Key experience onboard the Anthem. Happy sailings!

Awesome sauce is now sold out in the Cruise Planner, but there are "deals" on beverage packages!

If you are interested in app options, two others I can recommend are Halide and Spectre, both made by the same company. Halide gives you full manual controls for aperture, focus, ISO, etc. through a gesture-driven interface, shoots in RAW format or regular JPEG, and has been designed to work with both older model phones and the latest ones with AI-enhanced computational photography systems. Spectre is designed for low-light and slow shutter shots; it does it via multiple exposures (really a modified burst mode shot), which lets it pull off some neat tricks like automatically removing people walking through the shot as the multiple frames are merged, creating ND filter-like effects with waterfalls or fog, and handling normal camera shake when doing hand-held long exposures.

The quoted charge was for $38 and when done we added a $5 tip. That afternoon (after boarding the ship and before turning airplane mode on) I got a notice from Uber of an additional $11 charge. I questioned the charge and was told it was for "using the left lane". I got the CC to remove the $11 and cancelled my Uber account(it was my first attempt with Uber). Use Lyft now, and am sure it is not without it's own faults.

Thank you very much! It's equally about the experience as much as the shopping itself so I'm sure Millenia will do just fine (I've looked it up online). The thing is, here in Norway, clothes are expensive. A good pair of Levis can run you between $100-200 and if I remember correctly from our last trip to NY - clothes where much cheaper than that. Thank you for that! Great read ? Really? Gotta remember to ask our travel agent about this. We actually put down the deposit yesterday, so... yay!! Wow, never heard of that?!? That's good to know, for sure ?

Very true. Can’t believe all the tiny little things, and bigger perks that have disappeared since I first cruised with RCCL 13 years ago. Trouble with me is although I’m tempted to try another liner I always end up booking with who I know.

It’s the one with 254 members. That is the one that many of us are on ?

At first glance it looks like your going to be way South (Homestead, Everglades National Park exc). Assuming your staying in Fort Lauderdale (since IOS is at port Everglades) your going to be in the car a lot. That’s quite the haul but everything you mentioned is certainly worthwhile. If your looking for Sunday plans check out Dr Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State park for a relaxing beach day. They have an area called Whiskey Creek where there’s a small dining venue (burgers, hotdogs, beer) and kayak, stand up paddle board rentals. I recommend this place because I take my girls just about every weekend that we are not at our other home in Key West. If your kids are younger check out the Discovery Science Museam in downtown Fort Lauderdale and get breakfast or lunch at Top Hat Deli or B Squared on Las Olas. Let me know any specific questions you have about anything in the East Fort Lauderdale area and I should be able to point you in the right direction.

53 for me. Anxiously awaiting them finishing Perfect day on time.

I can't wait to retire to Washington State. You have THE BEST ciders. Plus most of my friends are already there. I've wanted to bring cider but I'm sure Royal would think it's beer.

The MDR is meant to be an upscale dining experience. My wife and I enjoy having a conversation with those we are dining. We like that each course is not dumped on the table within seconds of each other. Eating in the MDR is not a speed eating event. It is meant to be as much a social experience as a dining experience. We have met many other people from around the world when seated together in the dining room. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn about other parts of the country and the world. If you are concerned about being late for an entertainment event then take into account how long that dining in the MDR will be and schedule your plans accordingly.

Fuji makes a great little waterproof camera that i have used for years and takes great pics. Its only $120-$150.

Not the worst news ive ever heard. thanks for the info.

This was posted by someone currently on the Royal Caribbean Blog Mariner Group Cruise.

Heres a quick peak of a curtain on Adventure of the Seas: https://goo.gl/images/XQ6XbU

Just got off the Serenade boat this morning. Andrea is the new cruise director and we really liked him. Yes, he is Italian. He even added something really special. At night he brought us up to deck 13 and had them turn off the lights near us. We had such a magnificent view of the stars. Then, using a laser pointer he pointed out the different stars and constellations. I learned so much!