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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/02/2020 in all areas

  1. KayCee

    Just a thank you!

    Hello Everyone! I recently booked our first cruise on RCL for Feb 2021. We’ve sailed on DCL before, but we’re really excited to check out the Oasis of the Seas! Anyway, I booked it myself online without much knowledge of the cruise line (looking back that was probably a mistake and I should have looked for a travel agent, but oh well I suppose). I’ve been lurking on these boards for a while and came across a post about price adjustments. I’ve kind of been watching prices and noticed yesterday that RCL was doing their kids sail free promotion for our cruise. I was able to call and they gave me the promotion price and saved me $740!! I wouldn’t have known I could have done that without this board, so thanks everyone!! I’m looking forward to learning so much more from you all before we sail!
    10 points
  2. VillainsGin

    Thank you all!

    I sail in 2 days!!! I'm flying tomorrow the day before sail date just in case anything happens I would have some buffer. (A tip given to me by this community) Just wanted to thank this entire community for answering all of my questions and concerns, providing tips/advice/suggestions which were all amazing I'm going to experience my very first flight and cruise ever in my life! Thanks to everyone here i'm going in well prepared from airport to ship dock! Grateful that this platform was created and the wonderful people who were able to gather and genuinely help each other out! See everyone next week and a happy new year!
    7 points
  3. Day 12 - The End We got up early enough to ensure we could have one last breakfast at Gold dining and then headed off the ship about 8:45am. By this time they had called all the numbers already. Since the ship is so large, though, there will still quite a few people in the various stages of disembarkation. Interestingly, we did not have to do anything for Hong Kong Immigration — we already had our return paper in our passports when we picked them up yesterday. The port was holding people inside the building and releasing them in batches out to the curb/taxi/bus/shuttle area. Part of this was how big Spectrum is, and part was due to construction. All told, the process took us 30 minutes from gangway to sitting in our taxi. About 40 minutes later we were again waiting in line, this time to prove we had legit business in the airport before they would let us in the front door. This added security is due to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. It didn’t take us long, less than 10 minutes. Then off to drop our bags and head to the lounge. We just finished our survey for the first cruise of the trip. Sigh! Always a little bittersweet! I will jot down a few random thoughts after we get home tonight. Thanks for following along!
    6 points
  4. Day 11 - At Sea, pt 1 Our last full day! Nooooo! Lots of plans though, in order to enjoy it to the fullest. We started at Gold dining for breakfast. This was actually our first time here at breakfast. How did that happen?? It was lovely and leisurely and tasty. The menu: Waffles with a side of bacon: Eggs Benedict: Next we tried again for our Skypad VR experience. Sadly, the weather was not cooperating so we ended up canceling completely. Guess I’ll have to book another cruise to try it out! After that we headed to Two70 to check out the VR experience they have set up in that space. There are 4 games you can play; 3 were doable and the 4th was too twitchy for our patience. Fun though! I like to see Royal pushing the tech envelope. Lunch was The Hot Pot, the other Spectrum-only specialty restaurant. Interestingly, on our first cruise it wasn’t open for lunch at all, only dinner. On this leg it was open both sea days. Lucky for us! The restaurant is in the back of the Windjammer with lots of lovely windows: The menu: They bring you both the meat and the seafood plate for each person, and then there are a few upcharge items. Then you go to the buffet to pick out your veggies and noodles: You choose from three broths (up to two choices per pot with a divider). One (tomato) is not spicy, the green pepper one is decently spicy, and the spicy beef is quite hot! The server girl was hesitant to let us order the beef one, until we told her we lived in Japan — “oh, you’ll be ok then!” She wasn’t kidding though! I tried it a bit and that was enough (cooked all my stuff on the green pepper side); MisterZ thought it was great. You then cook your foods at your leisure, using various dipping sauces you choose or blend at the buffet. It is a very social meal, perfect for big groups. They also had desserts and fruit on the buffet, but we were too stuffed to even look at them. We were the only westerners in the place, but it was packed. I was pleased that Royal didn’t try to westernize this experience — it was way more fun as an authentic Shabu-Shabu restaurant. After lunch we did the wine tasting at Vintages. I had booked it ahead and was glad I did — they turned away a number of people because they were full. The sommelier was Chinese and he did a great job. He was obviously used to answering newbie questions and was very patient and encouraging. The wines were nicely chosen too.
    6 points
  5. Hello, I hope it's okay to do a live-blog style recap (instead of it being live). I also took pictures of all the cruise compass pages and MDR menu. Please let me know how to best upload these, or whom I should contact to get them added to the cruise compass section. ----------------- This is my first cruise, with DW and in laws, for 8 nights from FLL to Eastern Caribbean, on Adventure of the Seas, 12/21/2019 sailing. The ports visited: St Thomas, St Marteen, San Juan, and Labadee. We originally considered booking on Allure, but finally we decided on Adventure. This fact will become important later. We did a GTY balcony room, and scored a spacious balcony on deck 6 fore. We bought the refreshment drink package (non-alcoholic) and the surf voom package. No specialty dining option because we figured we’d have enough to eat. Our dining time was traditional seating at 8:30. We booked our travel through MEI travel, and had Michelle as our contact person. She is extremely helpful and friendly, and really responsive with our questions. Due to inclement weather, the day before our departure the captain sent a note that they’re rearranging our ports of visit, but generally still keeping the same ports and same time-ish for each port. I did book excursions with a 3rd party, so I called them and let them know of the change. He was very accommodating (partly due to the fact that the whole ship is on the same boat as us, literally), so he has to work around the change. I wanted to do a live blog but I figured I’d rather write a review afterwards so that I can enjoy my vacation. That’s why I didn’t create a thread beforehand. I just jot down the basics of what we did each day. Day 1 We drove for 1 hr from Palm Beach to FLL, and parked our car at Discount Parking. Definitely would not recommend this vendor. It seemed like they only had 1 shuttle dedicated to cruise passengers, so we had to wait a long time to get taken to the pier (and also at the end, we had to wait almost 1 hour at the pier to be picked up). I did see a lot of Park N Go shuttles, so next time we will try that one. Due to inclement weather (again), the terminal was moved from pier 29 to pier 18. There was no communication about this from Royal Caribbean. I only found out from the facebook group. I don’t know how people would have found out otherwise. The check-in was quick. There is a short line for the security, then the ipad person took our pictures, and quick picture in front of a backdrop, but other than that off we go to the second floor, which connects to a gangway going to deck 4. We arrived at the terminal around 12:30, and stepped to the ship around 12:45. Although it’s almost one (and therefore our room should be ready soon), since we didn’t really have carry on, we went straight to WJ for lunch. There was a special gingerbread town decoration at the entrance of WJ Of course we started utilizing our drink package. We ordered pina colada and mango daiquiri. On the first day, they let you use your set sail pass instead of your seapass card to order drinks. After lunch, we went to our rooms to find out it’s all ready. The seapass cards were waiting in front of the room. Inside the room, all the excursions that we have bough with Royal Caribbean (including explanations about drink package and internet package) are waiting on our bed. I thought the whole thing was extremely well-organized. The room is very spacious for just the 2 of us. There is plenty of storage. The only negative thing is that the balcony still feels a bit closed in, and basically feels like a glorified port hole. I guess this is what you get for doing a GTY. But a balcony is still a balcony, so no complaint here. The closets and drawers offer plenty of storage space. Within 10 minutes, the stateroom attendant knocked on our door, introduced himself, and informed us about the muster drill. Collin, he is very nice and attentive, and we were very pleased with his service throughout the cruise. There were several times when I came back to the room carrying plates of food from WJ, and he saw me, and he opened the door for me. This happened as early as day 1 btw, so he was definitely quick in memorizing our faces lol. After the drill, we went exploring around the ship, with drinks in hand of course. The ship is fairly nice-sized, but not too big that I feel like it’s a floating city. I know this used to be considered “top of the line” when it was first launched, but now that there are much larger ships around, Adventure of the Seas is considered medium-large. There were Christmas decorations around the ship, so it felt really festive. However, they’re also “blocking” some access areas especially on deck 4 and 5, at both ends of the ship (so near Centrum staircases). Not a big deal because most of the time it was never that crowded, except during special occasions where you feel like the added stairway would have alleviated the crowd jam a little bit. Also, there were ship photographers in front of the Christmas tree, preventing you to take your own pictures. You can have your pictures taken, but then you’d have to pay to get them. During the sail away, we went to deck 12 aft to watch. It was windy and slightly raining. After the sail away, I tried a the flow rider for a little bit. Bad idea. It was hard, and I think my neck got whiplashed when I fell? I only noticed the soreness the day after. I saw some other people having fun on it, so good for them. Also the flow rider area is VERY windy throughout the cruise, because it’s at the top deck, aft. When the ship was docked it was okay, but whenever ship was on sea, it gets very windy. I also tried the slides. There are two slides: yellow and blue. The yellow one is supposed to be faster, but it also has a slight “bump” in it, meaning you cannot rest your head completely but you had to hold it up a little bit. This became a problem due to my sore neck, but was a lot of fun otherwise. I have been to a lot of water parks in Orlando, and I can say that these two slides were definitely top notch in terms of speed, thrill, and drops. Also because the ship was rocking, no two “sessions” were the same. It keeps you guessing and anticipating with every turn. I must have done each slide at least 10 times throughout the cruise. I also talked to one of the lifeguards (Matthew) which was very friendly. He said that one passenger hurt his head on the yellow slide because he laid down his head completely during the bump, so he cautioned me not to do that. He also mentioned that he used to work on Allure, and this was his second week on Adventure. He also didn’t know how to do flowrider in the beginning, but they have crew-only hours to train them, and after several times, now he can at least stand comfortably on it. I guess it made me feel better for not getting the hang of flow rider right away? Then we wasted some time at the solarium reading / enjoying the hot tub. There was a 5pm raffle for $500 voucher at the spa, although we didn’t win ☹ By this time, it’s already 6 pm ish, so we checked out WJ, which was American-themed. They had a welcome onboard cake, and beautiful dessert spread. I took 2 platefuls of food (one for savory things, one for sweet things) to our room, where the cruise compasses for day 1 and 2 were already waiting. I took pictures of them all so that we can plan out the night and the next day over dinner. Before dinner, they had a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. It was just a countdown to light the Christmas tree. I expected some singing at the bridge but there was none. This was where the promenade was full of people, standing by and getting around, and the added access (blocked by decorations) would have been helpful. At dinner, our table was right by the entrance. Because we emailed Royal Caribbean ahead of time, 4 of us were seated together. Our waiters were Franco and Antonio, and they were both very attentive. They even remembered our preferences (my steak rare). On the first two nights, we ordered hot tea, so by the third night, when we sat down, there were already tea bags prepared, and he brought out mugs of hot water without being asked. It’s the little touches like these that make long lasting impression. I went for double entrees right away: NY Strip and Salmon, while DW went for prime rib. The NY Strip was great, but I feel like the cook is one “over.” I usually order medium-rare at most restaurants on land, but this time I had to order rare in order to get the same cook. Just FYI. For appetizers we did calamari and shrimp cocktail, and for dessert we did chocolate cake, creme brulee, and blueberry cobbler. The appetizers tasted good but the portion was kinda small. Well I guess you could always order double appetizers, and that's what we ended up doing for the rest of the cruise. The desserts were good but not amazing. After dinner, we went to a comedy show. But shortly into it, we realized that it’s not our style (it was an adult show) so we just left and went back to our room and slept early. The nice thing about Lyric Theater is that, you can sit in the balcony on 4th floor (and it has a separate entrance that goes to deck 4 instead of deck 3). So that if you decide that the show is not your thing, you can leave without disturbing too many people. We ended up watching shows this way for most of the cruise. There is also a bar by the entrance on deck 4 (INSIDE the theater) so you can keep going back to order drinks, again without disturbing people.
    5 points
  6. Day 11 - At Sea, pt 2 We caught the Stowaway Piano Player again this afternoon. He was a different guy than the last sailing: After the wine tasting, we retired to our cabin for a couple of hours of relaxing (otherwise known as nap time for MisterZ and blog time for me). Then off to our final dinner of the cruise, in Gold dining. It was delicious again, even though the menu was the same. Sichuan Spare Ribs: Duck Confit: Sliced Spicy Chicken: After dinner we reserved a private karaoke room at Star Moment, the karaoke venue onboard: For $50, we got a drink and snack package plus an hour of singing time in our own room. It was a ton of fun! The karaoke system worked about as well as any karaoke place we’ve used (that is, it was a bit twitchy for song search/selection) but the ambiance was fun! It was also cheaper than Tokyo. By a lot. When we entered, the staff said “the snacks are chicken feet. Would you like peanuts instead? We’ll get you peanuts.” ? I was perfectly happy to be profiled in this case! Hahaha! Then back to the cabin to pack and put out our bags. Boo!!
    5 points
  7. Day 10 addendum I forgot — because we were in a suite, we got a free standard trip in the Northstar. The concierge booked us for the Chan Mai day, after all aboard but before sail away. It was nice to see the port from above!
    5 points
  8. Then dream big. https://www.rssc.com/ships/seven_seas_explorer/suites
    4 points
  9. Day 2: Sea Day I started the day by running on the jogging track on deck 12 at 6 am. The wind was very strong, fore to aft, so half the time you're fighting serious wind, and the other half you have the winds on your back. After about 1.5 mile or so I gave up and just continued on the treadmill in the gym. Fun fact: strava app could not recognize my location, even though technically GPS should not need data connectivity. It keeps thinking that I'm in FLL and somewhere off the coast of North Caroline (both locations are wrong). In the end it thinks that I ran 1200 miles over 10 minutes. Woot! After running, I tried both the sauna and steam room at the gym. At 7 am they were both empty. The steam room was smelly, so I didn't really stay. The sauna was nice. The gym also has shower rooms that are a bit larger than the shower in our staterooms, with the same brand of shampoo and soap. The gym also has unlimited bath towels to use. So this is a nice option for those of you whose rooms are crowded or just wanted a larger shower. Afterwards I grabbed breakfast in the Promenade cafe (mostly just fruit cup and coffee). Then me and family (who had woken up by this time) went to a Sunday Mass which was held at the Imperial Lounge, and then on to WJ for breakfast. After breakfast I went to look at the shops on the promenade. They had $10 sales (all kinds of things for $10, with buy 4 get 1 free). The only items catching my attention were the tote bags. They are of really good quality. But other than that, they also had sunglasses, shoulder bags, men's watches, scarves, all for $10. Then I went to an origami class at the Schooner. The instructor was really nice and patient with newcomers, which makes the pace a bit slow for me. So I sort of did the class while watching the TV at the bar. We created frog (very basic), and butterfly (respectably complex). The instructor used old cruise compasses (like from July) for the papers, which is really neat as it saves trees. After the class, she handed out instructions for us to take home. For lunch, we went to the MDR. I had the Asian Noodle (which is kinda like Singaporean Mee Goreng), which I thought was good but the balance between meat and noodle was off. Too much noodle for that amount of meat. We of course also got food from the salad bar (amazing! it's a must for any salad lovers). Next to the salad bar, they had a buffet line with food from WJ (I don't think it's the entire WJ offering, but the "special entrees" from WJ that day). After lunch, we just lounged around at the Solarium and/or Main Pool, going back and forth between different pools and whirlpools, and reading / listening to music / watching people dance at the main pool stage... with drinks in hand. The weather was still a bit chilly and not many people were outside, so finding lounge chairs was not difficult at all. I bought a waterproof ipad case so I can continue reading in the pool and whirlpool... as long as I don't drop it. The main pools (two in the open area and one in the Solarium) were salt water, and it has shallow entry area as well as deeper inner area. The cool thing is that whenever the ship rocks (and on this day, it still rocks pretty hard as we are not that far from the tropical storm system brewing in the East), the pool water sloshes around as well, creating some kind of mini waves and a mini-beach effect. We did this all afternoon, falling asleep every now and then, and also rode the water slides whenever I was bored. Again, due to the chilly temperature, there was barely any line on the slides. Good for me I guess. Afterwards we caught some pretty sunset pictures, and then we headed to the gym for more exercise (I ran on the treadmill some more). After exercise and shower, we headed to dinner. Tonight was the formal night. As we were heading to dinner, we saw people on the promenade from the early seating, and they were dressed really nicely with Christmas gowns and suits. We stopped by our room quickly before dinner in order to take picture of the cruise compass (we do this every night, so that we can plan out the day over dinner). Turns out Collin had made a towel animal for us. I think it's a bunny? Whereas my inlaws got elephants with googly eyes For dinner today, I had the duck A L'orange which was very good, tender and crispy on the outside. We also tried the carpaccio, escargot, carrot cake, and cheese plate. The carpaccio was okay (missing some salt), escargot was good. The cheese plate was very good and I wanted to order this every night, but little did I know the dessert menu only got better from here, so this ended up being the only night I had the cheese plate. First world problem I know... Starting on day 2, there is a performance every night in the MDR during dinner. Most days it was one crew named Lalo, who sang and played guitar at the same time. His voice is pretty good, but he really knows how to work the audience. He sang Sweet Caroline, and asked everyone to sing along. The atmosphere (in all 3 floors of MDR) was generally very interactive and relaxed, despite it being a formal night. I took a video of his performance, but couldn't figure out how to upload video to this site. If you know how, please let me know. In front of the MDR, they had a backdrop of some formal-looking French garden. Our family took a quick picture there. I could not take a picture of just the backdrop because there constantly were people in there. After dinner we watched a show. It was a ballroom dancing show, mostly on Jazz pieces, but they had some Latin and Caribbean pieces as well. I think the performers are really talented. They can all dance different styles of dancing. Overall I enjoyed the show.
    3 points
  10. The key to scanning the passport into the app is to focus your camera on the "string of gobbledygook digits" along the edge. That is what it is scanning. The first couple of times i was going crazy trying to figure out how get to the picture and all the other information in a readable "picture" and then finally realized all it cared about what was the gobbledygook part.
    3 points
  11. After multiple sailings on Navigator, I am 99% certain that it is triggered by 1)using the app to check-in AND 2)scanning your passport to fill in the check-in information rather than handkeying into the app. On our 4th trip we had a group of 20 ... every person that did both of the above was marked for expedited check-in, every person that did not do both was not. Not conclusive but that did match what i was told by Royal rep on our 2nd and 3rd trips and also matches the text i found buried on a Royal web-page after the 3rd trip when i got frustrated and spent a day digging. Impact of getting expedited is pretty minimal but darn it, if it's offered i want it !
    3 points
  12. We have over packing down to an artform. We are waiting for shuttle to take us to airport. Flight leaves at 4:30. Little M is beyond excited.
    3 points
  13. ChessE4

    Coco cay

    My bad eyes ,I though you said "snorkeling" rather than smoking ?. Still it's worth a try.
    3 points
  14. @Tom Cruises and @JLMoran, I believe that @DublinFC has mentioned going in 2 days prior to do sight seeing pre-cruise. That's why I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to stay in NJ or surrounding areas.
    3 points
  15. Checked my email and Casino Royale sent me a Complimentary sailing for two and a 25 dollar casino credit on the Explorer of the Seas for Jan 20th.. I couldn't book it fast enough ? I'm so excited to fuel my addiction!
    2 points
  16. michelle

    Happy New Year

    Just wanted to say Happy New Year to the RCI Blog Community! What a great resource we have here of like minded cruisers that offer up great advice and information to everyone. Thank you to Matt and his team for all they do to keep all RCI cruise information relevant. Hope to see some of you on a cruise this year in 2020! Here's to a Great Year Ahead Michelle
    2 points
  17. Jolly Ogre

    Cozumel Lunch

    Got back from Cozumel on Monday. Had lunch at this place from recommendation from @Matt. It was great and we were the only ones in the place.
    2 points
  18. Day 3: At Sea Today we were supposed to be in St. Thomas but because of the changed itinerary, it was spent at sea. It is definitely very sunny by now, so later on everyone was out on the deck sunbathing. As usual, I ran again in the morning (still tried the jogging track, but slowly losing interest). It's not as windy, but still windy. Afterwards I reserved some lounge chairs. I got breakfast from WJ and came back with plates full of food, and DW and I had breakfast in the balcony. After breakfast, I continued reading in the balcony, while enjoying the ocean breeze and sounds. The powerade there was from the cafe promenade, which is included in our drink package. The barista there (Nyoman) was really friendly. Almost every night I got powerade and bottled water from him, so after 2 days, he started giving me 2 bottles instead of 1, and didn't even have to swipe cards anymore. Around 10 or so, I went down to the pool side and did the same thing: reading, whirlpool / slides, listening and people watching, sometimes falling asleep. We went through like 20 glasses of mocktails in the past 3 days, definitely getting our money's worth. Because it was sunny, the line for the slides was longer. The flow rider was well attended as well. Some people were really good, and some other were.... more like me. We went to lunch in WJ, where we scored the back seat by the window, overlooking the wake. After lunch, DW tried rock climbing. She did well, although the last couple feet were hard. There's also a 3 on 3 competition going on in the court right next to the rock climbing, so I sort of watched that as well. After rock climbing, we tried to join an adult volleyball competition, but turns out that you need to come up with your own team. As there were only 3 of us, (MIL did not want to play), we would be considered as subs in one of the other teams. It won't be as fun and we might not get to play together. So we decided to bail. After that, we went to the Viking Crown Lounge on the 14th floor (really close to the rock climbing area) and just people watched from the top, while enjoying the quiet (and more drinks) Near sunset, we went down to hunt some nice sunset pictures, and then tried for the ice show. The thing about the ice show is: there were 4 showings: Day 3 and 6, at 7 pm and 9 pm each. The show lasts about 50 minutes. The tickets were free but you had to pick it up on the 2nd day, which I totally forgot about. I guess this is their way of ensuring that there is enough seats for everyone. By the time I realized about tickets, I could only pick it up in the guest services, and only Day 6 at 9pm showing was available (not ideal, as our dinner reservation was at 8pm). If you don't have tickets, you can still come and line up, but you will be seated about 5 minutes before the show starts. So did that for day 3 at 7 pm, and did not get any seat. So we just watched the first 10 minutes of the show and then left. From what we saw, it was amazing though. Seeing as we had tickets for the later showing, we didn't feel too bad. So we just wasted time by listening to music at the Boleros and Champagne Bar, as we made our way towards MDR. For appetizer, we had crab cake and caprese, which were ok (crab cake was kinda dense, but the flavor was great). For entrees, I did double entree again: ahi tuna and NY strip. The ahi tuna was amazing. For dessert, we had strawberry trifle and souffle. The trifle was really good too. Generally I like their "no sugar added" dessert, even though I have major sweet tooth. They just tasted lighter and made me less bloated at the end of the day. Then we watched the show, which was a solo singer named Darryl Jovan. The show was called Mind of a Tenor. His voice is really good, but I don't know many of the songs. He announced that he's leaving Royal Caribbean soon and got a permanent gig with an orchestra (I forgot which one). Good for him! Best of luck to you!
    2 points
  19. We had it at Cape Liberty and in Miami. In Cape Liberty, we had a dedicated person to scan our passes, then we went through a dedicated security line. From there we walked right into the boarding area and onto the ship. We arrived around 10:30am. In Miami, similar process but when we got upstairs to the waiting area, we had a wait as they were not boarding yet. When they did call for boarding, they called suites/pinnacles first, then EA, D+, D all at the same time. So no time savings for us, as we are D.
    2 points
  20. Yes, both times. They said as long as one of us had it. Both passes were on my phone, so there was proof we were together.
    2 points
  21. Twangster, you bot-ness is beginning to emerge again. ?
    2 points
  22. BTW - I am doing the Allure Eastbound crossing in March a month before Anthem does her crossing in April. I might blog some of that in the live blog section so keep an eye out for that.
    2 points
  23. We live in Worcester, MA and we drive down the day before for the same reason we fly down to Florida the day before - to avoid the stress of something coming up that is completely out of our control - traffic, weather, construction, etc etc etc. We also like to get on the ship right at 10:30 am, which would mean waking everyone up by 4:00 am for the drive (again to factor in several additional hours just to be safe). Yes, it's an added cost, but one that helps me feel a whole lot more relaxed at the start of my vacation.
    2 points
  24. Great blog. Looking through the experience, decor, and food it’s familiar enough that you know it’s a royal Caribbean cruise, but different enough that it almost feels like another line.
    2 points
  25. Great job on the blog! A Norwegian on my last cruise opened my eyes to sailing from Hong Kong. Having sailed from Beijing he said he would never do a mainland China departure again but would have no issues with Hong Kong. Your blog has helped me progress the notion of a Hong Kong departure. Something to ponder for a future cruise. Thanks!
    2 points
  26. Thanks, this is really helpful. We have sailed Oasis twice before (Caribbean in December) and Harmony once (Med in September). DH really likes this class of ship and is keen to return but I can see it's going to be a whole different ball game in early May out of NY. We have not sailed a Quantum class ship before but SIL did one of the very first European cruises on Ovation and says it is her absolute favourite class. Decisions, decisions... I suspect it's going to come down to ancillary costs, such as airfare and accommodation in the NY area. Like @DublinFC (apologies for hijacking your thread!) we are looking to have 2 or 3 days of sightseeing in the Big Apple beforehand.
    2 points
  27. Royal Caribbean could solve this whole getting from the airport to the cruise terminal problem quickly and economically by making a zipline. Just like Labadee.
    2 points
  28. Agreed. Sunday mornings NYC is a ghost town.
    2 points
  29. As you can imagine weather can vary. It could be an early spring or a late spring any year. One week a cold front could move through so there is no accurate way to gauge weather plus or minus a couple of weeks. Generally speaking though weather will be improving as it moves closer to summer. Oasis doesn't have the indoor pool and indoor solarium areas so your risk is cool nights or days as the ship sails through waters that haven't heated up as much as the air might have in early May.
    2 points
  30. Glad this was asked.....we also have Expedited Boarding for our Oasis cruise on January 12th. Also used app to check in and scanned passports. I assumed everyone received this so excited I did something "right" and fingers crossed its like a fast pass ?
    2 points
  31. I find that to be true so often-not just in cruising but in all aspects of life.
    2 points
  32. PG Cruiser

    SeaPass card

    I use this for my belt loop
    2 points
  33. GregD

    SeaPass card

    Many people use lanyards, I personally just keep it in my pocket.
    2 points
  34. mworkman

    What am I missing?

    @sk8erguy1978 Our local banks now seem to have an abundance of $1 dollar bundles since @rjac moved to New Bern and Ricks closure.??
    2 points
  35. They totally are. Doesn’t mean a girl can’t dream...?
    2 points
  36. The best part is that from the looks of it they don’t make the same mistake Chops does with apple pie, adding raisins.
    2 points
  37. This is all great information and will make the planning process so much easier. Thank all of you very much!
    2 points
  38. Recommend a passport. If for some reason you miss getting back on the ship at a port of call, you are going to need a passport to get back out of that country.
    2 points
  39. I’d honestly prefer if they just charged a few hundred dollars more per person for the cruise and PAID THE CREW BETTER ....... then you could tip the people you wanted to tip what you felt they deserved ............ i already just treat the “prepaid gratuities” as part of the cruise fare and then also generously tip the people who I come in contact with that deserve it.
    2 points
  40. Love Jaime’s on the Anthem! Meat plank, lasagna, tagliatelle bolognese...my favs! Always consistent. Did Giovanni’s on the Allure. Loved it also. Please don’t make me choose!!?
    2 points
  41. Hoi An lunch The lunch we had on our shore excursion deserved its own post. It was in a giant restaurant that also had a cooking school in it. The food was served family-style for 5 person groups. We also got a beer/soda/water included. Fantastic! Local beer: Spicy Clam Soup: Crab Wontons: Beef Salad: Spicy Fried Chicken: Fried Fish with Mango Salad: Caramel Pork: Stir-fried Green Beans:
    2 points
  42. I geek out watching trip report YouTube videos...one of my favorite vloggers just posted a report on Brightline, and I thought I would post it here in case anyone is interested. My experience is pretty much what he had. At the end of the video, he mentioned that he had to check his bag. We did not have to do that.
    2 points
  43. We are on that sailing as well, the second week of our B2B, maybe we'll see you! We'll likely be hanging out in Playmakers, sampling the Amp'd craft beer list!
    1 point
  44. WAAYTOOO's answer is great. I'll also add this...the Cruise Planner isn't smart enough to realize you've booked the UDP so the parts advertising dining or showing you how to book dining reservations are still there. It's just what everyone sees. You can safely ignore it. There's no reason to do anything else once you've booked the UDP.
    1 point
  45. I’ve found at ports that sometimes switching airplane mode on and off or going so far as to restart my phone has helped the “no connection issue”. I don’t know the actual reason behind the problem but have had similar experiences with international travel where a phon restart was usually 80% effective at fixing the problem. ?
    1 point
  46. Thanks...I can never remember that port
    1 point
  47. Just got out of work. I’m officially on vacation. We are just driving 2 1/2 hours tonight. When we booked we weren’t sure how weather would be to get out of upstate NY. Hubby has bad back so breaking trip up is better for him.
    1 point
  48. I am in the minority here but my whole family prefers Jamie’s over Giovanni’s. I am not quite sure what it is exactly that we like better, probably just the overall menu choices. Also, I did not find the food quality to be that impressive. CK was way better. We’re going to give it another try on Oasis this March and I might change my mind, we’ll see.
    1 point
  49. Just a general note about self disembarkation-it can be challenging to get an elevator that is NOT full to go down. You may need to go UP to go DOWN to the level to leave. Just be prepared for this or be prepared to take the stairs. If you are only a few floors above where you need to be to disembark I would suggest you take the stairs. I'm not sure of the answers to the questions so I'll leave that to more seasoned cruisers on here to help you.
    1 point
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