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I forgot something in that last update. Our younger daughter (aka the artist, whose work I’ve shown in earlier live blogs) got her acceptance notice for the summer Japanese Language and Cultural Immersion program that she applied for nearly a year ago! Assuming she’s able to get vaccinated in time and nothing else comes along to muck things up, she’ll be spending 4 weeks with a host family in Kyoto from mid-July through mid-August. This is a huge deal for her. She’s been self-studying Japanese for almost a year now, and has been saving money from her part-time job to help pay for it (until her job was let go due to COVID-19 anyway). She hopes to live and work in Japan after college; she wants to get into character design for one of the smaller video game firms there. We’re really happy for her!

My pattern from past operations seems to be holding. I need the pain meds like clockwork for some period of time, and after that it’s like some switch has flipped and I more or less don’t need them at all, except to sleep for another couple of nights. Today, only 3 days post surgery, that switch has already flipped. My last pain meds were at 6:30 AM and I haven’t needed anything since then. If I hold to pattern I’ll just need something for sleep tonight and maybe tomorrow, and then I’ll probably be done beyond taking Advil. And why the heck is there suddenly a page about the merits of robovacs in the middle of my live blog?!? ??

? agree! The excitement of receiving the genie questionnaire, the first genie email, finding out who your genie will be, and then live genie communications is one of the best experiences IMO. It was so fun to share my genie in this forum and get some early genie intel! It really is the best feeling. ?

T - 10 days to boarding. The anticipation is building everyday. Does the days seem longer all of a sudden? Initial packing has started, pulling suitcases out of musty stores after being neglected for so long. Feels surreal that I’m actually packing for a trip of any sort. Luggage tags printed and at the ready.

What happened to that suggestion

I STILL WANT BMcBFOTS!!! ?

This is the best advice you will get. Star Class, by its very definition, is designed to be a personalized experience. While the overall "rules" are fairly consistent, the specific amenities do tend to vary by ship and even among Genies on the same ship. A very good example of this is that some ships allowed Starbucks to be delivered to the suites and some do not. Whether this is a Genie-thing or a ship-thing isn't readily apparent to me. I've never asked for this service so I don't know the particulars. On the other hand, it never hurts to learn from others what THEIR experience was and then you at least have some idea of what to expect. But as @Lovetocruise2002said, don't let your expectations turn into disappointments if you find that something you have heard about from the past does not come to fruition for you. What the Genie absolutely will do is help you with planning your days and nights (if you want help !!) with things like specialty dining reservations (or even MDR reservations if that is your choice), entertainment venue seating, help with onshore excursions (this will be dependent upon how shore excursions are organized when cruising returns) and personal escorts onto and off of the ship, as needed. One of the most important (but hopefully infrequently used !) services that a Genie can offer is related to onboard charges. If you have a charge on your account that you have a question about, your Genie can help sort it out without you having to go to Guest Services. My last Genie (Jan 2020, Oasis) told us that she would be personally insulted if she caught us in the GS line. It was a joke, of course, but she was making sure that we realized that there was nothing related to GS that she could not address for us. It CAN be a huge help. We had an issue with our credit card on one cruise a number of years ago and the Genie took the issue all the way to the Chief Financial Officer onboard before it got fixed. The ship's CFO came to our suite personally to apologize for the problem and make sure we knew it had been solved. Interestingly enough, that last story actually involved 2 different Genies onboard that ship. Our Genie had originally addressed the issue and thought it had been solved and then we found out later that day that the issue had NOT been solved so we marched down to GS (hoppin' mad, BTW) and one of the other Genies recognized us as SC guests and asked if he could help. It was actually that second Genie (Sebastian) who escalated the issue up to the top and finally got it solved. So you don't JUST have 1 Genie....all of the Genies onboard are there to help if you need it. What a great feeling ! I've never had a bad Genie. Going along the lines of what @Lovetocruise2002mentioned, each has their own strengths. For instance, the best, BY FAR, party-planning Genie that we have ever had is Reyno. He LOVES a party and he is really good at it. We've had him twice as a Genie. Yen Lee has been our Genie twice and she is excellent. I believe Yen is now on Quantum, but I am not 100% certain of that. Our last Genie was Joyce and she is a HOOT ! She is by far the most fun Genie we ever had...she is a ball of energy and very very personal...in a good way. She's a chatterbox and you will get a lot of juicy ship scuttlebutt from her. LOL Sebastian is all business (as is Yen) but also a very good Genie. We did not have Sebastian plan a party for us but my guess is that he would have been great at it. Probably our favorite Genie was Charlie, who no longer works for Royal, unfortunately. He had the most attention to detail (which I find to be a strong Genie trait) of all of the Genies we've had. Any time we had room service he would make sure that the table was properly prepared with table cloth and cute little personalized place cards and left small little personal gifts everywhere...even the seats that he reserved for us in the theater. Indirectly we had Alexandra (I think that was her name). She was the Genie for friends that we were cruising with on one of our cruises where Reyno was our Genie. They worked together to plan some dynamite parties. OMG, that was a party cruise ! Unfortunately, Alex is no longer with Royal either. Anticipating a Star Class cruise is easily as exciting as actually being on a SC cruise. You will have an entire month of direct comm with your Genie before you board. That is the time to let them know your wishes (exception being the Cabin Crawl party that we discussed in another thread). The Genie will give you a good indication of which wishes they can accommodate and which they cannot. Keep in mind that there may well be changes to the Genie program when cruising resumes. While I do not have any knowledge of how things might change, it is my impression (gut feeling) that having a Genie in the future is going to be an even bigger advantage than it has in the past...but that's just a guess.

Glad you're feeling better! Good to hear you're off pain meds quickly. That's what happens when you leave us unattended. LOL

Great topic. I just signed into the Blog, but have been reading for the past week. I booked my first cruise on Royal Caribbean and booked the GLS on Anthem. Thanks to @WAAAYTOOO, we changed from a corner to middle GLS on deck 10. I have lots of time to anticipate and learn from everyone…we don’t sail until Oct 2023. We have 4 other cruises booked before then on other lines, 3 on NCL in the Haven and one on Celebrity. Thanks again to everyone for sharing info. The planning and anticipation of our first Star Class cruise will be fun but excruciating!

I submitted Hochberg of the Seas as a suggestion but I never heard back.

I miss the good old days when the only people who got sick on cabin crawls was from too many tequila shots!

Star Class is a fantastic experience. My advice is not to invest too much into what others say, but to let your Genie do their thing. Everyone's experience is different and by trying to make it into someone else's experience, disappointment will usually follow. Most Genies are fantastic. There is no way at this point to predict or even know who will be on Oasis. With covid, all the genies have gone home and sadly, some have even left Royal to do other things. Also keep in mind, that while the overall benefits of Star are the same across the fleet, there are many variances by ship as well. Sometimes what you hear from others about what is allowed on one ship, may not be allowed on another. It should not be this way, but some aspects of the program are very ship and Genie dependent. Another reason to not invest too much into what others are saying and just let your Genie do their thing. There are quite a few Star class blogs here in the live blog section. That is a great way to get info about the program. Just go to live blogs and search that forum for "Star class" or "genie" in the search bar and tons will come up. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/forum/11-live-blogs/

True, that was dedicated as mine and I put the boys in main floor closet. Which was fine because I also had them share main floor bathroom LOL True. The upstairs balcony came in handy with our HVAC issues. We propped it open when sleeping when temps hit high 80s. I was thankful we had it. LOL

Posted at the same time. We seem to do that a lot. Too funny ?

It’s a personal preference but some prefer the middle GLS due to the layout and larger size. We preferred a corner GLS 10320 on Anthem last year because our son wanted the 2 side balconies and there were only 3 of us, so it wasn’t a big deal. And we were totally fine with the split main floor bathroom. Nothing wrong with either; just good intel to help with decision making. ?

While you get the 3 balconies with the corner ones, you lose a lot of square footage inside. It's 696 sq. ft. for the corner ones, compared to 840 sq. ft. for the center ones on Deck 10. If it's just two people, it doesn't really matter, but when I travel with my teenage girls, we'll take all the extra square footage we can get!

Come to think of it, the price was slightly higher (tax and port charges were higher) than the previous booking. I'll have to call them and have them adjust it. I agree with you 100% that I will not find a cheaper rate and if anything, supply, pent up demand and the possibility of running less than capacity may actually drive prices significantly up. We got the same cabin location and almost identical itinerary. June 2022 seems so far away... might have to also book something sooner!

Such a database would violate so many pieces of the HIPAA regulations.

I did the same !! On the Honolulu-Vancouver leg of our Australia/NZ/HI/CAN cruise-about (Quantum), we are doing SC for the last leg. I originally booked deck 8 but then remembered the noise from 270...so I changed to deck 10. We are now in 10724. The only SC left on that sailing is a corner GLS. Glad we got ours in time before the good ones were gone !

Solar heated... by the sun.

How exciting her dreams are coming to fruition.... I hope she can get vaccinated prior to going as the Olympics are on at this time and I imagine there will be a great influx of people from all over the world ...My son is being recruited by a video game developer in Germany so he may be off on his adventure soon too..... unfortunately we in Australia have not had a vaccine roll out yet so I have got my fingers crossed he can get one before he has to go....It is very hard for the young ones to plan and get ahead in these times it is nice (for a change) to hear a good story

I'm not sure if anyone has looked at hotels yet but the Hilton Grand Vacations at the Crane is a BEAUTIFUL property and is a steal for around $270 a night IMO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface

And also my lunch break at work. Passes too fast before slowing down again.

Room 1718, Oasis of the Seas, June 18, 2021!

I'm not sure I should disclose my L&S experience with my Alaska cruise on Quantum. Originally, it was very straight forward and done quickly. The price protection was done but taxes and fees increased by $150. Best I could tell, it seemed correct. There was a FCC involved that tends to obscure the actual cruise price. About a week later someone posted information that involved some glitch that resulted in the price protection to be incorrect. When I looked at my remaining balance, it was approximately $300 more. I had to call again to get the $300 removed. The first response was there was no price protection because the cruise wasn't eligible for a L&S. Clearly, that wasn't true so I had to explain that Royal cancelled the Quantum cruises to Alaska in 2021 and my cruise was eligible for a L&S to 2022. It involved a bit of hold time but the matter was resolved relatively quickly. When everything was done the second time, the remaining balance came back $1,000 less. Somehow I think I received an extra $700 in price protection. I'm not one to complain so I just said it sounded correct. Whoever posted the information about the glitch ... thank-you. I think there is still a glitch but this one seemed to work in my favor. I just hope the cruise happens in 2022. I doubt the price will ever get any less.

Well shoot. Who knew Joe would flip like a switch this soon? I thought we had at least another day of robovac talk left in this thread. Do you know how hard it is to talk about robovacs on a cruise forum? It rarely seems to fit the conversation. Glad you are feeling better Joe.

I suspect they changed their mind when you asked for a permanent cabin as your “licensing fee” ?

Yes, the days will drag by until you get on the ship and then they mysteriously convert to the speed of light. So envious !

Somewhere around a decade ago on a Carnival ship from San Juan they offered embarkations in Barbados as well as San Juan on that itinerary. I remember seeing victims guests do their muster as we returned feeling little pain from the Jolly Roger in Barbados. P&O has used Barbados as a home port as well. Barbados has a long history in this role. Warehouses are in close proximity to one side of the cruise ship harbor so resupply isn't a challenge. I can see the appeal for Royal to move a ship the size of Grandeur with no other clear place to move her. Barbados could prove to be a smart call as a home port for this ship.

I did a lift and shift this morning for our New England / Canada cruise for late September. The new requirements were for the same ship. However, the ship has been changed for that cruise. When I called, everything went very smooth. Changing ship was not an issue. Even the hold time was short, less than 5 minutes.

There are other gifts to buy a bot other than tools? And Joe's blog has officially been hijacked to Robot Vacuum of the Seas blog ?

Am I the only one who had a love hate relationship with the idea of a cabin crawl? On one hand, I would love to see some of the suites we haven't stayed in, but on the other, I hate the idea of strangers in my own cabin. I think it would feel like having my house on the market too...I would want it to be neat and clean, but I know the kids and DH would care less. One of them might even offer to show everyone our dirty clothes hamper in the closet. ?

Just like pets, if you let the kids name the robo vac you potentially wind up with a lame name. Ours is called Sweepy...and he isn't very smart.

OOOHHHHH.....one of my favorite things !! Let me first say that, as @Lovetocruise2002often mentions, all Genies are not equal...or at least, they each have different gifts and strengths. Much of the success of your Cabin Crawl will be dependent upon your Genie's party skills. Having said that, I will also make one more disclosure and it is tied in with the one above. I have read accounts, over the past couple of years, where the Genie has balked at organizing a large Cabin Crawl and has suggested to their SC pax that in order to arrange such a soiree, there would be a per-person charge. Hmmmm....so I think you may need to be very strategic in your approach to this. I would suggest that perhaps it would be best NOT to give a lot of advance warning to your Genie about your plans for a CC get-together. That is completely contrary to my original approach to doing a CC get-together. In the "early days" I always told my Genie up front about the event so that he/she would be prepared...but in more recent years, I have sprung it on them at the last moment and downplayed the event to keep it from sounding like a gala. Some Genies really seem to enjoy doing party events, and some others really seem to resent it. A lot will depend on who you get as your Genie. I have never had a Genie try and charge me, but I have heard of others whose Genie DID indicate that there would be a charge. That totally sucks. I hope it doesn't happen to you. Avoid using the words "Cabin Crawl" with your Genie. Call it something else. So....my first piece of advice is - keep it to yourself until you are onboard. My second piece of advice is, try and keep your event to 25 people or less. That is often hard to do when you have an open forum like a FB group. If you have a good indication that your group is likely to be larger than 25, I would reconsider being the host of the event. I have found that my most successful CC get-togethers have been when someone ELSE is the host and I just tag along as an interim stop. My third piece of advice is....if you are just an interim stop, and not the host, do NOT try and participate in the extended CC. IOW, don't try and go to all of the cabins along with the mob. You will have enough to do to keep you at "home" and organizing for your own event. The first 2 of these that I did, I tagged along with the group and went to everyone else's room and by the time we got to our suite, I was exhausted and found that I would have been better served to have stayed in the suite and made preparations for the others to arrive. This is particularly important for CC for GLS (and really...any SC suite on a Q class ship) and ATS. Those suites are SOOO far away from everyone else...it's such a trek. For the event itself, assuming you are allowed to cater without charge, the Genie can order food from any specialty restaurant (assuming your event is during normal operating hours of that restaurant), provide unlimited amounts of beer, water and soft drinks (there is a charge for wine and champagne, but it's very nominal in the greater scheme of things), get plates, napkins, silverware, table cloths, ice...literally everything you need for your party. It is very difficult and very expensive to get hard liquor brought to your cabin but it can be done....with persistence. We never bothered with liquor. It's just too much trouble. I strongly recommend that you approach your Suite Attendants to get an ice chest for beer. Room service will bring you those useless champagne buckets that hold nothing. You WILL need an ice chest and I have found that the room Suite Attendants are your best source for that. They will also be the ones to get your ice for you. Give THEM plenty of head's up. Timing the event is kinda critical. As I mentioned before, you can only order specialty food during restaurant operating hours and you will want to do this on a sea day so that means you will need to do this in the afternoon (between noon-2). Historically, cabin crawls are held on the first sea day immediately following the Top Tier event, which usually means around 11:00 AM. That's too early if you want specialty food - and you do. There is danger in waiting until the afternoon, but it really can't be avoided. People will get busy with something else and forget or just blow it off b/c they get sidetracked. Jamie's/Giovanni's food seems to lend itself well to CC get-togethers. The meat planks they serve at Jamie's are ideal. Just make sure that they deliver the food on the PLANKS and not in plates. This happened to me once and it doesn't have nearly the presentation on plates as it does on the planks. Finger food is great. Food that needs knives and forks is less desirable just due to logistics. Everyone will not be able to sit down at the same time. The Genie does NOT attend the event nor do they "help" other than ordering everything and coming to make sure that everything is on target. Room service will bring all of your tableware and then come and collect everything at the end of the event. You are responsible for serving and hosting your event. It is possible to get a server (for a fee...don't ask me how much $$. I've forgotten) but this might trigger the whole "fee" conversation. I would probably avoid that altogether. There will be lots of tipping involved. Make sure you have adequate bills for room service, suite attendants and folks I'm sure I'm forgetting. You will likely see each of these people only once...so please remember to tip when they provide the service. You will likely not see them again (except for the Suite Attendant and the Genie, of course). As for being the organizer, if that's still what you decide to do. I found it easiest just to keep a spreadsheet, which I updated periodically and published on my Roll Call site (I don't do FB so I have no idea how you would publish it there) with the names and cabin numbers for those who were interested in showing and another column for those who only wanted to "crawl" but not "show". Another hint is....you might think about limiting the number of cabin types to 1 cabin. IOW, you don't need to show 4 different inside rooms, or even 2 different Owner's Suites. They are similar enough that there's no need. Just limit the "showing" to the first person who signs up to show their cabin type. It's great if you can get lots of different cabin types...but not lots of the same type. Too much running around....and another reason to NOT be a crawler, yourself. Another reason to have someone ELSE be the organizer is....there is definitely a skill to organizing the flow of the crawl. You will most likely want to be at the END of the crawl....so whoever organizes it, just make sure that they know that you want your suite to be last. First of all, being last gives you the most time to get prepared and being last allows people to stop and enjoy themselves. If there are cabins left after they visit you, they will not feel as comfortable lingering. I guess that can be a good motivator NOT to be last but I always enjoyed having everyone hang around, enjoy their drinks and chat. Sorry, I did not intend for this to be so long !

Oh sure. Star Class on the first cruise. Genie mode engaged. On my first cruise Jeanie was this annoying lady at our table in the MDR. On second thought maybe that was my ex-wife.

Getting home and dropping my bag onto the floor, tearing my mask off and slumping into a seat after an exhausting day at work, I thought to myself "I really need a vacation" That's really the catalyst of what got me booking a cruise in the first place. For all intents and purposes, this would basically be my first cruise. I know I went on one when I was a really young kid, but all I remember from it was the inside of the cabin. ? Having not left Singapore in over a year and a half, I was getting stir crazy on this little island. I needed to get away from all of it, and low and behold, Royal announced the resumption of cruises to nowhere in Singapore. It was a no brainer. Of course, I'm not one to jump head first into something without thinking it through; I'm paranoid like that. I did some research on cruising and stumbled upon a little website called Royalcaribbeanblog.com. I watched countless videos, browsed the message boards and I knew I just had to do it. That was that, the start of my journey onto what I'm guessing is going to be a new addiction. So, come follow me on my journey as I experience cruising for the first time and get the full star class experience at the same time. I would also like to thank everyone who has answered my questions and help me get the ins and out worked out for this sailing. Special shout out to @Lovetocruise2002 @WAAAYTOOO @twangster and of course @Matt for all the insight you have provided.

Gonna try giving this a shot even though I've never done a live blog before. Please take it easy on me ?

Reviewing the unpublished archives...

@ChristieTSF Check out the full ship tours on youtube that can give you a good idea of each ship: Freedom: FULL SHIP TOUR NEWLY AMPLIFIED FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 2021 | SHIP TOUR OF ALL PUBLIC AREAS AND DECKS! - YouTube Navigator: Royal Caribbean "Navigator of the Seas" | Full Ship Walkthrough Tour & Review | All Public Spaces 4K - YouTube

And as kids aren't able to be vaccinated does that mean no family cruises? I feel like if royal and carnival etc make vaccination requirements, they would have to make exceptions for kids. Or offer full refunds instead of FCC. I know if I am told my daughter can't sail I will not accept FCC. All of this being hypothetical of course.

Book on board at Next Cruise for the best deposits. oh wait, no booking on board right now...

The idea creeps the hell out of me. But I don't even really like meeting new people on cruises, let alone having them in my room.

People in my room doesnt bother as much as how hot and crowded it gets inevitably in these rooms. ?

Who knows exactly why but a lot of market research goes into naming. It can be challenging to find a name that doesn't offend someone in some language and is generally clear of trademarks or registrations by similar companies. It's easy to look back and find fault but I'm not sure they knew 13 or 14 years ago how this experiment would turn out. It wasn't always cast in stone there would be this many. It could have been worse... Just look at Boaty McBoatface.

Thanks for checking @JLMoran. We've been below freezing for days and had some negative temps in the mornings; however, we've also been extremely fortunate and have kept power throughout. Most our area is without or still experiencing rolling blackouts. I need to start baking for Saturday's wedding tomorrow, so hopefully our luck holds. All faucets dripping with no issues there so far either. My sister lives 20 miles away and their power was out most of Monday. Brother in law had no power for over 30 hours and is now dealing with broken pipes. We've had 2 rounds of snow 3-4 inches the fist time and another couple inches last night. I guess the pool technically has water in it. A lot of them have frozen over in our area.

So, with these cruises to nowhere, all passengers will need to undergo a rtPCR Covid test and have a negative results before being allowed to board. This is carried out in partnership with Eurofins and TrustOne. We received our email just a little more than 2 weeks before the cruise to book an appointment to the the swab test. The swab test needs to be done between 3 days and 24hrs before the cruise, which means that we were given 2 dates to choose from, namely 26 or 27 Feb. Overall, the booking procedure was straight forward and really easy to set up.

Thanks so much for providing those documents. This one really stands out : You cannot have had COVID in the past 6 months ! That's incredibly restrictive. Overkill, IMO.

I'm a Hilton snob lol... Doubletree by Hilton Biscayne Bay would be my bet..