Leaderboard

Trust me: don't chase whichever agent can get you the most credit. You want a really good agent who knows cruising. MEI Travel has such a good reputation here and it's for good reason: they know how to take care of their clients, especially when times are tough. I can't tell you how much time my MEI agent saved me!

Thanks. This eases my mind. We as well, don't usually disclose his diagnosis, but lines and loud noises are still a challenge. We are not looking for any privileges, but more-so not to incommodate other passengers. Again, Thanks

Gratuities are semi mandatory. You can either prepay or be charged a daily rate per person based on the rate for your room (suites are higher) You do have the option of going to guest services onboard and have the tip charges removed. There are some who do this and tip individuals directly, and other who do this to avoid the tips entirely. You would not have this option if you choose My Time Dining. Most on this board see the tips as a service charge (I would rather they just call it that) and tip above that for great service - or as a way to ensure better service as bars etc. Regardless of your feelings on tips in general, tips are a huge part of how crew are paid on the ship and people should pay the (semi) required tips at a minimum.

Just returned from a cruise from Galveston on another cruise line that rhymes with "Barnival". Royal is better in every way. That is all.

These are the Diamond + luggage tags we received. They were in our stateroom a couple of cruises after we reached D+ level.

Buy it now and watch the prices. If they drop, you can cancel and repurchase it at the lower price. But if the price goes up (and it could), you're protected against that.

I think what you are asking is should kids slip the bartender a dollar for their soda as an adult might for their cocktail. The answer is no.

Word of mouth. Recommendations from friends or family of a great TA is what to look for.

Depending on how the models trend and if we are in "the cone", I will probably bring things inside and pack my freezer with ice blocks to try to save some of the food if we lose power. I was without power for 8 days after Wilma. Not fun!! If things look really bad with the storm though, I may have to consider cancelling. I wouldn't feel right leaving my elderly mom here alone to weather a hurricane while I go on vacation. Hoping it doesn't come to that though!

Welcome to the message boards! These are known as "guaranteed staterooms" and here's a breakdown if it's worth it: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/08/27/should-i-book-guarantee-stateroom-cruise

Buy it now!

If you have the UDP or other package and are staying in a suite the suite concierge can also help you with your dinner reservations when they reach out to you a few days before your cruise.

JS are not eligible for concierge lounge/suite lounge access to my knowledge on any ship. I don’t think status gets you in until you hit Pinnacle.

We used a local company that just did cruises. Unfortunately they really went down hill and once Covid hit they totally dropped the ball. We now use Sharla with MEI!!

Sept 30, no more vaccine or ArriveCAN requirement to enter Canada https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-to-drop-covid-19-vaccine-requirement-for-entering-country-on/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

My 16 year old son has Autism but at this age does much better with lines, wait times etc, but when he was younger it was much more difficult, so I understand where you are coming from. We haven’t disclosed our son’s diagnosis while cruising because we honestly don’t require any accommodations at this point. However, this past February when we were in line to check in for Brilliance in Tampa, we were the first family at the corral for our time slot - we had the second slot, 11am and we were right on time. Back then they strickly enforced check in times then so most other corrals had long lines and unhappy, grumbling people. I was chatting with the port personel lady while waiting for the line ahead to move before they let more people in the building. After interacting with my son, she pulled me aside and asked if he had a disability. I said yes and a few moments later when they let more people onto the building she walked us to a check in person that had no line (probably the key/ suite line) and we zipped through and where walking on the ship a few minutes later. If you have any concerns at all definitely reach out to the port personnel as well as crew once on board. Have a great cruise!

I am fully vaccinated and very much in favor of policies to prevent the spread of COVID. But I'm going on a Bermuda cruise (pending the hurricane) this Saturday and this testing thing is a huge pain in the ass. Not so much because it's that difficult (we've all been doing it for two years now) but because it just seems excessive given what every other port and country is doing at this point. It's such a freaking stress attack to test your entire family 2 days before you leave knowing if one of you is positive the trip is off.

To anyone who says they don't take care of this ship, I beg to differ. Is she 15 years old? Absolutely. But they are always painting, cleaning, and scrubbing places both obvious and not. Here's a shot of them vacuuming the ROOF of Vintages right after they finished polishing the top of the casino sign.

We usually do a between Holidays cruise. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That way the ship is decorated and we get the festive feeling and the holiday menus but with less children as they are in school. Win Win!!

The real question is... can you have a "Park Cafe" on ships with no park?

I'm diamond after 19 years. Will get to see the perks on my next cruise. Woohoo

One last thing I want to leave you with. The only real issue I had on the trip was I got real tired of hearing people complain. Our cruise has over 300 Pinnacle cruisers and the most of the rest was Diamond and Diamond plus. The ship had a couple of meetings with the staff warning them how picky the cruisers on this cruise were going to be. Most of the people on the cruise were great but there was enough that were not that you got tired of hearing it. I was told that the ship had to leave about 350 staff in Copenhagen because the USA would not give them a work visa. All the ships are short staffed to start with. All the staff was working their hardest to make a great cruise for us. I seen the glass half full and appreciate everything they did. Please, going forward do not be the glass half empty person and only see what you did not get on your cruise. Thank you for following, Mike

The smoke in the casino reminds me of getting on the smoking carriage by mistake in the London Underground many years ago. Hold your breath and walk the length of one or two smoking carriages until you could breathe. It is now 2022, and it is unbelievable to me that Royal still has smoking inside it's casinos.

We were paired up with a couple from Canada that were sailing in Star and Jay was their genie also so we all made it through to the suites/Star area to wait. The wait was a little longer than anticipated but Jay collected us and we headed on board. They only had one gangway for boarding for some reason so that was somewhat of the issue causing the slowdown. Jay did keep us moving as best as he could and I really liked the way he used his briefcase to ease into line. He said our rooms were ready so took both parties up and dropped us off into our suites. It was right at noon and we had lunch scheduled at Chops so only a few minutes to check out the wonderful room and balcony.

I mean..even for a one-and-done post I thought I'd at least get to enjoy a poorly told story of woe.... but no...just...one grammarless sentence...

I hate to say it but for most people their first instinct now and days is to record someone/something with hopes of getting something out of it. Whether that is likes, bragging rights, money, etc., it's the truth. I don't think people were confused; it was done with intent because there was no need for them to stand there and take photos.

Though it may be too little too late for this cruise season https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-arrivecan-to-become-optional-other-covid-travel-measures-could-be-gone-in-weeks

The only hurricane worth experiencing comes from Royal Caribbean.

Do you need another person to say buy it now? Buy it now! 67.99 is a good price to start with - I've cancelled and repurchased it and a few other things on my next cruise (and my last). I regret not getting the UDP on my last price when I first saw it because it never got anywhere close to that price again over a 6 month period. Have a great cruise!

One with free parking is Comfort Suites Miami Airport North. They have a shuttle to the port as well, but not back to the hotel. I prefer to do my own ride to the port and not be on the shuttle's timeline.

I'm sailing on the Oasis in February out of Miami. There are several offsite parking alternatives with free shuttles. I'm considering Premier Cruise Parking as they offer covered parking. Offsite is about half the cost of parking at the cruise terminal.

Are you on the 9/25 Allure? If so, I'm in the same boat as you. (pun intended). I would not be surprised if they have to change the itinerary for this one. That doesn't bother me. But as a resident of South Florida, I'm more concerned with what I would be coming home to if the area gets hit by a major hurricane.

We primarily use Cru Con. good agents and added perks. They'll assign an agent to you. We lost our long time one during covid but got another who is really good.

Matt is a humble man of the masses! I think, cost-wise, it makes more sense to book connecting rooms with 2 in each versus one with 3 and then a solo. Then once on board you can making whatever sleeping arrangements work for you. A good TA can find rooms that meet your requirements.

Lines are the shortest on Day 1 when everyone is busy boarding, checking out the ship, or stuffing themselves in the buffet for lunch. If you are a newbie you likely will only get 1 try a day if you cannot stay on the board for longer than 10-15s. My last cruise in July the lines were often more than 10 people, one of the riders I met was Sky Class and they were letting him go after every 4 people. But he was an advanced rider so not sure if they will let you go more than once if you a newbie and can't stay on the board. Have fun.

Hi - Royal worded this very poorly, because what you’re actually purchasing here is that bubble type cover that goes over 2 lounge chairs). I can see how it would be confusing given the title. FYI the price of these now is over $100 where they used to be about $30 Not worth it either way, however, since there are tons of free lounge chairs and umbrellas

They should as most of the cafes are standardized across the ship.

Booked with the family.

Traveling Solo There are lots of people that wonder what is like traveling solo. This was a different trip so I thought I would share some of my thoughts. Planning: It was really nice to be able to pick what I want to do and not worry about what anyone else wants to do. When I got to Prague and Copenhagen I changed my plans while out on the town because how I felt changed. Things I wanted to do changed. I did not have to compromise with anyone, I was traveling solo. Flying into a strange country alone: This was a challenge. I had no one to ask what they thought. I had to trust my own judgment and figure it out on my own. I also had to be secure enough to ask other people for directions or how things worked. Traveling on an European Train for the first time: This was a challenge even if there was someone. This was a very uncomfortable adventure and I am not sure if it would have been better or worse with someone else with me. Not speaking the language and the process was so different I was uncomfortable for most of the adventure. Now that it is done it would be much easier the next time. The biggest issue with being solo is you have strangers setting next or right in front of you. On the ship: my favorite saying is a solo traveler is only alone if they want to be. This cruise I was getting tired of people and wanted more alone time. Now to be fair with you I need to remind you I was in charge of some of the Cruise Critic / Face Book activities. That is over 600 people. I did the Sail-a-Way Meet and Greet, the Group Dinners at Chops, Giovanni and Izumi, and the Poker Pub Crawl on three different days. On top of that I helped on two different private shore excursions that was 100 people and 80 people. With all this organizing I meet lots of people and was never alone. I had to find time for "Me Time".

The refreshment package would be the way to go then, you'd get everything you got before, sans the alcohol and the huge price tag. Happy Cruising!

Sometimes a cruise just isn't good, There is nothing wrong with saying that and providing examples why. As we are all individuals with different taste. This issue is the hit and runs. I don't think anyone here cares if people post the negative things. I just did a B2B on Nav, it was my least favorite cruise. Not because of staff or food but the people. The older I get the harder it is to become a duck.......I can't just let things slide off me like water on a duck's back. I only want to be able to do two things on a cruise besides eating; enjoy myself in the casino and relax by reading. If I sit at a nonsmoking machine and someone blows smoke in my face, my experience is ruined. If people are so drunk and belligerent, bring their crying babies/children in the solarium and fight in and round my cabin: it is hard to relax and read. This may have been a not-so-great experience but that doesn't put me off cruising, it just makes me appreciate other ships, classes, itineraries, and ports more.

I’m definitely going with Matt’s philosophy about anything beyond diamond being just gravy. Should hit diamond in 2023!

I find it hard to believe that if someone complains to a crew member, they're going to get poor customer service or be told "too bad". RC has been nothing but overly helpful on every cruise I've been on and quick to resolve issues. And if one crew member is having a bad day, then go to their supervisor or to Guest Services and I bet it won't happen again. Food issues are fixable. The smoking issue however is not and an unfortunate thing non-smokers have to deal with on cruise ships. Hopefully they can upgrade their filtration system in the future to alleviate some of these problems.

that would put me at 92 or a dirt nap.

I will disagree that Pinnacle is easy to achieve, at least for us. We are Diamond Plus, 204 points. We need 496 more points to achieve Pinnacle. No way we will be ever able to do that. We do not have the $$ to cruise that much even with double points for suites. We would need ~36 (7) night cruises in a suite.

I arranged and travelled with a party of 19 in April. Since our reservations were linked our tables were all together and we didn’t have to go in and make a request.

My friend was on that sailing. She said people ignored the captains announcement to clear the pool deck. now having heard announcements this past year for people to complete a muster drill, with the announcements repeating every 15 minutes or so, practically begging people to complete muster drills when they aren’t yet half drunk or in a pool I can “somewhat” understand that perhaps they were too drunk to understand, or typical announcement BS where it’s impossible to understand, or perhaps they wanted their photo op. What I cannot for the life of me understand is why lifeguards didn’t blow their whistles to evacuate the pool and security didn’t come through and guide the passengers out of the area. It’s very simple to do. Maybe they need to add that to the weekly drills. I hope the patient received the care she needed and is on the road to recovery.

For me it was mostly deserts but I like blaming the salt air better.

As I've lived in Alaska for the last 40 years, I've been to Denali several times. When trying to get there in conjunction with a cruise, you will usually need to plan to add a land tour of some sort to get there. Denali is a several hour car/train/bus ride one way to get there. Once at the Denali park entrance (at at the main visitor's center), they base several different park tour buses from that facility that travel varying distances into the park. There is a road that goes 98 miles into the park and ends at "Wonder Lake" which is where most of the scenic pictures of Denali with a pretty lake in the foreground are taken from. This is as close as you can get on a bus tour. Getting to "Wonder Lake" involves a 12-hour round-trip bus ride (about 5+ hours in; a lunch/break time; 5+ hours back to the main entrance). You make several stops along the road both ways (in/out) as the various smaller visitor centers, so it is not one 5 hour ride only. They also stop the bus when there is wildlife easily seen along the side of the road (such as bears, moose, etc.) There are shorter trips that only go part way into the park (to other small visitor centers along the 98 mile road; there are 3 or 4 of them) and then back out. Being able to see the top of Denali is absolutely NOT guaranteed. I've seen it a few times clearly from within the park, but the majority of the time (75%+), its usually got a layer of clouds hanging around it. Irregardless, seeing the wildlife is phenomenal. Seeing the top of the mountain is just bonus! My profile picture is actually of Denali on a clear day from a plane as I was flying past from Anchorage to Fairbanks. My recommendation: Do a land-tour that includes Denali, and take the bus tour that goes all the way in! You won't regret it.