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.

Looking for hotel ideas either by the port or by the airport. Which location did you like best? What are the best hotels at a decent rate that are clean and well maintained?

Everyone has an opinion. What you need is way different that what others need. I do all my own research and booking and I just need a travel agent to give me extra money on my cruise. You might need someone to find what you want and explain everything to you. What your question should have been is how do I find a travel agent that can help me ?????

THIS. My confusion was that "prepaid" and "opt out" are at entirely different times - before sailing and during sailing. We had not planned on opting out, just took advantage of locking in the slightly lower rate beforehand. Thanks for the clarification.

Intercontinental Miami hands down

slots by far give you the most points. I disagree how they do the points on card games and craps but my opinion doesn't change things!

On board. I will post a pic as soon as I can.

I never received D+ luggage tags back in 2018.

Allure was offering lessons last week - both private and group. For best choice of times, book day 1. They have a great sports staff who can teach anyone to stand up surf - including me last week

Allure

When we boarded Harmony in P/C this past July it went Star Class, Pinnacles, Suites, Keys, then D+. It seems to me each embarkation point does it "their" way. I'm confident though the Key boards before Diamond.

No one has to tip extra for anything since tips are included in everything you buy anyway. I wouldn't at all be concerned about a kid getting a drink without tipping extra.

If it is really starting to fill, by the time you get to your trip in a few weeks there is a good chance that the prices will have already risen to the point that it negates the value of any OBC you get. I'd agree with the previous posters that you're better off booking now.

More Internet Issues I will be so glad when all the RCL Ships are upgraded to SpaceX Starlink. I was going to update and finish my blog on my flight home but there were so many issues I did not feel like messing with it. For some reason setting in an airport for 6 hours two different times make you want to do nothing. Flight Home I walked off the ship with my bags and figured out it would take me 1 hour to get off the ship and through customs. Then I figured it would take me 1 hour to get to the airport. My flight was at 11:50 am so I needed to be at the airport by 10:00 am. With those calculations I had to be out of my cabin no later than 8:00 am. Well.... I left the cabin at 7:00 am because I was awake. I went to the cafe and ask if I could get a egg and bacon muffin without the muffin. They brought me the most beautiful over medium eggs with 3 slices of bacon. Best breakfast I had in 3 weeks. I was heading off the ship by 7:15 am. I did not stop much on the way out. Customs took about 45 seconds. I was in my Uber by 7:30 am. There was no traffic and I was at the airport by 7:50 am. So... I got to set 4 hours for my flight. My flight from Boston to Phoenix was uneventful except for the fact the person in a full plane did not show up. We got to spread out and watch movies. When we landed in Phoenix I found out my 3 hour layover was delayed by 2 hours because there was not flight staff. Then the plane coming in for us was delayed and my 5:45 pm flight soon became a 8:20 pm flight. Not fun waiting almost 6 hours for your connection. I did eventually get to Fresno by 10:00 pm. I was setting outside the Fresno Air Terminal (FAT) when my son pulled up with our two dogs in the car. Those two dogs made me feel loved. They were running in circles in the car and barking up a storm. Once I got in the car they were not sure if they should continue to run in circles or jump on my lap. It is true, Man's Best Friend....

Thank you very much for everyone’s well wishes. Despite the excellent care my mother in law received on Oasis and in the hospital ICU in Norfolk, she passed away this past Tuesday. She was 79. Edited to add a photo of MIL at Beach Club September 2021. @Mattcould you please close this thread.

There are so many diamond/elites on X now that it has pretty much become meaningless. We were on X three times this year. A 7 nighter, a 10 nighter and 12 nighter. Had drinks as part of our inclusive package so the happy hour drinks meant nothing and they didn't serve appetizers on any of the cruises. We did get the laundry done on our 12 nighter, but not on the other two. We did go to the Captain's party fpr elite and up on one of the cruises but it was so packed you could hardly move. We skipped it on the other two.

Greetings all! I'm somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico now and thought it would be a great time for an update. 1. Embarkation in Galveston was pretty smooth. We're in a suite and my mom who's travelling with us has some mobility issues so that sped things along. There was a lack of communication thought. After telling several people that we were in a suite and being told that didn't matter I finally went to someone after seeing dozens of people be whisked passed us.. I asked the employee who was marshalling people if there was expedited boarding for suite guests. She seemed surprised that nobody had told her we were in a suite. Shortly after we were at the pub enjoying a beverage. Our suite is nice but far from fancy. I've previously sailed in a grand suite on Allure and 2 star class suites. I had tempered expeditions. This room is big, clean, and comfortable but it is far from opulent. There is some soot on the balcony. That's to be expected in an aft balcony. The phone doesn't call housekeeping but we are pretty sure low maintenance. Our suite attendant Viola is amazing. The dining room was great. I had the mushroom soup, prime rib, fried chicken and 2 helpings of keylime pie (they're small). The Texas liquor laws are ridiculous. Texas should stick to ranching and shooting things. They have no idea how to grow grapes. Absolutely putrid wine until we were 12 miles out. The crust bow Suite lounge is amazing. Amit the concierge I think knows every guest by name already. Sorrento's pizza is almost a flatbread crust now. That's good. Fewer carbs... Which is good-I tend to drink my carbs. WiFi coverage and speed is awful. Starlink can't come soon enough. The app crashed for everyone last night and even though I linked a credit card it's now telling me I have a cash account so I'll see Amit to help me out there. My daughter's prepurchased arcade package didn't show up on her card so I'll look into that as well. Apologies for any typos.. I'm at the gym sweating out the damage I did to my body last night and sweat VS touchscreen is "un-good". If "y'all" (apparently that's how people speak down here) have any questions let me know.

I'm on pace to hit Pinnacle in 2042

To continue, the bad part of the waiting game is that you can change things up. We did a sailing on Freedom and then were on one of the early Wonder sailings. Each time we discussed the Allure cruise. Thanks to to casino offers and some friends wedding anniversary we ended up with two more sailings in May. Because of work schedules we didn’t get to all do both cruises. The wife and son did the Navigator and after the disembarked we did a red eye so my son and I could join our friends on Harmony. Mom and dad had work to do so our son got the best and went on both. All of this really brought us to the decision that 1740 was going to be too good to do alone. We had floated a few hints but finally pulled the trigger on formally asking my parents along. They live about 1000 miles and we speak or FaceTime often but really haven’t seen them in the last two years. We did get one good visit in there so this will be some good family time with them. My dad was pretty open to joining. My mom, despite having two brother that were in the Navy, is not the most comfortable person at sea. So this was never a solid plan until they committed a little over 2 months ago. Now the real planning could begin! The first decision was what do we tell the parents. Do we let them know all the details? We already told them they had no planning to do and we would organize everything. All they had to do was pack and make it to the flights. The fact that we would be doing Star Class and have the Royal Loft suite would now become a surprise for them. It is partially because they will be doing their first cruise with Royal and some of that might might be lost on them OR quite a lot to figure out. The late start to the thread is since by chance they find the live blog section, I held off posting this until now. I also limited any other posts that might indicate the plans, just in case they found the site and started putting things together. Yea, they are older and of a certain age group that is not as technically savvy, but they are better than others I have seen. So today kicks off the (semi) live blog thread.

First let me share a little bit about how we got here. Sorry some of this maybe a little long. This all starts back in May 2019 aboard the inaugural Alaska sailing of the Ovation. We were sailing in a grand loft suite and did enjoy the experience. While onboard the opportunity to book the Tokyo to Seattle sailing a couple years out came up and we took advantage. Fast forward to when things went off the rails, that infamous spring of 2020. With everything going on we lift and shifted to a later cruise sailing from Sydney to Honolulu. We were very excited to book into 8734 grand loft suite with some guidance from @WAAAYTOOO That sailing seemed good for a a little while and then magically the whole cruise disappeared. Through some work by my wife, she tracked down that they cancelled that whole cruise and scheduled the ship out of Brisbane. She was able to get things worked out so that we would be in the same room from Brisbane to Honolulu. Really should have been a no-brainer on Royal’s part to reach out and offer the move but it took quite a bit of effort from DW. We really thought Royal dropped the ball with managing the change/cancellation but this was happening all over the place and not just to a sigle sailing so they will get a little bit of leeway for now. All looked settled once again, until Australia cruises were cancelled and did not have a viable re-start date. At least with everything shut down , it was really just a wait and see thing. Finally as things started to re-open we looked into sailings that might be interesting. Having never done the Southern Caribbean/ABC islands the itinerary looked good and with the credits we just had all we needed to do was settle on a stateroom. We really were looking forward to the 8734 grand loft suite but since we had switched from the Quantum class to the Oasis class it would not be an option. Since were had always been booked into Star Class, we were thinking that the Star Loft suite would be the best fit for the three of us. But…. …The option of the Royal Loft 1740 was there, so why not, right??? Of course, so it was settled, Royal Loft suite it is. Looks like it was finally set, now just a waiting game.

Greenland We spent two days in Greenland. We were scheduled to go to 2 ports then the cruise one of the fjords but we were told because of the weather we had to skip Nuuk. The first day we went to a small town of 300 people called Qaqortoq. We had to park out in the Bay and tender in to the town. It was very foggy and it took forever to get people off the ship. After I got off the tender I stopped and looked around. Left was downhill and right was uphill. I figured I was fresh and would go uphill. Walking around the town I quickly figured out this was not your typical tourist stop. There was not much for tourists other than their local museum. At the top of the hill I ended up going through their local grocery store. The items in the store was Pretty much what You'd expect to see in the United states. It was also your small town typical store that had everything from hardware to groceries. I made my way down through the streets to the couple of shops that were down by the Bay. They had a fish market that was a little bit different. This fish market had well, seals, fish, and seagulls. Yes seagulls that they butcher for you. There was a little cafe that pretty much everybody of the ship was piled into to get sodas and beers. I read reviews that they had really good hamburgers and French fries but the line was so long I decided I'd just go back to the ship and eat. The next day we spent the entire morning selling up one of the fiords. Of fiord is pretty much a big deep river that goes inland. At the very end of it was a very large iceberg that the melting feeds the water of the fiord. The night before I went to bed early so I got up about 5:00 in the morning and by 7:00 o'clock I had me in nice comfortable round bed in the adults area. I was able to stretch out lay down on the pillows play some music on my cell phone and watch the scenery go by. It was beautiful scenery but a little different than I expected. I expected a lot more snow and ice and icebergs than what we've seen. No don't get me wrong it's beautiful scenery just not what I expected. And along the way there was one village that housed 100 people. I kind of wondered how do they live there this seems strange that out in the middle of this nowhere these hundred people live. Over all Greenland was a beautiful place but it's also one of those places that I've been there, seen that, been there... I am done Long, deep fjords

Before is always cheaper. You will get one day for free being a Diamond

Once USCG agrees to perform a helicopter evac it's all in the hands of the USCG. They dictate where on the ship, speed and heading. It is possible given the winds or other factors that USCG decides to evac from a high deck instead of the the helipad. I've seen two evacs on other lines that didn't use the bow but chose high aft. I've seen helicopters land on helipads and I've seen helicopter hover over helipads and use the winch. It's all whatever they feel is best on that day.

I wouldn't be too sure. I've seen many videos of people being moved from a area by security due to a medical a emergency and they run to a stairwell, go up or down a floor and try to get back into the area a different way. One was on the Oasis class back by the aqua threatre and the guy recorded himself doing it, explaining he was trying to find another way back into the area so he hie record. There was one from a little over a month ago, where you hear a crew member saying we told you this area is closed for a emergency, move along