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Or don't do that to the crew....more people than not are going to pay the gratuities, so you won't be doing any harm to the company- just the people who helped you during your cruise. I haven't noticed or been bothered enough by cut backs to cause me to want them out of business. If you don't like how they operate- there are plenty of other lines you can try (all doing the same thing, by the way)

You can cancel the auto gratuities if that's how you want to roll. A few other ways, if your desire is to have Royal go out of business or reverse their cutbacks would be: Don't book any cruises with them at all Book only with Refundable Deposit and cancel if the changes don't suit you Wait and experience the impact of the perceived cutbacks on your actual sailing and utilize the post cruise survey to express your feelings about your sailing. Nobody loves cutbacks. If they ever get to a point of impacting me to a degree that I would pull back the gratuities because of it, I'll just opt for the first bullet above.

We left DCL even after attaining Platinum status over there. Now that was a money grab of epic proportions! It just became ridiculous. DCL has also made adjustments that felt wrong. More $$$ less experiences. We lived through the DCL staff becoming not so Disneylike. The change was real and every sailing it became worse. Cast members seemed miserable. Fast forward.... Royal was so much more prudent, I felt a better sense of money well spent on Royal. We have sailed Royal enough to attain D+ and love the Crown & Anchor society. We do have the new DCL ship (Wish) booked as it was always my plan to experience the newest ship (years ago, 2019 I think) and I did not book refundable at the time, so one more DCL. 3/4 night. I prepaid gratuities as well as have TA OBC & Disney Dollars OBC. Going in we are going to put our best attitudes in place and leave our wallets in the safe, save the wrapped packet of singles we put aside for hard working cast members additional gratuity.... if warranted. Our enjoyment will be the sailing and what's included....no extras. Not one extra dime on alcohol, cabanas, spa services, nothing. This for me personally and honestly will be compared to my Royal sailings and hopefully won't fall too short. We booked the smallest concierge stateroom to take advantage of the forward & adult sundeck as my kiddo has seriously out grown this experience (what was I thinking?) So I guess it's a personal thing, even with the cut backs at Royal since the shutdown, I can't stop thinking Royal will still be the clear winner. We shall see, DCL Wish 6/9 Royal Wonder 6/25. Nervous and excited at the same time!

You don't like RC's policy changes, so you're going to take it out on the hardworking crew who have absolutely no say over those changes. Wow.

I believe what people tip is nobody's business but there own. Enough said.

I’d like some credit for doing the right thing by deleting my original response.

Sorry, but this is just a bad idea. Right or wrong, this is how crew are compensated - they are not the ones who are making the cutbacks. If you feel like service levels at Royal have dropped, your recourse would be to sail another line or take a different vacation. I'm not necessarily happy with the recent cut backs, but I do see it as a way to attempt to keep the cost of cruises down in an environment where costs are skyrocketing. Think about food costs alone in 2023 vs 2020 and imagine how that is affecting the profit line.

We've noticed. To each his own but I hope your mood improves. I have a cruise in 16 days and recently booked two more. My mood (as far as cruising goes) is great!

Wow lets punish employees because the bosses sometimes make bad decisions.......is not cool nor good human behavior.

What policy changes are you concerned about? Please tell me your not seeing a report from someone posting something on social media and reacting to that.

I know. I so much want your Wonder cruise to be great and I really think it can be. I have seen your excitement wane since you created your highly anticipatory username until today as real and rumored cuts have been announced. Try to leave it all with your dog when you drop them off and embark on your cruise for what it is and either enjoy it or hate it for what it is. The time for imagining how it's going to be is over. Step into your flip flops and let the experience be what it is. I know we're on the opposite side of a lot of discussion lately, but I really and truly want your cruise to be great.

We got our room assignment. It is the room we saw using the bar code trick!

I echo that tipping is personal and feel free to do what feels right for you. I was on the receiving end in April of the new once a day service. I normally tip up front because I want ice in the evening and then tip some more in the end. However, on my sailing in April I came into a dirty cabin, that wasn't serviced at all the first day. Even though the head of housekeeping came and said they would deep clean it. I never met my cabin attendant but on the day before disembarkation, there was a tip envelope sitting out. I did not feel my service was up to par so the minuscule tip I left reflected that.

DAS cigars in St. Maarten are absolutely phenomenal. I researched what cigars were on the island and found DAS cigars. Once I got off of the ship, I saw the Das store and I went over and started talking to the gentlemen that was sitting there. He explained all of the verities and I asked if I could sit there and enjoy one with him before I bought any. He said can I cut and light it for you? We sat there and enjoyed the beautiful day with a great stick. He asked what my name was and I asked him what his was - and said, I am Das! I was thinking holy cow, sitting here with the man himself. What a great experience and Das was such a gentlemen. I highly recommend Das if you are in St. Maarten.

Dude seriously! I'd like to think that the posters on the Blog regard all Royal Caribbean crew as our friends; I certainly do. Talking bad and unjustly punishing our friends is not cool. When you divide the $16 a day gratuity by the number of crew onboard who receive a portion....I come up with Jack Squat. Jack Squat is in no way an appropriate or adequate tip amount for the services received during a cruise day. It's 2023 not 1923.

So your way of getting even with RC is to take it out on their poorest employees, who often come from 3rd world countries, and do all of the work that makes your onboard experience wonderful and had nothing to do with any decision you may be groaning about? Sounds logical….said no one!

Since WhatsApp relies on the internet to work, you’d need to buy an internet package to be able to use it.

Wow. So let me get this right. You are encouraging us to book a trip and act like total jerks by punishing the staff because you are upset with Royal’s trying to adjust to the new economic landscape we live in today? No thanks, I will continue supporting the wonderful service staff that makes each cruise I am on magical by paying my daily gratuities and further tipping for exceptional service above and beyond what’s expected.

I love how people want that ABSOLUTE CHEAPEST fares possible but complain about service cutbacks. You want EVERYTHING? No problem but you have to pay for it. There are plenty of luxury cruise lines to choose from. Stop expecting LV at WM prices

And that room service appetizers are now considered entrees, so one per guest per room service order. I can only suggest to go the the WJ, load your plate(s) with as much food as you want and walk back to your room and indulge.

Finally made Diamond status after 7 cruises on RCCL!

Once on board, the rest of the day went pretty smoothly. I treated brother nephew & son to Izumi sushi & they loved it. Hubby ate his weight in crab cakes in the MDR. We found all the food in the MDR delicious. We had no problem mixing & matching items on the menu although hubby tried to get soup from an earlier night & failed. I told him they couldn’t do it but hey, why listen to me! I was very happy that the Aqua show was scheduled this time as it was cancelled all week last year. Great show although spinning guy got a little weird after the first 4/5 minutes. I mean it was amazing but after a while. Then an already drunk woman poured her drink down my back. Really? We’ve been on the ship for less than 12 hours for goodness sake!

Between Thanksgiving and Xmas is one of my favorite times to cruise. Decorations in the Promenade and carols at the schooner bar.

Until there's first hand confirmation that basic room service no longer allows more than one dish per person, then I'll just ignore it.

I feel like you've been looking at this cruise in a negative way for weeks, which is a shame. This post has not been confirmed, and I would take it with a grain of salt. The most they may do is limit you to one of each item, and even that I don't see. Please go and enjoy this cruise, but I feel like you will be on the look out for every negative instead of the positives. But try to have fun!

We arrived yesterday morning on United. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel in Jerusalem. I picked up the car this morning, in Jerusalem , from Budget. We are going to stay the next two nights in Jerusalem, our last night in Haifa and then board the cruise. Everything here has been wonderful.

People actually do that? No way!

As already mentioned it's just more cost cutting to show profits to shareholders. I worked for a big box car dealership and the founding CEO of the company believed in his people and believed that if the company treated the people as if they had value they would be invested in the company and in return always do the right thing for the company and it's customers. I know this because at a company function I had the opportunity to sit with him and talk. Unfortunately some of the executives below him felt they should be more focused on theirs and shareholders profits not so much the people who do the heavy lifting. So the board eventually forced him to step down. With that everything changed and all the extras us workers were getting eventually dried up. I do not know Richard Fain but from what I was able to assess it appeared he had a similar approach to leadership, did he always do the right thing probably not but it did seem he cared about the employees. In 2008 the company I worked for let over 600 of us go in an effort to show a third quarter profit amidst a crashing economy. In the early days of entrepreneurship people didn't go to school to learn how to do business but today you need a business degree so you go to a college to learn how to do business. I think this is were we lost our way so now people go to school and are taught that this is the only way to do business. I'm not saying that Jason Liberty is doing the wrong thing I think he's trying show his value as new CEO unfortunately the only value he has is what he provides for shareholders.

^^This^^ Not this for me, lol. If it's been 30 mins, it's time to eat again!

Let me fix this for you. "I believe that what I tip is nobody's business but my own. Enough said. Everyone else is free to make their own decisions about sharing or not sharing." To the OP, I last cruised right at the end of the two per day service. For extra tipping I follow generally what you post. I like to tip the attendant upfront and on the back end. I think, like you, if the extra service touches suffer so will the back end gratuity. If the reduced instances of room cleaning aren't impactful, then all the better and the backend remains the same. Certainly hoping to want to keep tipping how I have been. MDR, I like to do the same and tip head waiter first and last night, but table waiters each night. Haven't had any issue making me want to not do so, but if I did have them, it would impact that night. Drinks at the bar, 1 to 2 bucks each time.

That is great to hear! We definitely splurged a little bit on this one, but Wonder seems like the absolute perfect ship for this trip. Well, until January, of course This is a great shout - when I called and talked to her today I mentioned this and coincidentally she got a prescription for it just yesterday! He recommended putting the first one on at least a day before so its in effective when you actually need it. That was my main hangup, too. I'm a night owl so I figure I'll mostly news/photo dump then; I figure a good way to decompress. I'm hoping this is a good enough experience for everyone that we can start doing something similar It sounds like we're very similar! The Live Blog forum wasn't really on my radar until recently, but I've discovered I really enjoy them - and its definitely encouraging that it seems like others are interested in this one! Hoping I can deliver We're thinking about some lunches as well! We'll have to see what the dynamic becomes in terms of doing stuff on our own vs. the whole group. Once everyone else gets more comfortable on the ship I figure it will be easier for my wife and I to sneak away. Right now everyone else is very much leaning on us as they learn the ropes. But we all started at the same place!

I hope Royal's bean counters factored in the cost of all the free PR they would receive when they planned this last cost cutting exercise. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/m/743ae22f-5a98-306e-89c8-8bdc6afd434d/royal-caribbean-loses-a-key.html

Actually no. Many people report Apple's iMessage works while in airplane mode with no paid internet package. Apple's iMessage uses some critical background networking protocols that cannot be blocked without breaking the internet. However, it's not officially supported, only text based messages can get through (no pic/video) and it's not guaranteed to work or continue to work. Your login to iMessage will eventually time out (or randomly disconnect) and you cannot reconnect without "real" internet. So if you regularly reconnect to "real" internet (in ports), you MAY be able to have iMessage service throughout the cruise. But to be clear, it's a weird quirk of Apple's design and not meant to be a supported feature.

From a PR perspective, it seems like having someone that can serve as the face for your company taking weather-related things seriously seems like a worth-while investment. Even though the models may very well be doing all of the work and the outcomes will be the same regardless, I think many appreciate - if nothing else, the appearance of - someone being able to explain the decision making process when their itinerary may or may not be changing and the sense of security the position existing may bring. But yea it could be a strictly cost-saving layoff type deal if RC is in a spot where they are scraping bottom of the barrel - or perhaps its something more nefarious that we just don't know the details about.

The quote box is word for word, check it again. The "Let me fix it for you" is me modifying what you said to what perhaps you intended or to my own opinion of it. I don't think that presentation is widely interpreted as a misquote vs the sarcasm that it is, but my apologies if it appears that way to you. Here's the graphic of what you said and what I quoted. 100% identical

My PROBLEM with your post is you quoted me and added a line of your own in MY quote. That is technically miss quoting me. Please do not do that.

This is the absolute right mindset to have! Any excuse reason to book another cruise.

^^This^^

My impression/guess is that many new cruisers are buying The Key at those prices since they are not well-versed in the stuff you've mentioned. I see a lot of anecdotal mentions on my FB roll calls.

@teddy, I just wanted to share something with you regarding your layover in Lisbon. We recently flew back to Lisbon from Newark after our Anthem cruise and the additional security check that we have always had to go through in the past when arriving from the US was no more. Passport control and straight through. Now, I can't promise this is a permanent change or if, for some reason, this particular flight didn't necessitate it (this was our first time flying from NY; usually we are flying from Miami) but I wanted to give you the heads-up because it might be one less inconvenience for you during your journey. I've always thought that security check was pointless anyway, since you're coming from a sterile airside location.

Disappointing not to see any other Royal ships on the list, still hoping that one day we may get an additional ship out of Southampton.

Totally get it. When I'm sitting here during the day, I think I'm ready to eat every meal at specialty, but when I get onboard, I start to reach the point of "holy crap is it time to eat again?". Like you, we enjoy the MDR so find the 3 night package just about right. My wife said that we can't visit all of the restaurants on Icon with 3 nights so we should get UDP. My retort was that we could visit them all, it just takes a few more cruises. Looking forward to the blog. Love this part of the forums. It's great to see more of every poster's personalities as well as experience the cruise through their eyes.

You have to be careful playing the waiting game on things that have limited quantities, such as excursions, cabanas, and a few other items. You should book these items as early as possible to ensure you get them if they are “must haves” for you because they can sell out.

We'll be there too! We love cruising, but we FINALLY convinced a group of friends to join us on this one. Can't wait!

The Quantum repo from Singapore to Brisbane is available and the prices are pretty good. I got a balcony for 2 at $A1900 each

I see I'm not the only one that says it is a Burrito not Enchilada. Could use more of the red "Ranchero" sauce, but I still like it also.

We'll be on Wonder in 2.5 weeks so wish you were sailing sooner, lol, but I'll follow along regardless. We have two more Wonder cruises booked after this one but they're not for a while. I, too, considered doing a live or semi-live blog but this one is a family cruise with three generations (like yours) and I think I'd better off saving that for when it's just me and my wife. I've done long trip reports post-cruise before so perhaps that's what I'll do if time allows. We've been doing these family cruises about every five years and they are very different than when we cruise alone between the different preferences of my wife's parents (who generously pay for the family cruises) and having my young nieces aboard (we have no kids). None of this is a bad thing but it usually leads to us going back on a cruise alone later that summer to do things "our way", lol. Unfortunately we won't be able to this summer but we'll survive. Keep an eye out for those show reservations. The opening time has varied. It was 30 days for my sailing but much earlier for others.

Voyager, Radiance, and Voyager-class vessels will be hitting the big 3-0 within a decade. Freedom-class not too long after. I would expect if Royal will be introducing a smaller ship compared to Icon, we'll hear about it within this decade. It'd give them something big to market after their final Oasis-class ship. With that said, off the top of my head, the three Icon-class ships combined have approximately the passenger capacity of Vision and Radiance-class together, if not more. If Royal decided to get out of the small ship business, they could send off their smallest vessels without taking a capacity hit from a before and after Icon-class perspective. I suspect, however, that Royal will decide to introduce a new ship class with around 4,000 capacity to take over the role Radiance and Voyager-classes currently fill. It's highly unlikely with their current business strategy that we'll ever see a new ~2,500-passenger Royal Caribbean ship.

It’s available in the app, so I looked at one of my upcoming cruises at the pool bar. It’s $4 a can plus 18%, so $4.72 a can. it’s included with the Refreshment package and I’ve gotten that package recently for $22.99 per day, so it may be a good investment.