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Here is my comprehensive video review of Wonder of the Seas in 2023. I review the drink package, unlimited dining package, WoW bands, ports of call, and much much more. Enjoy. If you don't want to watch it I can sum it up that we will continue to happily cruise with Royal Caribbean.

So.......drum roll............. I did it!!!!!!! I'll get into more post trip. But the psychological effects of many bad hard tight years vs the long anticipation vs reading too much of people's opinions vs the build-up vs the need for it to be perfect after a really long time, etc. Well it made the perfect storm. If it wasn't perfect it at least could have been in my head. Not living up after a decade of not being able to go anywhere was terrifying. You could right a book on it. Lots to say. Nothing bad. Will be updating. Wasn't planning on buying internet and broke down an hour ago and did. Didn't want to deal with the real world (and the cost), but it's hard to not look at your phone. Who sang that song that goes.........etc was driving me crazy. Little things like that get to you. Unfortunately, the real world came with an issue. The pet hotel left a message that my little 9lb boy is not eating. He gets like that. We told them. 2 pages of typed information and instructions. They know where we are and said they understand if we can't call but they are looking for ideas to get him to eat. We are trying to figure out if with T Mobile and wifi ( if and how ) we can call and potential cost? At sea now. St Thomas tomorrow. DH is messaging with T Mobile rep right now. OK he is telling me rep is saying to download whatsapp and we can call over that via wifi and not accrue any costs. This sound right to anyone?

If I'm honest, I think the main reason we are loyal to royal is because we know what to expect and the perks of C&A. We, so far, only take one vacation a year and with that we don't want to risk being disappointed by trying something new. We know Royal because we've only done Royal. We know what level of food, service, fun, people etc to expect and that gives us great relief. I truly think if we could cruise more often we'd do more...but we can't. It does also help that Diamond is such an enticing level to get to. We stayed loyal to royal because we wanted all our monies to go toward getting us to Diamond. And now we're here and no way we wanna give up those perks easily.

I have two kids and always cruise with my family. I'm as pro-kid and pro-family as you'll see on this message board. That said, while I think it's fine for kids to be in a bar area (it's no different than a restaurant), I don't think there's need for kids to sit at an actual bar top, particularly at night if there are adults who would otherwise be sitting there. There are very few bars on Royal ships where the only area to sit is the bar itself. Just sit anywhere else. I feel like plenty of bars on land allow kids in the bar itself but not to sit at the bar top. It just seems like a reasonable compromise, particularly on a family friendly cruise ship.

To get to this point of implementing change and standardizing the suite deposit policy across the fleet must have taken some time for the review, analysis and gathering internal agreement before making this public. I only hope they follow up by giving the same due effort and time into standardizing suite benefits more closely across the fleet. Including Voom with all full suites for example, especially now with the lower cost Voom through Starlink. The 11am to 11pm SL beer & wine only on Oasis class is another example. That is mostly a crewing issue which they accept on Oasis class but no others. Those bar crew don't do double duty as CK hosts or anything else. If they are able to maintain extra bar crew on Oasis class for the SL bar why not on other classes? While they may never add a CK venue on older classes there are many small and subtle ways they could standardize more suite benefits across the fleet.

$1,000 per person deposit would require a cruise fare that is $10,000 per person, after discounts. If that is where Royal cruise fares are heading I need to find another cruise line

If you NEED a specific cabin type with specific features, don’t play the GTY game.

IMHO some of the promenade/boardwalk/Central Park shopping options are a complete waste of space. I would have preferred another bar/dining venue in the majority of the higher end retail shops. There’s no need for Cartier, Bulgari or Tiffany on a mid tier cruise ship. I feel RC missed the mark on this and should offer a nice mid to high end watch and jewelry shop (slightly higher end offerings then the current shop on promenade), mix in the logo store, mercantile, sugar beach and a beach lifestyle store with name brands and it’s covered. Swap Bulgari and Cartier (which by the way don’t even sell the love bracelets which is what 99% of people want) with a dueling piano bar or possibly the Tiki style bar that they have on Mariner. I have a close friend that is an executive at one of these luxury brands and insists the ship outposts are not money makers and actually dilute the brand. Tear them all out and replace them with useable venues!

Turns out this will be an anniversary cruise for my wife and I. We actually have another, longer "anniversary" cruise that we booked more than a year ago for later this summer. We've been planning that one for a while. However when we found out schools were getting out earlier than expected (no snow days), we booked this one for ourselves and our 7 year old son. Funny thing is that Friday night (the second sea day) will be the actual date of our 10th anniversary. We reserved chef's table for that night, and DS will definitely be in the kid's club. Between the included wine at chef's table, the 2 bottles that we'll bring onboard, and doing some beer tasting at one (or more) of the breweries in Halifax, we figure we'll be ok just paying per drink. In Halifax we plan to rent a car to drive out to Peggy's Cove or Lunenburg. Possibly we'll also travel over to the East side and visit Fisherman's Cove. We'll drop the car off before hitting the breweries.

Just an update about the Manhattan trip. We get outside to the taxi place and asked if there was a van that could take us round Manhattan befor go to the Newark airport. And there was, for just a few dolar more than we did pay for the Royal Caribbean tour that was cancled. Now we are at the airport waiting for our flight. So we are happy this was possible. Thanks again for all feedback and suggestions! Me and my wife will make our comments about the small issues we tought there was onboard in the Survey later..

Navigator of the seas at Mazatlan. Announcement said it happened during maintenance and there were no injuries

Also to avoid more children is to take longer cruises...At least 7 days. We had the worst encounter with children on 4 day cruise around the same time of year (after Thanksgiving and before Christmas) than we did on 7 day cruises.

They make a lot of money on change and cancellation fees! I don't see them changing that. I am disappointed in the higher deposit price, it's a lot easier to swallow losing $250 per person than $1000 per person, but again, Royal Caribbean will make money hand over fist on this.

Exactly. Entitled families. Odds of encountering one grow with more families on board. That's not to say every family behaves poorly. Most do not. With more families on board in peak times you are more likely to encounter one. Just like poorly behaving elite cruisers. With more D+ and more P on board, you are more likely to encounter a bad apple. Therefore by cruising off peak with fewer families on board you are less likely to be impacted by the ones who have no rules that apply to them.

TL; DR

They weren't wrong.

There is nothing quite like settling down in the solarium with a book then 10 minute later that little voice repeating... "Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. Mom!. ... "

The other point I'd like to make is this... Everyone repeats the tag line that Royal is a family cruise line. Yet the make up of cabins on all classes before Icon is hardly family friendly. Double occupancy cabins for two guests dominate Royal ships. Cabins for families, those that accept 3 or 4, or more than 4 guests are a minority. They often sell at a premium. So while the activities are geared for families, the ship cabins are not.

For several decades Royal didn't have all that. Water slides, the big full sized slides didn't exist until Liberty added some and Harmony was launched with them in 2016 just seven years ago. Contrast that to the creation of the company fifty five years ago. Royal has changed substantially over the past six to seven years and shifted into the kid first cruise line it is becoming with the latest class, Icon of the Seas. Many return guests are long time customers that have sailed many ships no longer in the fleet. They are vested heavily into the loyalty program. It will take time for these long time customers to accept that Royal has changed and most of that change has been more recent. They didn't change, Royal did. This was their "go to" cruise line. They were loyal to Royal. It will take them time to transition to a new go to cruise line.

Not to worry. I heard that if your lifeboat is disabled they just re-assign you to one of the loops of the rope on the outside of one of the other lifeboats. Easy Peasy !

I said this exact thing in another thread... you are boarding a ship with water slides, carousels, bumper cars and candy stores... it's literally screaming "there WILL be kids on the ship"

Fixed it for you.

Making Johnny Rockets complimentary is a great idea.

"Oh &%#@!"

Sure hope Icon doesn't catfish us

Definitely not loyal. On multiple occasions Royal has provided an over the top experience and on multiple occasions Royal has stated loud and clear they feel no need for any loyalty in our business relationship. From those multiple occasions where they threw me under the keel it was absolutely clear we have nothing more than a business relationship. I sail multiple lines and during the restart I made a point of spreading my money across five different cruise lines. Two of those were Royal and Celebrity but the other three were not in the RCG family. Royal is the line I like the best, right now, but I will continue to test the waters elsewhere to validate I still feel that way and Royal will continue to throw me under the keel when it suits them. I do most of my cruising with Royal but I'll eagerly cruise with other companies when something catches my eye just as Royal will drop me like a wet paper bag full of groceries if they can make a dollar more with a cancellation. I feel like we both have a very clear understanding of our business relationship and it is not exclusive in either direction. I think we are both okay with that.

This will be first Alaska cruise. My wife and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary and this is our present to each other! I am really looking forward to seeing an area of the country that I have never been to. We are flying in 2 days early to Seattle and staying in the Marriot Waterfront and will have a whole day to explore.

from the other thread: I am glad you made it on Board. I have T-Mobile and I am able to use wifi calling natively on both Apple and Android phones. Find a good nerdy looking young person and ask if they can help you set up wifi calling. You will not have to pay anything more than what you already have paid for the internet package. You will be able to call and text just like to normally do without having to load whatsapp. Just remember to keep you phone in airplane mode while onboard so you don't attach to the ship's cellular service which can be expensive. Life throws curve balls. My last cruise had a few hiccups at first, but a quick trip to guest services and all the problems were solved and my wife and I had a great time. I hope you and your husband do too!

^^^ This ^^^ I also posted in the other thread too for some pointers with wifi calling.

Tmobile wifi calling should be included in your plan but you would have needed to set up wifi calling before leaving.

It's funny, I was on this same cruise and felt as though it was definitely on par with Oasis May '22 and Oct '22 that we were on and def better than Anthem in Dec (and we loved all three). It's interesting to see the opinions of others. Food? Found it to be great for what it is. That being said, we visited the MDR fewer times this trip than on our previous Oasis trips and we are fortunate to have a 10 year old who is not fussy in the least and doesn't order from the admittedly boring kids menu (kid loves her escargot!). We tried tapas at Vintages one night (hidden gem!!) dinner at Chops another, enjoyed Sorrento's more times than I care to admit and actually hit the Facejammer a couple of nights as we like the view and the kiddo is a fan of the burgers. Loved the Mexican and Indian food selections and found everything to be hot, tasty and plentiful. We are foodies and love good restaurants when at home/on land vacations but we do understand though that you are not getting a "restaurant experience" onboard (other than the specialty places I guess) so we adjust expectations. We know that they are grinding out meals/food for thousands at a time. It's really more of a banquet-quality situation, really. Once adjusted to this with expectations, we are perfectly happy. We are pretty easy I guess As for general onboard experiences, I guess we all have different opinions. Us, we didn't have any issues and found the crowds to be manageable (we tend to eat at off times and never encountered lines) and full of decent people (even though some lady in a scooter cluelessly ran right over my 10 year old's foot on her way to the can and people were fairly ruthless with their baby SUV strollers/wagons.....). Definitely a better crowd than Anthem at Christmas. Now THAT was a cruise full of iffy behavior! I never want to go on a holiday cruise again! I found the staff to be very attentive and insanely hard working. Other than lacking utensils on our first room service breakfast (we rolled with it until they arrived, these things happen), we felt well taken care of. Our dinnertime MDR waiter even found us at the Facejammer at lunch one day and grabbed drinks for us without us asking. That was super awesome of him. I do hope you'll try an Oasis class again as perhaps you'll have a better experience next time! (and for what it's worth, I think your English is fantastic!!)

Over at CC a TA there claims his inside contact told him that suites will not have the $100 pp change fee available to them. 100% of suite deposit forfeited upon any change to ship or sail date, or cancellation.

Yeah, that I definitely will do with my kids, but I try to walk straight through the area and not stop. Honestly, the Solarium (particularly on those ships) isn't that interesting for kids anyway. There are tons of loungers and seating in the main pool areas. It's one thing on Oasis Class where the Solarium is a huge, beautiful area with a panoramic view off the front of the ship. There's not much to do on the Freedom Class Solariums except walk through them.

Wow, that's awful of Royal, I hope they compensate them accordingly, I would be livid.

You can use the Casino to avoid the fees by going to a slot machine and transferring credit as a room charge and then cashing out immediately. They will bill your Creditcard on file, as an "Entertainment Fee", so it is not seen as a cash advance by most credit cards. I do this towards the end of the trip to get cash for tipping the stateroom attendant and MDR staff. Bonus -- I collect points on my card too by doing it this way because it is seen as a purchase.

But this is a very different scenario than what we're talking about. Kids acting noticeably out-of-line in general is not something I see very often on Royal (to the point of someone's comment above, most of the bad behavior I witness on cruises is by adults). If a kid is in the Solarium, however, that's another issue. But, I'd also argue that's not the kid's fault. The Solarium exists for the sole purpose of being an adults-only section of the ship. I've seen some complaints on here before that there are kids often in the Solarium. I haven't personally witnessed this on any cruise I've been on, but if it's an issue, Royal needs to staff up and ask the kids to leave the area. The Solarium is nothing if not an adults-only area. That's what it should be.

Better before rather than after.

I also think that in modern times we see more entitled parents allowing their entitled children to run around unabated. I'm going to sound old here, and that's because I am, but when I was a kid my parents would never let me behave they way that is commonplace for kids to behave today. When I was a parent with younger children I didn't let them behave the way we see parents allow kids to behave today. Combined with Royal's recent shift to becoming a child first cruise line AND the shift in society where entitled parents don't care about things like adult only solarium rules, it's a double whammy. Adults used to have areas to escape them. Now, not so much. Royal is transitioning from a family friendly cruise line to an entitled family friendly cruise line. I completely understand why some people still want to experience all that Royal's newer ships have to offer adults but they are seeking off peaks times to do so. They are not demanding that Royal change, they are trying to adapt their vacation to cruise when it can work best for them. For that they should be applauded not criticized.

It was very fortunate it wasn't worse. Navigator departed Mazatlan on schedule minus one lifeboat. Glad I'm not assigned to that boat. Wait a minute I AM assigned to that boat!

We have the exact same outlook on this. This is and has always been my outlook...order and walk away or hang at a table but not sitting at a bar.

@ScottD Here is a screenshot for playmakers you can share on the Redit Post. That short person in the photo looks like a "very young" 21 year old. LOL It is the second photo in their thumbnails for Playmakers.

Sorry, I was playing with my new Royal Caribbean battleship board game and I got carried away. Found Navigator!

The reality is, things can go down anywhere at anytime. Every place in the world has somewhere that someone should avoid in the name of safety. Practice situational awareness regardless of the country you’re in.

Agree that it sucks about losing the ability to book a refundable JS but the amount of the deposit really doesn’t bother me. More up front just means that I will owe less at final payment.

This is likely the best outcome since you are determined it will be a terrible experience. With that outcome already decided in your mind that would most likely have been the experience you would have created for yourself on board. I hope you have a safe and uneventful journey home.

Okay, I'm treading lightly here with no intention to offend. Please don't read on if you are offended easily. So I'm Gen X & went a totally different direction then most responses here. At 6 or 10 years old my idea of a cruise vacation was a tire tube floating around our flooded street after a heavy rain. We never cruised as a family, we hardly vacationed. Dinner choices were eat what is prepared or don't eat. Period. We didn't start sailing with our kiddo until she was 12 or 13, only child so she was mature for her age. We of course started with DCL as they catered to the kiddos. I'm just saying this because we were careful to anticipate that our family would have to be flexable to the ships culture and mitigated different scenarios ahead of time. Yes I will complain about a missing ice bucket or no trash bin in the cabin but I won't allow it to ruin the vacation I paid lots of hard earned $$ for. I am blessed beyond measure with health & love and the ability to sail once in a while. When I look around the world & realize the real world problems right now in this moment in time, yes my friend your post seems a bit whiny. Not to say your disappointment doesn't have merit, you were disappointed and your inability to pivot is frustrating as the things piled up but this I believe was your one off. I'm sure if you wait until the kiddos are a bit older you will find your JOY on any ship you choose. Heck my kiddo now eats things that I refuse to, most of which she tried at MDR meals on ships. Please focus on everything that went right, your post does help others cultivate their expectations & allows them to prepare (see @asquared17 & her special milk.) Thank you for sharing & share on the feedback form you receive after the sailing BUT then put it behind you and do it again in a few years. Remember the kiddos are always watching and listening, the way you handle this will teach them how to handle their disappointments in the future. I think you're an amazing dad wanting this fantastic Holiday for the family, don't allow your efforts and energy to be ruined by the little things. Safe travels

TL;DR