tiny260

I made that mistake, didn't leave the pre-cruise hotel until 10, we hit the traffic at the port, probably took us 30 minutes to travel less than a mile. Won't make that mistake again, already told DW that we are leaving hotel at 9:30 for Harmony in October, classic over compensation, lol.

The ship will be docked directly in front of the Sheraton Old San Juan and there will be plenty of taxi's as well as other vendors trying to sell you excursions. See map below. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sheraton+Old+San+Juan+Hotel/@18.4621272,-66.1120039,17z/data=!4m15!1m6!3m5!1s0x8c036ec438f4875b:0x26fd083b4ad73035!2sSan+Juan+Cruise+Port+Terminal!8m2!3d18.4621221!4d-66.1098152!3m7!1s0x0:0xc5be878252d1157c!5m2!4m1!1i2!8m2!3d18.463976!4d-66.1125201?hl=en

Also, if you do end up having to reply at the end of today, make sure that they know to send it to your email address and not companions email address.

99.9% sure that after final, you are stuck.

Want to make sure you understand the 18%, if you buy the drink package through the cruise planner, for easy calculations, lets say for $50 per day, times a 7 day cruise equals $350, plus 18% gratuity $63, so when you check out of the cruise planner the total would be $413, assuming 2 adults in the room a total of $826.

I've only done this on Liberty with my then 11YO Grandson, I bought the credit ahead of time and loaded it to his card. The thing that amazed me is the speed at which he went through the money, it took him 15 minutes and it was all gone, I think the games were working out to $1.75-$2.50 each time.

Midnight snack, the coconut Ranger cookies are my favorite. Funny story, Anthem GC, we went to the WJ for a snack, wife wanted some of the Ranger cookies, there weren't any, one of the Officers in the WJ saw the concern on my wife's face, ask her what was wrong and she told him. He had one of the servers go down to the kitchen and grab her some, they were still warm from the oven.

On trying to keep up with everything Liberty, this is at least the 2nd time if not the 3rd time that they have had divers in the water when docked in Galveston either fixing something or inspecting something, it has always delayed the cruise leaving port but never anything drastic. And no, from the other post, Royal has never told exactly what they were doing.

Couple of things, if the cabanas are showing up in your cruise planner Royal is assuming they will be built and finished by the time of your cruise, if you reserved one and paid the fee and they were not done, Royal would refund your purchase. Second thing is that I rented a cabana on Labadee when I was in Star class, it was either $399 or $499, I waited until my Genie contact me and I gave them a priority list of what cabana I wanted, I got the first one on my list. At around this same time, the announcements were coming out about Coco Cay and the over water cabanas as well as the price, I have stated on the message boards multiple times that I think Royal is crazy for the price they are asking, I don't mind the $499 but I'm not going to pay $1299, it is only my wife and I, if we were a party of 8 maybe you could justify it, but not 2 people. But as someone has said on here already, Royal will price it where they price it, if they sell, they will do nothing, if they don't sell, Royal will likely adjust the price to a more reasonable level. Only time will tell, IMO. Also let your wallet speak for you, don't rent one, wait for your Genie to contact you and set you up in something less expensive.

Yes, I figured as much, if it weren't for cruising my palette would still probably be pretty plain, escargot, lamp, duck, sushi, certain vegetables and parings. The first taste I always told the waiter, if I don't like this you are going to bring me X, and they always did, but the first taste usually got me. I can only think of a couple of different fishes that I really didn't care for.

Are you referring to the food? I'm not real exotic in my taste but everything was very good, I don't remember anything that wasn't edible. I don't drink so this was one of those Happy Wife Happy Life situations, she enjoyed it.

This I get, I've done this also, what I'm talking about is the tremendous amount of waste in the WJ. If it's something new and you don't know if you like it, get a little and if you like it go get more. I've seen people go get 3 or 4 deserts and then only eat 2, the ship can't put those back just because they weren't eaten. Ok, off my soap box now.

My understanding is that if they have a muster station printed on them they cannot be re-used, if they are blank you can have them recoded to the ship you are on.

Also pinging @CruisingKat(Kathy) direct so that she might help answer your questions. The post I attached should have a list for upcoming August Periscopes.

What are the Royal key demographics again? I think the Champagne bar might be outside of those demographics.

Funny, not funny. I'll just open one in the retirement home.

We need to start #teamchampagnebar.

@YOLO watch for waiters (In their uniform) walking around the ship in public areas like the promenade carrying a clip board or a hand full of pamphlets. They are usually sent out to drum up business if they are not selling out for certain nights, that is when the discounts come out. I usually have the Unlimited so I just tell them no thanks.

@ultron87 welcome, great feedback and suggestions, you can try the posting and let boards know how it went. I also neglected to mention the many trivia contest they have on board, I know we participated in General trivia, Harry Potter and Star Wars. A lot of fun.

Typically the rooms have not been refreshed on AMPED ships, so IMO, no they will not. Per, I believe @twangster , he feels that no they will not upgrade to RFID door openers on Oasis, it would be to costly to upgrade every room door when there is nothing wrong with the card key access they have now, that was just his opinion on another thread about Oasis updates.

If you take a cruise out of San Juan on Freedom, you are likely to see more Brazilian cut verses thong.

I've seen Trivial Pursuit, Uno, and other card games I've never seen before. Don't worry about sitting in any lounge, if someone asked you to move or leave they are just being rude. I actually commented to my wife on the last cruise that I was impressed by the number of younger kids and adults sitting around playing cards and other games. I guess I was just surprised they didn't have their face buried in a phone or tablet keeping up on Facebook. A welcome and refreshing surprise. As @WAAAYTOOO commented, my wife and I found ourselves sitting in the Viking Crown Lounge reading our books and people watching, we had our fill of the sun for the day and just wanted someplace quite and comfortable to sit.

I feel like it's worth it. On a recent cruise the staff was constantly walking around trying to get additional business at a discounted rate, I really didn't pay much attention because I already had it booked.

I typically order 2 appetizers, a salad, maybe soup, an entrée, possibly a second entrée, then usually 2 deserts. To my knowledge no one has ever looked at me funny, but I'm usually not paying attention to them either. As @FionaMG says, what I don't like is when people order or get a lot of food from the buffet and then don't eat it, to get it and waste it is not fine.

Agree with @twangster , I either go on an excursion or just walk around the port and then back on the ship. With a 4YO staying on the ship and basically having the splash pad to yourself might be nice. Jamaica has many very beautiful areas but a lot of them are a haul from Falmouth.