OCSC Mike

50 minutes ago, Floski said:

All of the alcohol and food has made my legs super swollen, and I know a lot of my new tonnage is in them.

I eat a lot when we cruise and have several drinks per day and this happens to me (I usually gain about 10 lbs. per 7N cruise). It freaked me out the first time it happened until I learned it’s not uncommon. I’ve taken water pills (Diurex) during every cruise since & it makes a huge difference for me.

Thanks for sharing your positive experience. I’ll be on Wonder in 9 days & I wasn’t concerned as I’ve enjoyed the food post-covid but still nice to read about. I’m not a huge MDR fan but it was perfectly fine on Allure in October & I’m sure it will be fine on Wonder. I eat so much throughout the day that dinner itself isn’t super important to me anyway.

15 minutes ago, Magoody said:

people also complain about the solarium on it not being enclosed and not been able to enjoy in bad weather, if I remember correctly.  

Some people also complain about the enclosed solarium on Wonder being too hot in the Caribbean (even though it's climate controlled). FWIW, we've sailed every Oasis class ship except Symphony as well as Freedom and Indy and we always hang out in the solarium, never the pool deck... I'm personally fine with all of them (although I'm partial to the topiary gorilla on Wonder).

9 minutes ago, Magoody said:

Nassau

Nassau is almost definitely the least-liked port there is and MANY seasoned cruisers just stay on the ship there (although I've heard they've improved the port area).

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other port that receives such a predominantly negative opinion.

47 minutes ago, JFCruise said:

If they are in the app, they are certainly not easy to find. I just checked any tab I could think of in my upcoming cruise and there was no info on theme nights. I guess I could go to a different sailing on the ship and check - but I'm sure 90% of the guests have no idea about that.

If you look in the daily planner section, the theme should be listed at 5:00pm each night.

If you click on the "welcome aboard" section just under the picture of the ship when you open the app, each day is listed with various info... including the theme.

26 minutes ago, Magoody said:

2.) We have been cruising out of Orlando because it was the closest port that had the ship we wanted at the time (9.5 hour drive).  Should we also consider Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, or Miami? Disadvantages/Advantages/pros/cons with leaving from any of these ports?

Common sense advantages are more to choose from in terms of ships, itineraries, dates, prices, etc.

Common sense disadvantages would mostly involve the longer drive and any associated costs and time.

I pretty much only sail from PC b/c I can drive there in an hour. I have no desire to drive to South Florida and Tampa only has smaller, older ships which I don't care for. That's all personal preference though.

26 minutes ago, Magoody said:

3.) Some ships that are sailing with southern/eastern itineraries right now that we have not been on are: Oasis, Freedom, Adventure, Serenade, and Enchantment. Disadvantages/Advantages/pros/cons with any of these ships?

I suggest researching each ship via YouTube, the RC website, this website, etc. Only you can determine what differences will matter to you. Other than Oasis, none will be similar to Wonder and Enchantment is so old and small that it might feel like a rusty lifeboat if you've only been on Wonder, lol. Pros and cons again depend on personal preference. I prefer Oasis class to any other by quite a bit but I would happily sail Freedom and could tolerate Adventure. I really don't care for anything smaller. Plenty of people enjoy smaller ships though.

Hope that helps get you started as far as the home ports and ships go. I'll let others chime in with destination port opinions (but, once again, there will be personal preference involved). I could tell you we love XYZ b/c it has great snorkeling but if you don't enjoy snorkeling that wouldn't make it a must-visit for you.

2 minutes ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

I believe many of the cruises also have Facebook pages specific to cruise dates.  If you have a Facebook account (I do not) it should be easy to find your specific cruise.  I also believe there are many more passengers on Facebook than there are on this blog!

Agree this is OP's best bet. I don't have a FB account either but I use my wife's to check our cruise groups every so often. I personally can't stand them. I love helping others like I do here but these FB groups are just so crowded and noisy and full of bad info I can't handle it.

On the plus side, we found a nice couple in our FB group to split a cab with in October and saved $10 going to Nachi Cocom... so there's that.

On 3/5/2024 at 9:24 AM, bobroo said:

And there are now a couple Portillo's locations in the Orlando area too.

We went to the first one not long after it opened. I knew nothing about it except that the hype was ridiculous (as were the crowds). I enjoyed it and would probably go back from time to time if it were closer.

36 minutes ago, Rags1 said:

May the loft retractable television Gods smile on you and it works as designed

This leads me to believe there's a long running issue with retractable TV's?

The only time I had one (freeloading in a GS on Wonder) it bounced its way out of the ceiling and made an awful noise, lol.

7 minutes ago, Eighty8 said:

On 2/12/2024 at 3:31 PM, Vlad said:

I was thinking about that as well. Back to back in the same cabin is a problem on its own. 

But the biggest one is the islands. 2 visits to CocoCay is pretty good. But Nassau? Twice? Total waste... There's absolutely nothing to do there. Especially after you've benn there before... 

 

Don't forget you'll likely also get repeats of the same MDR menu. No Royal night, etc... Definitely not the same as a true 7 night. 

No, it's definitely different, but if you really like CocoCay and sailing for the ship more than the ports, they can be enjoyable.

We did one before and recently booked two more (coincidentally on Utopia). I totally understand why some wouldn't find them appealing though. Different strokes...

3 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Agree, actually moved from a balcony to this. With kids the extra room, full bath, walk in closet will be very nice. I think it was a good move. 

I'm somewhat biased b/c I don't use my balcony even when I have one but I agree the extra room is more valuable than a balcony.

I read about what the Bahamas was doing but just noticed this in the app for the first time. If it’s old news, apologies.

1 minute ago, JFCruise said:

I never understood why they have theme nights but they don't tell you until you are on the ship.

You can find them in the app.

4 hours ago, RCIfan1912 said:

We LOVE the cabin we booked.

Looks like a pretty cool cabin for a family (assuming it's not overly expensive). Enjoy!

Yes, it's safe.

1 hour ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Once a cabin category sells out I guess there is no possibility of a drop?

Correct unless someone cancels and it goes back on the market I guess. I wouldn't expect many price drops in general these days though and especially not for a rare sold out cabin type.

4 minutes ago, FFRealtor said:

Update - A few days ago I was assigned the stateroom for January 2026 Sailing 692 days out! That has to be a record of some sort. It was a Guaranteed Balcony, unfortunately it was fully obstructed balcony on Deck 6, but had by travel agent get it changed to Deck 7 with only a 10% obstruction. Both of my room assignments were approximately one week from booking the GTYs.

Maybe they're assigning them earlier nowadays for whatever reason. Glad you were able to switch!

2 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

You, my friend, would not survive in the tub.

4 minutes ago, Jax said:

This made me laugh out loud! Let’s be honest, I would try charming my way out of the tub

This seems to indicate that @Lovetocruise2002 believes I would have no problem in the tub, lol, although I did amend my freeloading plan to taking naps on the suite sun deck instead.

27 minutes ago, GatorCruiser said:

I am utterly amazed how much people who work full time cruise on here. Y’all have my utmost respect. Especially Canucks who have to travel great distances. I have 3 this year and feel like I must be retired. Y’all are just on another level.  I am not worthy. 

+1, especially the travel part. We're only able to swing it schedule-wise b/c I'm flexible for a large portion of the year, my wife has a teacher schedule with the obvious breaks, and it's an hour drive to PC for us. We swing it finance-wise b/c we stay in caves, not fancy-schmancy suites, lol.

21 minutes ago, Jax said:

Sounds exciting! Pray to the weather gods.

This is why we're doing Roatan in June and Paradise Beach isn't until July (same itinerary both times). The plan is to do one long-ish excursion plus CocoCay per cruise but if we don't make it in June we have July as a backup and we'll just be doing two excursions.

On 2/26/2024 at 9:42 PM, GregD said:

I’ve been looking at other ships tonight too, some have headliners for the next two weeks, then nothing. Symphony doesn’t have anything listed for any sailings including this week.

Sorry to bump this but, FWIW, unless the app has been lying to me, there have been headliners listed every week on Wonder since we had this discussion (the app has just been slow to update/populate future cruises). One finally popped up for next week's cruise so mine is next in line.

Just sharing info for the heck of it really. It's not a huge deal to us and the headliners seem to mostly be singers that we'd have zero interest in seeing anyway.

20 minutes ago, CrimsonCruiser said:

I know Windjammer almost always has cookies

I know my cabin always has a ziploc bag filled with cookies, lol.

1 minute ago, Jax said:

Hey, Blog fatigue is real right along with star class food coma. Lol Speaking about food, I am pretty sure I mentioned it in my blog but food portions are on the small side at Paradise Beach so the guys ordered doubles of most things. 

Only suite snobs think it takes Star Class to induce a food coma. I assure you it can be achieved at little to no cost, you just have to go get the food yourself (the horror).

Yes, you (and others) mentioned the small portion size. I like trying different stuff so that works for me. I'd rather try 5 different small plates than one giant burrito. My order (one of them at least) will likely be something more like "one of each taco." Some of the reviews I've watched/read mention the portion size as a negative... which I don't get. It's all you can eat. You want more, order more! Everyone seems to agree that the service is excellent though.

OK, enough about Paradise Beach. We have Eastern this month with a powerboat snorkel excursion we loved 7 years ago and are doing again. Apologies to others for hijacking the thread. I'm sure Turquoise Bay is lovely but we're taking a private tour of Roatan in June since we tried to in 2019 but Harmony wasn't able to dock due to high winds.

2 minutes ago, Jax said:

I’m excited for you and hope it lives up to my review. Lol I am anxiously awaiting your blog and your thoughts on Paradise Beach.   

If I blog our cruise in 10 days and the one in June, that may be all I have to share by the time I get to July, lol. Not sure how many times people want to see/read about the included food on Wonder (plus Mason Jar brunch). Really going to make an effort to just make random shorter posts so I don't get blog fatigue.

4 hours ago, JC-LC said:

We debated when in Star class whether to even get off the ship!

25 minutes ago, Jax said:

I hear you! This was our first time to Roaton but we said next time we would stay on ship too! 

We didn't even get off the ship (except CocoCay) in Sky Class. I'm never gonna be in Star Class but that would be a no-brainer for me.

BTW @Jax, I keep finding more and more positive reports about Paradise Beach. It's 3 cruises away for me but I'm still looking forward to it, lol. Thanks again for your recon work there a few months back.

6 minutes ago, GatorCruiser said:

I’ll send you some pics.

Gee thanks. Unless the pics come with free drinks, that's OK, lol.

Do let me know who the CK manager and supervisor are if you don't mind. The staff we had in June was the best we've ever come across but I know several have moved to other ships (one of the concierges is on Icon for example). Keep an eye out for Vinay (wrong spelling I'm sure) from India.