twangster

You going to lay it on the kids all at once or surprise them with Disney at the end of the cruise? "Okay kids get in the rental car, we have a very long drive home". "I think I'm lost, we ended up at.... DISNEY WORLD!!!!!". LOL

Why not just use wifi calling? No fees, no roaming. No teaching someone at home about a new app and how to use it. I could never train my elderly parents on an app like that, I just call them and their phone rings with my caller id. Easy peazy.

Royal Platinum cruises will be provided Captain Club "Select" benefits when sailing Celebrity. https://www.celebritycruises.com/captains-club/tiers-and-benefits

Fully operational except for the Helium balloon. They had to drain all the helium off and store the entire rig. I suspect they may be holding off for the end of hurricane season to re-assemble it but that is speculation on my part.

Terminal employees are not Royal employees. They work for a company called Interline. It sounds like Interline had a bunch of newbies working today.

I saw a listing on monster.com. "Odyssey Captain Required, salary TBD" Just kidding. With four Quantum class ships they have eight Captains now since all Captains work on a rotational basis. Typically the same two Captains will stay with a ship for several years taking turns while the other is on vacation. I've heard they rotate every few months, two on, two off sort of thing. The Captains stay in touch by email letting each other know of note worthy events and/or maintenance conditions. At the same time there are Staff Captains that do something similar. They may move more between ships so they are exposed to different Captains and expand their knowledge in this fashion. They are fully capable of being Captain, but each ship has only one Master of the vessel at any given moment. Every ship in the fleet works on this basis. At some point a Staff Captain may be ready to become a Master. They likely would not take a Staff Captain who has never served on a Quantum class ship to be the first Odyssey captain. They'll likely take an experienced Quantum class Captain for Odyssey and backfill the vacancy on their old Quantum class ship. It doesn't have to be this way, they could take any of their Captains and move them to Odyssey. A Voyager Captain could be picked, an Oasis Captain could be picked. If that Captain has worked through a build process on another ship that experience works in their favor. The Captain and a Staff Captain will join the ship long before it is handed over to Royal however their position isn't official. The ship yard has it's own Captains who will be on board for sea trials and fulfil the role of Master until the ship is handed over because until it's handed over, the ship doesn't belong to Royal. Royal's own Captains will be on board but in an observation role. Despite that they all tend to get along and be included in meetings and operations. Looking beyond the bridge as the ship becomes an actual ship and is ready for crew to live on board Royal will begin to assemble the "float out crew" for Odyssey. They tend to pick experienced crew for all positions, from chef's to bar managers to waiters to hotel directors the entire crew will need to be selected. Several of the Symphony crew I talked to on the transatlantic have been chosen to be the float out crew for several Oasis class ships. They knew the drill, they've done it before, this is how a ship can launch and be so ready on the very first cruise. At some point as the ship is nearing completion the float out crew or many of them will start living on the ship. The bridge crew may have been for months now. They have had cabin attendants and meals served on board for a while. In this manner the ship itself is tested albeit not for the thousands it will eventually serve. At the moment of handover the crew is in place and ready to go, all experienced and hand picked from across the fleet. In conclusion they don't crew the ship with newbies off the street. They tend to staff positions from across the fleet drawing on more senior or repeat contract employees who already know their jobs and the Royal way of doing things. The vacancy they create on their old ship will see people move up within the ranks based on individual merit to do so. It works this way for bridge crews as it does for the customer facing hotel positions.

The same flavor concentrates are used to make all drinks, soda or water based. Just different amounts. Orange soda has a lot of orange concentrate. A flavored water that has some orange component to it will use a fraction of the amount used to make Orange soda.

They tend to be consistent across the fleet. Sometimes one flavor is out and not resupplied immediately for a particular machine but generally speaking from ship to ship it's pretty consistent.

Greater reach. Southern Caribbean can't be done in 7 nights from Florida. Also, terminals may be used by other ships on certain days. By going 6/8 it can use the home terminals when other ships aren't there. Plus 6 nights is attractive to some because it's cheaper than 7 or 8 nights. Oasis class works best in 7 night cycles. By using 3/4, 6/8 or 5/9 cycles other ships provide alternatives that appeal to different guests or reach different destinations.

To add to this, each class of cabin has categories, For balcony cabins its common to have 2D, 4D, 7D, 8D etc. There are prices differences as some can hold more guests, some might be a bit bigger or in a different location. Sometimes the pricing is like: 8D - $1,200 pp 6D - $1,400 pp 4D - $1,600 pp 2D - $1,800 pp Naturally the least expensive balconies sell out first. Come back in a month and only 2D balconies are available so instead of paying $1,200 per person, you end up paying $1,800 per person.

No matter how many pictures I take, I can never do it justice. To experience Alaska you have to sail to Alaska. Now you can see why I love Alaska cruising so much. :)

Truth is none of us here know. Do you think their IT and website are the best? This could be a flaky system making them appear unavailable until the cleaning lady plugs the server under that guy's desk back in.

Keep in mind wines can vary over time. Sometimes a particular wine may be periodically unavailable so it won't be on the ship. They buy in bulk quantities so if a supplier can't fulfill large orders they may substitute.

Radiance class has one of the fewest number of suites of any class in the fleet. Fewer suites than Vision class. Total number of suites = 65 (all types) So it is conceivable JS could sell out. They also may be entertaining a charter. Are all suites sold out? Often when there is charter interest they'll make suites unavailable. When or if the charter actually contracts only then do they cancel bookings and notify.

Yes. Any OBC that you get from NextCruise should remain when you move the booking to a travel agent. Sometimes NextCruise bookings come with a reduced deposit such as $100. In some cases when a travel agent is moving you into a group cruise that can require a certain level of deposit so you sometimes have to pay an additional deposit with group cruises when you transfer. This doesn't apply with non-group cruises.