twangster

All levels posted in this thread https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/5179-crown-and-anchor-on-board-offers-comparison/ They haven't changed substantially since although they can deviate slightly between ships.

Straight from the source: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/podcast/episode-73-labadee-vs-cococay With these changes to CocoCay: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/04/30/perfect-day-cococay-everything-you-need-know

At a bar it will count as one of your coupons. In the DL it does not, typically. Choose wisely.

Crown and Anchor encourages it. It educates non-Diamond cruises about the perks and encourages them to go for Diamond. It is allowed, just like sharing the 10 drink cards, it's actually encouraged. Not to be confused with drink packages that can not be shared.

All US ports of call will ask for Gov't ID, it's required. St Thomas, St Croix, San Juan, Port Canaveral, Key West, Miami, Seattle, Hawaii, etc - when visited as a port of call. I like using my TWIC card at these ports for ID. They all have to have one so they recognize it immediately.

I emailed C&A who confirmed they can be shared. It's a way of enticing others to appreciate loyalty and drive them to achieve Diamond too.

Most terminals have a Diamond line for check in. It might be grouped with other tiers higher or lower but this varies greatly by port. Some ships will provide a higher ranked luggage tag for Diamond debarking. For self assist there typically is no Diamond benefit, join the line like everyone else. Diamond Happy Hour drinks are from a specific menu. Your favorite brand of something may not be on the list. For example a gin and tonic today is Tanqueray and tonic. If you only drink Sapphire or something else you have to pay for that like you always have. Happy hour drinks in the Diamond Lounge are not typically counted against your 3 "coupons". You are allowed to share the coupons at bars outside of the Diamond Lounge with non-Diamond friends or family. Bottled water is available during happy hour only.

Front row by the pool was often taken, but even then not all day. Usually something somewhere.

Wow! Congratulations! Quit. Leave the casino :)

Read about it right here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/08/25/tropical-storm-dorian-changes-itineraries-of-allure-harmony-and-symphony-of-the-seas

Once you have entered the EU you are not required to carry a passport with you. Many well known travel sources recommend not carrying your passport. Pickpockets are common and a damaged passport such as water damage renders a passport useless. Ships have process in place when a guest misses the ship. Before leaving a guest behind they will go into the safe looking for passports and secure them with the local port agent who will give them to a guest who has missed the ship. This is standard protocol. I often use a passport card as my form of ID when leaving a ship. It's small, lightweight and waterproof. Plus if I lose it or get pickpocketed my passport book is in the safe. I know you have talked about your St Kitts experience before but they were just wrong that day or there was more to the story like it was required for St Kitts residents only. Many, many guests on closed loop cruises don't use a passport and use DL/BC. How have those people left St Kitts day after day, week after week? I have been there a dozen times and never had to produce a passport to leave or return to the ship. No one on my dive boat took passports on the dive boat. We all made it back onto the ship without any issue. A wet passport is useless because water smearing is a common counterfeiting tactic. A passport book on a dive boat would be a disaster waiting to happen. If your passport ever gets damp or wet just start heading to a consulate right then and there because your passport is now useless. Once you are in the EU you don't meet any immigration or customs agents as you move between countries. Driving from Germany into France is no different than driving from Maryland into Virginia. Reboarding a ship will not involve immigration or customs within the EU. It's quite pleasant actually and on a B2B you usually don't have to leave the ship because there is no immigration or customs for cruises that stay within the EU.

I hear so many rumors it's not worth repeating them. As the Pinnacles number grow they will need to do something. I've heard a rumor that Pinnacle will get the boot from CK to make room for suite guests. Which is correct? Until Royal announces it publically and updates the website each ship will implement their own policy as they see fit. Some ships do so by not making it obvious for JS guests to realize they paid for this benefit. Weekly I see a FB post from someone who doesn't know any better so this approach seems to work for some ships.

A very small percentage of a ship guest population would use it. A lot of people are local and drive. A lot of people like myself have hotel chains and loyalty programs that we are vested in. I wouldn't stay in their hotel when I can use points or earn points by staying in my brand of hotel. They'd still need the terminal to validate documents and check in for the majority of the ship so the additional burden of having check in available in two places would be a distribution challenge and cost more. It's easier to consolidate that and do it all in one place, once, for all guests. Keep in mind that ports themselves are not owned by any cruise line. Like an airport they are owned and managed typically by local governments. They might lease a terminal at some ports but the use case and zoning doesn't support hotels attached to the terminal. The logistics of putting a hotel on port property would be immense or else a major hotel chain would have already done it like they have at many airports. Cruise ships depart one day of the week typically so a hotel would sit empty for 6 nights of the week. That's a pretty ugly business model. Royal is already streamlining the check in process so a hotel brings no value to the check in process. Most cruise terminals are nowhere near a cities restaurants, bars, shopping and other attractions. City leaders probably wouldn't support the idea and staying near a terminal would be a nightmare for guests who would be captive and find it difficult to explore a city, find a bar, visit a local restaurant, go shopping, etc.

It's too early to know. Right now the projected track is changing which is quite normal for a tropical system. If the forecast for it becoming a tropical depression holds true, they likely won't cancel. A depression is typically just heavy rain with some wind. Strong thunderstorms all summer long produce tropical depression like conditions so there would be no reason to cancel the cruise because of some heavy rain for a few hours.

Too early to know, right now it isn't a hurricane and isn't supposed to be for several days. Then it is forecast to weaken quite a bit 5 days out. 25 knot winds isn't very much. Bring a rain coast but at this rate the cruise will likely go as expected.

I saw post from an Ovation guest who boarded and read in the Cruise Compass that Coastal Kitchen is for Sky and Star Class Suites so she didn't try. Bad choice for her not to pursue it because as of right now Coastal Kitchen dinner is still included for JS on Ovation. All she had to do as a JS guest was go there like other JS guests did. The confusion comes from how different ships handle this. While Ovation Cruise compass says Sky and Star Class, Anthem reads All Suites. Oasis is different again. Then once on board sometimes a JS can make reservation for the week on one ship but only one night at a time on another ship. Typical Royal Caribbean, every ship is different. As of right now it's still a stated benefit of Sea Class (JS): https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruise-rooms/royal-suite-class

If Freedom is too costly plus the higher airfare out of San Juan then Vision class has a lot going for it including Rhapsody. I love Empress but I'm not a solarium dweller on most days. Empress is great but she has no solarium and cabins are smaller. If it comes down to Empress vs. Rhapsody and the itinerary is better for one that maybe be a big factor as you decide what to do.

Muster stations will be printed on your SeaPass card in large font and it will also be on the inside of your cabin door. Have no fears, you do have a muster station!

Third party shuttle services (small buses typically) will yield the most economical approach but you may find yourself on a "milk run" stopping at several hotels to pick up a few guests here or there. Often the same companies offer private car services (sometimes called limousine service) where you are the only occupants and it's straight from resort to port. These come at a higher cost and may be the most expensive option. Uber/Lyft is a ride sharing service although you don't have to share the ride with anyone but you don't always know what kind of car or driver you might end up with. People like you or me can enroll their personal car and become a driver. So as you can imagine the results can be great or just okay. For two people this isn't a bad choice because the total charge is for the trip, not per passenger. Plus if you choose not to do the cheaper shared ride option then it is dedicated and direct resort to port. A less expensive version of a limousine. I know you mentioned not hiring a car but Orlando is pretty much the car rental capital of the U.S. so it can be a low cost option. If you are staying in a hotel in the Canaveral area or plan to explore such as visiting the Kennedy Space Center a car hire can give you a lot of flexibility to explore the area.

In my opinion St Thomas has the best concentration of duty free shops in close proximity to each other "downtown" Charlotte Amalie but it's not walking distance from the ships. However I don't think you are going to find a big difference with shopping between the two islands. It's not like the jewelry is farmed fresh on the island and comes fresh from the jewelry fields so it's a lot of the same stuff around the same prices with the same sales tactics. Whichever fits better into your cruise schedule based on other activities you have planned should yield similar results.

Deposits on ATV and snowmobile rentals are standard in Colorado.

Cruise Summary My biggest complaint is the 5 night duration. Even though I came off another ship before hand it's a lot of unpacking and you just get into cruise mode when it's over. I feel like I didn't have enough time to really experience the ship properly. I have a B2B booked in the fall so hopefully that will solve this problem. Majesty definitely feels like a bigger ship than Empress (the ship I was on before this) but it is a bigger ship so it had better feel bigger. Majesty is dated in places such as decor and the outdoor carpets on the upper decks. You can tell some new carpeting has been installed in places but in certain areas or staircases the carpet is older. Crew was fantastic and I only experienced great service. It was great to visit CocoCay again and I look forward to my next cruise when I have the water park and zipline booked. O3b Voom was great and I really wish Royal would upgrade more ships to O3b. This was a relatively inexpensive cruise and there is great value at the price point I paid. Majesty has a lot to offer and I'm looking forward to going back to spend more time on her.

I think it is just an observation area for guests. I imagine as ships evolved over time the ship architects were able to determine ways to increase the space and orientation. The early ones where cutting edge design back in the day but ship architects didn't have a lot of history or experience to work with adding a VCL. Just like ships themselves have grown and become more complex so have the VCLs over time.

A note about Voom. Majesty uses the new satellite technology that the newer ships use. Consequently it works very well. Typical results for Surf and Stream: I asked a Voom person on board and he reported that Majesty has 120Mbps down and 100Mbps up for total bandwidth. This is shared but individual Voom accounts are rate limited to what you see above so that no one guest can hog all the bandwidth. The cap also forces streaming application to work within 4Mbps of throughput otherwise a user streaming something like Netflix could go way over that consuming even more expensive usage while 4Mbps offers very reasonable streaming results.

Our scheduled start of self-assist was posted to be 7:30am. I joined the line around 50 people back at 6:45am. It is routed into the MDR on deck 4 to keep it orderly. At 7:12am we started moving. Through the terminal to CBP where they were making queues for the normal post cruise CBP check. Some people were already doing the thing with an CBP officer. As I was getting closer they just opened the lane in the middle and told everyone to walk out. I guess because we cleared immigration in Key West they decided to go easy on us. Out to the waiting taxis where a lady following after me just threw her luggage into trunk of my cab without asking where I was going. Hmmm. So I confirmed she was heading to FLL airport. Why not split a cab? Dropped off curbside at airport terminal at 7:28am. I had a 4:45pm flight booked because it was the cheapest flight of the day when I booked it. Being A-List on Southwest I can standby for free so my strategy is to often book a later flight then take my chances at the airport. I lucked out, seats were available on the 8:45am direct flight. Through security and at the gate by 7:40am. Soon after boarding in my window seat I looked out and saw my bag going into the belly of plane. Twenty five minutes later my luck continued when the door of the plane closed with the only empty middle seat on the whole plane being right beside me. Phew.