twangster

It really comes down to your expectations for your pictures. Smart phones are great for convenience and outdoor daylight photography. Even the best and newest camera phones start to fall apart in darker conditions including ones that tout special dark picture capabilities. Point and shoot cameras offer portability but typically better performance over even the best and newest phone across the spectrum of photographic conditions experienced on a cruise. They typically come with the added benefit of a zoom lens. DSLR or mirrorless will produce the best pictures at the cost of size and lugging them around. I don't bring my expensive gear on cruises anymore with the exception of bucket list destinations such as Alaska, Hawaii, Europe, Panama, etc. Here is a live blog that was captured with a point and shoot camera, albeit an expensive one: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/9521-adventure-ots-13-night-snowbird-migration-quebec-to-ft-lauderdale-oct-8-2018/ This cruise was captured with an iPhone using some extra cost lenses: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/6297-adventure-5-nights-5518-repositioning-san-juan-to-bayonne/ Both have some good pictures but many of my iPhone pictures were not good enough to post to the second blog and I vowed I'd never do another cruise without something better than a phone. Even when I bring all the camera gear I own it doesn't always come on every excursion. Particularly if I've been somewhere before I'll just take my phone to a beach for example. At the end of the day the best camera is the one you have with you.

Royal does not offer a drinking waiver for anyone. By policy for North American cruises drinking on board is determined by age on boarding day and requires being 21 prior to embarking.

When I rented from Alamo in December we shuttled from the port to the rental car center at MIA but they didn't offer the service from the airport to the ship (I asked). We debarked, rented a car and went to Key West for a few days. We weren't going back to the ship but I asked about the shuttle to the ship for future reference. I guess they figure there aren't a lot of people renting cars, returning them and heading to the ship versus folks trying to use them as a free shuttle to reach the ship. Debarking passengers wind down starting at 11am for most cruises so there would be little point with shuttles running past noon. On one hand the busses actually go that way to pickup passengers so it seemed to be a policy thing. Maybe they've updated their policy. Or maybe you got lucky since the shuttles were still running.

Not a lot of history to draw conclusive results into a predictable trend. It doesn't happen that frequently and not for a few years now so things that happened 4 or 5+ years ago aren't sure things in today's modern times. I imagine a lot depends on the deal they negotiate. If a buyer wants the ship now with few modification a sale could be quick. Most times buyers try to negotiate modifications into the deal so their financing has it all included. This might mean down time for modifications but ship yards often are booked for two years or more in advance. That may slow down a deal. It all depends and doesn't occur often so there is little historical data to draw from.

Many (most) of my cruises have no OBC. Some have small OBC. Once in while I'll get some decent OBC. However I tend to be drawn to cruise deals off season so the rates are lower and there is less promotional margin for incentives to book. It all depends.

When every one at a bar sees all the $18 drink club members throwing down a cash tip they'll just assume it's customary and start tipping cash as well. :) In seriousness though on any given cruise the number of folks who benefited are likely in a small minority. Relatively speaking when blended in with all the regular drink package purchasers and pay as you go drinkers the effect is most likely negligible. If the $18 DX club does throw in more tips than normal it's probably so close to a neutral effect it would be hard to measure.

It should be much like a charter where they typically some OBC and/or price protection on alternate cruises. It depends. At this point just assume they are going as planned. They probably will.

No mention of GB yet. All ships have different categories of balcony cabins. In some cases they are used to denote cabins capable of additional guests, in some cases you get a bigger balcony and in some cases they may be aft view balcony cabins. In some cases they are combinations of these features. Deck 7 forward on Radiance class are the only balconies that allow you to look straight down the side of the ship to the water. The extra couple of feet does mean you can rub shoulders with your neighbors but I really like these deck 7 extended balconies which are also clear to look up towards the stars.

Radiance class physically fit in Baltimore. The question is does Baltimore fit Radiance class. Tampa already has Brilliance.

Known issue when DX is purchased and cancelled prior to the cruise. SetSail passes and SeaPass cards still have the little DX on them but the billing system on board knows the truth. Bartenders want to get it right and they don't want to charge someone who has the DX so they often will double check with the guest and will often refer them to guest services.

My understanding is an expanded casino. For example the Music Hall has been removed on Quantum.

Happy dance

ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING TRAVELS Dear Guest, Well, this round’s on us. On Monday, July 1st, 2019, from 4:00 PM to 1:30 AM EST, we posted incorrect pricing of $18 USD per person, per day, for Deluxe Beverage Packages. Given that we typically price these packages at about $55 USD per person, per day, it was the (messed up) deal of the century. This was a BIG mistake! It might have been bad code, a random computer glitch — or maybe we just need to reinstate our intern typing test. Any which way, it was our error, and we’ll own it. Enjoy your deep, deep discount — while we go drown our sorrows. Happy 4th of July! Sincerely,

Only in New York City, thank goodness!

Royal uses an open source database behind the front end that we see. While they migrated the front end public website, the monster database is another matter. Lipstick on a pig. I've mentioned it before but I suspect Royal's IT organization is underfunded. Their executives talk up technology on ships yet don't want to spend any money on their IT organization or IT infrastructure. I imagine a weekly meeting with an executive goes like this: Executive - I've got this great idea where our website will let our guests do all these wonderful things IT - Given the state of our archaic systems we'll need to upgrade the 10 disparate platforms that should've been upgraded 15 years ago and consolidate them into a single modern platform. It will cost $1M and we'll need to hire 5 developers. CFO - We can't afford that. Go ahead and do it but don't spend any money.

It's a brand new plane! Canadian Bombardier CS plane who partnered with Airbus and re-branded it as A220 after Boeing went evil and a certain administration placed a 300% import duty on them. Jealous even more now. First a group cruise and now an A220 ride. What does a poor bot have to do to keep up with a Lulubot? #botenvy

Quite normal. GTY's can be filled right up to day of embarkation. Luck of the draw.

Most RU upgrades are occurring close to sail date. At that point there is little cabin selection available. If you get a balcony RU upgrade and are placed in a 2D balcony they might not allow you to move to an 8D balcony or vice versa. RU is also a tool for them to maximize muster station optimization so moving cabins might be restricted depending on muster capacity.

I'm sure any new port build out will involve investigating LNG capabilities in support of Icon class. If Canaveral was closed for any reason they need alternate ports to divert to. Carnival has NYC as a home port for a few months for it's soon to be released LNG ship. Just two east coast LNG fuel stops is pretty risky in a business model. The more LNG capable ports the better. I'm sure they are exploring it in Everglades and Miami as well.

Eventually all ships will leave the fleet, even the Icon class decades from now. It's never a matter of "if" but when. Radiance class still has several potential years of service for destinations best served with smaller ships. Vision class is still around because at the moment they can operate at profit. Royal is a business and as long as a ship is in the black why would they get rid of it?

Too many variable in cruising. A 14 night sailing is very different than a 3 night sailing over a weekend. A ship based in Southhampton will have different consumption trends than a smaller, older ship in Baltimore. Fixing on one set price would benefit some and penalize others. Sales would plummet on 9 night or longer cruises. Royal has at any given moment over 70,000 guests on board their ships every day of the year. They've been selling drinks for years. They know our drinking habits better than we do. Adjusting prices to suit cruise length, time of year, region and a number of other factors is smart business based on analytics.

To be fair all ships can vibrate at times, especially aft. I was on another ship that had to crank it up to full speed to navigate around a weather system and my cabin on an upper deck in the aft section vibrated quite a bit most of the time we were at top speed. When first starting away from a pier or when azipods are turned for close in maneuvering vibrations are common. Then there was the time on Carnival I was right over the bow thrusters on deck 2. I didn't need a wake up call, I knew when we were arriving in port in my interior cabin.

No idea what it is but they like it so much they wanted more!

They are only experts in law if they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.