twangster

Exactly. The small charges serve to prevent everyone from finding the most expensive wine and only ordering it. As a frequent business traveler who has bought an occasional glass of wine in a hotel bar across the country, Royal is cheaper than most hotel bars when it come to wine, beer and mixed drinks. I spent a few weeks in Plainsboro, NJ. $14 was the cheapest wine in the hotel bar and it wasn't very good. The cost for a hotel to provide a glass of wine is much lower - they don't have to load it on a ship and haul it all around ocean with them. They don't need to maintain very much inventory either. When a hotel runs low they pick up the phone and more is delivered the next day. Their cost per drink is much lower than a cruise ship. At the same hotel my nightly room rate was higher than I pay on most cruises (and it didn't include meals or entertainment). So I've come to appreciate how great Royal bar prices are compared to land bar prices. Thankfully someone else pays for my business travel.

Totally understandable.

Bummer.

And once again a live blog goes off the rails... One word. Pizza.

Plus with all the buzz that Mariner received after her dry dock, lots of people will be excited to try Navigator after her dry dock. I bet she looks great!

Cruises on either side are still available so I'm guessing it's spring break and being a 5 night cruise it is popular with families since it will be cheaper than a 7 night cruise on another ship that week.

Current indicators point to dry dock completing in early February. Dry docks and refurbs are well planned out to the minute. Odds are that another ship is scheduled to arrive for some other sort of work at that facility right after Navigator. It would be very unusual for them to extend a dry dock as it is happening. Possible but highly unlikely. In fact I bet the contractors doing the work would face stiff penalties for missing the due date. Missing by weeks is unheard of.

Don't be surprised if it opens back up. With 200+ days people will cancel reservations, other people will book them, more people cancel, etc. Until final payment due date lots of people make changes. No need to worry, most cruises sail full regardless when they first start to sell out.

I'm thinking this is a bit unusual and few people experience this type of delay. I'm betting they will start boarding as soon the maintenance is complete. The maintenance window currently ends so that boarding can commence at 4:30pm. Typically some time is built into maintenance windows to cover troubleshooting if things don't go ideally. When things do go ideally, the maintenance may finish early. In that event, they might start boarding before 4:30pm but they won't know that until it happens.

Hoping for the best and a speedy recovery.

I sometimes wonder if they don't drop all those at once ~90 days out, but drop batches of theme periodically so that more people can access them fairly.

I've heard great things about Michelle. I'd suggest you contact her and discuss it. That way you have it direct from the source.

I never asked for it, Jacki just does it. Last sale I saved $50 on one sailing. It's only $50 but its my $50!

Definite no go. Anything with surge in the name is banned. Ships don't use the same electrical system as on land and tend to have a floating ground that isn't bound to neutral. Consumer surge suppressors are not designed for this type of electrical system.

I have the USB hub Matt recommended. I usually bring one of these: It was confiscated just once. Some ports are more restrictive than others. The security personnel in most embarkation ports are not Royal employees but a 3rd party so their naughty list can vary.

Welcome to the message boards! This can vary by ship. Which ship are you sailing? I've started carrying a USB power port that features a number of USB ports that can charge multiple devices at the same time. As my needs have evolved so many of my things are USB based. Power bars with surge suppression are banned but in some cases even simple extension cords with multiple outlets have been confiscated. If you need an extension cord for medical reasons they will provide one free of charge.

Because an upgrade may be in order!

Did they offer why boarding was moved? Sometimes they can't let guests board for a number of reasons. You can try to show up as if it's unchanged but be prepared to either be turned away or sit in the terminal waiting for a while. Hopefully they let you board soon after arrival.

Another sale... great. Too many cruises to reprice. Thank goodness a lot of them are with MEI who reprices automatically for me.

A long time ago I saw it once but never since. I'm not sure why.

I'm not convinced it's a revenue thing. A $2 charge is likely on the threshold of just breaking even given the costs for extra billing any item, dealing with issues at guest services, paper, cost of billing system itself, etc. It's likely influenced by crowd control. If they were included, that is all people would order, over and over and over. There wouldn't be enough bar staff given the effort involved. Hiring more bartenders seems like an easy fix but that increases costs and at times there would be idle bartenders doing little which is a waste of resources. As annoying as it may be, a small charge throttles the volume of demand to a manageable level.

It sounds like a great cruise! I really enjoyed Strings in Studio B. One of the better ice skating shows I think (outside of those on Harmony and Symphony with the incredible projected ice effects).

The general wisdom is to use private mode in your browser. If kicked out you may have wait 15 minutes before trying again. Clearing browser cache and data is another option, or try a browser you don't use often. I do most things in private mode on RC's website.

Explorer still has hers. Decent selection of cigars that were not in terrible condition either. This was 3 weeks ago. Watched some football while enjoying a cigar with my son. Quite enjoyable. Possibly the best $24 I've spent on board a cruise in a while.

When you look at Royal's response overall to the 2017 hurricane season it leaves you with a lot of respect. Sure people on the next cruise or those who needed to be home for work got upset and placed blame at an easy target (hard to really give Mother Nature the what's for). But if you can stand back and objectively observe the bigger picture and collective response overall it was pretty great at too many different levels to mention here. It certainly contributed to my continued loyalty even when I've been impacted on current sailings recently.