twangster

Enjoy your cruise. Departing Quantum in the morning. Great crew, no complaints, only great memories. FWIW 91 pinnacles are booked on the next leg to Vancouver down from 115 on the transpacific crossing from Sydney. Casino is tight, take small wins and bank them. It's been non-smoking to Hawaii but I understand that will change tomorrow. Saw them putting new surfaces on the tables today.

I'll add that there is a walk up salad bar to start off, usually with some tapas type small plates as well. Then the meat train starts coming.

Roaming waiters walk around bringing different cuts of meat to each table. They walk up to a table and ask if you would like what they have. If so they slice off a piece and you use your tongs to grab it and put it on your plate.

Not unless you are attempting to engage bed bug bitten cruise ship guests as clients.

Come on folks, everyone knows if anything happens in life, a year before, during, or within a year after a cruise, it's the cruise lines fault. This is the first day lesson in Scum Bag Lawyer Univeristy class 101. Duh! I once watched a cruise ship depart and that night I had bed bug bites and I didn't even sail on the ship! This post sponsored by Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. Attorneys at Sea.

Technically speaking, during the check in process there are legal terms that are agreed to. If you are checking in other people understand what that means from a legal perspective.

I have changed cabins a day before the cruise when a non-connecting version became available in the same category. All my CAS stuff, water, wine, goodies, etc. were delivered to my old cabin. If I was due a crystal block I would have missed it. I don't change cabins close in any more. Getting guest services to officially change cabins can be a PITA and some ship won't do it. If I were asked onboard I would politely decline.

I've never heard of it occurring and I think it would be abused by people trying to move to a preferred cabin for no other reason than they want it. I understand you have a compelling justification but once they open the flood gates, the requests would come pouring in and it would quickly get out of hand. They'd have to add staff and process to manage it. Easier to say no across the board.

Unless they drop the price this will have minimal impact to anyone. $600 per day for a couple? $1,200 per day for a family of four? (Free for guests under 6 in the same cabin.) In many cases that's the cruise fare. I don't see a lot of people buy it, unless they drop the price. On a sailing I checked the DX, UDP and Voom added up to $137 per day including the 18% service charge. $163 pppd for a Genie? On Freedom class? Nope. "Hi I'm your Genie, let me escort you to your interior cabin on deck 2".

As an additional data print in terms of usage, I purchased a 1GB, 7 day eSIM from Airalo to cover me while in French Polynesia during Quantum's transpacific voyage. I had Voom while on board so I only used the eSIM while on land away from the ship. I didn't hold back, I used my phone to send several videos and pics to friends and family. My iPhone was tethered to my Galaxy S25U using the wifi hotspot. I was on ship excursions so I wasn't constantly on my phone browsing or using data all the time. For the three days in French Polynesia I had 392 MB of the 1GB remaining as we sailed away from the last port of call. Total consumption 608MB for three days but keep in mind I was back on the ship using Voom each day by 6PM, overnight and the next morning until my excursions had me off the ship around noon each day.

Got my Allure Med cruise booked in July. Already had a casino booking for Allure so now it's a B2B. If I'm going all the way, might as well sail twice.

It's still curious to me that test loads exist. Isn't that why IT has prod and test? Despite that rhetorical question, I think it's coming next week. Quantum from Brisbane and Anthem from Sydney.

For me they substituted chicken. You know in the Solarium Bistro they have tapas type small plates? I think my chicken was pulled straight from the Solarium Bistro where our Chef Table was held on that ship.

I thought I bought Cruise + Asia for the TP but ended up with Cruise + Caribbean. It worked fine on the ship. For Cruise use only I don't think it matters. It does seem as a return user there are discounts. Might be worth buying a day pass to save on a longer pass at a higher cost.

I'm using an eSIM from Airalo to have some data in French Polynesia. GigSky global includes French Polynesia but at a much higher cost so I went with an 1GB $8 Airalo eSIM good for 7 days. I've noticed it takes a couple of airplane mode toggles to get data working consistently. At first it shows 4G LTE then it doesn't, then it does. After a few minutes it settles down and then works reliably. It seems these roaming eSIM products involve a little more handshaking before they agree to let data flow.

Fall 2025 to Spring 2026 most likely. If you look at previous years you can get an idea when Royal will open the next phase looking forward into another year. For the most recently opened cruise season in the Caribbean April 2026 to April 2027 that was: So for April 2027 to April 2028 cruise season look at the dates in the left column and add a year for anyone's best guess when they will become available to book.

Looking at the Feb 6 Anthem sailing I see the following "least expensive" cabins. For two cruise guests: ZI Interior GTY $2,460.16 USD 2U Interior Accessible cabin $2,771.16 USD 2U Interior non Accessible cabin $2,771.16 USD For a solo guest: 2W Studio Interior $1,989.58 USD 2U Interior Accessible cabin $2,651.58 USD 2U Interior non Accessible $2,651.58 USD While these prices are in USD from the US system and they don't include the daily service fees that are bundled into AU pricing, it does show what may be occuring. For two guests there is a GTY cabin type that is less than a pick your cabin rate. However for two guests the rates for picking your own interior cabin are the same for accessible 2U and non-accessible 2U. GTY cabins are not offered for accessible at this time. They may have been at some point, but since GTY is a promotional rate that comes and goes for any given category, that isn't clear. For a solo guest Anthem has Studio Interior cabins that are smaller and can only accommodate one guest, category 2W. These are the least expensive interior cabins but they are not offered in accessible versions and depending on accessibility needs are likely too small for many accessible purposes. They are pretty small and don't even include a chair at the desk but a stool you can sit on. For the non-Studio cabins, with only a single guest, the 2U Interior accessible and non-accessible cabin rates are the same. So it does not appear there is an accessible surcharge for the same cabin when you look at identical cabins that are available in both accessible and non-accessible. There are dozens and dozens of cabin categories from four or five different interior cabin categories, four or five ocean view categories, six to eight balcony cabin categories, and many versions of suite categories. Not every non-accessible cabin category of these twenty to thirty possible categories is available in an accessible version. Does Australian law require that cruise ships provide every cabin category possible in both accessible and non-accessible versions? Not trying to argue any point here, I am simply asking about the applicable laws in Australia to educate myself on these issues. Most countries can't impose everything on foreign flagged ships, there are international treaties and laws that govern what any country can impose on a ship registered in a foreign country. Accessible guests in America face the same challenge but American laws can't require that foreign cruise ships make every single non-accessible cabin category available in an accessible version. Instead the ship provides accessible cabins in select cabin categories within most cabin types.

My understanding is that Carnival's John Heald once was a cruise director. He became very popular. Later when he retired as a CD he remained active on social media and somewhat evolved into what they called a brand ambassador. This isn't an industry standard term, just what they started calling a retired employee who was active on social media responding to posts. His role continues to evolve as social media continues to evolve. In some ways I guess you could call Super Mario a brand ambassador since that term has no defined meaning. Mario is not active on social media though. In some ways frequent cruisers can be brand ambassadors. Some play this role better than others.

There is the appearance that Navigator will have a cruise that goes LA to Tokyo and another Tokyo to Singapore before it begins doing standard Singapore cruises. At some point it will visit the shipyard in Singapore. After a season in Singapore it's not known where she goes. Singapore is likely the shipyard of choice for the 2.5 year visits while Navi is in the Pacific. We'll likely she her come back to Singapore in another 2.5 years after this one.

I've heard it's 20 years. I've also heard it is always 2.5 years but when a ship is less than 20 years old they can have a bottom survey performed while the ship is in service, like at a port of call, that waives the intermediate shipyard visits. But only when it's less than 20. I've seen commercial divers on the pier at Cozumel and Fort Lauderdale. Always assumed they were doing a bottom survey.

Not sure why but can confirm UDP is not offered on long voyages. Doubt they'll make an exception but you can always try. I used my BOGO and a 10 night package to get 12 of 15 nights covered. No lunches.

This my summer strategy when the reduced single supplement for being over 340 points is blacked out. I used to sail solo on other lines in the summer. Now I sail solo casino comps in the summer.

The use GTY fares is often associated with a desire to stimulate bookings for a particular ship and sail date. It's never a certainty that GTY fares will be offered. It's common for the GTY fare offer to be set to require two in a cabin. It's a special promotional rate designed to put bodies on the ship knowing or hoping that they'll make up for the lower fare through some onboard spending. With that purpose in mind having only one body on board works against that goal. Sometimes by calling they will allow a solo to book a GTY fare and sometimes they won't. The Casino department has its own rules. Given a gamblers tendency to donate money in the casino that is the onboard spending they are looking for so allowing the Casino department to book solo GTY fares is common.

It's not unusual for people new to cruising to learn of the double occupancy price model used in the cruise industry and they have difficulty comprehending it. Cruising is not the same as booking a hotel room. There are a number of reasons why a cruise ship is vastly different compared to a hotel. How many hotels have multi-million dollar weekly fuel bills to propel them? How many hotels include food and entertainment in the room charge? If every cruise ship cabin were to be filled by single cruise guests the cruise line would not cover the costs of everything associated with and included in the cruise fare. A hotel room is not the same thing as a cruise cabin. The use of the double occupancy pricing models is pretty much the standard in the cruise industry. Royal is not an outlier in their respect. It is what it is. Cruising is not an entitlement. If you don't agree with their pricing structure the answer is simple, don't cruise. If you still desire to cruise as a solo guest there are some ways to minimize the costs associated with cruising solo but this requires being flexible and choosing ships and sail dates that might not have been your primary choice. If this is unacceptable then by all means book a hotel room and watch whatever is on the local channels on the hotel room TV as entertainment. I say this as someone who has sailed nearly 100 times as solo cruise guest on multiple cruise lines. I'm not trying to pick a fight over this topic, but some simple research can you help to educate on this topic. Cruising solo is an absolute blast but it does come at a cost in most cases compared to the per person costs for a party of two sharing a cabin.

While a transpacific cruise is an outlier, for Voom $17.99 x 21 days is $377. GigSky 10GB/30 day plan is $98. For longer cruises in more distant regions it's a pretty compelling alternative. Plus for this itinerary it would cover Australia and New Zealand on land. Do the math for a 14 night transatlantic. Or if you are from Australia doing a B2B for 14 nights in America. It's a pretty interesting product.