twangster

With Cuba on my mind and with a goal of sailing some of the older and smaller ships in the fleet I booked Empress.  With the current fleet it's hard to get any smaller.  I'm supposed to get a glass block based on my current Crown and Anchor points accumulation so as I thought which ship to 'block' on, getting a glass block from Empress seemed like a really cool idea so I booked this cruise with that other goal in mind.
It's a 5 night cruise:
Day 1 - Embark Miami
Day 2 - Key West
Day 3 - Havana
Day 4 - Sea Day
Day 5 - CocoCay
Day 6 - Debark Miami
It's been a few years since I've visited Key West but I need to get some work done so I'm not sure how far I'll venture off the ship. 
For Havana I've a booked a full day excursion through Royal.  I have an overnight cruise to Havana booked in September so I'm using this trip and excursion to discover and plan my next visit there for maximum cultural enrichment.
I have many Canadian friends who have visited Cuba.  They've been able to fly direct since, well forever.   They've given me some ideas so this full day excursion should check all the boxes for an initial Cuba experience and allow me to better plan my next visit.
I've missed a few calls on CocoCay this year so fingers crossed.
Flights were booked through Air2Sea and I'm taking a dreaded red eye flight with airport transfers to the ship by Royal.  I usually just take a ride-share but as a solo traveler the transfer isn't that bad from a cost perspective and it's for research so I know how well it works getting from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) airport to the Port of Miami and back.  I had to work this weekend so the all night flight is an "efficient" use of my time, or so I keep telling myself to justify it. 
Not sure when I might sail Empress again especially since she does mostly Cuba runs at the moment so I've splurged and booked a junior suite.  My first solo JS experience.  At the time I booked it was a reasonable price difference.
My red-eye departs at 1am local time and I haven't started packing yet.  It's only 5 nights so not a hard cruise to pack for. However I better step away from the keyboard and get started.

With Cuba on my mind and with a goal of sailing some of the older and smaller ships in the fleet I booked Empress.  With the current fleet it's hard to get any smaller.  I'm supposed to get a glass block based on my current Crown and Anchor points accumulation so as I thought which ship to 'block' on, getting a glass block from Empress seemed like a really cool idea so I booked this cruise with that other goal in mind.
It's a 5 night cruise:
Day 1 - Embark Miami
Day 2 - Key West
Day 3 - Havana
Day 4 - Sea Day
Day 5 - CocoCay
Day 6 - Debark Miami
It's been a few years since I've visited Key West but I need to get some work done so I'm not sure how far I'll venture off the ship. 
For Havana I've a booked a full day excursion through Royal.  I have an overnight cruise to Havana booked in September so I'm using this trip and excursion to discover and plan my next visit there for maximum cultural enrichment.
I have many Canadian friends who have visited Cuba.  They've been able to fly direct since, well forever.   They've given me some ideas so this full day excursion should check all the boxes for an initial Cuba experience and allow me to better plan my next visit.
I've missed a few calls on CocoCay this year so fingers crossed.
Flights were booked through Air2Sea and I'm taking a dreaded red eye flight with airport transfers to the ship by Royal.  I usually just take a ride-share but as a solo traveler the transfer isn't that bad from a cost perspective and it's for research so I know how well it works getting from Fort Lauderdale (FLL) airport to the Port of Miami and back.  I had to work this weekend so the all night flight is an "efficient" use of my time, or so I keep telling myself to justify it. 
Not sure when I might sail Empress again especially since she does mostly Cuba runs at the moment so I've splurged and booked a junior suite.  My first solo JS experience.  At the time I booked it was a reasonable price difference.
My red-eye departs at 1am local time and I haven't started packing yet.  It's only 5 nights so not a hard cruise to pack for. However I better step away from the keyboard and get started.

I bought a Rolex a couple of years ago.  They are quite affordable but I hardly wear it and it's a bit bulky. 
It was $36 on the streets of San Juan.  
Still not sure what all the fuss is about.

Must try blue slide ?

Have fun with it.  
"I'm a really mean person and no one likes me"
"They went overboard at the first opportunity"
"It was a last minute deal and the cruise only cost me $60.  How much did you pay?"
"I'm doing research for a blog" - then turn the table and ask them all sorts of questions.
Seriously though, I just explain I have a flexible travel schedule and my friends and family do not, which is the truth.  

Oh come on now, we all now @Matt has ALL the answers!
I cruise solo often.  I am also a frequent solo business traveler.  When you travel for business sooner or later you have to eat.  I'm not going to eat fast food so you reach a point as a business traveler that you get over any hang ups or issues about eating alone in something other fast food restaurants.  Sometimes this means eating at the bar within a restaurant but sometimes I just want a table.  In fact, if someone else is paying the bill, why not try a reasonable sit down restaurant?  
Cruising solo and eating dinner alone come naturally because I have traveled solo for business.  We all have to eat sometime and in the case of a cruise, we all paid for our included meals.  Since I paid for it, why not try a reasonable sit down experience?
For solo dining I choose My Time Dining.  I am always seated at a table for two by myself.  Service is typically fast and the wait staff always treat me well.  I have never noticed if any one is looking at me because quite honesty I don't care if they are, much like when I travel for business.  I wear a sports coat on formal night.   It's easy to do and it respects the dining room process.  i don't pay a lot of attention to what other people are wearing and it doesn't bother me if others don't dress up.  I wouldn't even notice if someone wore white after Labor day, I've probably done it myself.
I tend not to do specialty dining very often.  I do sometimes, but rarely.  The MDR for me is generally ideal .  I take pictures of menus for the blog (flash off) and if I remember pictures of my meals.  I often think what I might blog about or reflect on the day and before I know it my meal has arrived.  
I paid for the MDR, so I have no qualms about using something I paid for.  

Then try lobster in both and let us which is better!

Oh come on now, we all now @Matt has ALL the answers!
I cruise solo often.  I am also a frequent solo business traveler.  When you travel for business sooner or later you have to eat.  I'm not going to eat fast food so you reach a point as a business traveler that you get over any hang ups or issues about eating alone in something other fast food restaurants.  Sometimes this means eating at the bar within a restaurant but sometimes I just want a table.  In fact, if someone else is paying the bill, why not try a reasonable sit down restaurant?  
Cruising solo and eating dinner alone come naturally because I have traveled solo for business.  We all have to eat sometime and in the case of a cruise, we all paid for our included meals.  Since I paid for it, why not try a reasonable sit down experience?
For solo dining I choose My Time Dining.  I am always seated at a table for two by myself.  Service is typically fast and the wait staff always treat me well.  I have never noticed if any one is looking at me because quite honesty I don't care if they are, much like when I travel for business.  I wear a sports coat on formal night.   It's easy to do and it respects the dining room process.  i don't pay a lot of attention to what other people are wearing and it doesn't bother me if others don't dress up.  I wouldn't even notice if someone wore white after Labor day, I've probably done it myself.
I tend not to do specialty dining very often.  I do sometimes, but rarely.  The MDR for me is generally ideal .  I take pictures of menus for the blog (flash off) and if I remember pictures of my meals.  I often think what I might blog about or reflect on the day and before I know it my meal has arrived.  
I paid for the MDR, so I have no qualms about using something I paid for.  

Or the cleaning people unplugged the server under someone's desk that holds a script that no one knew about yet the whole website database relies on. 
I'm still trying to figure out if RCCL is one of those companies that only sees IT as a expense on a balance sheet and refuses to fund it properly.  When it comes to IT, you get what you pay for. 

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.  

I suspect it's their special concoctions that are priced above the package that are not covered, just like special drinks on all ships that are not fully covered by the package and you must pay the difference.  I'm betting you can order a Kraken and Coke and it will be covered.
@Lovetocruise2002 will be on soon enough and I'm sure she will verify.  If not I'm on Mariner mid-September.

Website was supposed to be back up by 9am ET.


Maintenance has been extended to 12pm ET.

I'm expecting great things Royal Caribbean!

Toss up - Amber Cove by Carnival in the DR or NCL's Harvest Caye in Belize.  
In the case of Amber Cove in 2015 it's a new country that wasn't accessible by modern medium sized ships (Carnival doesn't have larger or mega ships).  However it's a private port, for Carnival Corp. branded ships.
In the case of Harvest Caye in 2017 it's almost a private destination like Cococay or Labadee but close enough to Belize to run excursion from.  A lot of unhappy cruises step off at Harvest Caye thinking they have access to Belize only to learn very little is included such as food, beverage or activities and you can't get there from here.  II's not promoted as a private destination like NCL's Great Stirrup Cay (right beside CocoCay), instead it's labeled as Belize on itineraries.  It almost serves as a pier to operate excursion to Belize but you can't access Belize without an excursion so it leaves a lot of unhappy cruisers feeling like they been dumped on an isolated money trap island.  Go back on the ship or spend money.  No self-exploring Belize.  
Both are notably different than what is proposed here.  In this case a 3rd party is building the port so many different cruise lines can use it, like most islands.  For both Amber Cove and Harvest Caye you will likely only see the Carnival Corp. or NCL holdings branded ships using those private ports.

Cool.  With all the new ships being built by many cruise lines, more ports is a good thing.

Typically the stated port time is the desired time passengers can walk off the ship.  However that isn't a "guaranteed" time.  Stuff happens. 
One time another ship had difficulty docking and we had to hang back waiting for them to get it done.  We couldn't approach until we were given the green light to proceed.  Not our Captain's fault but we were 'late' arriving because of another cruise line.   Their old ship didn't have azipods so they struggled in the moderate wind.
Most reputable excursion companies understand that ship port time isn't absolute but it would be wise to ask them this question and make sure you understand their policies.

Using this logic, try the lobster in Canada, eh?

Absolutely.  Check often. 
Typically you are safe to purchase now and if a future sale does apply to your sailing, refund your purchase and buy it at the lower price.  

We saw All of Denali for 3 straight days.  Our tour guide said we got a special treat there.  The weather was perfect.

I have Quantum booked in November 2019 sailing from Singapore.  Looking at my paperwork it says:
     Your deposit has been posted to your reservation..Final Payment is due by 11 SEP 2019, 5:00 PM EST
My booking is refundable, but I'm in the US.
Perhaps different rules for bookings made in your home country?
If booked direct, call the Crown and Anchor team who can also do bookings and/or review them.  Ask them when final payment is due.

With 300+ days you are likely better to wait for a sale,  US Thanksgiving comes to mind. 

It never hurts to consider other options. 
My only NCL experience is so long ago it's not relevant any longer.  When I've looked at NCL in the past, before becoming Loyal2Royal, my research led me to a couple of conclusions. 
By and large the experience is more similar than not.  The devil is in the details.
Free at sea isn't really free, it's bundled into the cost.  Any time I narrowed it down to a specific ship and sailing then compared costs the age old proven rule came to light - nothing in life is free.  That's for me and my purchasing habits.  I'm sure for some people the bundles work out for them.  Once in a while you can find a deal that is an outlier.  It seems people point to these like they are rule but any time I priced out an exact sail date it was never one of those outliers. 
Mini-suites in my research led me to conclude it's just a slightly bigger balcony cabin.  Not really a suite and shouldn't be compared to a JS on Royal. 
When looking at NCL there are great variations from ship to ship.  You really need to focus on one ship and reviews for that ship.  While Royal's fleet has evolved and you can clearly see that evolution from class to class, NCL ships are more random.  In some cases they acquired a ship when another company went broke mid-construction so they started with someone else's design and adapted it to NCL on the fly.  They've also experimented more in design so it isn't an evolution so much as "... and now for something completely different" .   There is nothing wrong with that, but those experiments haven't always worked out so well.  Turns out there is a reason no other cruise line tried some of them.
NCL internet packages don't work for me.  There are many people who love to completely disconnect when cruising.  For those people the internet plans on any line are irrelevant.  I could never work from an NCL ship like I can on Royal.  Like the ship design, internet across the NCL fleet is wildly different from one ship to the next.  The newer ships have decent internet but the older ships have really bad internet.  250 free minutes of really bad internet is just really bad.  They've simply made no attempt to modernize internet across the fleet like Royal did in 2013. 
As far as loyalty programs, for my needs Royal is still tops but that is what I look for in a loyalty program.  I've sailed five lines.  I suppose had I never tried any other line I'd be further ahead compared to where I am now but I am where I am.  In the end it hasn't stunted my advancement in C&A that much.  Competition is a good thing.  It keep Royal in check.  Please sail other lines.  Every time someone doesn't book Royal it lowers demand and causes Royal to lower prices (or keep them from increasing).  That's a good thing and I thank you for taking one for the team.
A cruise is what you make it.  If someone gave me a free cruise on NCL's worst ship I'd still have a great time and not because it was free, rather because I don't do bad cruises.   

They likely didn't know it was for the infamous Matt Hochberg.

OpenVPN is not tolerant of high latency.  At least not some version.  OpenVPN on BSD using UDP for example doesn't work well over satellite.
SSL VPN and IPSEC VPN work fine on Voom, even the geosync satellites with 600+ms latency.  
I routinely use Cisco AnyConnect (SSL or IPSEC) and Tunnelblick on OSX on Voom using TCP and have no issues.  Both to corporate and to my home ASA firewall.  
I've also used Juniper's VPN client without issue.  
I too have set up many VPN servers and/or firewalls in my lifetime and the only ones that don't work well on Voom are OpenVPN based and/or UDP based.
I also make numerous wifi calls over Voom.  Sometimes multiple hours long sitting on boring conference calls.  So I'm not sure who that facebook page belongs to but they have a very different experience from mine.  Even the MagicJack app worked on Oasis.  
I will say though that the only Carnival ship of 10 I've sailed where I could get even SSL VPN to work was the Breeze.  The rest?  No way.  

I'd love to see options in Colorado but sadly will have to wait for a major rise of ocean levels before a cruise ship will be home porting anywhere near me.  

Toss up - Amber Cove by Carnival in the DR or NCL's Harvest Caye in Belize.  
In the case of Amber Cove in 2015 it's a new country that wasn't accessible by modern medium sized ships (Carnival doesn't have larger or mega ships).  However it's a private port, for Carnival Corp. branded ships.
In the case of Harvest Caye in 2017 it's almost a private destination like Cococay or Labadee but close enough to Belize to run excursion from.  A lot of unhappy cruises step off at Harvest Caye thinking they have access to Belize only to learn very little is included such as food, beverage or activities and you can't get there from here.  II's not promoted as a private destination like NCL's Great Stirrup Cay (right beside CocoCay), instead it's labeled as Belize on itineraries.  It almost serves as a pier to operate excursion to Belize but you can't access Belize without an excursion so it leaves a lot of unhappy cruisers feeling like they been dumped on an isolated money trap island.  Go back on the ship or spend money.  No self-exploring Belize.  
Both are notably different than what is proposed here.  In this case a 3rd party is building the port so many different cruise lines can use it, like most islands.  For both Amber Cove and Harvest Caye you will likely only see the Carnival Corp. or NCL holdings branded ships using those private ports.