henrysea13

I cruise solo often as my family and friends don't have my flexibility to travel like I do.
I really enjoy solo cruising and it makes cruises with family or friends even more special and different.  I used to travel for business a lot and became used to dining alone on business trips.  Due to that it doesn't concern me to eat in the MDR alone.   If you have a flexible calendar there are deal opportunities.  I can't count the number of times I've asked someone to cruise but they can only go a certain week and rate are double that week.  Being by myself I can sail in an interior cabin and have lots of room.  That alone saves a lot of money, like getting free excursions, internet and drinks.
Studio cabins tend to run ~75% of the cost of paying for double occupancy.  Sometimes they restrict promos and inventory to solo cruisers despite requiring you to pay for two.  In some cases I add someone I've cruised with before to a booking to get a cabin type or promo rate.  Truth is if that person could go at the last minute they would be welcome to join me but more often than not they are a no show at check in.  In those cases the taxes and port fees end up refunded automatically shortly into or after a cruise.   I don't pre-pay gratuity in the cases where a 2nd person is added who might not sail.
Studio cabins do not get double C&A points.  Booking a non-studio cabin including 'Guarantee' cabins do get double C&A points.  Not many ships have studio cabins and they go quickly.  Sometimes they are only slightly cheaper than a regular cabin.  Studio cabins are sometimes pretty small and if the price difference is small I'll go into a regular cabin and take advantage of the double C&A points.  I love suites but just can't justify them when solo.   
There is something really nice about solo cruising.  Do what you want, when you want.  There are often single seats in the theater available as people space themselves out when they sit leaving one seat between them and the next couple.  Sometimes there are single loungers by the pool available for the same reason.  MDR service tends to be very fast when solo.  
If you are the type of person who is comfortable being by yourself solo cruising is great.  Tons of happy people around and lots of public places but easy to slip away and have some alone time when you feel like it. 

Yep.  Bucket list cruise.  Will complete Freedom class trilogy, get to try that new slide.
The ship is the destination.

Have a great time, Henry, I am sailing on the same Adventure itinerary and will embarking the ship two weeks after yours :) 

There are some itineraries that draw less kids in the summer. While Alaska is getting more popular with families, it still draws fewer children overall. The European itineraries also tend to draw fewer children because of the length of the cruise and the cost of airfare involved in getting an entire family there.

Do I need to wrap my head in foil to keep you from reading my mind?

We, Chicago people take our pizza   seriously. People tried the rest, but know Chicago is the best.

Guess what !  Royal is now charging for some of the shows in the main theater !
My cruise planner for my upcoming Allure sailing has an option for an "insider" view of Mama Mia ! for $79 PER PERSON.  This special "event" includes a cocktail, a photograph. preferred seating (whatever that means) and a meet and greet with the cast members.
What a joke !  I wouldn't even watch Mama Mia ! when it was free I'm SURE as he** not going to pay $79 PP (plus gratuity, I'm SURE) to see a bunch of cruise line singers and dancers perform.  It's even $79 for children - not that I would take a child to this show in the first place....
Are there going to be "free" showings of Mama Mia ! on this sailing ?  Hard to tell.  The only option for reserving this show in my Cruise Planner was the paid version but that MAY mean that you will be unable to make a reservation for anything except for the paid version.  There may still be free, unreserved performances.  I just don't know at this point.
It seems that this new paid option is showing up on many sailings (new CC thread) and everyone seems universally outraged.  I sure hope they end up with empty theaters for these paid performances or this may be something we will be seeing more of.
This is just a bridge WAAAYTOOO far as far as I'm concerned.  When they start charging for this second-rate entertainment they've gone waaay off the deep end.

There are still cruise lines that are all inclusive.  Oceania (charges for alcohol only) and Crystal come to mind.  That includes bottled water, ice cream, soft drinks and juices all day.  Yes, they cost a bit more but I appreciated not having to pay an extra $30+ every night just to get a high-quality meal.   I was disappointed enough in the LIberty MDR that I probably won't be sailing with them again any time soon unless they add some new and interesting ports (not just private beaches) to the itinerary out of Galveston.
There are plenty of cruise lines that go the cheap-o route to attract that crowd.  People who are happy to eat hot dogs and burgers from a buffet so they can cruise for 3 days for $299.  I hate to see RCCL head that way.
 
 
 

Just returned from 7 day Liberty from Galveston and wanted to comment on the food. My family of 4 (Wife, 16 year old boy and girl) did the 5 day dining plan and went to Chops 3 nights and Giovanni's 2 nights.  MDR 2 nights
Awesome:
Chops - our waiter Jiri was just outstanding.  We went to Chops the 1st night of the cruise and his service was impeccable.  We requested him on our 2 other visits and he was a shining star!  The food was excellent!  from the salads right to the deserts.  on the last formal night (lobster night) they made sure to let us know ahead of time that they would have lobster tails which made for an awesome surf and turf.  It's been a few years since we cruised and the lobster tails used to be rock lobster.  This time around they were Maine lobster tails.  We are from New England and eat a lot of fresh lobster so we may be a bit picky.  These tails were frozen which I would expect but they were still very good!
Giovanni's - Service was again excellent.  Food was very good.  We visited on the 2nd night of the cruise and the waiter pretty much brought us everything on the menu including appetizers and main pasta dishes.  there was so much food on the table that we couldn't come close to finishing.  We ended up not touching the eggplant parm and had them box it up to go for our cabin fridge.  The only thing they cold improve on is the deserts...taramisu was mediocre and cannoli were soggy.  Not really a biggie because we ate so much there wasn't room for desert!
Mediocre:
MDR - went for breakfast the 1st morning because my wife and I always like to get the eggs benedict...they were both cold, overcooked, and had just a dribble of hollandaise which had no taste.  Kids got pancakes with bacon and sausage which turned out to be the same quality as Wind Jammer buffet (just plain bad).  Bacon is like beef Jerky and almost unedible...sausage is as low quality as you can get....no casing and mushy!
lunch was good and we only went to lunch in MDR on sea days because of the salad buffet.  
Dinner was a bit better but lowest quality of any cruise I have been on (Disney, Princess, and multiple RCR).  
One annoying service issue was the waiters trying to sell us a bottle of wine on both nights even after telling them we had the drink package (glasses of wine included).  Both of our waiters were incredulous that we wouldn't buy a bottle of wine at 40% off instead of ordering single glasses of wine.  Why would I spend additional $$ on a bottle of wine when I can order the same wine by the glass which is included in my drink package.  just strange.
Plain BAD!!!!!!!!:
Wind Jammer:  This was by far the worst buffet dining experience I have ever had on a cruise ship.  Barely edible items up and down the buffet line for breakfast and lunch.  The ONLY thing I can recommend here is the egg/omlette station for breakfast.  get your eggs cooked the way you want...grab some toast and get the heck out!  
"Sliced beef" carving station at lunch looked like pork...never seen sliced beef that was white in color...i passed.  Burgers are hockey pucks.  pasta...how do you screw up pasta!?
 
Johnny Rockets:  they didn't cook the burgers in front of you on the grill.  they were same quality as the buffet hockey pucks and were just pre-cooked low quality burgers.  It took 45 minutes to get our burgers AFTER we had cheese fry appetizer!  We were there for 90 minutes one day just for burgers/fries and almost got up and left.  This was really a disappointment as we have been to Johnny Rockets before and were expecting a decent burger....not Wind Jammer quality pucks.  NOT WORTH THE UPCHARGE!
 
Bottom line is that I am very happy we purchased the 5 night dinner package.  If you want good quality food this is the only way to go.  I had heard that food quality had gone down but was very surprised at how bad Wind Jammer quality was.  I expect typical mediocre quality for mass produced food items in a buffet but this was close to unacceptable.
 
 

We have had dinner in the WJ a few times because of excursions getting us back to the ship later in the afternoon. Rather than jumping through our butts to get cleaned up and suitable for the MDR, we decided to take a swim, have a drink and then get dressed. Was not disappointed in the WJ at all. In fact, last March on the Serenade they had goat curry as one off the dinner items. I have never had real curry, let alone, goat curry, but it was delicious. So good I had seconds! And yeas, that velvet cheesecake IS awesome!

Seems to be a possibly expensive way to go about it - when you say gamble a significant amount, isn’t that just paying for it in advance then?
Lady luck tends to smile at me from a great height - normally whilst waiting for the lifeboat to land on me!!

Sorrentos is about the only thing I tell people to stay away from. Hard to understand how something so bad can be repeated over and over again with incredible consistency. I equate it to dipping a slice of gooey white bread into tomato soup and sprinkling some ultra cheap Parmesan cheese on it.

In Canada where I grew up we had the Molson scale.  While normally applied to other subjects I find it applicable to Sorrentos. I'm on Indy now and pizza is a 10!  (On the Molson scale). 

After a night of exercising my drink package, I think it taste good...

I completely agree @Orange Crush. It reminds me of the pizza they used to serve at Chuck E Cheese. The last time I had the cheese pizza, it was kind of soggy and if folded over treated more like a cheese quesadilla than pizza. And once you've tried the pizza on some of the other lines, you realize how bad the pizza is on Royal. Sadly, though, it doesn't stop me from eating it when hungry late at night. 
For what it's worth, the pizza has been terrible since the 1990s, so at least they've been consistent. :)

You know, I hate that all the terrible reviews of Sorrentos is just convincing me that I have to try it when I cruise.  If everyone told me "oh you have to eat here, it's the best pizza ever" then I might try it.  But with so many people talking about how bad it is, now I feel I must try it to see how pizza can possibly be that badly done.  Why in the world would that be my reaction??

As I complete the "live" blog of my recent Christmas cruise on the Majesty at a glacial pace, there's something I really need to talk with other cruisers about.
Let me start by saying that I am FAR from a pizza snob.  While I've enjoyed some excellent pizza in my time, and I frequently make my own cast iron pan pizzas from scratch, I still appreciate a slice from a national chain, the mall, Cici's or even Digiorno's and Red Barron.  I was a firm believer that there's no such thing as bad pizza.  Just good pizza and better pizza. 
I was wrong.  Sorrento's is bad pizza.  What in gods name do they DO to it?  They appear to be using pre-made crusts with a normal-looking sauce and shredded mozzarella.  The toppings are kinda skimpy, but that's not a big deal.  The problem is that it's got a texture I can only describe as gluey as all hell.  Like Elmer's school glue.  The crust crisps up reasonably well on the bottom and edges, the cheese browns on the top, but there's something going terribly wrong at the crust-sauce-cheese interface.  The entire mass stuck to the roofs of our mouths and left an unpleasant film on our teeth and tongues.  I tried multiple different kinds across different days to see if it was just a particular variety to rule out a bad batch, strange customized recipe or something that's been sitting out too long.  It was consistently gluey and terrible.  An especially well-done pie, fresh out of the oven was only marginally better.  It was still noticeably gluey.  Soggy elementary school cafeteria pizza is superior to this.  I'm just baffled how the pizza can miss the mark so much.  Are they using artificial cheese or some peculiar ingredient?  Pizza isn't a complex food and doesn't require any ingredients they don't already carry for their otherwise excellent bakery and galley operations.  How can it possibly be this bad?

I did not know there were other cruise lines! 

omg twangster the photos thankyou I am planning my cruise on the anthem WOW your pictures I wish I could see pix from our freedom cruise nov 11

My two cents here...I really think you need to look at what type of cruiser you are (or your family).  There's a range in cruising type personalities, from people who are really active cruisers who constantly have to be seeing or doing something to some who could go on a cruise to nowhere and have a blast. Trick is to finding out what type you are and then picking the right itinerary. Personally, for my family and I, we are the laziest cruisers ever! Lol. 3 seas days sounds great!

I don't know the cost as I have always had a drink package. However, I believe on the last cruise a can of coke was around $4.50 or something crazy and absurd. I can't imagine what they would charge for a shot of liquor!
 
I have never thought to have it emptied which maybe a good idea so the temptation is removed. That being said, even in my most vulnerable and drunken conditions I have never ever considered taking a drink or a water or a snack from the mini bar. I refuse to be raped by those outlandish prices either on cruise or on land.

I've always felt that if you are simple enough to need only one name, then you're not complex enough to be interesting.  :D
 

Well I guess that answers my question. I just asked because as long as I've been on this site, I had never seem a post from him. He was like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, a lot of people talked about him, but there was never really any proof of him!

Mariner of the Seas is the one undergoing an extensive refit before coming to PC.

Enchantment is coming home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry Texas!