HeWhoWaits

Aft-facing is ALWAYS the way to go when it's an option for us.

Sounds like the Cruise Planner hasn't been updated in the system to reflect the itinerary change.

One such incident is too many.

Check your spam folder. If you didn't receive it by today, tomorrow may be too late to fill it out.

Or it will be added back at checkout and you'll see $311.92 as the total to be charged. Royal IT is as convoluted as Royal math.

Unless youre certain you'll find a better deal later , go ahead and book it. You can always cancel if you have second thoughts.

What is orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot.

Sexism isn't funny. It's great when a "grandma" approaches a kid but creepy when it's a "dirty old man" is blatant sexism.

Cart to a holding area to another cart to a behind-the-scenes area on your deck to the hallway. I would be very surprised if all of a party's bags stayed together throughout the process.

Two experiences in suites say this is not always the case - in one instance our bags were already at the door when they told us we could access the cabins, the other was one of the times we found our bags at the other end of the ship after returning from dinner (having searched the halls twice prior to going to dinner).

YMMV "Near our cabin" has varied from right outside our door to all the way forward when we had an aft-facing stateroom. Again, YMMV. The only times we got our luggage particularly LATE were the times we tipped the MOST per bag.

Note to self - do not book a cruise scheduled to visit Labadee if we want to avoid yet another stop at Nassau.

Less unhealthy?

Definitely healthier than the overly sweet virgin piña coladas, et al.

Already in my Amazon cart to be a Christmas gift for my wife (I won't order until I have enough for free shipping without paying for a Prime account).

The options for cabins that accomodate five or more people are very limited and the difference in cost between two fives and a four plus a six would likely prove to be less for the 4/6 than the 5/5. A suite for 6 may or may not be more cost effective than booking two staterooms - that will vary by ship and sailing.

The auto-call back system for Royal Customer Service seems like a great idea... Until EVERY different number that is used to call you back after your wait time is flagged by your cell carrier as potential spam. Waited 33 minutes, then another 42 only to have both numbers from Royal flagged by Verizon.

Breaking into a chorus of The Lion Sleeps Tonight is just a whim away, a whim away, a whim away.

The status match is C&A Diamond to Captain's Club Elite. It gets you the Elite perks. It is not (and never has been) a perk-for-perk match.

Does Giovanni's really misspell Osso Buco (both as a single word AND with the extra c)? Or is that intentional because they use "beef tenderloin" rather than veal and don't want to be called out for THAT aberration?

The address of the TA shown is the address of Royal's HQ.

The real question is - what happens with B2B passengers on these two sailings?

If the idea is "new cruisers on 3/4 nighters become established cruisers on 7 nighters on Icon class" there's a risk that they will price those new-becoming-established cruisers out of the market. Many established cruisers have little or no interest in Icon class (beyond perhaps a one-time taste or trying to sail every ship in the fleet at least once).

The key demographic for Royal is families. Three and four night cruises are competing directly with traditional theme park vacations. The discounted pricing for third (and beyond) passengers in a stateroom makes short cruises more cost effective than those traditional family trips. That's why the demand is so high for the short cruises on ships with all the bells and whistles AND a stop at the PDCC Theme Park. Since we're more interested in itinerary choices (and sea days), the "theme park" cruises don't appeal to us. Thankfully, we prefer the smaller ships with fewer bells and whistles anyway, so the longer cruises are still available to us without "jumping ship" as it were.

Solution - stop building mega ships and keep the numbers reasonable!