spiralqueen

I was poking around the cruise planner for my Allure May 2019 trip and noticed that RCI is now offering The Key for this sailing, so maybe they are expanding the program. Seeing as how we are all gold members staying in a JS, this is a great way for us to get close to full suite benefits for much cheaper. Especially since we are 3 adults who had already decided that we wanted to do lunch at Chops and that we were going to all have internet access. I'm snagging it at the full price for now ($25 pp per day) but made sure to confirm in the fine print that this is also something I can reprice if it goes on sale (it is). This has currently made my day and I think I will save it as a surprise treat for my parents who I'm going with!

@accio7 I’m looking forward to your blog! I’m especially interested in your thoughts on the St Kitts Thenford Grey tour since I have that exact one booked in May. I’m curious how easy it is to find the group and how big the tour groups normally are. HAVE FUN!

There is one here that is a 5 night visiting Costa Maya and Cozumel from this past March which should give you a very good idea as to what to expect. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/independence-of-the-seas/sat-2018-03-10-0000

In an abundance of caution, I would personally bring the original Rx bottle for the controlled medication, but not bother about it with the others. This goes double if the controlled medication is an opioid or some other easily abused for non medicinal purposes medication. The last thing you need is overzealous security somewhere acting like you are smuggling something.

If that happened to me and I didn’t want to split it up into multiple files, I would upload it to a cloud drive like google drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc and send Matt a shareable link to the file there. This way you avoid email attachment restrictions. Or you could try shrinking the file itself via a PDF editing software if you have it.

If you haven’t already, I would recommend you look at past Cruise Compasses for Freedom. From what I understand the shows and entertainment type things do not change very often except for maybe the comedian and special guest. Here’s a link to the Freedom Compasses filtered: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=278

I forgot to mention this earlier because still getting back into the swing of real life ? but mission accomplished! It was $7.95 and I can send it out to you on a work day if you send me your address info.

You might want to look into getting a Kindle or other similar e-reader. Everyone in my group had one for our cruise and it worked out incredibly well because they are so portable and you can even borrow e-books from your library on them for free. You can use an ipad or a phone to read on, but I've noticed that it seems to drain the battery at the same rate as if you were streaming video on it and also has that annoying glare when it's sunny.

I wanted to update this with my experience with R Bar on Enchantment. I admit I probably went in there with unrealistic expectations about the skill of the bartenders, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth when I asked for something “interesting and fruity without alcohol” and they handed me literal fruit punch. Like, kool aid type fruit punch. So my advice to people wanting to try R Bar is to order an actual drink and not just ask them to make you something interesting.

I just got the Refreshment Package for 5/12/19 sailing on Allure for $17/day ?

@Mathew Jones where does this show up for you on the cruise planner? I’m trying to figure out if it’s available for my cruise I have next May.This is something that has seriously piqued my interest because I’m a lowly Gold member. I was actually surprised to hear so many people talk about how they have no interest in it. ETA: I just found Matt’s article about it again and realized it’s only for Liberty and Oasis for now. Boo for me. But I’d still love to know where it’s showing up so I can stalk that section in case they widen release.

I wish you luck! I admit my rooting for you isn’t entirely selfless as I have a junior suite on Allure next year so this is making me quite nervous about our ability to dine in CK as much as we would like. But it does make me feel better for your chances that guest services looked puzzled when you asked about it. Like @Lovetocruise2002 I was getting very upset and indignant on your behalf.

Apologies if there have been past posts about this, but I guess "R Bar" is too short for the search engine to process correctly so I can't go hunting for past info. I've read in various places that R Bar is a great place to go for more interesting drinks and that the bartenders are more like mixologists. I assume this ability to create interesting drinks would extend to mocktails as well? Can anyone share their past experiences with asking for this at R Bar and maybe also share your favorite virgins drinks that you have had there? Thanks in advance!

I’ll be on Enchantment starting Nov 23rd. I can keep an eye out for one/pick one up for you if you let me know where they normally are found. Feel free to send me a message with info on where you are located/how we should coordinate reimbursement/shipping if it’s successfully found.

I'm looking forward to reading it since I will be there the sailing after you!

Thank you @CGTLH ! I figured the Quantum class did but I wasn't sure if it was all of Oasis class or just the newer ones. I had a passing thought of them installing the upgrade during the various amped drydocks, but I figured they would rather use that money for shinier updates that make for good commercials. Not that I'm complaining!

Is there a list somewhere of which ships use RFID seapass cards?

Had a YOLO, book it! moment over the weekend and now I'm going on the Nov 23rd Enchantment sailing. Will be a nice toe dip before my May Allure cruise. ?

To add on a question about Chops lunch, I think I read on here somewhere that for dinner there you are limited to one entree main included in the price. Is that the same for lunch as well?

Just so you know, I requested access to the sheet. I’m the one with the gmail that starts with siempre——

I'm so glad you mentioned this! I was assuming it would follow the same pattern of only releasing them a month at a time and was planning to check back in October for my mid May 2019 cruise flights.

Thanks for the super quick answers everyone! I'm very happy to hear this is the case as it will make things much easier. Everyone in the room is an adult so we won't run into any issues with minors.

So for the cruise I am going on next year, I will be sharing a room with my parents. Is it possible to set up different credit cards on file for each person's seapass for on board spending, or is it set up per room? It would be nice to be able to save some time on the untangling of the charges post-cruise for reimbursement.

I'm going to chime in here with what I am doing to currently catch up on the earlier episodes of the podcast that don't show up in the episode history. I use the Overcast app that @JLMoran was referring to, but it looks like pocketcast has this ability too. I know that I can go to the individual pages and play the episodes on the website, but my main issues with this are that it doesn't flow directly into the next episode for listening handsfree in the car, and that it doesn't remember where you left off if you can't finish an episode in one sitting What I've found is that if you go to the individual episode pages (I recommend opening them in a new tab so you don't lose your place on the main episode listing page Matt linked to above) and right click on the "download episode" button you have the option to "save link as" - this will obviously look different depending on your browser. I'm using chrome Which will then allow you to save the .mp3 on your computer. I, personally, save them in their own subfolder to make the next step easier. Since you have pocketcast I recommend trying out these instructions. Basically, for whatever app you are using, I would just google "APP NAME play mp3". For Overcast I used these instructions to great success. Hope that is helpful!

I keep meaning to ask this about the schedule.....does short Caribbean include the 7 night sailings? Or is that more for the 3-4 night cruises?