Keeves

Ditto. I wonder what the rules are, for allowing RCCL to do this? For example, maybe they won't charter the ship within the last X months before sailing, or after X% of the cabins have been taken.

Happy Birthday!!! and many prayers for BakedAlaska's husband too!

I know several people in the food service industry, and I have come to learn something interesting: Customers tend to estimate value by the type and amount of food, and are blissfully ignorant of the labor involved. For the providers , it is all about labor costs, and the food itself is a distant second. This is why your restaurant plate will tend to be overflowing, which seems almost wasteful to the customer. But to the restaurant, they can make you very happy with a lot of food, and it costs them only a little more than a regular plateful. So in the case of cocktails, they're not charging for a dash of bitters and a bit of syrup. They're charging extra because it takes three times as long to mix a fancy cocktail, compared to pouring a shot of whatever.

I'm impressed! To cover the cabin and dining is sort of expected, perhaps, but the flights and hotels is above and beyond, especially since it was the weather's fault!

I was on the Mariner the previous week (July 2-6). I wouldn't say that the elevators were particularly slow in terms of moving X feet per second, but rather in other ways. For example, when you press the button to call an elevator, it only calls the two elevators immediately next to the buttons. The other two elevators (six feet in back of you) are unaware that you are there, so you have two choices: (a) wait a long time for one of the two elevators in front of you, or (b) press the call button for the elevators behind you also. If you choose option B, you'll get an elevator in half the time, but you slow down the system for others because the elevator will stop on your floor and you're already gone. Yes, the stairs will indeed be your friends. At least, they were mine. I was fortunate to get a cabin on Deck 8, exactly 3 decks above the Promenade, and 3 decks below the pools/Windjammer. So I frequently used the stairs to go down, and occasionally up too.

I had not stopped to think about those sorts of situations. Sucks pretty bad for the people whose vacations got cancelled because the hurricane kept the ship out past curfew, but it worked out nice for you! Here's my question: It seems perfectly logical and fair that your drink package is not going to be extended for the days for free; you gotta pay for it, and I understand that. But what about the cabin (which includes the MDR, I presume)? Does everyone get the extra three days free, or do they make some kind of calculation to charge more? Extending 7 days to 10 is almost a 50% jump and that could get very expensive. And at the same time, it's not really RCCL's fault either, so I can sympathize with them too.

Like at every other Starbucks I've seen! ? Thanks for your comments, everyone!

Starbucks on Mariner is not covered by any of the drink packages, and that's exactly why I had thought that it was standalone and that the Starbucks card would work.It is clear to me that I don't understand what "standalone" means in this context. (Presuming that Starbucks is not standalone,) I am rather surprised that the bean counters were able to find a way to make all-you-can-drink liquor profitable, but they can't find a way to make all-you-can-drink Starbucks profitable. (Personally, I don't really care. I have no need for high-end coffee at all, and even my wife is happy with one or two per day. It's just that there are so many Starbucks addicts out there, I'm surprised that it's not included in any of the packages.)

Power outlets near the bed? Is that standard for your level cabin, or was it a medical request? We were on Mariner last week in a standard balcony room. We are fortunate not to need electricity for a CPAP or anything more medically necessary, but we did need some power and there were two 110-volt outlets on the desk, and that's all. Nothing by the bed or in the bathroom. There was also one European outlet on the desk, but I didn't bring any adapters, so I don't know if it actually had any power.

Last week on the Mariner (Miami-Bahamas), my wife was NOT able to use her U.S. Starbucks card. The onboard purchase had to go on the SeaPass.

Same here. But now that the idea is mentioned, it got me wondering why this is so. It seems to me that most water drinkers are very picky about the purity: they need their water pure from the bottler - none of that adulterated tap water, thank you. And in contrast, soda drinkers tend not to care whether their soda is in a can or a bottle or a glass. (That actually surprises me, because I find fountain soda to be MUCH less carbonated than cans or bottles, but I guess most people either disagree or don't care that much.)

So limited, in fact, that for several days I thought that ship didn't even have such a store. I was on Mariner last week, and I kept wondering, "If someone wants a chocolate bar, I think the only option is to scrape the frosting from a piece of cake." I finally went to Guest Services, and asked them. They pointed me right across the Promenade to a store called "Port Merchants". At the time, that store was closed, and looking through the windows I saw nothing but liquor. When I went inside later on, I could see a few snacks behind the cash register, and some toiletries and electronics in the back of the store.

There are signs that explicitly mention the 30 minutes.

Going... gone. It was just four days, ended this past Friday. Our first cruise ever, and we'd do it again in a minute, if our finances allow. We'll see!

I should add that I'm the kind of nerd who tends to read signs. And if there was a No Drinking In The Pool sign, I didn't see it.

or maybe my Solarium attendant was too easy-going. Here's a photo of me:

Last week on Mariner - a 4-night cruise - they changed "Formal Night" to "Wear Your Best" night. I have no idea whether this was a one-shot experiment, or a change for 4-night cruises, or maybe it is going company-wide.

On Mariner last week I didn't see any glass by the pool. Cocktails were in plastic glasses, and my beer bottle was aluminum. I suppose someone xould have brought glass from elsewhere but i didn't notice any.

That's what I did for my coffee. You can get flavored creamers at any gas station on the mainland, but I feared that it would count as "specialty coffee", and I was correct. So I brought along a bunch of packets of Tasters Choice Grench Vanilla powdered instant coffee.

Plenty of people were bringing their alcoholic and other drinks into the pool on the Mariner last week.

Which ship? This is what was in the Windjammer on Mariner a week ago today.

Iced tea is also free. (I'm not sure if that counts as "flavored water".)

I was on Mariner last week. I prepaid for Voom with one device, and I got a small piece of paper taped to my SetSail pass immediately on boarding. The instructions were essentially identical to the letter posted above. I would like to point out that "one device" means "one device at a time, regardless of who owns that device". For example, a couple can share one access code, but when one of the uses the access code, the other will lose their connection. It also means that if an individual goes to the library to use their pcs, they'll need to use their access code, and that will knock their phone off, so they'll need their access code again when they're done with the pc. So save that code! (On the newly remodeled Mariner, the library is tiny compared to the photos on the website. There's only one stack of books, and four desks of pcs, and a black/white printer. It's on deck 4 near the theater.)

Those files are still unavailable. I apologize. I don't understand. I'll figure it out when I get home I hope. So here we are, and during the normal chaos of the morning before leaving the ship, having our breakfast in the Windjammer. By magical miracle, half-and-half is suddenly freely available all over the Windjammer. The brand is Cream-O-Land, Kaf-K, the same brand that has been supplying us with the little containers of non-dairy creamer all week. On the one hand, the sudden availability of a new product onboard ship, should surprise and shock even the non-kosher passenger. But for the kosher passenger it highlights the importance of checking, rechecking and then checking again. When we first got on board the Heinz ketchup packets had an OU, but through the week the percentage got steadily higher of European Heinz, whose kashrus status I have no information about. It is all too easy to grab a familiar logo, and not realize that it is from a different supplier.

Several posts ago, I uploaded two Royal Caribbean documents that my travel agent sent me. Some people told me that they were unable to download them, so I'm trying again: KosherMealsOverview.pdf KosherSampleDinnerMenu.pdf