Baked Alaska

This is the same sale that has gone on the entire summer. So, actually, it isn't a Labor Day sale. Just a "sucker is born everyday" sale! ?

Just so you know.  Supposedly, if you remove gratuities and then tip on your own, the staff is required to turn those tips in to the "pool".  While you may think you are doing certain staff a favor, you really are not.  Staff may keep any additional tip on top of the daily gratuities.
If you really want to help the staff that deserve it, get their name and use their name on the post cruise survey or any compliment card you find.  This helps their long term career and they really appreciate it.
 

That is correct. In March, we stopped by the NextCruise office and booked 2 ocean view balcony cabins for June 2019. When we were back home, we noticed we could save $1,000 if we moved the cruise to September 2019 (same ship & cabin types). Since we were within 30 days of booking at NextCruise, the change fees were waived.

Hi Lynda, welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog forums!
AAA is the American Automobile Association. It's a paid membership group for residents of the US, and was originally known for their automobile assistance services, particularly no-cost towing. But they also have travel services at their local offices and are used by many as a general-purpose travel agency.
MEI is a sponsor of this web site and a dedicated travel agency, who specialize in both cruise travel and also trips to Walt Disney World / Disneyland / other Disney properties. Several of us here use them as our cruise travel agents, not so much for savings we get over direct booking as for the help they provide in various ways after the booking: checking for lower fares when a new promotion comes out, dealing with mistakes made by Royal (e.g., incorrectly canceling someone's excursion or whole cruise), fighting with Royal when a ship charter causes a booking to be canceled and no good alternatives are offered, and so on. Those of us who use them are quite happy with the service they provide.
There's nothing wrong with using cruise.com if you find they give you the best rates and that's your primary goal. Just be aware that if a bad situation arises, like some of the examples I gave just above, you could be on your own for trying to resolve them. It depends on what kind of level of customer service cruise.com provides after the initial booking.
Be aware that the base cruise fare is not really something that travel agencies are free to modify. If you see a rate that's lower than you find on Royal Caribbean's web site, it usually means the agency is giving up some of the commission that they receive from Royal in order to give you that lower rate. And if they do that, there is some chance that it may translate into a lower level of after-purchase service, since they now have less money in their own pockets for paying their agents to go those extra steps. It's not always the case, but it's something to keep in mind.
A local agent may not necessarily give you the same discounted price as the online person. They do, after all, have physical office space to pay for in addition to the regular expenses for staff, salaries, insurance, etc. Honestly, I don't know anyone here who uses a truly local agent that they go see in person; all of MEI's agents are in various parts of the US, and we communicate by email or phone.
Side note: I kind of view leaving behind some up-front discounts on my cruise fare as sort of buying insurance; the extra savings I'm "leaving on the table" is my insurance policy towards good post-booking care. If something goes horribly wrong, or I just need to follow up with my agent on a bunch of things because I'm going somewhere totally unfamiliar to me, I know that I can count on my agent to be there answering my questions or going to bat for me; and that means less stress when the bad stuff happens. Not to mention the good news times when I get an email saying that the latest promotion just saved me another $100, or gave me $75 more on-board credit (OBC)! This is the reputation that MEI has earned over the years, and for my personal preferences about what I look for in a travel agency, this counts for a lot!
There is nothing wrong with having this goal! I think most of us here would like to be on a ship as many times a year as possible! ?
MEI, as noted, won't be giving you any real up-front discounts on the base cruise fare. However, they will constantly be checking the newest promotions as they come out and seeing if that will save you money. If you tell them up front that having a lower base fare is more important than having a lot of On Board Credit for the trip, they will make sure to get you the lowest fare that the promotions make possible. If you happen to be a regular at the ship's casino and are part of the Club Royale program, there is at least one agent with MEI who has a reputation as a miracle worker for getting incredibly low fares on suites and other cabins!
They also do on occasion provide small gifts that will be delivered to your cabin after boarding, sometimes on the second day of your cruise. For instance, my family and I had our first cruise ever this past April, and part of the reason was for our 20th wedding anniversary. My agent had a box of red velvet cupcakes delivered to our cabin from the on-board cupcake shop on the second day of our cruise. It was a very nice surprise! Others here have likewise had similar small gifts delivered depending on the circumstances around a particular booking.
 
I hope this all helps!

While not the only perk of using MEI Travel one distinct perk is that they sponsor this site. 
Have you noticed no annoying banner ads of any sort?  That doesn't happen by itself and it's one of the reasons why I use MEI Travel. 

LOL!  I just looked back at the thread title and realized we went off track again!  Those were drink package prices I just posted and the thread is about VOOM.  Ooops.

Geez, that never happens.  

No , although I spent many days in Montreal (love this city) I am not a Canadian (your really know Canadian with so many spelling and grammar errors ?)  , it was not me to create the flag , if I would try to create my flag it would be more complicate ? 

As I recall (and it's been MANY years ago), the MDT was at Giovanni's (actually it was at the OLD Italian restaurant before Giovanni's) and it was a limited option meal.  Unless things have changed, I would not consider a meal at the MDT to be equivalent to having a dinner at Giovanni's.

One benefit of booking a cruise onboard via NextCruise is you have a 30 day grace period to make changes without inquiring a penalty.
So if you book a NON-Refundable sailing on board, you can change it once you get home within 30 days…. Just don’t forget to change it!

This was being discussed on another thread.  Try incognito mode.  That seems to work.

@Matt Just reminding you to schedule that July 2020 Canada/New England group cruise! Okay, I'm done. ?

That would 100%, without a doubt, cause me to lose my sanity. Big kids are so much better than little kids ?

Writer's block? Painter's block?
?
 
I'm yanking your chain, I know you're teaching these kids the fundamentals of long-sequence encryption block chain so they can all become overnight zillionaires in the Bitcoin arena.

@Lovetocruise2002 I normally teach math, science, and music (sub), but today I got to teach block coding to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders! Love this age!

@Matt Just reminding you to schedule that July 2020 Canada/New England group cruise! Okay, I'm done. ?

@Matt Just reminding you to schedule that July 2020 Canada/New England group cruise! Okay, I'm done. ?

Thank goodness you are not a geography teacher.  Wait.  You are not a geography teacher, right?

Lol...I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I have almost zero knowledge of Eastern Canada.  This is why I need @Matt to book a Canada/NE GC so that I have an excuse to go out there.  Going to leave this question to @twangster or @monctonguy or @Jerel

An open-jaw Fall Foliage cruise, northbound or southbound, is suddenly a lot less expensive than I'd thought. My utter lack of geographical knowledge had me thinking that Quebec City was north of Maine's northern border and a 12-hour drive minimum, making for a semi-mandatory flight to get there or back. But nope! It's a beeline due north on I-87 to QC-15, and a very reasonable 8 hour drive. I drove 6 hours for college several times a year; doing an 8 hour drive with the family, even stretching to 10 hours for lunch and stretch breaks, is totally doable. And renting a car one way is only a few hundred dollars, vs at least $800-$1200 for the four of us to fly there.
If Matt doesn't do a July 2020 CA/NE group cruise, I may just book the late September / early October 2020 foliage cruise for a (very belated) 50th birthday trip!
Also from the department of "I was not aware of that!" -- All of those cruises include an overnight stay in Quebec, either as the start (southbound) or end (northbound) of your cruise. So we get a day to explore Quebec city without having to pay for a hotel in order to extend the trip.
When do those 2020 CA/NE itineraries come out again? ?

ha...I doubt that and didn't do it for that.....although if I somehow stopped some big event from happening I guess it would be nice to receive some kinda acknowledgment....but at the end of the day.....I would rather feel safe than anything I guess!
 
And it is prob nothing at all...so I doubt I'll hear anything else at this point..but who knows. I did take screen shots of at least 4-5 of his different posts and they said if they needed anything else they would be in touch but they have/see everything that I saw.

Why not even alert your local police to it? Or local FBI office?

Glad to hear this since I have very fond memories of Cancun and would love to get back there at some point, but also sad for the loss of life occurring. 
As @twangster said, definitely seems like local cartels targeting one another specifically and not targeting tourism. 

A call to RCMP/CSIS wouldn't hurt.  They know how to engage the appropriate agency on the other side of the border.
One concern with calling RC is that only represent RC's interests.  They won't likely get this guy on any radar screens of any government agency where he appears to belong.   

Thanks for speaking out!
I hope RCCL will give you some type of confirmation something has been done.  I believe once this has been done, then we can stop saying anything further.