AlohaLivin

kraken lava flow (royal uses strawberry). Nearly lays me out though, it is so good it sneaks up on you 🫠

If anyone wants to adopt me for a week, I'm free

Don't think I will do any Special Dining on this one. The MDR usually does a good job on Holiday cruises and the food last week on Mariner was good so fingers crossed. 
50 Days to go. 

I hope that you all have a great time (we were both adopted, congrats on your growing family ❤️)

I hope that you all have a great time (we were both adopted, congrats on your growing family ❤️)

Tony, I totally agree with you regarding the "casual player".  Over and over again, I have warned casual players away from trying to become Prime just for the "free" drinks and casino discounts.  Bottom line....if you aren't a gambler and don't plan on playing in the casino ANYway, stay away....or at least, keep your expectations sane.  I'm going to spend my time and money in the casino.  It's what I do and I enjoy it.  I might as well get some status and benefits for doing that, but those who wander in and think they're going to get a lot of freebies for playing the penny slots couldn't be more wrong.

I hope that you all have a great time (we were both adopted, congrats on your growing family ❤️)

In addition I'd add that you will need to invest some time towards this effort.  Will your family be okay being without you while spend hour after hour in the casino?   
Also you better not have a problem with cigarette smoke.  

😬 Prices are NOT good anymore (and haven't been for a while, I know).  But life happens and we have an extra child (we swore no more, but sometimes life as a foster family is unpredictable and in July we said yes to a temporary teen and now he's permanently ours).  Thankfully my husband was on Liberty last week and got him booked into a single cabin at Next Cruise.  The original price they put the cabin on hold with was so high....but then when he went to book it the price had gone down $1k!!!  So still a crazy amount compared to what we paid, but we don't have to leave our new son home!
I emailed Crown and Anchor trying to get him added to our status.  I'm hoping they won't have an issue doing that.  And on Thursday we went and put in his passport application, so fingers crossed DCF did all the paper work correctly (I know he doesn't NEED the passport.  But we do prefer to have passports while cruising).
If you see a frazzled mom trying to avoid 5 kids, be sure to say hi!

Welcome back, Lynne @AlohaLivin !

Hi - I’m wondering what you ended up doing. To be honest, we always hate this port, I have never been anywhere in the world with people as aggressive as we found in Jamaica. That said we find ourselves going back in about a year and trying to figure out if you had again, we’re going stay on the ship as we usually do. The Historic Falmouth and Ocho Rios Highlights tour doesn’t look bad, but 5.5 hours seems pretty long for a few stops.

1) Not sure on the rate for the second person, full fare vs casino rate, as this is a new thing and I have not tried to book with it.
2)  The offer itineraries include plenty of 7 night sailings on Oasis and Voyager classes.
My biggest problem with this change is that I usually upgrade my room anyway -- beyond what the offer is.  If I have to pay for the second passenger now (my dear wife), then no more upgrades to Suites because I had to use that money for her fare.
I am interested to see if they do something similar for instant certificates received in the casino itself.  These are usually better than the monthly offers I get and what I primarily use anyway.

I must be the only one who has not received any kind of VAR 1 Comp offer.  Don't know if that's good or bad.
I am a low-stakes, tables-only player so my comps have never been great....but I will say, I am DONE with the 3-4-5 night old ships comps.  I am using them to get to Pinnacle (which we will achieve by the end of the year) but beyond that - no more !
So I'm not entirely sure that I would outwardly reject a "1 Comp, second-person-goes-at-the-casino-rate" IF :
1).  The casino rate is really a casino discount rate for person #2 and not a full price rate
2). The offers were for at least 7 night sailings that included the newer/Oasis-class ships
I might actually be willing to pay for the second passenger if they offered me a ship and sailing that I actually wanted !!
Since I haven't received any such offers then I have no idea whether either of my criteria would be met.
I will say this - making the solo cruiser pay a 50% supplement for a FREE CRUISE is an insult and completely unacceptable.  If you're giving someone a comp cruise, give them a comp cruise !

I don't blame people for being upset, I was silently crying too.  You can see the difference with my latest offer compared to previous as it says "1 COMP GUEST IN A DOUBLE".  It will be interesting to see what next month's offer is.  My next 3 cruises I have booked are all casino comps for 2, I wonder if that has any effect on the offers I see now?  Also, I wonder what offers I will see after my May trip as I plan on spending time in the Casino.

Dining packages are available today !!

My TA used to handle all of my casino comps but since the restart, the commission paid to TAs is an insult.  Even though my TA offers EVERY time to take care of this for me, I never bother her with my casino nonsense anymore.  Not only do they get almost no commission, but it is difficult (depending upon who you work with) to get the comps moved over to a TA.  Sometimes (but usually not) the Next Cruise agent will assign the booking to the TA of record but I have had them refuse to assign the booking to the TA of record. Then, you have to take care of that once you are home and that is almost always a hassle.  It's just easier to do it yourself.  I think the commission on a casino comp is $25 flat fee regardless of whether you upgrade or not.  Pitiful.

Options for booking things on Labadee are up (previously it was just a few boat excursions, now it has the zip line, cabanas, etc).  Only a 5% discount as of now, but I grabbed what I wanted and will watch the price.

Hope everyone is having a great time - I had to bail on this one, too close after surgery, but hope it will be a blast for you all!
 
 

We just got off the symphony and for the first time in our cruising lives the times are all over the place 😣 For the first two nights the wake up call from the ship was an hour too early even by the ship’s tIme (and the time change doesn’t explain it unless the “wake up” function differed from the ship’s clock).  The third night, still in the same time zone, we used our wifi-connected cell phone and it woke us up an hour too late.  I have no explanation for any of it 🤷🏼‍♀️ Maybe next week on allure the clock situation will be less bizarre/

Thanks for reporting it to RC. Too often people rant on message boards about bad experiences but never did something to get RC's eyes on it.

They used to be great when it was a sail away from the helipad. These days we skip it

We’ve always referred to these events as the “cattle call”.  Complete waste of time, IMO.

I was able to use a sailboat emoji ⛵for my 'At Sea' days but that was it.

I haven’t been able to determine why only certain ones are allowed. But if it’s disallowed it will wipe out the title you’ve used immediately. So if you’re going to try new ones make sure to  copy of the text before you chance it! I just went back and checked all the ones I’ve use of trips the last 5 years and these are additional ones to those above that are allowed:
♠️ (I use this for the casino 😂), ➡️, ⭕️,  ⚠️, ✅, ☀️, ❇️, *️⃣, ▪️, ⚛️, ❓, ‼️

Update--I called and asked if I could purchase the refreshment package rather than the drink package (with my cabin mate still getting the drink package) because I am prime in the casino and don't plan to buy additional drinks. They allowed it! Very pleasant surprise. I'm not sure if it was just a lucky fluke--I know the agent I spoke to had to talk to some other folks to get the go ahead.