JasonL

Harmony is highly coveted right now too. Good for you!

Testing... Thanks @Lovetocruise2002

Hey yall I'm Jason, I'm married to an angel named Melody and we have 2 girls (11 & 6) and 1 boy (2). My kids are starting to make cruising requests already, I think I'm creating monsters. We live in Washington state about 45 minutes south of Seattle. If I lived closer to the Caribbean I would cruise more, there is only so many times you can cruise Alaska or Victoria/Vancouver. I've started hanging around this site more and more in the last few months as I become more and more addicted to RCL cruises. I might even be addicted to the idea of the possibility of perhaps cruising. I've successfully binged about 200 podcasts and look forward to cruising with some of you all someday on a group cruise. I also finally pulled to trigger on becoming an Insider as Matt surely deserves the support! God Bless and Happy Cruising

Ok, I'm really bad at figuring out simple tech things. Can anyone explain how you tag someone on a reply? Also how do you add things like upcoming cruises to your posts(like a signature i guess)? Thanks P.S. Can I also just say that Matt is awesome. He says this is a hobby, but holy smokes it seems like a second full time job to me. Thanks so much for all the content, it gives me something to look forward to each week and helps keep my mind off the stresses of work. (This is where a tag would come in handy) Matt, if you ever need a chauffeur to explore the surrounding Seattle area before or after a cruise, no problem. I can gas up the minivan and shuttle yall around. ?

Can you guess my favorite month to cruise? Feb 9, 2020 - Liberty Feb 20, 2021 - Symphony

Might be a little too late for this reply, sorry. I always get the ultra spacious rooms for my family of 5. We love them, they have so much room to move around and even space for a kids play corner. The layout or shape does change depending on the location. We have done the ultra spacious oceanview in a couple of different formats. One looks like the photos shared above. The other is at the front of the ship and is a larger square footage room, but it slants down with the angle of front of the ship. There are bunk beds across from the bathroom as you come in the door and there is a curtain for privacy. It's a little tight for an adult sleeping in this space, but it's doable. There is also a couch that pulls out to a double. Even with the couch left pulled out, there is ample space to move around. I think this room is well worth the extra money. I am going to try the Ultra spacious balcony of Symphony, but that isn't until Feb 2021.

I thought you were all missing the fact of whether or not your cruise was 6 months for additional discount, but after looking at the most current flyer they must have deleted that part. Is that correct?

Thanks yall, that's what I was thinking too. Although my wording usually comes off not as intended. My TA is great and she is usually speedy to respond, was just curious what yall experience.

Barbados has such perfect white powder sand beaches. I've only done The Boatyard, but we absolutely loved it. The beach is deep and the sand perfect. They have water toys to play on and a rope swing off the pier. Volleyball nets, music ect... For a beach day we loved it.

Coconut shrimp when they have it! And plenty of "bird seed bread" as my family calls it, while you're waiting for your appetizers.

Agree. I used a debit card once and the account was put on freeze because of all the overseas purchases(even though I went into the bank before hand and told them). Couple of autopays didn't go through.

What do you guys think are reasonable response times to repricing & changes ect.. My agent is on vacation, but says she will check phone and email as much as possible. Thursday I decided I wanted to change one of my cruises, I haven't heard back from her and now it's $200 more for the sailing. Am I being unrealistic to wanted changes to my cruises within 24hours?

I cruise in family suites often with 5 total guests. RCCL should really update their system to allow more than 4 guests in a booking. I don't know if I could bid on upgrades since a party of 5 has 2 separate bookings for the 1 cabin.

If I am cruising with my kids in a family cabin, that's 5 people, it would definitely not be worth it if everyone had to pay. When it's just me and the wife I would absolutely consider it though, as we highly value our time to not wait in lines. Also we always get Voom

I think Matt always recommends getting passports. Cost more, but it's a safer bet in case you run into problems off ship. We got passports for our kids, it makes it much easier going through security check points in airports as well as border crossings on land. Kid passports are only good for 5 years though and cost about $75

Would love to do a roller coaster on a cruise ship, as soon as Royal gets one

It usually means absolutely nothing. This sale came right after 30% off all guests sale, which is technically "kids sail for less" also. On top of that, unless you pull your kids out of school(like I do) to cruise, all the times that kids are out of school will be blacked out for the sale. Every once in a while a sale changes the price of a cruise, but I wouldn't hold your breath. In general the price is gonna start out cheapest and slowly get more expensive the closer it gets to the sailing.

Trying to figure out which ships will get upgrades before I book something for summer 2020. It looks like there is a gap from jan19th-feb23rd on freedom. Is that enough time for them to add the upgrades?

Radiance does have a nursery. We took a 1 year old and thought it would be crazy to leave them at the nursery while we got off the ship. After a couple of days though, we saw how well he was taken care of and we did a beach trip without the kids 1 day. They were all happy to go to adventure ocean and hang out with their friends.

sticky notes or a small magnetic dry erase board

Depending on your cell phone carrier, you might be able to text or wifi call while in port. I have t-mobile and most ports are free text and data or find wifi and use wifi calling

i was trying to think of an elegant way to say this.... but I like your words best

I suggest getting a recommendation for a specific TA, not a general TA company. Large TA agencies have many agents that vary from outstanding to really bad. I talked to friends of mine that cruise very frequently for a recommendation and that TA turned out to be great.

We have booked oceanview family or as it's now called Ultra Spacious Oceanview(used to be cabin code FO, now it's 1K). It is so so so nice. We bring all 5 in that one room and it's huge, plenty of space. It has been about the same price to book a family oceanview or a balcony, and it's about 330 sq. ft!

So, we brought our kids on a cruise with us for the first time a couple years ago. They were 9,5 & 1 at the time. We love cruising because it's such a lazy vacation, where we don't have to do anything that resembles work. Taking the kids was a completely different experience, even on Allure that has a great childcare program. It is still a great vacation, but you need to get your mindset right before you go. It isn't going to be what you are used when cruising alone. After that cruise we said "we will never bring the kids again" because there was far more work involved than we had planned. Then a couple weeks went by and we realized we set ourselves up for disappointment with unreal expectations. We still had a great time, but we didn't get our mindset right that there will still have to be parenting involved and dealing with an unreasonable toddler and so on. After thinking about it, I changed my mind about bringing the kids. I now have 2 more cruises booked with the kids again. I just know that the day time is going to be focused on family activity and in the evening we'll drop them at the kids club while we get some alone time for shows and dinner. When it's all said and done, where else can you keep the kids so easily entertained and have the ability to drop them off pretty much any time you want? There is never a doubt that the kids will have an amazing time, it's whether it will still feel like vacation(totally relaxing) and not a family trip(not very relaxing, but still worthwhile). I think it's a good mix of both. I know this doesn't all apply if the adventure doesn't have child care, but I just want to share my thoughts on cruising with kids and having the right state of mind.