karl_nj

I don't think anyone actually pays the list price for the drink package on NCL though. A lesser one is usually "included", but you have to pay the 20% gratuity as an extra fee. I assume you can also pay the difference in order to upgrade to a better package, like on Celebrity. So the "real" cost of the base drink package on NCL is probably more like 20% of $99 (e.g. $20/day), and I guess you can upgrade for an extra $39+20%/day.

I figure you are half joking, but Princess has never really been big on sailing out of the east coast during the summer. It's one of the reasons I haven't sailed on that line yet, still being stuck to sailing on the school break calendar. In past years, I don't think Celebrity has sailed out of Florida in the summer either, but with some COVID related redeployments I know they have been recently. That is one of the reasons I went on Edge summer of 2021; figured it was too good of an opportunity to pass up!

Well, in an 'emergency' it's possible to fly within the United States without any ID at all, real or otherwise. It just takes much longer, as TSA has to "manually" verify your identity. I think I'm just annoyed/bitter because in NJ it's pretty much impossible to get a Real ID. They kept on postponing when they would start issuing them, so there is a huge backlog and it's pretty much impossible to get an appointment. I'm not sure what is going on with the DMV over here, but it's ridiculous. Last year my license was up for renewal, but there were 0 appointments available to get a Real ID, so I had to just get a "regular" one. Perhaps I'll be able to get one in 4 years, or whenever my license is up for renewal again. I'll just have to remember to use my passport, passport card, or global entry card for flights until then.

Everything I've heard/read has said you actually have to sail to get the points. Just like for hotel and airline programs. If this wasn't the case, people would search for last minute cruise bargains and book them with no intention of sailing, if they needed a few points to move up a level or something.

My best example, unfortunately, is on Celebrity (not Royal Caribbean) and it was a while ago. My daughter was 4 years old and only wanted pasta with red sauce on that trip. At the time, pasta wasn't on the kids menu. There was a rotating pasta on the adult menu, but the sauce varied. But our wait staff said this was no problem, they were always able to find her some red sauce for her pasta, no matter what was on the menu. The odd thing was, on the "off menu" nights, the pasta would come with the rest of our dinner, and then the red sauce would come a minute or two later. Eventually towards the end of the cruise, the wait staff confessed. On days where my daughters preferred pasta sauce was not available in the MDR, the assistant waiter would drop everything and run up to the buffet restaurant and grab some red sauce from the pasta station up at the oceanview cafe!

Yeah... I was thinking the same thing. I get it that would make things more complicated, but I can certainly think of ways to get around some of the issues that might come up. I also don't understand why royal hasn't gone back to allowing you to pre-book shows online before the cruise, now that covid is less of a thing. Is it never going to come back?

My understanding is that Concierge Lounges are slowly going away as the ships are updated, and being replaced with Suite Lounges, and this due to the fact that Diamond+ C&A members are/were permitted into the Concierge Lounge. So it's a way to basically remove the perk w/o actually taking the perk away.

On Wonder the DL has the 'virtual balcony' type TV's to show you what is going on outside

Yes, it's true that Royal almost always sells things in the cruise planner at a discount. Generally, the sales are not as 'time limited' as they make it seem. There is always another sale around the corner. As mentioned by others, if there is something you know you are going to buy, you should by it. Then you should check from time to time to see if the price went down, and you can cancel and buy again. Royal does the same thing when selling cruises... the sales get 'extended', and then they come out with a slightly different sale. Sometimes these differences can have an impact for 'corner cases' (solo passengers or putting a 3rd/4th passenger in a room, or sailing with a child age 12 or younger) but generally they all even out and there isn't that much change from day to day.

The offer applies to bookings made September 1, 2022 – September 6, 2022 and applies to select sailings departing September 7, 2022 – July 31, 2023. It's just too early for any sales to go into effect for you. Hopefully there will be some good sales available for your sailing in November.

For the 'free diamond drinks' on wonder in the med last week, I would tip discreetly. A couple of times it was *too* discreetly, as the bar waiter didn't notice and left before I could pass it over... lol I always tip discreetly though; it seems weird and wrong to be too showy about it.

Yeah, I don't think there are really any negatives about it. There is good air circulation, so it doesn't have a strong Chlorene smell, or anything like that. And I don't think it's any louder than the solarium on the other ships.

Rome. Ship arrived at 7am. Disembarkation started at 7:30am for guest taking their own luggage off the ship/suite guests. 8am was the first luggage tag group, 9am was the last luggage tag group, they called the 8am groups at around 7:50am.

Yeah, i see what you mean. I've done that too, and I agree it would be nice to be able to do that with all cabin categories. I only have 2 kids so it's less of an issue for me.

I just send an email to my travel agent if i want to book a cruise. She replies back with a price and a cabin number (or choice of cabins). If everything looks good I just reply and she puts down a deposit on my card. Works pretty well for me.

Another good reason to find a good travel agent!

I didn't spend a lot of time there (port intensive itinerary). It seemed very nice, but i'm also used to the enclosed solarium on Anthem (I sail on Anthem fairly frequently since I live in NJ). The one time I sat there for an extended period of time I felt a little warm and ended up going elsewhere, but this was the Med in August so I guess that isn't super surprising. But other times the temp seemed very pleasant in there.

You get 24h of surf (no stream) free. You can upgrade to 24h of surf & stream for like $7 or so. Or there is a discount if you buy the internet package onboard for the whole cruise.

Some random thoughts about my recent cruise on Wonder of the Seas (7 night Western Med) Most comfortable bed i’ve had on an royal carribean ship in a long time. Almost too soft for me, but way better then the rocks they have on Anthem This was my 4th cruise post “restart” — things are finally feeling “normal”, and I didn’t notice any staffing issues. Perhaps it’s because it’s a new ship and they are staffed with their best employees? It was night and day compared to my cruise on Anthem during Christmas. Staff was overwhelmed on that cruise Was fun to be an American on a ship that was so focused on passengers from Spain and the UK. MDR menu even had a rotating pie and a curry on the menu every night.

In Copenhagen I had to put my bags on a conveyer belt thing myself, while the staff watched me, so there was nobody to tip even if I wanted to.

Perhaps things have changed post-pandemic, but I was quite happy with the Kimpton Epic for a pre-cruise stay in 2019. Especially for the price I paid. It certainly seemed comparable to other Kimpton (or Intercontinental) properties that i've stayed at in other cities.

The Escape room on Oasis was very impressive; I think it's one of the best escape rooms i've never experienced, both on land and at sea.

You have to be 13 in order to have an RCL/Celebrity login. Was a bit annoying when I wanted to be able to use the RCL/Celebrity app onboard to use the chat function to communicate with my daughter last summer on Celebrity Edge, since she was 12 at the time.

I just took my first cruise as Diamond, on Wonder of the Seas. We sailed out of "Rome" (Civitavecchia), which turned out to be the "alternate" embarkation port. The "main" embarkation port was Barcelona. This caused a few issues: 1) The app did not work for people boarding in Rome, so you couldn't book entertainment yourself 2) Entertainment could only be booked for the first half of the cruise; the 2nd half couldn't be booked until Barcelona boarding day On our boarding day we were able to get booked for some shows in the first half of the week, and they wrote down our selections for the 2nd half of the week on a piece of paper. The staff told us they would put in our other requests on Barcelona boarding day. Turns out, they didn't. Luckily, we had been talking with the Diamond Lounge concierge earlier, and he recommended we check back with him to make sure we were booked into the adult comedy club slot we wanted. He was able to fix it for us, but it was a close call. I also had some issues with Diamond drinks not posting to my account correctly, and he was able to quickly resolve those too. So I would say that the perk I didn't think I would have any need for but turned out to be a huge help was the Diamond Lounge concierge. At least for this cruise where I wasn't able to use the app.

Isn’t a Canadian dollar only worth 0.78 USD?