ThyriC

It really depends on what you want to see in NYC. I'm a HUGE fan of the Yotel in NYC. Its reasonably priced, and if you get one of the king rooms (not the solo cabin, that thing is tiny!) its plenty of room to stay, enjoy NYC, and its fairly close to a lot of attractions but far enough away from things to not be noisy at night. Its super techy with USB outlets pretty much everywhere, it has a smart TV, mood lighting around the TV. The bathroom might be a little more "open" than some other restrooms, but I just find this place to be fun and funky and a great place to lay your head at night. Best way in my opinion to get from Jersey into the city would be to take the train. You can take the NJ Transit train from Newark Airport station to NYC for about 15 dollars per person. New York Penn Station is super busy but outside there is a cab stand with proper metered cabs. You can also call an Uber or Lyft if you so choose. From penn station to the Yotel costs about 10 dollars. The concierge at the Yotel is awesome at suggesting how to get to some of your biggest attractions such as the statue of liberty, ground zero, the UN, Times Square, etc.

I think the more people who call to complain about this. Post on social media about this. Raise a stink! At least give 100 OBC in exchange for the loss of the perks. Or honor the perks for those already booked.

And now is my moment of hoping that the atlantic gets all of its storming and such out of its system in the next month. Though if my bermuda cruise got diverted to new england and canada, I cant say I'd be disappointed. I really REALLY want to visit Halifax. But with a move coming up next year, my cruising in 2020 is put on hold. But 2021... there will be cruising!

I like the experience of the MDR, I like eating with a bunch of other people to socialize and enjoy that "classic cruising" experience. But that's me. I'm totally fine with the food, I can try things that I normally wouldnt try and its like going out and being all fancy. That said, I also do love some specialty dining. Chops, Wonderland, Izumi, love them. Now my hub doesnt like sushi or even most asian food. So one night we do a "go your own way" food night. I go to Izumi and he goes wherever he wants to (I suspect the windjammer, this is normally something that we enjoy separately and I go on and on about the food and the ambiance and he just talks about the food so I have difficulty figuring out where he went unless he's raving about pasta) Sometimes though he'll join me at Izumi so I can try something additional and he'll just enjoy a drink, while I stuff my face with sushi and then I'll accompany him whenever he wants and I'll have dessert, and he'll have his fill. I think the next Oasis sailing I go on I'm going to try the UDP eating around the ship thing I've wanted to do. One course at each specialty restaurant and maybe include the MDR and the WJ into the equation. I'm actually unsure if I can eat that much food, but to me that's like a shore excursion, going on a food tour right on the ship!

Wrinkle release spray, the bathroom steaming trick, and rolling clothes will keep the wrinkles to a minimum, or at least wrinkling to the point that I look like I slept in the clothes. And yes, pressing for formal night is a nice thing. Also for me, there are certain fabrics and patterns that will show up even the slightest wrinkle. These are usualy synthetic cloth, or medium colors (Khakis tend to be my biggest culprit to the wrinkle monster). So instead of khakis, I'll wear dark blues or blacks (I'm a sucker for my yoga pants, I live in them and work in them and they never succumb to the wrinkle monster) I wont wear blouses with elaborate ruffles or peplums or fluttery things. Those adornments are thin and they will wrinkle and the shower trick even struggles to get ruffle wrinkles out. For menswear, like those shirts for formal night, if you have your dry cleaner package them with tissue paper, it tends to help fight the wrinkle monster. Otherwise, darker colors tend to hide the wrinkling better. Finally, yes I agree with "embrace the wrinkles". Yes, there will be wrinkles on your clothes. Everyone on the ship are going to have wrinkles on their clothes unless they spend a small fortune for pressing everything. If you choose to pay for pressing, pay for formal night clothes, maybe even reuse the formal night clothes. Maybe that means bringing 2 dress shirts, having them pressed on night 1, and then alternate your dress shirt wearing just for dinner, so your amount of wear is reduced.

Paging our expert on getting around bermuda @coneyraven He has amazing ideas on ways to get around Bermuda utilizing the ferries and even the local bus system.

You can board as early as about 10am. The time on your boarding pass is usually just a suggestion. I'd recommend putting the kids swimwear in their carryon bags for embarkation day to hang by the pool, do the slides. That way you get out of the madhouse that is the Windjammer (the buffet). Make sure you have your luggage tags attached and use the porters at the terminal. Tip them for their assistance but that should free up some time as well. I like keeping a binder of all my travel documents. Passports go into a sleeve in the binder just for embarkation day so nothing gets missed. Set sail pass from your pre checkin, into the binder. Know what credit card you're going to use for your onboard account and have that with the passports for easy handing to checkin and no fumbling through wallets/purses/man bags/etc. I'm a big advocate of the binder of organization and copies of documents. On your way to the pool, stop by Adventure Ocean for the kids to be registered with the kids activity place. Take a leisurely stroll along the boardwalk/central park area. Sit, relax. You're on your VACATION now! You've just gotten through the excitement of checking in and walking onboard, take a step back and just enjoy! I'd recommend getting close to your deck prior to the rooms opening up. So around about 1230 start thinking about getting to that deck. This is so when the rooms DO open and the mad dash to the rooms happen, you're just a stairway or just a small walk away from your opened up room. Do the same with muster, get at least close to where your muster station is ahead of the crowd. Symphony does really well with keeping the crowds spread out, but at times you can get a little bottlenecked. So avoid the bottleneck and be in at least the zone prior to these events. After muster, take in sailaway. The ship is moving! You're on your way! YAY!

Ok eliminate the scents from the air handling. But I still think that it can be done in a way that at least for most if not all could be happy without making the entire fleet smoke free.

Finding air handling that can treat and filter the air in a smoky casino honestly, its not that hard. The difficulty would be to have the equipment to maintain the air change rates required to keep the smoke down. Clean rooms do this all the time. Their air handling is based on how many times per hour (or is it minute, I think its hour) the air is completely changed in the room. Air handlers of that caliber though are rather expensive, BUT it can be done. Add in to your air handling something that spritzes some frebreeze or something similarly fresh smelling and you've got a smoker friendly area that everyone would want to go in. The problem is the cost of such air handling. Vegas does it but that's a LOT more cash changing hands than a cruise ship casino. But I do like hearing that the smoking section model was tried on NCL to a degree of success. I think all but the allergic to cigarette smoke and those with upper respiratory issues would be OK in an environment like that. I might just drop that suggestion card. I'm sure its been suggested before but I wouldnt want to be on a nonsmoking cruise, so I'm more than happy to make compromises to make my nonsmoking travelling companions happy.

Arrrgh you're such a bad influence on me! But in interest of preserving the peace of the house prior to our Oct cruise, at least then I can get him in the yolo spirit rather than the spirit of "we have to save, we have to save, we have to do the responsible thing" Insert my whine of "I wanna go to the bahaaaaaaaaamas"

True, but it is serviceable. If you're a wine snob though, bring your own. Hope the corkage fee doesnt appear. If it does, that bottle is still WAY cheaper than the wines they sell by the bottle.

I wonder if another happy medium could be met that maybe like how they used to do in diners, with a smoking "section" of the casino. Walled off, behind a door, maybe with glass walls to make it prettier and sparklier. Superior air handling in the smoking zone. Towards the back so the smoke that would escape through the door wouldnt absolutely choke the non smokers and wouldnt escape the casino in general. Happy for both maybe?

Kim Crawford Sav Blanc is good. I'm not a HUGE fan of it but its definitely a decent one. I'm more of a Frog's Leap kinda gal and you can bet that's going to be my 2 bottles in my carryon.

Update on trying to get hub to YOLO this. Since our cruise in 41 days will be his first, he wants to wait and see with the YOLO. I told him on an inaugural it will book very very fast. I think he's more concerned about our move to SC, and then worry about another cruise. I might be able to convince him once onboard and he'll love cruising as much as me, and we might be able to stop by the next cruise desk. Question on that. If I get the perks from the nextcruise desk, and I transfer the reservation to my MEI travel agent, would I still keep the perks from NextCruise?

I bring a little yellow drybar travel hair dryer and adore it. Of course I seem to be collecting travel hair dryers lately and recently got a PYT travel hair dryer in a subscription box thing I do and that one works nicely as well. If your hair requires any kind of heat or power to do what you need, the hairdryers onboard will be an exercise in frustration for you, they're underpowered and having to keep your finger on the button is just cruel to me.

Yes, you're reading that right. Sometimes you can shop around for a deal on the cabanas, like someone here found on Thrill island they were offering the cabanas for less.

I have my travel medicine kit, it includes anti diarrhea, anti nausea, a laxative, cold and flu meds, allergy meds, tylenol, alleve, heartburn (both of the pepsid variety and Tums variety) and dramamine. Then I have the first aid kit which has bandaids, neosporin, bug bite ointment, blister pads, an ace bandage, nu skin (this also works in place of the old nail polish for a run in the pantyhose trick), visine, alcohol wipes, and a small tooth repair kit (temporary filling, crown repair, oral lidocane etc) Yes my portable pharmacy goes with me wherever I travel on land or on sea. Also I bring a little thing of nicorette mints. This keeps the temptation at bay when you cant smoke anywhere (mostly for my train travels when there arent long stops for smokers, but they work on cruises too to kick the habit) Then I have the electronics kit. This has chargers in an elastic case with color coded labels for my cable checkin/checkout system. These are all spare chargers in case any did get left behind or lost, the originals are all at home. I also include what I call my squid, which is a USB splitter of sorts. 5 standard USB plugs for one port. And then 2 USB adapters (trade shows are wonderful places for giving these things away and if you're an IT company giving these away at trade shows, I love you for this). A european to US adapter because you can never have too many electrical outlets. Then the USB hub with 8 USB ports for one US outlet spot. Also included are 2 micro SD cards (and adapter) a flash drive and spare batteries for all of my camera stuff. Depending on my mood I'll also bring one or two power banks. Then the makeup kit. Its essentially duplicates of everything I use at home, and so I dont have to worry about losing my favourite foundation when travelling and then not having it back at home. Then the hair kit. Mini versions of my favourite hair brushes, travel hair dryer, flat iron, curling iron, I refill my travel bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash between trips, 4 hair scrunchies (I always lose these so my luggage accumulates these) Just for cruising I have a little travel alarm clock, travel fan, popup hamper, towel clips, magnetic hooks, highliters, sharpies, spare lanyards with leash (I love these leash lanyards) and an easily foldable tote bag. I usually dont pack so heavily that I need the tote but its there should the luggage ever get overly full. Also a throwback to the 80s, I bring business cards with hub and my names and our email address/social media stuff. Nice to give to new friends.

Its sky class from what I was looking at on their website.

You guys are such a bad influence on me!! I'm now trying to convince my hub to yolo Update on me trying to convince hub. We're planning on moving to South Carolina around March-June, so I'm like... but we can just drive down to Ft Lauderdale rather than needing to take a train/fly! I'm also thinking I might be able to convince my parents to do this as well as like a family thing. We were going to do a family cruise on Celebrity but an inaugural would be even more special!

To be honest, its unpleasant as a smoker to smell stale smoke in a room. I'm more than content to go to a designated smoking area. All I ask is for some shade, that its not in a dark dangerous alley, and that there's somewhere to sit. I'm rather easy to make happy with smoking. I'm not going to smoke on my balcony, I'm not going to smoke anywhere other designated areas, because we all have to exist in the same space. Smokers and nonsmokere, vegans and carnivores, rock and roll, etc.

I think this is also known as "Yolo, book it!"

I'm a fan of forward. I never experienced motion sickness when forward, but when I've been aft... woo nelly. No clue why, maybe its because I had ONE bout of motion sickness aft and that was enough to poison my mind towards aft. And I LOVE wake views. I think also with forward maybe for me its a little more tolerable with the motion because of the amount of moving air you get. Anytime I've stayed aft I dont get that big in your face breeze. But maybe that's me. I love me some breeze to get over the motion sickness. Now all of this said, I wouldnt take an inside cabin forward or aft. My motion sickness couldnt handle it.

Symphony does in fact do the Quest, and most participatory activities do involve some kind of prize. From keychains and highlighters to hats and little medals are what I've seen for Quest prizes. I'm usually a watcher, I dont have the guts to ask someone not my husband for their shirt LOL

I just wish Royal had better handling of smoking in the smoking allowed areas. Better air handling in the casino so that non smokers wouldnt be choked out. Of course I'm sure there would be some that would pass within 5 miles of a smoker and be wildly waving arms in protest, but there has to be a happy medium to be had with the smoking. A smoking allowed and a non smoking casino could be an option. Though that option would take up valuable ship real estate to have 2 casinos so maybe a bar would have to be eliminated or a specialty restaurant gone or rooms gone just to have a smokers or a non smokers casino... not sure if that's feasable. What would be though would be better air handlers, so that the smoke doesnt waft out of the casino and anywhere even remotely close to the casino. As for pool deck smokers, I'm not sure what would be an agreeable solution. Maybe one day Royal will see how one of the smaller ships does as a non smoking cruise. No smoking anywhere. See what kind of reaction they get to the non smoking cruise. If its successful, great! If not, then its a business decision to keep smoking areas due to the ship losing money from smokers. I cant imagine that a non smoking cruise would not be successful though.

Quest is an adults only crazy participation event. If you're the kind of crazy adult not afraid of having some wild participation with other guests, participate in Quest. If you want to watch the crazyness and dont get offended by much, take a look see, its definitely something to be experienced.