teddy

We Royal Upped from an Oceanview Balcony to a Junior Suite last month on Adventure. It was the first time we have stayed in anything "higher" than an Oceanview Balcony. We really enjoyed it. Our takeaways: The cabin and balcony were both larger than a standard Oceanview Balcony cabin. The tub has a lot more room when taking a shower compared to the phone booth size shower stalls that regular Balcony cabins have The walk-in closet was awesome. Our thoughts: We've talked extensively about what kind of cabins to book going forward and decided we will be booking no more than regular balcony. We will definitely bid on a Junior Suite if offered the chance but will stick with the minimum bid. It's not that we don't like extra space, it's that we have a lot of irons in the fire and don't want to pay the extra money when booking at this point in our lives. We would rather cruise two to three times a year in a lesser cabin than once in a suite. That being said, we retire in eight years, and all bets are off as far as cabin types at that point. We're not chasing C&A status, so the lack of double points doesn't bother us. ymmv

We are joining the Covid home test expiration date roulette game. Ordered through the Royal Caribbean link yesterday morning and they shipped today.

Twangster is being direct. While directness can make some people uncomfortable, it doesn’t rise to the level of the secret state police of a genocidal and outlawed regime. At the end of all the arguments, he’s right. Pre-pandemic we used to just hang out in the port waiting area until we could board. Now that we are aware it’s not a current option, we are thinking of alternatives. Does that excite us? No. Will we find another place to kill time? Yes.

Hmm..we haven't received any info about final payment changing for our Jan 30 sailing on Grandeur.

I can see how having a mid-afternoon check in would be a pain if you fly to the port. I feel fortunate that we have a noon check in for our upcoming cruise and the hotel has a noon checkout. If our check in was later, we’d have to find a place to wait….and realistically that would most likely be around the port area.

Thanks for the update. We'll be watching our Grandeur sailing in January. Currently, it's cheap enough, that if it includes room service, we'll buy it...but the description still says embarkation lunch. Might just get it and cancel if it gets closer and the description doesn't change.

We’re going to end 2022 with 79 points. Not too shabby for a couple who never cruised until 2019. Double points definite helps.

We use Air2Sea when we have to fly in day of cruise. Never say never, but we haven’t had any issues. When we do this, we also book transportation to the ship through them. On our January 30 Barbados cruise we are flying in day of. It’s a non-stop flight, and between the Air2Sea guarantee and third party travel insurance, we feel we are prepared for worst case scenarios.

I bring a pair of shorts/swimsuit, a t-shirt, and sandals to change out of when we get onboard.

No Coastal Kitchen on Adventure. The only thing different for us at least, was a bigger room with tub and walk in closet.

We would love to, but my wife only has three weeks vacation in 2022. Two of those are already taken up with cruises. We kicked around the idea of me doing a solo week to rack up points but after 25 years of working opposite days/shifts to keep the kids out of daycare, I’d rather not take a vacation alone. Once all the kids moved out, we realized we still enjoy each other’s company.

The public is getting worse….at least in my neck of the woods. The past year or so has amplified people’s behaviors. Those that were inclined to be nice are nicer. Those who were inclined to be jerks are even jerkier. I’m always amazed at the level of customer service we receive on a cruise. …and I’ve been in retail for many decades. Every cruise has taught me something that helps to up my customer service game.

This was not my experience on a recent cruise.

Only the points for the originally booked cabin, which was a balcony.

Agreed. We booked Air2Sea with the shuttle for our cruise out of Nassau. We got to check in early and had to wait.

I was told the "we don't want to be unable to get back into the United States because of an outbreak" excuse the other day from a coworker. No amount of me explaining what was wrong with that statement was going to change their mind.

On a sort of related side note, we recently changed cell carriers (after 10+ years) and one of the reasons we changed was WiFi calling would randomly turn off. When we would try to turn it back on, we would have to call the carrier to get them to set the permissions. Our home is located in an area where cellular service is spotty at best. We leave Wi-Fi calling on all the time and have had no issues since we changed carriers.

We spent two days there this month hanging out on Chill Beach which has no extra charge. There were plenty of loungers next to umbrellas for us to chose from. If we ever go there on a ship at full capacity, I'll definitely want to get off the ship early to find a "prime" seating area. We both enjoyed the complementary food and beverages.

Yes. I’m sorry this fact didn’t dawn on me. I was looking at my phone’s settings but this one simple thing eluded me since it’s always on here at home. I’m glad you are all set for your next cruise.

Awesome!!!!!

@PG Cruiser I hope I didn’t come across as arrogant. It wasn’t my intention at all Sometimes the typed word is less communicative than face to face.

I didn’t take the screenshot while in CocoCay. If I had, then it would show the airplane mode icon

That’s the current state of my phone. I scrolled up on the messages and took a screen shot of those texts at 7:00 tonight

Sent this from CocoCay DL is the one with the Galaxy