teddy

Everyone has their own criteria and comfort levels. For us, it's about getting on the ship. An inside room allowed me to do a b2b last month, and is allowing me to do another in Aug/Sept 2021. Right now we are seriously considering grabbing a 4-night to Cozumel from Galveston this coming fall for $207 pp (inside gty).

Portland is easily navigated on foot. Uber and Lyft have a good presence in the area as well if you're interested in going a but further.

I've spent my life in Maine, so I'm partial to New England.....that being said, if you have to make a choice, choose Alaska. When I was in my early 20s I spent a couple weeks going from Anchorage to Seward and back. It was amazing.

550+ days for us. I feel your pain.

Inside cabins. We only use our cabin to sleep/shower/change clothes. We had a balcony on our first cruise and realized we would have had just as much fun without it. Booking inside rooms leaves us more.money for excursions or staying a couple more nights pre/post cruise

Only things a person has to be 21 for are drinking alcohol and boarding alone. There is even a sign in the casino saying all guests over 18 are welcome. My 19 year old went to all the venues with and without me. He participated in all kinds of things at the various bars/clubs and was even a team captain at Quest.

Yes, he will be allowed in all venues. My 19 year old just cruised with me.

When I was at my doctor's getting the wooden q-tip shoved up my nose, they told me that they are seeing a lot of people testing positive this season, despite having had the shot last fall. In the nurse's words, "It's been that kind of month"

Flu shots are also voluntary for the majority of people in the US.

I’m thinking those inside rooms my wife and I like to book would begin to feel like a jail cell.

Amazing pictures. Thank you for sharing.

Tamiflu can work wonders. I hope it's as successful for her as it was for me. I got back to Maine last Saturday night and all of a sudden I felt like a truck hit me. I tested positive for Influenza B Sunday morning and was prescribed Tamiflu. With my doctor's blessing, I went to work today. Tamiflu really lessened the blow. The worst part was the fever and body aches. Controlling those were key for me Sun-Tues. I hope she isn't too miserable.

I’ve never found interior rooms to be 100% dark. There’s always been a little bit of light that leaks through the peephole and at the bottom. We used a battery tea light the first night we stayed in one but have not used one since. ymmv

I had a similar issue with my tablet on the second leg of this b2b. I gave up and went to the Voom desk and they took care of it in less than 5 minutes.

The announcements onboard will be the most up to date regarding when the ship is cleared and when the gangway is open. We were there a few days ago (on Adventure). We had an 8:15 meeting time for our excursion. The tickets mentioned a 45 minute rendering process, so I was a bit concerned. There was an early bird tendering process between 7 and 8. That meant that no tickets were required to get on the tender. After 8 am, tickets were handed out in the Imperial Lounge on deck 5. Tickets don't cost any money. We arrived in port at 7ish and the announcements asked that people NOT queue up on the stairs. They asked people to wait in lounges or on outside decks no lower than deck 4. We waited outside on deck 4 until the announcement was made that the gangway was open. We were off the tender and on the pier by 8.

We did the America's Cup Regatta and had a ball....we were completely soaked, but really enjoyed ourselves.

Making headway now.

If you have an iPhone, iMessages will go through using the ship's Wi-Fi (which is called Voom). Our cellular provider does not support Wi-Fi calling, so we us Facebook messenger. There are other apps out there that you can use to make calls.

Anyone else in the Caribbean today? We're at Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We had been back onboard for about 30 minutes and were in the Windjammer. The whole ship shuddered. It was strange. Captain came on the intercom and told us we aren't leaving as scheduled because some passengers can't get back sure to traffic caused by emergency vehicles being out. He said there is no tsunami danger for us and the rest of our cruise will not be affected. This is my second earthquake,first on while on a ship. I never knew a whole ship would be rocked like that. https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/2020/01/28/19h10/magnitude7-Jamaica-Cayman-Islands-quake.html

We had a port call in San Juan last week. Things were fine. I did a two tank dive, my wife and the other couple we were with went exploring. They had a ball as did I. None of us noticed any problems because of natural disasters. There is a Walgreens right across from where we docked that was great for the odds and ends we forgot....hair things for my wife, charging cord for one our friends phone, shampoo, etc.

I sent a bag out on the second to last day of my first cruise last week. It came the last day. Now I have clean clothes for this cruise. All you can stuff in the bag was $35 thats kinda splitting hairs after paying for two cruises.

We had Elvises last week and there are a lot of people wearing the same type name tags this week. I keep meaning to see what the tags say

The ones we have had in both balcony and interior rooms have been more like coolers, not actual refrigerators.

Interesting that included gratuities seem to be different based on where the ship sails from. I didn’t realize that was a thing. Based on what I’ve read on their website, it’s $14.50/day pp unless in a Grande Suite or higher then it’s $17.50/day pp. There’s an additional 18% on beverages, bar, spa, and salon purchases. For our cruise last week, we did not prepay when we booked last year. Because we did not prepay, there was a $14.50 charge pp/pd added to our onboard folio (inside cabin) https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/onboard-service-gratuity-expense

I suspect that every situation is actually unique based on port, how quickly previous cruisers disembark, how quickly the authorities clear the ship, etc. Here is my recent experience. I walked off Adventure in Port Everglades at 930 yesterday morning to meet my son who joined me for this week. When we walked into the terminal at 1050, people were boarding....they announced general boarding as we approached the waiting area. We walked right up and boarded. I’m not in any special group. ie. Suite, Key, Diamond, etc. The time on my son’s Set Sail Pass said 1pm.