FionaMG

I always used to receive them by email before the shutdown but I have never received them since the restart. I usually stop by GS last thing on the last night and ask for a print-out. On one occasion when I forgot I was quick enough to screenshot all of the pages of my account in the app before it disappeared, but that's not really practical if you have a big bill with lots of items.

Go for it!

The esim is data only so for calls using your phone number you'd need to have whatsapp.

My pleasure.

Not a silly question. The answer is yes and you don't have to change anything. It will pick up the signal from the operator they work with in each country all by itself. It will currently work in 168 different countries around the world. The full list is available in the app along with the price per GB. At the moment, in the UK and across Europe, the price is $2.45/GB. Any credit that's left over at the end of your trip stays there in readiness for your next one.

The UK one does a mix of itineraries. Some do go to Norway, yes, but not all. Others go to Spain, France and the Med. The ones that do the Med are always longer than a week, though, as you have to factor in the extra distance. My daughter and I are doing a nice 7-night itinerary out of Southampton next month that has two stops in France (La Rochelle and Le Havre) and two in northern Spain (Bilbao and La Coruña). Since 2022, there have been two Quantum class ships in Europe - Anthem out of the UK and Odyssey out of Civitavecchia - but it looks like there will probably only be one in 2026.

That's the price I'm currently seeing for Freedom in December too but during sales it usually goes down to $98.99, so keep checking. It's been going back and forwards between those two prices for months.

From information on another board, it looks like Liberty will be the one sailing from the UK (Southampton), but that has yet to be confirmed. The others are still unknown. Historically, you can expect summer 2026 Europe sailings to go on sale around November, so in about 3-4 months from now.

I had it booked at under $95 pp for Odyssey back in May 2022, which I thought was acceptable for was an almost brand new high tech ship. However, this was still during the restart and Royal ultimately ended up cancelling it. They were asking for silly money for my upcoming Anthem cruise so wasn't willing to bite. Still in two minds about Freedom. The cheapest they've offered is $98. If they brought it down by about $10 I'd probably go for it.

Exactly what we do when travelling from Europe to Florida to cruise.

Thanks for sharing @Plasticbrain. I've enjoyed following along with your adventures. Safe travels home. By the way, there is an oasis class ship in Europe every year, as they come over to do their mandatory dry dock. However, although the ship is different, the itinerary is always the same. In 2026, it will be Harmony of the Seas.

Wow, you're certainly having an eventful trip. Glad you got some cash back for the excursion and the casita.

Yes, I completely agree. It's definitely worth checking out more than one operator as it's certainly not a clear-cut case of "one-size fits all".

I've used Airalo too and it worked just fine but l did feel like I was wasting money. For example, on one occasion I needed it for two days pre-cruise and two days post-cruise. The length of our trip meant I had to buy a two-week package even though I was only using it for four days and, of course, at the end I'd used less than half the data I purchased. So I felt it was a bit like putting an hour's worth of parking in the meter and then discovering I really only needed 10 minutes. Admittedly, the price is, as you say, very reasonable, so it wasn't a huge amount.

I can highly recommend Roamless. https://roamless.com/ Unlike many other esim operators, you simply put funds into your account and it's good to use in any of the 168 countries they have agreements with. What I particularly like about it is that your funds never expire, unlike many other plans where your plan ends after a certain period of time even if you've not used up all of your data. I have only used mine in the States but my daughter, who works on board cruise ships, has used hers in at least half a dozen different countries in Europe. The UK and all of the EU countries are included. If you want to sign up for it, you can use my referral code, which will get both of us some free credit. It's only a small amount but, hey, it's essentially free money! Referral code: XN58Y Hope it helps.

What a pity your excursion was disappointing. Given what you've described I hope they give you some money back. It's a very long way to go and lot of money to spend for it not to at least minimally meet expectations.

Boomers know best!

That sounds really cool.

I love the way they're dynamic too. Even better than the old static ones.

None of mine went down any lower than the prices I'd already got by repricing several of them several times. However, one excursion that I'd been keeping an eye on did drop sufficiently to entice me to finally pull the trigger, so I'm quite pleased about that.

The Transatlantic sailing departs from Miami on the 10th of February 2025, arriving in Barcelona on the 22nd. Her next sailing after that is the one on the 11th of April, so that's a 7-week break. I think it's fairly safe to say there will some sort of amplification done during that time as it's far longer than would be required for a statutory dry dock. I think she was actually on her way to get the big purple slide back in March 2020 when covid shut everything down, so my guess is that it would already have been purchased at that time and will have been in storage since then. I can't see them not adding it if that's the case however many folks ask them not to.

@Cruising Granny, Aruba is one of our all-time favourite ports of call. If you fancy just doing a beach day, there is no better place. We love Eagle Beach, which is a long stretch of picture-perfect soft white sand or, for a livelier beach, there is Palm Beach, which is where many of the big hotels are located. You can easily get a taxi at the port. I recently read a report from someone who had done a day pass at the Riu Hotel here and they raved about it. On other visits, we have done two different excursions through Royal. One was called Aruba Island Sightseeing and Beach Adventure, which was an island tour to the main sights followed by an hour or so at Eagle Beach; and the other, more recently, was called Aruba's Hidden Gems which visited some more out-of-the-way historical and natural landmarks. We enjoyed both of these tours.

Just spotted this this morning. When researching cruises, there is a link that says "View Ports and Map" And when you click on it it shows you the itinerary map in the same way Celebrity does. I like seeing a map so I'm delighted to see this return after being missing in action for some years following one of Royal's infamous website "enhancements".

Also on this one. If you try and book them, the reserve button is greyed out and it says "Currently unavailable, but we’re working on it". So, yes, it's anyone's guess right now.

I guess this must be one of the longer cruises then? That would be typical of a 10/11 nighter. I don't think EX has enough choice to merit 5 nights. Definitely keep checking back as they might be trying to push the more expensive packages first.