FionaMG

Bet the doggo wasn't as happy as the kids clearly were! Safe travels.

The reduced deposit and OBC are better perks if you're booking a longer cruise. I booked my upcoming Anthem cruise at Next Cruise. It's a 12-nighter, so the usual deposit would have been $450 per person. And booking a balcony (cheaper than an ocean view thanks to my D discount) gave me $200 OBC. So like others have said, you need to weigh up what works best for you.

Good luck!

Haha, yup! It actually depends on the type of vaccine administered. My DH does have 3/3 because he had a 2-dose vaccine initially, whereas I had the single-dose JJ. But even this is misleading because, in his case and potentially for your Irish peeps too, his first two shots were one type and his booster was a different type, but the certificate only shows the type of the last shot. Nowhere on the certificate does it show if two shots were one type and the booster was a different one. So, to a certain extent, the 3/3 certificate is even vaguer than the 2/1, because if you know how to read it, you can see the type of both shots for someone who had JJ but not for someone who had a 2-dose vaccine initially. Even if cruiseline personnel had the necessary app to read the QR code, it only serves to verify that a) the certificate is genuine; b) it is valid; and, c) when checked alongside official ID, that it belongs to the person presenting it. As far as the EU is concerned that is all anybody who is not an authorised healthcare provider needs to know.

I have sailed at the very front on deck 7 on both Oasis and Harmony and never noticed any difference in the movement to what I experienced midships on deck 3. Admittedly, the conditions of the sea at the time of the sailing ultimately dictate how comfortable or uncomfortable any sailing is. I actually have one of these booked for Anthem of the Seas next year.

Hi and welcome. If you have an "true" interior (i.e. no window) at all and it's within your budget to bid on a promenade or central park view room, I'd say go with it. One thing to watch for, however, is that Royal class the Boardwalk view rooms (the ones with no balcony; there are only a few of them, all on deck 7) as promenade view interiors too, and they are located aft, overlooking the boardwalk. So, if you bid on an interior with promenade view and you win your bid, you could be allocated a room overlooking the Royal Promenade, which is indoors midship OR a boardwalk view room, which is actually exterior overlooking the boardwalk. The Central Park view rooms are all midships due to the location of Central Park. Hope this helps.

The thing is, it's not just Spain you need to worry about. That 7 night western Med route hits Italy and France too, so you need to take their rules into account as well, plus any additional countries that your TA stops in. Europe is a mish-mash of different rules and regulations so if you possibly can get the booster it's likely to make your journey a lot smoother.

That's the worst.

Haha I had already seen that and thought it was hilarious too! Thanks for reposting. Gave me a good giggle.

Yup, and exactly why I didn't even attempt to get it validated beforehand. To further confuse the issue, if you look at the "number in a series of vaccinations" field you'll see it says "2/1", which most people would read as "two out of one". Say what? That is the EU's way of showing that someone had the single dose JJ jab AND a booster. But notice there is NO specific mention of the JJ jab on there, only the type of the booster. So while it would be fair to expect most EU peeps to know what it means, it would be completely unreasonable to expect someone working for a cruise line in the States to know. And I DID have to explain it to the cruise line personnel who checked us in at the port in Barcelona. It's all a bit of a mess and I can't wait for it to be over.

EU certificates don't show that information. The EU's ferocious data protection laws mean that this is all you get: There is a QR code and a unique identifier on each certificate, which allow varying degrees of access but only the health authorities in the country where a person was vaccinated have access to the full data. Since cruise line personnel can't tick that box, they essentially have to take your word for it.

Hmm, I don't remember seeing that dessert on the menu the couple of times we've eaten at Giovanni's. I wonder if it's new. I will definitely have to look out for it. That's good to know about the WiFi. Having just YOLO booked Norway for next year, I was wondering if it would be worth buying. I hate to be without it but I'd equally hate to pay Royal's price for sub-par service.

I think one problem is that the people checking them are largely unfamiliar with anything other than the US CDC cards. And here in Europe, despite there supposedly being a standard certificate, there are variations from country to country. I could not be bothered with the stress and hassle so I did not even attempt to upload ours, since I knew they would cause confusion; we simply took them with us to port. We were asked if we knew what dates and vaccines we had had for all the earlier shots since the EU certificate only shows the details of the very last one, although I don’t know how they'd be able to verify that information. The girl who checked us in just noted our answers down and sent us on our way.

Woohoo! The fun can now begin!

I wondered that too, especially since I'm on that 23rd of September sailing. We haven't lost any of our ports but our time has been shortened in most of them. If I'm not mistaken, these are the oldest two ships in this class.

I'm from Glasgow, Scotland too, although I've not lived there for too many years to mention! So from one Glaswegian to another, have an amazing trip. I don't know if you have anything planned yet for La Spezia but I can't recommend Cinque Terre highly enough.

Thanks so much for sharing your trip with us. It's been amazing. Please tell me what this is??? I don't remember ever seeing one of these before and it looks fabulous. Also, can you tell me how you found the WiFi during your cruise? I've read that it can be less than efficient the farther north you go? Thanks again.

Yup. Lesson learned. I think your plan sounds solid. You'll certainly get to see a lot more than you would in a group in a big tour bus. And there is a lot to see!

I'm glad it was helpful. It was an amazing cruise and I'm sure yours will be too. We didn't have Athens. We had Rhodes instead. I did visit Athens a few years ago on another cruise and we got the train into the centre. Try and go as early as you can, especially if you want to see the Parthenon. It was very crowded when we went. And be very mindful of your belongings. On the crowded train someone slit open my sister in law's backpack and stole her wallet. She never felt a thing and it was not until we were back on board that she realised.

We did the 9-night cruise in May. See my recap blog here: Out of the excursions you listed, the only one we did was the one in Crete, but you'll hopefully find the whole blog useful.

Have a brilliant time! I'll be following with great interest as I just made a YOLO booking for the Norwegian fjords on Anthem for September of next year, recuperating a girls' cruise with my daughter than came a cropper to covid in 2020.

Curiously, I've just had changes made to the itinerary of my upcoming Anthem cruise, with a similar story of engine issues: "To accommodate routine engine maintenance, we've reduced our speed between ports and as a result, we've adjusted some of our arrival and departure times in Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands." We haven't actually lost any of the ports but will be getting less time in most of them. It's interesting that we now have the two oldest Quantum class ships having cruises impacted by engine issues.

Ooh, thanks! That's a pet peeve of mine too, especially since about 3 dozen enhancements ago you could select a specific date range. I will be sure to give this a go.

Glad to have been of assistance. The app is very handy. Since you're new to it, I suggest you read Jenna's introductory blog post on it here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/12/31/royal-caribbean-app-walkthrough-and-tips Note that since Jenna's post was published, there has been an addition to the app, which you can see if you look at my pic: bottom right, you'll see a button that says "excursions". That lets you see all the ship-sponsored excursions that are on offer for your cruise and you can buy them ahead of time if you want to. If there are any that you really, really want to do, it's definitely to buy before your cruise, as popular excursions can sell out.