FionaMG

For a balcony cabin it should be $100 (6-9 nights).

Thanks. Fingers crossed. We saw it on our Canary Islands cruise back in September and it was early on then too, first or second night. It was one of the very few shows DH enthused about and didn't fall asleep during. It was a tall, slim guy doing it then and he was excellent. I actually saw him in the gym a couple of times when I was working out.

Booked it for day 8. I'd been hoping it would be on earlier in the cruise, so will keep watching in case there's a chance to change. Do you remember if it was available earlier when you were on in February? The extended (pay) sessions of North Star and I-fly have also opened up for booking in the activities section of the planner.

Could be either depending on what ship you're on and what other ships are calling there that day apart from yours. And if yours doesn't dock at the new port you'll have tenders to take into consideration too. Can't you contact the provider by email and ask them about this before you book?

I'm enjoying following along. Thanks for sharing. I prefer the MDR for breakfast too, for the same reasons. Unfortunately DH prefers tge WJ so there always has to be a bit of negotiating.

Check out the Hotel Lancelot. They have some family rooms. It's a 5-minute walk to the Colosseum and abiut 15-20 from the centre. We stayed there pre-cruise last year and found them to be very helpful. Book direct for best rates. They will definitely hold your luggage until your room is ready but pretty much any hotel will do that. Their website has tons of useful information. https://www.lancelothotel.com/

Just opened up for me too this afternoon. Only Spectra's Cabaret, as expected.

We didn't get a chance to try in the check-in area. Everything went so quickly that we were on board within 15 minutes of getting out of the cab. Never stopped moving. Our sailing was from Southampton, though; I don't have any experience of Cape Liberty.

Sorry, I didn’t notice as we didn't do either.

They did in the past. I don't know why they stopped but I would guess it was down to how much money they were or weren't making sailing those routes. Valparaiso is a departure port for one of the segments of Serenade's World cruise. That's why you can see it but nothing comes up when you select it. There's a separate website for that cruise but I don't know if you can book it online.

That's correct. Everything else was walk-in, first come, first served. You should have seen the queue for the first performance of WWRY. People started lining up an hour before it was due to start and 15 minutes later it was all the way past the Schooner bar almost to izumi!

Just to follow up on my earlier post... Nope, 1st of March has come and gone and nothing has opened up for my Anthem sailing next month. To be fair though, I'm not sure how much of the entertainment on Anthem needs to be booked. When we were on the ship back in September only Spectra's Cabaret required booking; everything else was first come first served on board.

You have to be wary of words like "driving" and "panoramic" in tour descriptions. Basically you'll be spending a lot of your time looking at stuff through the bus windows. Fine if you have mobility issues but not so great if you don't and what you actually want to do is get out and explore. You really, really, really don't need a tour in Mykonos. The whole fun of the place is wandering around in those delightful (and incredibly clean) little streets at your whim. You'll probably get lost but that's part of the fun. We did and ended up accidentally finding the windmills that are apparently one of the highlights of the island and which we didn't know about beforehand. I'd say cancel the tour and use the money for something more worthwhile. You can read about how we spent our time in Mykonos in my recap blog from our Greek Isles cruise last May here:

Yes. I booked it for my party of 3 a couple of sales ago and got it for $43.99. I booked the 10.30 departure so we don't have to be up too early. I'm hoping that by booking through the ship, we will get picked up at the port, rather than having to make our own way to Bayfront, which I think is the starting point for the route. However, as usual, Royal's description is as clear as mud, so it's something of a shot in the dark. We're also doing the jeeps in Nassau and the Space Center in Port Canaveral.

Oh wow, what an upheaval that must have been! I hope everything's fixed now? That's a great itinerary. The overnight in Bermuda is a real bonus. I have real hopes of getting there one day. In fact, it sounds like a fabulous trip overall and is the sort of thing we would like to do ourselves after we retire. We've got our NYC plan pretty much mapped out: the usual touristy stuff like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building. And, of course, we will visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in order to pay our respects. We have no ideas as to dining, so will gratefully accept any suggestions you have. We're not foodies at all. Our favourite would be Mom+Pop Italian. We're staying in the downtown area of Manhattan pre-cruise and up by Times Square post-cruise. 54 days and counting...

Wow, that took ages! Good that you're all sorted now.

Plus, the only other ships still to be deployed are Ovation and Quantum and I'd reckon it's a fairly safe bet they'll be heading your way. I read that Anthem is due for dry dock in 2025, so I could see her perhaps heading to Singapore for that and just staying there. I'd like to see her do the 2024-2025 winter season here in Europe first though. That would be a pretty cool repo if they did it as a revenue sailing...

Anthem?

I personally wouldn't really consider cruising in the Med between November and March. However, the Canary Islands and Madeira, both of which are farther south, off the coast of Africa, are popular winter sun holiday spots with folks from all over Europe. Cruises in that area over the winter months could work very well.

That pizza looks amazingly yummy!

The Lagos area is lovely. The operators will be operating but with an extremely reduced schedule. You might book something and then they don't get the minimum number of people needed to run it and it could be cancelled. If budget allows, you could consider private excursions, as they would run to your schedule. There is a concept here called "Taxi T". These are tourism taxis and the drivers, who all speak English, have to take a special course to be able to operate under this banner. They know the region inside out and are very experienced in working with tourists. I have no idea what sort of price you'd be looking at but you can contact the local company "Algarve T" through their Facebook page if it's something you think might interest you. https://www.facebook.com/AlgarveT/?locale=pt_PT

Yes, indeed, the weather is unreliable at that time of year. Usually, however, the colder wetter weather doesn't start until closer to Christmas. The chances are good that you'll be lucky and get blue skies and sunshine. If you're in a sheltered spot, you can get some sunbathing done without roasting, like you would in searing heat of summer, and if you like to be active there are some magnificent cliff and beach walks, as well as some of the best golf courses in the world. Don't expect to swim in the sea at that time of year, though, unless you're kitted out with a wetsuit. It'll be freezing. What many people don't realise is that we're not on the Med here; our entire coastline is on the Atlantic Ocean. However, the Algarve is essentially a summer sun destination so, yes, by early November most of the tourist places have shut up shop for their own holidays. And if you happen to be unlucky with the weather, which is always a possibility, there's really nothing much to do except the shopping malls. So while the region could be a great choice for a few days of rest and relaxation in a fancy hotel with spa (and there are plenty of those to choose from) you'd be better not to plan on staying much longer than that at this time of year if you want things to do. That said, Portugal is way more than just the Algarve. There are two fabulous cities that are well worth spending a few days in each: Lisbon and Porto. And the prices for accommodation at that time of year are much more budget-friendly. You could easily spend 3 or 4 days in each without getting bored. History galore, if that's your thing. Wine and food. Fado music. And some of the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. It's also extremely easy to add some days in Spain too. Madrid is only a short hop from Lisbon; Seville is a two-hour drive from the Algarve. The region of Andalusia, where Seville is located, is home to Granada, where the world-famous Alhambra is the star of the show, along with Flamenco. And then there are the coastal towns of Cadiz, Malaga, Alicante and Valencia, all of which are worth a visit, not to mention the British territory of Gibraltar along the way. I could go on and on. It would be totally feasible, if thinking of doing the round trip on Adventure, to spend a few days in Lisbon when you arrive, then train to Porto, then train (or Ryanair, but you have to be aware of their brutal baggage rules) back down to Algarve for some rest and relaxation after your city sightseeing, and from there a bus to Seville. In Seville, a one-way car hire would let you do the whole coast, stopping off two or three times along the way until you arrive in Barcelona for the TA back. Best to hire a car once you're actually over the border in Spain; one-way hires from Portugal to Spain are very hard to find and stupidly expensive when you do. If time and budget allow, you could have an absolutely amazing Iberian trip. I hope this helps and gives you some ideas for your research.

Thanks everyone for the info and pics. I was able to get the water one at $23.99 for my Anthem cruise to the fjords in July. Not available on my one out of NJ at the end of April.

Nice! I haven't been to St Kitts or St Croix but I love your other four ports. Voyager class ships are the sweet point for us. Big enough that there's plenty to do (we love the promenade, the ice show and watching people on the flowrider) but without the high price tag that comes with bells and whistles that we don't need on the bigger ships. I wouldn't worry about noise from the promenade. Unless you're right above the pub you can be pretty sure you won't hear any noise at all. Public spaces above you can be noisy, so that's something to watch out for on any future cruises you book. It won't be an issue on this one as you'll have cabins above. Note that you can't do self-service laundry on Royal's ships and the prices for them to do it for you are not cheap. But you can avoid overpacking (to a certain extent) if you take mix-and-match items that you can wear more than once each. One huge piece of advice is to relax and not try to do absolutely everything. When you're on your first cruise there's always that notion you might be missing out on something because there's so much going on but it's impossible to fit everything in, so the trick is just to pick the things you most want you do so you don't wear yourselves out. Have a fabulous time!

The first night should be "Welcome Aboard", second night should be "French Night" (1st formal), while the next-to-last should be "Royal Night" (2nd formal, aka "lobster night" but not sure if they'll have lobster on a European sailing) and the last should be "Bon Voyage" (which I personally think would have been better named as "Farewell" but that's entirely irrelevant, just wanted to get it out there ). The remaining three are a toss-up out of the four possible options - Italian, Mexican, British and Caribbean. Could be any of the three and in any order. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that on a European cruise they'd likely keep the Italian and British themes and ditch one of other two, but who knows? As others suggested, looking at the current Anthem cruise in the app may be a useful pointer but I would be wary of taking it as gospel because the current sailings go to the Bahamas as opposed to the Fjords and itinerary may influence the menus to some extent. The four I mentioned are largely set in stone (to the extent that anything can be with Royal; remember RCI stands for Really Consistently Inconsistent) so if any of those are ones you'd rather skip you're probably fairly safe in doing so.