Blulady

32 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

Specifically on Oasis they required a reservation unless star class this past Jan. You could not just walk up and place an order.

Bummer!  Thanks for the info.

Does anyone have any recent feedback on whether or not you can order from Izumi Sushi "to go" at lunch time with the UDP?  

If the answer is yes, how do you go about doing that?  Stop by, order and pick up later?  Call the restaurant on the phone and schedule a pick up time?  

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

On 4/2/2023 at 8:29 PM, bronxwarrior said:

  My kids are teens and should be okay, but for piece of mind, I'd prefer them next to me. 

 

 

That implies to me that, even though you booked an adult in each room, your plan is for the teens to occupy the room w/o an adult.  Your kids might be fantastic, but I would not want to be in a cabin next to teens with no parental supervision.  Just my opinion.

I agree with everyone else, get the passport now. Children's passports need to be renewed every 5 years.  I view it the same as a bank account - it is just one of those things you can set your child up with that they will carry forward into adulthood.

5 hours ago, ScottD said:

Ayyyy....Eagles fan here. We were on Oasis this past January and embarkation day was the NFC Championship game... the whole boardwalk\playmakers area and the aqua theater seating area was all full of Eagles fans (a few 49ers fans too) and it was a blast!! Nothing like starting the cruise with a trip to the super bowl! We had a boardwalk balcony room and our 11 yr old loved starting the EAGLES chant from up there down to the crowd!   

 

Oh man...that sounds "terrible". When is this again, I just want to make sure I don't ummm accidently...yeah, accidently...  book that week. 

(this is a joke, I can see it being an actual pain in the ass) 

LOL

There were SO many venues that no one could get near.  It felt like they took over everything.  One of the worst things though was the elevators.  Imagine being in that little box with about 6-8 young ladies all wearing too much perfume and all different scents. 

Not with a team fan group, but we did sail with huge number of Monat reps (if you aren't familiar, think Avon or MaryKay type).  Their group was about 90% young female, and because of that, the few single young men on the cruise were seriously outnumbered.  

No 'regular' cruisers could get near the pub for the entire sailing.  We found it all incredibly annoying - each girl trying to be prettier than the others, many wearing ridiculously high shoes that they couldn't walk in, most too tipsy and constant hair flicking.  LOL

I now google our sail dates and pray I don't ever board with a large/charter group again.

1 hour ago, DoomSlayer said:

You have to have a little faith in a company or organization's vetting process, or else you will constantly be living in fear and not enjoying life.  I do trust Royal and have had nothing but good experiences with them.  In fact, my kids will be enjoying Adventure Ocean next week during spring break.  Granted they are older (2 teens and a pre-teen) and now how to react when they see something dangerous or inappropriate, I still have to trust that Royal has a vetting process that will ensure their safety and wellbeing while they are participating with Adventure Ocean.

With that said and to address you conversation of the male crew member acting inappropriately on another cruise line -- this can happen anywhere even with the best vetting processes, interviews by parents, and pristine background and experience.  Church youth pastors, school teachers, friends, and even family members that you trust, and think you know, can act inappropriately around the children at any given time without prior indications.  We see such cases in the news all the time and everyone is shocked because they never thought the perpetrator would have ever done such a thing.

As much as you try, you will never bring the risk level of leaving your child with someone else to 0%.  There will always be a degree of risk.  I do believe Royal does everything it can to mitigate risk within its childcare offerings, but it will always have a degree of risk that you cannot overcome or clearly foresee.  You can continue to shelter your kids from the world because you are afraid, but they will ultimately lose out on great opportunities and experiences.

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts - I truly appreciate it.  For now, this is all hypothetical - my only child is the ripe old age of 33   

You and the others have made some incredibly valid points - again, I truly appreciate you taking the time.

35 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

 

 

If you'd like to see the qualifications of staff members, feel free to ask the AO lead. They're very open about it.

 

I didn't even think of that as being possible - thank you!

15 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

This is a really good question and gave me pause. When my children were younger (12 and 14 now), I would only leave them with babysitters that I trusted or people that were highly recommended to me by people I trusted. Who knows what kind of training they had? My kids survived, obviously, and have some funny/great memories from their times with babysitters.

Royal Caribbean, on the other hand, has to train each of their crew members that work with children very specifically to meet standards of care. This means they know how to medically help, emotionally help, and what "age appropriate" actually means. They know why you would do activity XYZ with a 3 year old but not with a 10 year old. They are constantly being watched by other crew members, parents that come in, and children that are there. There is no way RC would employ someone in the childcare arena that they didn't rigorously train to meet requirements or feel would be inappropriate in that setting. The employees there take their jobs very seriously and work hard to make sure the children are properly cared for and having a great time.

From personal experience, I was apprehensive about childcare on board when we first tried it. I think all my fears were alleviated when my children begged not to leave and kept asking to go back, even when the area was closed, LOL! Every time I popped in there, all the children there looked happy. It was a bit surprising! So, we've found the childcare on board ships to be positive, trustworthy, and a relief for us.

I think being protective of your children/grandchildren is very natural, and I understand where your fears are coming from regarding childcare on board. However, you can be assured that any child there will be cared for properly and positively.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience.  Does RC have documentation somewhere that shows the different training and vetting that they do?  I would feel SO much better about all of this if there was something.  

Again, thank you very much!

Hi everyone,

This has been an ongoing discussion in our family for quite some time.  There are no grandbabies yet, but the future is bright   

Here is the hypothetical:  Parents want to take a cruise and the grandparents will keep the kids - let's say they are a 2  year old and 1 year old.  The grandparents live out of town and still work so they will be placing the kiddos in a daycare or get a sitter where they live for the daytime hours.  Grandparents say, "there's a couple of ads in the paper, we'll just call and see who is open and who is cheapest."  To me, that would not be acceptable - a daycare/sitter needs to be interviewed, vetted, background checked, etc., especially with children who are too young to communicate well.

So, if you wouldn't just leave child with 'just anybody' on land, why would you on a cruise ship?  We don't know any of these people, we haven't checked their references, background, etc.  

The current discussions about it that we are having are in light of what happened last week on another cruise line with a male crew member hiding in the women's bathroom near the kids' club taking photos in that bathroom.  

So, to those of you who leave young children in care of crew - are you concerned? and why not?

And, are there those of you (like me), who say, "no way would I leave my child with people I don't know"?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

21 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I, also, have been seriously disappointed with the pork belly in the past.  A couple of weeks ago, on SY I decided to try ONE more time but when I ordered, I asked them to please make sure it was extra crispy.  It was great !  When it’s soggy and kinda limp, it’s rather disgusting, but extra crispy made all the difference.

Okay, you convinced me to give it one more try!  

3 hours ago, Hoppy2BHere said:

Okay. I stand corrected. I do have to say that every time I have tried it thinking it might taste differently, I am disappointed. It has so little taste to me and little resemblance to the thick cut bacon I was raised on.. Oh well. Maybe it’s just me…

It isn't just you!  I SO wanted to like it, but I find it tasteless, slimy and refer to it as 'gooby' LOL.  In my world, gooby = not crispy, slimy, unrendered fat.  

3 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I haven't been able to see anything related to my balance due or payments made in many years.  The old format had that information if booked directly, but that information has never been visible if the booking is made through a TA

Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but we use MEI and every little change I make (payment, add grats, whatever) causes a new invoice to be generated that our TA sends to me via email immediately.  I just looked at a copy for one of our upcoming cruises and I can see every line entry Cruise Fare, Taxes & Port Fees, Change Fees (yeah.. I'm that girl!), gratuities, etc.  and at the very bottom of that list is balance due.  MEI forwards this to me from RCI as "guest copy".  Doesn't everyone get this?

We had a VB on Anthem - never again.  I found the picture to be pixelated and even when it is turned off it emits an obnoxious glow.  It was so annoying that our cabin attendant had maintenance disconnect the wretched thing. Can you tell I REALLY hated it?

Me too!

I'm sitting here at my desk working away when all of a sudden a push notification comes in to my phone.  I check it and it is from my RC app.  I figure it is just going to tell me to hurry up and buy something because the "sale" is ending soon.  Nope!  It was a notification telling me that I only have 30 minutes left to complete my muster drill - my next cruise is in 240 days and I feel crushed lol.  I want to go do the muster drill instead of working   

12 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

This would be amazing if true. 

I think so as well.  I think the Jazz on 4 is a lovely space, but every time I've gone in when there wasn't a game going on, it seemed deserted.

Has anyone here heard about this?  On another board, someone says they were talking to the CD on Allure and were told that the Jazz on 4 clubs on all Oasis class ships are going to be removed and turned into smoke free casino space.  I never go into the casino due to the smoke, so this might be nice.  It also may just be a result of bean counting and the elimination of live entertainment.  

We are going to be on Oasis in October and we have already purchased the UDP for our sailing.  It is a 7 night Eastern Caribbean out of Bayonne if that makes a difference.

I've only seen it once.  The guitar player/singer in Portside BBQ let a young woman in the restaurant sing a tune while we were eating lunch.  We really wish he hadn't...  He was trying to be nice, but there is a reason a lot of people don't like to listen to karaoke.

I don't think this is a supply chain issue.  I remember being on Anthem in 2018 and the machines were constantly out of soda.  

Please google "do sloths like to be held".

I have two.

1. Unsupervised children.  I've had a fork fly right by my face in the WJ. Parent chuckled.  On Oasis, we watched a 3ish year old climb on the Boleros letters outside the bar, the dad just watched her do it.

2.  Scooters left in hallways.

We had the upgraded L'Occitane in our spa Jr suite on Ovation.  I tried it and had to re-shower an hour later because I could NOT stand the smell of myself.  One of the bottles (I think the shampoo) smells like cat pee and the conditioner smells like a dude.  I don't want to smell like a dude or like cat pee! LOL Of course, YMMV.  I always bring my own.

I've tried using the watchlist, but the prices didn't update. I was hoping I could use it to quickly see if my cruises had repriced lower, but they have both increased and the watchlist is still showing the lower price (until I click on it to actual go in and mock up a reservation).