CruisingOz

@Matt 's "perfect" MDR menu:
 

Lamb shank (for Dan)

I second the lamb shank.

MDR? What’s that? #teamCK ?

I imagine too the legal exercise has to be played out for every region they sail from.
COVID-19... putting more lawyers in luxury yachts than any virus before it.  

In addition to the cell coverage, Royal has blanketed Coco Cay in high speed Wi-Fi. If you bought a VOOM package and also have Wi-Fi calling enabled with your carrier, then you can make calls just using your VOOM connection.

Its been a few years but we did the equivalent of the current 13 night grand mountain post tour. It was fabulous. After the week long inside passage cruise we were bused to Anchorage then it was a mix of motor coach and luxury dome train to Talkeetena, Denali and Fairbanks. All hotels were excellent. The dome rail cars were fabulous with a dining at one point and a bar. Your luggage was taken care of door to door of your hotels. We held Alaskan sled dog puppies and enjoyed eye candy scenery every day. We saw bears, wolves, elk and moose in Denali.  Well versed tour guides kept us entertained and informed every step of the way. It was worth every penny and I would do it again in in a heartbeat. 

Only been to Alaska once and I will chime in with the others that I found doing the Royal tour was great.  I am very much a DIY person, but Alaska was such an unknown that it was nice to have someone else take care of everything (hotel, transportation, decision making).  You still get to DIY it at the stops if you want or Royal has excursions you can choose to purchase from.  

We loved Talkeetna Lodge and their back patio.  Denali in the background was phenomenal.   I haven't checked cruisetours lately, but did they quit going to Alyeska?

We had done the land portion through Royal as this was out first time to Alasks so wanted to make sure things go smoothly. It was an excellent experience, and yes on the double points, we too did a JS on the Radiance. 
We flew in a few days earlier to make sure we weren't jet lagged coming from Australia. There are things to do in Fairbanks; the Drege 8 gold mine experience was an excellent day out, just took a local cab out there. 
When you meet with your Royal guide they can organise local tours; we did a flight into an indigenous village way north of the Arctic Circle; getting back to the hotel around 2am, but sun was still out as it was June, so that in itself is something new.
You are doing it in the right direction, Southbound as we were so tired as you want to pack in as much as you can in a day and at night, you meet so many great people you end up chatting and with no setting sun, you realise after a few drinks; oh it is 1ish, better get to bed for the 6am start. Luggage taken care of, picked up outside your door and is waiting for you upon your return. 
For us, these types of tours allow us to sample many things and gives us a guide for when we wish to return and do it ourselves; where we might spend two or three days in one place before moving on. 
As we were going to be traveling for nearly three months, we had two suitcases each; don't judge, packed too much but also left a lot of room for souviners and gift ; however on these tours you tend to live out of a suitcase, so as a suggestion, have a suitcase with everything for the two of you for the week and do laundry when onboard. All the hotels had laundry, we had some done at Denali lodge as there two days but in reality who wants to do laundry when on an adventure.   
It is an experience of a lifetime which you have to do; no amount of photos and videos can truely convey the magnificence of Alaska and RCL did a great job; expense but we felt it was worth the money. Enjoy

Jump in the pool so people can't see me crying with joy. Float on back and soak up the rays, and be so thankful I can finally cruise again. Oh, and follow this up quickly with a Kraken Lava Flow; then I know I am truly on board. 

Jump in the pool so people can't see me crying with joy. Float on back and soak up the rays, and be so thankful I can finally cruise again. Oh, and follow this up quickly with a Kraken Lava Flow; then I know I am truly on board. 

Jump in the pool so people can't see me crying with joy. Float on back and soak up the rays, and be so thankful I can finally cruise again. Oh, and follow this up quickly with a Kraken Lava Flow; then I know I am truly on board. 

Jump in the pool so people can't see me crying with joy. Float on back and soak up the rays, and be so thankful I can finally cruise again. Oh, and follow this up quickly with a Kraken Lava Flow; then I know I am truly on board. 

Jump in the pool so people can't see me crying with joy. Float on back and soak up the rays, and be so thankful I can finally cruise again. Oh, and follow this up quickly with a Kraken Lava Flow; then I know I am truly on board. 

No pay wall on this one:
https://cruisepassenger.com.au/tourism-minister-says-he-will-hold-talks-mid-june-on-a-possible-cruise-return/
 
most interesting section was:
Mr Tehan said: “My hope is if we can continue managing the pandemic like we are, we will be able to see more cruise ships in our waters hopefully in the waters between Australia and New Zealand as well.”
 
So NZ might be in the game as well! Fingers crossed!!!!

You aren’t expecting this to go ahead are you? With just the fact that it’s so ridiculously hard to even leave the country (with no indication that will change any time soon) and no plans to let travelers Australian or otherwise into Australia w/o quarantine (also no plans to change any time soon) it’s pretty much a guarantee it won’t be going ahead. I think the only reason some lines haven’t cancelled yet is that they are hoping for a miracle! 

We like to be close to the beach and restaurants so we have stayed at the Sheraton, Hilton and Outrigger. Of the three we prefer the Outrigger as Dukes restaurant is a great place within the hotel, nice pool and walking distance to many shops, Cheesecake Factory, etc; as well the buses stop just outside so easy to get around. Sheraton is more expensive but disliked the adults pool as it was only knee high; we swam in the kids pool which had a slides, which are fun. 

Thank you twangster for taking the time and effort. My wife and I really appreciate all the details and photos, you are amazing.  

As per Mike.S, simple process to apply, we normally apply around the 80 day mark and it usually takes about a week to come through. I have only once had an email confirmation and so the other times when I jump not my cruise planner I notice the credit has been applied.  

Found this thought I’d share. 
Spring break
A group of college kids went on a booze cruise for spring break. The ship sank and the young men escaped in a small lifeboat. They floated for several days but nobody came to rescue them.
Eventually, delirious from a lack of fluid, one of the men noticed a bottle floating in the water. He reached over and picked it out. Suddenly, a genie emerged from the bottle with a loud whoosh.
“I am a genie and I can grant you one wish!” said the genie.
“That’s a no-brainer!” The frat boy said. “I wish the ocean were made of beer!”
The genie immediately granted the wish and then vanished,
“You idiot!” said the second kid. “Now we have to pee in the boat!”
 

It is quite a subjective issue and I think you should try it and see. For us we have done a Carnival cruise and it will be very unlikely we will cruise Carnival again. We have only done one from Australia to South Pacific, so not tried one in the US, so might be different?
We cruised Royal prior and the quality of the food and service was not the same but it was cheaper as well. Our biggest issue was the lack of security with children running a muck and through corridors at the very early mornings, 2am. We find Royal more appealing and the type of people nicer and not as out of control.   

Hey all!
Clearly the Roll Call sub-forum is something that had a lot of pent-up demand! In the interests of making it easy to search for a particular roll call and add new ones into the forum with a consistent format, please be sure to follow these guidelines:
First, always search for your sailing to see if a Roll Call was already created Easiest way to search is use the first word in the ship's name, the word AND, and the date enclosed in quotes (e.g., Vision AND "Aug 14, 2021"); this should properly limit the search and not give a lot of false matches on just the ship or date Don't worry about searching on the full ship name since every ship ends with "of the Seas" If you don't find it through search, try sorting the forum by title (see later posts in this thread for screen shots); it's possible your sailing is there but the entry was created with a different style subject line. If you don't find your sailing in the search results or after sorting, go ahead and create a new topic. Please try to use the following format so it's easily found through search: Ship Name a hyphen Departure date using the format month name (3-letter), followed by the day, then the year; this should help avoid confusion for members from countries where an all-digit date usually puts the day before the month. Examples: Aug 14, 2021 Jun 12, 2021 Jul 22, 2022 An optional itinerary name / description in parentheses This should let anyone easily find any sailing here, without having to guess what date format got used or which ship it's on. Examples:
Adventure of the Seas - Jun 12, 2021 Vision of the Seas - Aug 14, 2021 (Bermuda and Perfect Day) Radiance of the Seas - Jul 22, 2022 (Alaska Southbound)  
Forum moderators / @Matt, if possible can you update the existing topics that include "ROLL CALL" or use a different date format so they're consistent? I figure better to ask this now while we still have a relatively limited number of sailings posted. ?

We are both in our early 50's and have had our first jab of Astra, so obviously happy with being vaccinated, if that what it takes to get onto a cruise ship we are all for it. We decided to get it so we can escape fortress Austraslia. Two cases yesterday and restriction back in force, yes just two cases; stop laughing at us, LOL 

We are both in our early 50's and have had our first jab of Astra, so obviously happy with being vaccinated, if that what it takes to get onto a cruise ship we are all for it. We decided to get it so we can escape fortress Austraslia. Two cases yesterday and restriction back in force, yes just two cases; stop laughing at us, LOL