Curt From Canada

There is breaking news this morning that Dillard’s is reporting significant shortages of red undergarments. They believe they are not the only store experiencing supply chain issues and are extremely concerned that the shortages could last for years. Govern yourselves accordingly … Curt from Canada

Quick response, as I have an early morning tomorrow. I have a gluten intolerance (probably not Celiac … long story). Still, since 2013, I have eaten gluten free on Royal Caribbean cruise ships. Briefly: There are only two places in the world I feel safe eating. At home, my soulmate cooks with the utmost care. There is never a concern. The other place is on a cruise ship. They have multiple food allergy issues every single week. They are experts at handling them. A few critical things to do: 1). The Main Dining Room [MDR] wait staff is excellent. Tell (remind) them on night 1 that you are Celiac. They will help you each night to choose the next night’s meal (they will make sure night 1 is OK as well). 2). Ask them about breakfast and lunch for the next day … they can help with that as well. 3). The WindJammer should be a nightmare (but it is not). Tell any of the food servers that you are Celiac (you may have to say gluten free … not wheat) and they will have someone walk you through each station indicating what you can have or not have. The MDR is still safer, but I have used the WindJammer from time to time. It takes more time, but they are very knowledgeable and detailed. 4). Specialty Dining: Same as MDR. Just let the waitstaff know and they will make sure the meals are adapted as required. 5). There is a way to get this on your file. Someone else can help with that special service request. I used to do it, but found I had to do points 1) to 4) above anyway, so I stopped with this detail. In this case, I think you should “do as I say and not as I do”. Get it in your file for each cruise. I hope that made sense and was helpful Curt from Canada

The exact same thing happened in the CL versus the SL on Serenade World Cruise. All the Pinns were in the CL and the SL was empty. We find the CL attached to the “Viking Crown Lounge” to be the best combination for the CL. Thanks for all the pictures … Curt from Canada

1). I believe they had to book times and stick to those times. If the ship was filled with World Cruisers (2,400ish instead of 700) there may have been massive issues that they would have solved with the large ship laundry services. 3). I fear I have misled. Not all food was delicious. It was typical RCL “hit and miss”, some details (all MDR and Specialty … we do not eat in the Windjammer ) Breakfast: It is hard to mess up breakfast. Everything was good. Nothing spectacular, just good. Lunch: This was the miss. A big miss. By the end of the cruise we would have the soup and grab a mediocre sandwich somewhere else. There was nothing in the MDR for lunch that was good. On bigger ships there are tons of options (other than the MDR) for lunch. Not on Radiance Class ships (full disclosure we love this class of ship. Radiance Class sea views more than make up for this shortfall … especially in Antarctica). Supper: Meals had some excellent successes (the Filet and a Thai Chicken special were the best at sea that we remember). Other than that, good consistent food with variety over the entire 18 days Specially: Was just like other cruises. Chops was Chops and it was good. Giovani’s was OK, but did serve a very memorable risotto. It was too much, so we told the waiter to hold the potatoe dishes (still to come) and leave the risotto. It was very special. Curt from Canada

My soulmate and I were on the Antarctic leg of this cruise in January. It was definitely a Royal Caribbean style cruise, but with quite a few differences that made for an even better experience. First your questions: 1). Laundry: Only World Cruisers have access and it was a special (very small) area that was created just for them. It did not cause any confrontations , but the scheduling of time in there was an ongoing “process” each week. I do not know the details, but the World Cruisers (and Royal Caribbean) needed to be totally organized to make the scheduling work. 2). Crew Contracts: They seemed to be just like regular cruises. Crew rotates in and out on normal schedules. Our favourite bartender was going to rotate out and then get back on to Serenade for the last few legs of the World Cruise. One of the senior Food & Beverage Mgrs rotated out just after our leg and should be back on the ship soon. Staggered rotations for everyone (as usual). 3). Provisioning & Port Issues: This is a great question. I did not sense any issues at all, but I did sense a big advantage … variety. The food varied noticeably as we moved from one region to the next. I had the best Filet Mignon at sea while docked (for two days) in Buenos Aires AND I was in the MDR. The entertainment was much more varied and plentiful. More variety of enrichment lecturers and topics. More variety of climates (93+ deg down to 30ish) We seriously looked at another leg, but could not make the timing work. We could never be away for the entire cruise, but would look at other interesting legs if they ever do again. Curt from Canada

Yes … they had both on the second leg of the Ultimate World Cruise (Serenade of the Seas). Curt from Canada

Excellent summary … thank you. I am afraid you may know what I am going to ask: This is a real long shot, and from pictures we have seen it appears the venue is not set up for it. Still, just to make sure: Is dancing in the “2 Pianos Venue” encouraged, discouraged, not possible? Our minimum is a 12 ft by 12 ft “solid surface” (no carpet) … but we have danced in our small kitchen 8 ft by 8 ft (at the cottage). Any thoughts, would be greatly appreciated … Curt from Canada (and my “happy feet” Soulmate)

Thank you … we were expecting your feedback, we just needed to confirm. I have never been in a “speakeasy”. Still, I had imagined there was almost as much dancing as drinking . Typically, we “adapt” quite nicely to the ship we are on. We have danced in all the “regular” spots plus: Schooner Bar (too many to count), many Elevator lobbies, 2 Elevators (once with the Stowaway Piano Player), 3 times on the MainStage (plus twice at the back of the Theatre), in the MDR, and Central Park (a lot). Say hello sometime, when you see two amateur dancers dancing where they shouldn’t be and having a blast. Curt from Canada

This is a real long shot, and from pictures we have seen it appears the venue is not set up for it. Still, just to make sure: Is dancing encouraged, discouraged, not possible? We are very prejudiced with this question as we love to dance and an Empire Supper Club “screams” dancing to us. I am sure we would enjoy the meal and cocktails, but a great band would seem like terrible a waste to us. Any thoughts, would be greatly appreciated … Curt from Canada (and my “happy feet” Soulmate)

The Ultimate World Cruise seems to be going a little bit above what a normal cruise offers when it comes to food in the MDR. We had that amazing Thai Shrimp dish one night and I had the best Filet at sea on day 1 (of the second leg) in Buenos Aires. After that dinners and breakfasts in the MDR were good to “OK” for the rest of the 18 day Antarctica leg. However, except for the two amazing dishes, the food was as per usual (nothing bad … nothing great). A typical Royal MDR experience. One major disappointment was lunch. We are not WindJammer people. In addition, the cafe in the solarium was not good at all. We tried the MDR for lunch many times and it always disappointed … nothing was very good at all. By the end of the cruise, we had soup for lunch in the MDR and tried to pick up a sandwich somewhere. Very disappointing. For entertainment, nothing can compare to the experiences we have had on Oasis class ships. However, the UWC is trying extremely hard in the entertainment area. They have 5 excellent principle singer/performers (you usually have 1 or 2 on a Radiance class ship), 2 excellent principle dancers and a 9 piece orchestra (I think the norm is 7). One night they flexed the orchestra up to an 11 piece. For a formal party in the Centrum one night they had a 7 piece orchestra on the very small stage. Big, excellent sound in the theatre and Centrum. They also seemed to have many more bands around the ship than normal. All of them were excellent. On sea days, the Centrum had music from just after lunch until late in the evening. Headliners were skewed to the culture of the part of the world you were in at the time. We love to dance, so we still enjoyed the 3rd Tango group as we sailed through Argentina. Still, we understand that might have been too much for some people. Given how strong the Royal singers, dancers and orchestra was we can only remember one bad performance in the main theatre in 18 nights. The Love & Marriage Show had the oldest newlywed couple ever. Going in we thought the show might skew older. It definitely didn’t disappoint. Lastly, there was an effort to have much more going on during the day than on a regular cruise. More enrichment lectures, more trivia, more dance classes, more movies … everything seemed to be intentionally just a little bit more. Curt from Canada

We have never seen a reservation system for dance classes on a ship (and my soulmate and I “chase” any lessons offered all over the ship). They are typically offered by a couple of the principle dancers on the cruise on sea days. The best way to find them is to: - Look on Cruise Compasses from previous cruises (the closer to your sailing as possible) to determine possible dates and times. We have found (in the past) that just before or after lunch is a popular time. - Study the cruise compass the day before to find the classes that are offered. - We do find that the smaller ships have greater opportunities, but we have had classes on most ships. The pace of the lessons are good (maybe a little fast for beginners), but they are fun and the instructors have always been excellent. Curt from Canada

All taken in and around Ushuaia

Trying to get caught up and then wrap up this terribly disjointed Antarctica recap. Remember we were on the Ultimate World Cruise (freeloader edition) … the price will forever be held as a secret. Ushuaia was our next spot and it was another highlight. Spending two days at « Fin del Mundo » (End of the World) was not enough. The overnight was great, but we could have spent another day or two there. It had a lot of things to do and not enough time to do them all. We did not do our homework on Ushuaia. I assumed it would be a sleepy little town that was the jumping off point for many Antarctica cruises. It definitely was the start for many cruise ships (we saw 7 different expedition ships) using the port in the 2 days we were there. However, there were other things to like about the port: Since it is in the Beagle Channel you can do lots of exploration by catamaran (and there are lots of them). We explored the lighthouse, National Park, some wildlife hangouts (cormorants, sea lions, albatross, penguins, etc) and a number of « End of the World » sites . The penguins sanctuary was particularly interesting. The catamaran beached within feet of the penguins. We could not get off the vessel, but the penguins were very close and easy to see. We only saw a fraction of the National park. Given how different the topography was, more time was definitely required. Given how many places claimed to be the « End of the World », we were unsure when we were actually there. However, I think we were well covered with 3 sites we visited . Both tours took 7 hours, so we did not see the town at all. Like I said, 1 or 2 more days would be required. Sail away through the Beagle channel was spectacular. We saw glaciers during sail away and the next day as well. There are very few glaciers that come close to the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska. We have seen it twice and it is a must see. We have also flown on to the Mendenhall Glacier and drank from the crystal clear waters. Still, southern Argentina and Chile have some of the most beautiful glaciers we have ever seen. Even more amazing was the sheer number of them. Glacier, after glacier … after glacier. Many more seen in 2 days than the 15 days we spent cruising in Alaska. I will try to post some pictures when I get on to the big computer. Glacier watching at “Fin del Mundo” was spectacular. If you get the chance do not miss this. Just a few more sea days to get caught up on, before I wrap up. Curt from Canada

Exactly the same as the ones on the UWC. A big upgrade. Curt from Canada

Thank you, thank you, thank you … Central Park = Best place on any ship for us. Just seeing the pictures makes me happy. Curt from Canada