CrimsonCruiser

Just got off Allure and we made our scheduled stop in Haiti with no issues or concerns.

I picked this up for about $20 on Amazon. No naughty room. No issues. Took up very little space and charged everything with ease.

Man... My October guess was waaaaay off lol

For the first time in 5 cruises we actually left the cups behind. They didn't hold much, weren't as good at keeping things cold (the ice melted rather fast) and the lids were inconsistent, leaking unexpectedly. They worked well enough on board but nothing I wanted to take home.

After all that... We ended up with coastal kitchen for lunch after all

So here's a unique "complaint". Our stateroom attendants keep changing all of our towels even when we follow the "Save the Waves" instructions and hang them up to reuse. On Odyssey last year we (2 adults) ended up with more towels than we knew what to do with because the attendant not only replaced what we used but also added a full complement. And this year on Allure our attendant changed all the used towels on both cleaning. Sometimes I'd use a hand towel once to dry my hands then leave the room and come back to new towels! I feel bad that I'm not "saving the waves" and I know I could probably just ask but like....why so attentive?!

Congratulations! I'm literally sitting on the balcony of our cruise that will push us over into the shiny Diamond land. Can't wait to join you and take serious advantage of the perks! I'm not a big drinker so the 4 per day bigger is more than perfect. I probably wouldn't do more than 2 even with the juice option! (Don't drink coffee)

I'm gonna play devil's advocate a bit here and recommend the "big box TA" we have: cruisesnmore. We've used them twice now (our TA being Giovanna) and have had a great experience. We get about 10% of the base fare as refundable OBC (meaning if we don't use it we get that money in our pockets - haven't done that yet as we happily spend it all), 1 specialty dining voucher for two and 1 spa voucher. It's great for us who only cruise once a year because we can really make it special. That said - we've not had any large issues they have to deal with, so no idea how good or bad they'd be in those cases (such as mass cancellations, refunds, FCC etc) and every price drop we got on our current cruise was found and requested by me. For me...not a problem. I have the time at work on my breaks to do the faux booking to check prices and I cross my fingers and toes that we have no problems. I'm generally a hands-on planner so I don't mind not reliquenshing all the control. I won't say don't listen to the others but it's *very* important to know what you're getting when you choose and weighing what matters most to you overall.

We also got it for 5.99 on a Black Friday sale.

Didn't want to start a new thread so I'm resurrecting this one to share the Emerald discounts on Allure. The spa one was nice. We probably would have used the laundry bag one but the bags never came around. Also forgot to use the $6 free play and 10% of logo items.

Do I need to sleep under the bed to make this work? Lol

This is the cup on Allure today for the 8/20 sailing. It is insulated. Not as big as the former insulated cups with the clear lids and wide top/narrow bottom. If I were to take a guess Id say they are the size all the way up as the narrow part of that style. Also it's a pop lid vs the screw lid so kids might have a harder time opening them themselves.

I would imagine previous purchases would be grandfathered in to the new pricing just like they do for gratuities. Prepaid gratuities went up back in 2018 but anyone who booked before the date the price changed - even if the sail date was after it - paid that lower rate. So I would imagine regardless of if the prices change, your package would still cover what it was meant to cover with no additional fees. Boy do I hope that's just a case of a customer service agent not quite knowing (no shade on them there is PLENTY royal changes without letting them know)

If you're on a 7-8 night, the first formal night will be on day 2. You can still go to a specialty restaurant and take all your pictures even if you're not eating in the MDR and I actually really enjoyed our last formal night with specialty dining.

I assume the things on the boardwalk would be open? like the hot dogs? any word on Johnny Rockets?

I doubt they'd get rid of a cruising classic like that. Royal isn't quite the daring. But it is usually in the front of the ships on Royal.

wow that's really cool. I kinda want to dig into this process more, just out of pure curiousity

I don't have an answer but...alcohol-free red wine....is it...it is jut grape juice? I am actually asking because I'm very curious. I was under the impression wine was made by fermenting grapes in sugars so...where does the alcohol that process creates go...and what's left?

We did the same as Loki - we weren't sure pre-boarding if we were going to want to do something and then events in the morning got us off to a rough start - but we got out and walked around, grabbed one of the taxis toward the end of the pier area. It was great! I don't recall the name of our driver but she was very knowledgeable and loved showing us local areas. I think she was just as excited to show her country off as we were to see it. I especially liked that she ran into friends at one point - there was something really real about her personal life bleeding into the tour. I would recommend a local driver if you're interested. Not that I have anything against the Royal tours but it was nice to have the personalized service for about the same price.

The things I know about Alexander and Washington...are from the musical but yes! thanks to that I did learn that Hamilton is technically an islander!

I think I've seen in several vlogs that they ask you to remove everything including cameras on the zipline. Even if it's harnessed. Not sure about the rock wall. There's no helmet for the rock walls and from experience your chest tends to be touching the wall so not sure you could use it there even just on a practical level even if it was allowed.

Oh cool! I thought maybe they just repackaged the old program.

I think we used something like this a couple years ago. It was an international package that was a low dollar amount (I think $10?) per day as long as you used your phone on land. So, on the ship, we didn't have anything but at every port, I'd turn my phone on, check in with the pet sitter, read emails, check voicemails and shoot off a few texts. Only got charged for the days I made calls and returned texts, no charges for receiving them.

So I've always wondered...most cans of soda are 12 oz....not 17...so could one bring 17 12-oz cans since the overall ounces are the same?

Following because I'm curious if flight price drops would impact OBC at all...as far as I understood it, air2sea just served as a middle man between you and the airlines so the money is going to the airlines, not royal. If that's the case then I would imagine the flight price changes would just be refunded to the form of payment you made IF you have refundable airfare. We rebooked a flight for a land trip in December and were only able to do it because we made sure to tack on the $50 to make the tickets refundable.