Rackham

This might be it? 

39 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

Looking at their menu, it seems just about everything is fried.  Put enough batter on anything, all you taste is fried batter, not the seafood.

Though the oysters sound good, but I'd wonder how they're sourced. Once you've had fresh oysters on the dock where the boats come in with them, tough to beat that at any restaurant away from the docks.

Fried seafood on the menu can be conveniently sourced pre-battered or breaded and frozen. So all it needs aboard is being portioned out and fried. Royal might not be doing this, but I wouldn't be shocked if they were to streamline their kitchen. Looking at the other offerings on the menu, something can be said similarly about most of them. I'm giving Hooked a chance next month, but I'm keeping my expectations in check.

"Highlights include a revamped pool deck, new waterslides, a new water park, new restaurants, the conversion of the ice rink into a laser tag arena and much more."

https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2025/01/royal-caribbean-gearing-up-for-huge-allure-drydock/

Are they misunderstanding things or is Allure getting something akin to an interior SeaPlex?

Assuming 100% capacity (edit: using the double occupancy number), 25.7% are new to Royal, 41% are Gold to Emerald, and 33.3% are Diamond and higher.

It appears that The Bamboo Room aboard Navigator is getting a variation of The Pesky Parrot's menu with a few holdovers. Haven't looked at Mariner.

Here's Bamboo's in app menu as the screenshot.

The previous menu (minus food): https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/resources/menus/the-bamboo-room-menu-sample.pdf

Pesky's menu: 

4 hours ago, Heymarco said:

Royal Carribean has certainly sailed ships over 30 years old before. A Voyager class ship may still be profitable after 30 years while Sovereign class was and Vision class is more difficult. Believe it or not, the first Voyager class ships were the largest ships in the world at the time. There may still be room for profit after 30 years and wouldn't be surprised to see them around a little longer.

I'm curious which ships in RCCL's fleet have sailed over 30 years? Here's the retired ship data I have.

32 minutes ago, JasonOasis said:

I get its apples to oranges but is 30 years really the limit in the cruise industry or can Royal squeeze out a few more years if necessary to give themselves more time to get Project Discovery right the first time right out of the gate?

Great question. Here's an article from Frommer's on ship ages which talks about that.

https://www.frommers.com/tips/cruise/how-old-is-your-cruiseship-does-it-matter

My take is that they can operate past 30 years, but it's less than ideal.

On 1/9/2025 at 5:04 PM, twangster said:

Why would the board approve a near billion dollar expense for a new medium ship when that nearly pays for a new Icon ship?    

Besides getting families booking with Royal who are turned off for something as large as Oasis or Icon class, there's also port availability. With everyone and their dog who can afford an Oasis sized order getting into the mega ship game, Royal needs smaller vessels so that they can find ports to send their ships to in the future. Otherwise, there's going to come a time where Royal will either have to limit their growth due to lack of available ports or pay a serious premium for their dock slots.

It doesn't help either that Americans generally don't have much vacation time. Thus, to encourage bookings, necessitating itineraries starting or ending on a weekend so that cruisers need less vacation time to sail with the company. Which also means itineraries can be somewhat limited in their port order to minimize fuel costs during the voyage. And this goes back to port availability. Doesn't matter if port X has space available on Monday if a cruise starting on Saturday can't make the journey.

On 12/27/2024 at 10:05 AM, Vancity Cruiser said:

As much as I love the idea I'm not sure if the West Coast market is large enough (simply due to the lack of variety of ports). Would even 3-4 ship visits per week make it viable?

I've been thinking about this, and it depends on how Royal's seeing the market, and if they could find a location which would allow visits on a three night itinerary. If they think they'd be able to homeport more ships on the West coast in the future, it might be worthwhile in the short term to only have 3-4 visits a week to be able to offer a product their competitors don't have. It'd sell cabins and gain them mindshare when the alternative is Ensenada.

Strenuous could also mean hiking multiple miles at a reasonable clip for someone who regularly hikes in the mountains or open water swims. If physical activity could be an issue, you really should ignore the activity level then make a personal determination based on the description and other people's reviews of the excursion. If there's one thing Royal could improve on with their shore excursions it's this. There's such a wide range of excursions tagged "Strenuous" that it's not too helpful as a descriptor.

2 hours ago, Thumper44 said:

I've also been thinking about private destination options for Royal closer to Galveston that could be developed… maybe something between Vera Cruz and Campeche?  Is there any potential in an American site somewhere?  Perfect Day New Orleans?  Perfect Day South Padre?  

But again, I'd be fascinated to know what the economics look like to make this doable.

I doubt we'd ever get a US based Perfect Day simply due to labor costs. Then there's the benefit to Royal of having a port they control which ships can head towards to satisfy the PVSA if needed.

2029 would have Discovery launched on the 30th anniversary of Voyager class. Here's hoping there'd be a similar video to this for the new class. 

14 hours ago, tonyfsu21 said:

$249 would be a a risky move but not out of the question. There are other options (all inclusive) for $100 less per person in the surrounding area. I wonder if they go with the access band and give passengers a choice (with or w/o alcohol) at a reduced price? 

$249 on average sounds right to me with everything that's included. Royal also loves their sales, so most people would end up paying between $125-$175 pp most likely. And, of course, they can always change the non-discounted price based on the ship, itinerary, time of year, customer demographics sailing, etc. So maybe the MSRP will range from $199 to $299.

2 hours ago, Pooch said:

Yes I know but a 12 hour window from first report of the magic email to cut off seems, well, off.  RC anticipated a 12 day promotion and only managed a quarter of that (going solely by the 12/9 start date listed.  It does not appear notifications started that early).  Did they think no one would take advantage of this?  Really poor execution/customer service IMO.  And that is what I communicated to Mr Bayley.  No response as yet.

My read is there was X dollars of gift card sales targeted during the promotion. Due to the links working for people multiple times and allowing more than $1,000 dollars in savings, people with moola bought far more than they were entitled to under the terms of the sale. Thus, what should've lasted at least a week was sold through in less than a day. I've read elsewhere people buying $10,000, $20,000, and more at 20% off. 

What I'm hoping Royal will do is allow those who missed the opportunity previously to purchase gift cards up to $5,000 worth at 20% off once (i.e. the terms and conditions which should've been enforced before, one transaction with up to $1,000 in savings). I can't imagine a situation where they'd just reopen sales and allow transactions to continue the way they were before.

49 minutes ago, Pooch said:

BTW, what does Royal get out of this?  Seems like an awfully generous offer and I don’t see the upside for them

Good will from dedicated fans and testing the waters on pricing models to separate more money from more people. These types of promotions allows the company to raise fares while helping retain long time customers who will know about and be able to use these offers. People who might try a competitor with another fare increase might book if they know there's a possibility of a gift card discount (or similar) in the future. In other words, it's a differential pricing strategy which won't get the type of pushback of individual pricing of fares would since everyone is seeing similar fares at the same time.

It's legit. If you're receiving the C&A emails you should be receiving a personalized link. There were no problems redeeming on a Celebrity booking just now.

Edit: It's worth knowing that these are low security gift cards. If someone knows your email address then they can access your cards. I wouldn't buy anymore than what I can turn and use today (or won't cry over if lost). 

7 hours ago, Heymarco said:

They originally said Icon class would be smaller than Oasis so will believe it when I see it.

I'd believe it's a real possibility that Discovery is around Voyager class sizing. Originally, rumors had it around Radiance class. Then between Voyager and Radiance classes. So the final ship tonnage being Voyagerish would be par for the course.

What I'm really interested in seeing is if there's any truth to a rumor that Royal is going wide with Discovery instead of tall. Something like the height of Radiance, but with the beam of Quantum, so that they don't have to think about bridge heights and have the deck space for amenities.

5 hours ago, TXcruzer said:

How is a $168 increase in fees PLUS admission fees to PD Mexico going to look good to a family of 4?

PDM should be included in the fare. Much like PD CocoCay is. It's the Royal Beach Clubs which will cost extra.

Edit: Looking at the cheapest 4-night sailings from Galveston with RCCL and Carnival, a $42/head fee would add roughly 10% to the cruise fare with fees and taxes. So for roughly the same cost, they could either visit Cozumel or PDM. I don't think it'd be a hard decision to make for the average person.

The article doesn't provide enough detail to say this for certain, but since it's an immigration fee and not a port fee, it reads like it'd be charged per person once per sailing which visits Mexico and not every time the ship docks in Mexico.

Also, this could be something of a boon for Royal and Perfect Day Mexico. For the proverbial family of four, that fee would add $168 to the sailing cost. PDM might look really good right now, but it'd look even better if MX cruise costs are noticeably increased across the board and they're looking for ways to save money during the cruise.

8 hours ago, Mizzymoo said:

Does anyone know how I make the flow rider cocktail from bar 1400 please??? I have all the ingredients, but no idea how much of each to use????

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/42039-cocktail-recipes-on-royal-caribbean-ships/page/9/#findComment-482820

On 11/23/2024 at 8:57 PM, BamBoozled said:

I would really like to know what is in the drink they serve inside the pineapple. It's like a pina colada, but tastes different than just a plain pina colada.

I've seen that once, and it was filled with Coco Loco after Coco Cay.

I'm seeing the thermal suite (and fitness class pass) back in the cruise planner this morning. Just going to assume it was something with IT (system or database update?) which caused them to disappear.

I don't, but it's missing on my cruises too. I'm also not seeing the fitness class pass either.

I wonder if this means they're revamping their fitness program? Or maybe moving to a model where booking a spa treatment gets you thermal suite access? Can't imagine they'd make it free if they were charging for it.

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

Funny as it's not 8 or 12 bottle packages like the graphic shows, but 12 or 24.

24 bottles for 23.99 though. That's a surprisingly good price.

I'm thinking that's an error on their part since that's the quantity options when buying still water. However, I won't complain if I've got 12, instead of 8, bottles waiting in April.

I'm seeing a new, San Pellegrino package for 8 or 12, 500mL bottles on the Beverage page in the cruise planner. Gratuity was charged when I placed my order.

1 hour ago, Southern Dan said:

 

Can't tell if they're joking or saw someone's invoice who booked the ultimate family townhouse for this itinerary.