KaydenDeen

Joined just to post this.  My guess is she will not come back to respond to the replies.  

I’m not judging, but I saw this guy wearing a very large gold chain while waiting to be seated in the main dining room on Rhapsody in 2019. I’m guessing this was his dinner attire for the evening? Maybe he was just chatting with friends who were waiting to be seated? I took this photo to show a fellow cruise enthusiast to see if this was a cruise thing that I’ve been missing out on. From an middle aged physical therapist point of view, that is SO bad for your neck. 
Cruise attire in the MDR is changing. You do you.

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

This older lady who had a walker with a basket and in the basket was fur-real cat and a huge horn.
You could hear her all over the ship, she would honk that horn if she felt you were in her way.
My daughter and I got on an elevator, as my husband was about to step on and there she was.  
She honked that horn at him and he jumped about a foot off the ground.
We saw/heard her at customs on disembarkment day wearing 20 different crew badges (DD counted them)

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

An impatient person in the Windjammer line eating the food as he slowly strolled down the line. Most of the food never touched the plate. Just straight into his mouth.

So when my brother and I went to Egypt we did a Nile river cruise on the Movenpick Royal Lotus. There was a family that had "service" animals that included a goat and German Shepard. Every morning we went on deck that goat would just be staring into our souls. We barely heard it but we also knew that both animals stayed in the families rooms. It was so random. Also on my first RCG cruise, Mariner, our neighbor would always come out of his room in a thong, do a few stretches in the hallway and go back in. I just assume there were too many people in the room.

We were on an early December sailing once, right after the beautiful decorations had been put up, and observed a woman walk up to the elaborate gingerbread village, and break off a piece of one of the roofs to eat.   As if we don't get fed enough on the ship.  lol  
On another cruise, we ate breakfast in the Windjammer at the same time that an older gentleman did...in his robe and slippers.  ?  We got to enjoy his eccentricity 2 separate days.
If you were on an Alaskan cruise back in May 2016, and saw a tall, skinny teenage boy eat three plates heaped full of donuts for breakfast in the Windjammer (27 by his count)....yes, we did teach him to eat a decent meal.  And no, we weren't eating with him.  He finally fessed up long after the cruise.  ?
Hmmmm.  All our strange encounters involve food. ?
 

I think that The Quest game show is a little strange for newcomers who are not familiar with this tradition.  The first time I saw the show, a drunk contestant took off his pants during a challenge, but wasn’t wearing underwear. His back was to the audience, but he didn’t conceal things well while disrobing. I’m not easily shocked, but I was surprised. I don’t recall how Royal handled that situation, but the crowd went wild. I’ve seen the show one other time, but it wasn’t nearly as crazy as that experience.

I agree they can't stop the virus, but they can mitigate the spread and risks associated with it onboard their ships.
Cruise lines cannot just throw their hands up and let cases pile up onboard. Just like how car manufacturers didn't just say "cant stop car crashes, so we don't need to bother trying to make cars safer", cruise lines cannot stop doing what they need to ensure their business can continue to operate while assuring the public (and government regulators) ships can sail safely.

I agree that "Zero covid" is impossible,  But the more venues, places, business functions that require 100% vaccination the sooner we will get back to not worrying about it.  With 100% vaccination we see very few serious illness and almost NO death.
I fully support the government employees and armed forces mandate to vaccinate.  I just pulled from the archives the vaccine records of my children, they were required to attend public school and for that matter still are, small pox, TB, polio, measles, mumps and numerous others.
I also support a requirement of the vaccine to fly anytime anywhere,  that does not impose one bit upon your freedom, you can WALK anywhere you want.  But it does protect the rest of society
 

Amazing to see how many people are in favor of discrimination. Someone has a 5 year old child and wants to fly to see a dying grandmother is out of luck. 
 
this would also eliminate 60% of a minority to fly in this country. 
 
Such a terrible idea and what DeSantis was attempting to stop in FL

Ovation was scheduled to leave from Seattle for over two years now.  I don't think they cancelled all cruises that were booked before the pandemic and created new cruises like they did for Serenade that was supposed to sail from Vancouver but moved to Seattle with ATRA.   
However I think most of us can read between the lines and know how this likely went down.  The dunce force is strong with some anti-vaxxers.  

I just got home today from my August 7 Adventure of the Seas out of Bahamas.  It was great to be on a ship again.
I heard we had 1,000 passengers.  The ship never felt crowded. Masks were mandatory for venues unless marked otherwise. Some venues were vaccinated only. (My understanding is Only kids under 12 were unvaccinated)
it was great to walk into CoCoCay after noon and be able to find a front row seat at the beach…I actually plopped down in the second row figuring the front row was taken!
shows were not crowded.  I did find out if you booked the headliner for his first show you couldn’t go to his final show.  I imagine it was to avoid additional commingling if guests for contact/exposure purposes.
windjammer-you had to be scanned in and they scanned you out.  I asked on the way out as to why and she said “contact tracing”.  Well after that I scanned in, grabbed breakfast, scanned out and ate elsewhere.  Yes, you scan into shows too….idk how they determine who exactly to contact trace , but I figured I could easily avoid the “windjammer nonsense” by scanning out quickly!  Subsequent visits to windjammer they did not say contact tracing, they just said “necessity”.
LOVED LOVED LOVED 2 days at CoCoCay.  The “kids” and hubby did the empty water park and then bellied up to the pool bar on day 1. 2nd day hubby and I went to the beach and the “kids”did the pool bar and then the floating bar at Chill island.
(my “kids” are 18, 20,22,29)
Very easy to get loungers poolside.
birthday dessert-we had a celebration onboard and they can no longer do anything “big” but they did carry a slice of cake with a lit candle and our 2 waitstaff and dining room manager sang with us.  I can’t believe they had a lit candle! I was ecstatic !
royal up.  Nice idea, doubt I’d do it again.
I did go from junior suite to owners suite.  Bonus was suite lounge from 5-8(as shown in the cruise compass) but it was actually from 4:30-8 for complimentary drinks.  YEAH!   So this was a nice benefit.  Also breakfast at Giovannis. 
The owners suite on Adventure was beautiful BUT it’s right below the pool deck-so party at pool deck at 11:00pm, sing along to the song!  Dragging and pounding of chairs and whatever occurred at midnight/1am (not bad for me I’m a late night person) AND at 7am.  Room attendants or others  were slamming doors as early as 6:30am.  (Stateroom 1292 on deck 10)
why I wouldn’t do it again.  I could have spent that money on other items. I really don’t spend a lot of time in the stateroom.  So for me, it was nice, but I doubt I’d do it again.
casino allowed 4 players at the 3 card poker.  And it was limited at other tables too.  It was nice to not be packed in and there weren’t too many smokers, so another benefit! (Mind you this is the first time I’ve actually engaged in long term play-usually I walk through, find it crowded and Smokey and keep moving)
main dining room was very empty.
easy to get off the ship. We could go have breakfast and we were told to wait in our stateroom to leave (no herding in a theater!)
most seemed to mask as they were required. Some lady was at guest services loudly complaining that more than 4 people were getting on an elevator. I was guilty of inviting a party of 3 to join hubby and I.  My own family is a party of 6-so IDK if she saw 6 and assumed it was just rule violators?  Whatever, with so few people on the ship there was no elevator nonsense of packed elevators and “long” waits.
below are pics of main dining room 5:30 seating and Chill Beach-sorry they are out of order. It shows how much space there was.
my “kids” enjoyed this cruise.  They understood the pluses of reduced capacity (no wait at water park, a lot of room in the CoCoCay pool bar, not crowded at silent disco) but they also realized they were fortunate to make friends within the “limited supply of people their age” 
 
 
 
 

@Pippa_OceanTime is a packing cube fan.
 

We had a really lengthy discussion about them in this thread:
 

Hi @MicDay, 
Yes, I think I’ve seen every YouTube video so far. (Maybe too many ?)  I even watched a video of someone driving around the streets of Ketchikan just to get an idea of things to do and to familiarize myself with the town. For both places it seems like people are suggesting the same things that Royal is offering. Just thought if there was something else to do, besides the traditional tourist offerings, I’d be willing to ride, bike or hike to get there. 

@KaydenDeenhave you tried searching on Youtube, it's been my go to on getting additional information?  

Thanks for the Whale Park suggestion. When I did a web search, I found another website that provided more suggestions of things to do. As always, thanks for your help! @AshleyDillo

Juneau, you can take Glacier Highway (the road to the mountains ).  It exits the city and there are a few parks and sites along the way to stop.  The highway ends at the mountains with Canada on the other side.  Very scenic.   Also we enjoyed going into town at Icy Point and talk wit the locals.  There's a local brewery and a totem artist that always working on something (and a great source for local history).  Also an ACE hardware store with some cool local stuff.

Ketchikan was interesting to walk around from the port. You can go to the famous Creek Street and also to Whale Park, both are walkable. There's the Totem Pole Heritage Museum as well but that will require a ride since it's 15 mins or so from the port by vehicle.  
Never been to Sitka but I've heard if you have the time and physical capability there's a lot to see there that's walkable too.