dr martini

booked connecting balconies with our 3 kiddos, lots to love about this itinerary, love the voyager/freedom class. along with a couple nights in Florida makes for a nice weeklong trip. Very glad to see indy and freedom get off the nassau PD 3/4 merry go round.

half of my family is in south florida and october is my favorite month to visit. snowbird season hasn't started yet, at the very tail end of hurricane season, weather is nice and warm everyday, ocean is very comfortable. here's a table of nassau ocean temps, which is a good comp for PDCC and you can see october is 10 degrees warmer than feb (mid 80's vs mid 70's) mid 80s is perfect, but it has to be a very hot day to enjoy or even get into 70 degree water (that or i need to p** pretty badly)

tried the cc beach club last year in january only because we found an $89 rate, I don't think we'll be back. it's a beautiful area and liked the quiet, but had the same experience with a very slow bar and nonexistent waiter service around the beach chairs, we have been to PDCC several other times and bounced between south beach (i really like the four sided pavilion bar at the entrance to the beach as well as the swim up which, yes, gets crowded) and the Oasis lagoon pool if you're into that vibe (we were). here's the view looking out from the pavilion bar on SB (with back to the road and the ship looking out towards cabanas on the left, swim up bar from south beach to the right) Number 27 on this map, apparently it's named "coconut willie's" https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/resources/pdf/perfect-day-at-cococay-wayfinding-maps.pdf

great updates so far, tough work but somebody has to do it!

yes @Cactus527 unfortunately the past few years of travel explosion post covid it's been really crazy in miami, they had these restrictions a few years now, believe the curfew started in 2021. Another factor would be Hurricane Ian - Florida's southwest coast was pounded in fall of 2022 by that storm (category 5 of 5) and devastated Fort Myers Beach, which was nowhere near Miami level but still a good sized spring break destination. now those kids have to go elsewhere as FMB is nowhere near to back up and running, even when they are rebuilt it will likely be a lot different aka more expensive (family and retirement focused). Miami's #1 status only getting bigger

freedom might be favorite ship in the fleet currently - perfect blend of size, features and familiarity. we just were on her for the same 4 day pdcc trip a year ago and i live blogged, have a great time! our next cruise will definitely be freedom or independence when they get on some different itineraries a year from now

Other posters are correct and you definitely do not have enough time to get to saint johns and see or enjoy anything.

yes @Thom Cruise I am US based and not aware of separate programs by region or continent but would make sense. I think we heard on the last earnings call that 80% of royal's guests are North america, sorry I realize that doesn't help you and I'm not an expert on the program, but do know that the commission is almost nothing on these compared to normal sailings and while it is possible to transfer casinos reservations and make more changes I have been told by travel agents from more than one company they don't like to do them (in so many words, "you may have better luck if you contact casino royale directly.....") which is fine, totally get it. pardon the pun, but just another game we have to play. there's a sliding scale for slots but for me, as an exclusively blackjack table player, there's very little to know about how they rate your playing/winning or what goes into the status. I just try to tip well and have a good time and hopefully they keep coming. I will say the offers are a lot more aggressive if I walk off the ship with more money than I came aboard with, which is pretty obvious.

In a pretty steady 5 years of getting and using casino comps I have seen allllll of the short Caribbean out of FL, smaller ships weeklong out of FL, the Navigator Pacific cruises, just started getting some Oasis weeklong and more Galveston, very rarely an Alaska but have never seen a Europe offering

We are team late seating for many of the reasons listed above, early seating is just too early for us. Most cruises with my wife and other friends or cousins we are having a great time bar hopping around the ship to various games, karaoke, other activities or up top around the pool at 3:30 or 4 enjoying cocktail hour after a day on the island and not wanting to head back and get ready for dinner that early. We were raised as old school cruisers who still take the time to get ready and dressed up fairly formal and fancy for dinner and evening activities. There's so much going on at night that I would hate to miss and that's vacation for us, we're gonna be out several hours later than usual until midnight or so and then sleeping in a couple hours later than usual, plus you can always doze around the pool at some point depending on how late the night was. Totally understand why other (perhaps older) cruisers would feel different and great that royal has earlier shows, earlier dinner and it certainly keeps the ship from feeling too crowded. On cruises with our little ones along we have taken them to windjammer earlier when they're used to eating (5 or 6), then drop them off at kids program or with their grandparents and go to MDR late seating or a specialty dinner ourselves. When the kiddos are a little older I would certainly try my time dining, but still wouldn't want to be locked into early MDR every night.

we had quest on two different 4 nighters out of Miami, one on navigator and one on Freedom. You can check past cruise compasses that this site hosts https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=274 here's an allure three nighter https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/allure-of-the-seas/fri-11102023-0000 so yes, it looks like the quest is on Saturday night in Studio B, the ice arena (they cover the floor for events like this and the DJ parties etc)

most of perfect day already is pretty quiet, I expected this to be an active space. Hideaway beach project is clearly related to the demand they have for coco beach club and the other cabanas. lots of people dropping lots of money on enhanced experiences and anything that is marketed as more exclusive (cough 'the key' cough), most of those folks obviously aren't here on the forums and plenty of us are going to scratch our heads and/or complain about it, but those dollars are absolutely being spent and people are voting with their feet telling Royal what they want to do with their dollars so.....here we are

was on the hump of navigator in deck 8 very near to the elevators a couple years ago and had zero noise issues. (yes, navigator is voyager class but voyager and freedom are nearly identical, freedom just longer. in today's marketing freedom class might well have been called voyager ultra)

great advice and I agree, have definitely found tipping to guarantee that certain bartenders will remember me, my drink preferences and get me great service. along with $1 bills I will also use up my smaller 50 cent and $1 and $5 blackjack table chips this way, there is a wink and a nod, the crew must have some way of being able to exchange them.