dr martini

Yes the drink package works inside the restaurant, but in my experience they price most of their custom cocktails and wine bottles above what the drink package allowance will cover, so they still find a way to get you.

Yes the Amped Navigator has Azumi hibachi grill and sushi up in the viking crown area on deck 14. As far as Adventure goes, it was just given one of the last more standard type 'refurbishmensts' in 2016 (link to RCblog post on Adventure's refurb) before the RC Amped program, current fleet guide says she will be Amped in 2021. (Fleet Guide link here, super handy document)

Champagne is wine, so stop at a liquor store (or walgreens, depending on the state etc) bring a bottle or two onboard with you as your allowed in stateroom wine, chill them in the fridge overnight then just order orange juice on your breakfast card and, voila, start your day off with a nice little taste of vacation. Done it several times. Careful opening that cork!

I think this thread has a pretty good handle on the relevant business aspects. I mean, if it's not broke don't fix it. If those small ships are still selling well (and they are) then RC will keep them around. In a way they offer a lot of great cruising to the brand new cruisers (a simple three night to key west and the bahamas) as well as the older, maybe more affluent experienced cruise who wants exotic, remote ports for a 12 nighter. After having been on symphony during peak spring break, I would be very ready to be on a small ship adults only cruise. The number of people and kids was evident everywhere around you, 24/7 nonstop, but that's why we and a lot of family groups like us pick those ships, so we all can do our own thing in whichever way we choose. If anything, that's Royal's only weakness. Trying to be too many things, trying to be everything to everyone, which of course is impossible. Hence, the variety of the fleet. To me, the sweet spot for amenities and space is still the voyager class, looking very forward to seeing the amped navigator, would like to try the quantum. The smaller ships have very loyal followings, they are free to visit a lot of smaller islands and more secluded ports, do long or odd itineraries that clearly the market will not bear for the big ships where most families are still led by working age folks and can't or don't want to take 12 days off. I see a ton of value in being on a small ship where a higher level of service is easier to maintain consistently and you're with like minded cruisers. Some would say family friendly is RC's strong suit, some would say they prefer not to be around the kids gone wild all day everyday and with this fleet, you can find what you like.

That's great, didn't realize that was offered to upper suite folks! One of these days I'll try that all out....important to have goals right? Thanks for the info

Seeing this offered as well for my Feb Navigator sailing, but to me for a short cruise not worth the extra dollars. Agree with others that it depends what you like. We're young to middle aged active cruisers, I don't like to over plan my day, I don't want a bunch of reservations out there and I certainly don't want to stand in line at guest services on this short sailing at all, for any reason, period. We always take late seating dining in the main dining room, in my experience the main dining room gets a lot of criticism it frankly doesn't deserve from all angles. Some people think it's way too formal and structured and other people don't think it's formal or good enough, it's been put in a really tough spot over the years. I think the food is perfectly fine. It's not wonderland every night, but it's fine. On our full week on Symphony earlier this year we planned ahead with reservations before sailing for hooked seafood, which was fine food but not amazing and slow service- not worth the upcharge and 150 central park which was amazing and worth every penny but very quiet and intimate, in my opinion if we did unlimited dining every night I would miss the company of our group and the fun stories of what did you do today, etc. For me, if we end up at playmakers or johnny rocket's then great, so be it and we'll just pay a couple bucks. But there are so many other great options for cruising, the added on boutique type restaurants are really for longer cruises with more time to plan things out. I want my 4 day to be a quick easy getaway, ultimate drink package, morning simple room service, then pool time, el loco fresh (which was awesome on symphony and is getting great reviews on navigator) relax, late seating Main dining room because I don't want to have to go down and get ready for dinner at 3:30 pm or just do buffet for dinner, cafe promenade is always there for late night snack or simple lunch and all of these are included, but that's just me. It's still free enterprise, you can spend as much money as you want and RC will certainly take it....

Correct. I think royalup has worked very well to fix sorting demand for stateroom by category. Royal often has more "guaranteed balcony" staterooms fares sold than actual balcony staterooms available (or pick another category, I'm just using this for an illustration). Thus, the royalup emails get sent out a few weeks before your sailing and then depending on bids and status they reward the folks who were in balconies the chance to bid up the most to get into the junior suites, which are kind of an in between category that on many ships doesn't offer the whole high end experience. (You can also see that they've added a lot of these in the corners for front of the ships in each Amplified dry dock) Also lets high status customers or people already in the junior suites slide up to any unsold high end suites, etc etc. Just a good all around tool for Royal to sort everyone into a cabin they are happy with. Maybe they don't get the initial big up charge they wanted for some suites or other categories in the first place, but they do get a lot of valuable data on pricing demand, category breakdown, and customer trends moving forward. Hence, you almost never see last minute deals on suites or ocean view, they simply royal up and get more money from existing customers booked on that cruise, then blow out the cheap inside rooms in the bottom of the ship. It's obviously working very well for them. Anymore it's all about that big data and we are just the guinea pigs haha

Agree with Ashely, just use a travel agent. Not only will they reprice (sometimes for a modest fee, but that can probably be more than paid for by your overall savings) they will almost surely be able to get you some onboard credit dollars as a perk just for using them, we've always done that to great success. Have cruised many times with groups from 6-30+ of us with my big family on Royal and princess, cannot stress the use of a good travel agent enough. They get paid commission by the cruise line, not us the cruisers and can answer all of the questions you have.

Paying $60 per day one device voom and deluxe drink pkg on navigator 4 night in February 2020 and that's about the same as symphony was this past March.