dr martini

Oasis class seems to have a lot of "it seemed like a good idea at the time" stuff.

Up to $14? Can I use a drink voucher to cover it?

Late dining for us, it feels more relaxed and less rushed, knowing there isn't another group waiting to come in.

In a perfect world we would prefer around 6:30.  More and more often the first available MyTime became 7:30 or later so we switched to early seating.  Now Wonder and Icon have pulled early up from 5:30 to 5:00.  That’s a bridge too far.

Voyager class size, give or take a few GT, seems ideal. Small enough to go some more restricted places, big enough to still feature the bells and whistles.

Let's face it, Royal doesn't want the Vision class ships but they have no place to dump them with Pullmantur gone.  So they run them into the ground.   People book them, then complain, but there are enough new to cruise and loyalist booking them so why accelerate the last ride to a beach in Turkey we all know is overdue?

Promenade around 11:50am on a sea day:

And here is proof that I did in fact eat in the WJ. 😂 I would eat here more often if every WJ meal was like this! 

Please know that I am not one to be overly concerned about State Department travel warnings.  I am not throwing a sweat grenade here.
I did read this morning that on Jan 24 the SD issued a travel advisory to certain areas of The Bahamas that include Grand Bahama and Nassau.  Apparently there have been 18 murders in The Bahamas since the first of January.  That's nearly 1 per day.
I also realize that some areas of Nassau have been on the sketchy side for years and that prudence and situational awareness are always your friend.
Just posting to say that the sketchiness has been made official.
Anything you can add, @KristiZ ?

Independence for me b/c of the added food venues (Playmakers, Fish N Ships, a stand-alone Sorrento's).

Neither ship is on my “will not sail” list and neither is on my favorite ship list. Therefore I would pick based on which has the better itinerary. Remember, Cheaper is many times cheaper for a reason, and not necessarily a better deal.

Yea

IME food is basically the same on all ships.  Love it or hate it, the food is created from the same fleet standard recipes and fleet standard items.  Nearly all ships are supplied from the same warehouses supplied by the same food distributors in bulk.  
If the food doesn't work for you on Royal that is perfectly acceptable.  We all have different tastes.  Someone else may love the food I dislike.  Someone else may dislike the food I love.  That is fine, we are unique individuals.  
However to be perfectly honest and blunt the food quality has declined considerably on Royal over the past 18 months, for my personal tastes and I do now struggle at times on Royal when I did not three years ago.  As a result the number of my Royal cruises has declined and I am now sailing other lines on an increased basis.  No one who loves Royal's current state of food should feel insulted by my personal views, we are different unique individuals.  

It would be a lot of repeats, yes.

My first job out of college was at a newspaper that had a side hustle as a dial up ISP. I had an older gentleman call up the help desk saying he couldn't ever get online when he was on the phone.

I as nicely as I could explained as to why you couldn't be online and on the phone on the same line at the same time. And immediately knew my future was not in customer service.

That's consistent with that Royal has hinted at: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2024/01/05/royal-caribbean-ceo-new-smaller-cruise-ship-could-be-announced-2024

I don’t know if it would be done but if Royal wanted to speed up and cut costs to develop the Discovery class. They could just modify Celebrity Edge class .
A water slide ,water park and put the crown and anchor on the side.

There is likely covid on every ship & every cruise. Nothing to be done about it.
Hope your symptoms are minor & you feel better soon.

Here's what I see for my next sailing on Independence:
 

Been on Freedom of the Seas 5 times and on deck 10 four of those times, did not have issues with noise on my cruises but again I agree with others who said each person has a different level of tolerance when it comes to those things.  Benefit is you are close to upper decks where a lot of activities are and the Wind Jammer Buffet is close too, and do not forget about the ice cream stations that will call your name.  I know it will sound crazy but my wife and I are big Freedom of the Seas fans one of our absolute favorite ships in fleet.

Really a bummer, but at the same time that island can be really packed (like Saint Thomas, Nassau, others).  It's certainly a debatable, subjective opinion and everyone has different preferences.... I agree with the unfortunate sentiment that the real winners are the lawyers (as with a lot of things). 
 
I would add that there's another sea faring option and that is to take the Key west Express, a couple hundred passenger catamaran ferry that goes from southwest florida.  I am not an employee or anything, I'm not getting paid haha but I can say that I have taken it several times and will again.  It's a fun two or three hour trip and you can go down and back in a day or across multiple days.  The Catamaran itself is newer, clean and has a great three deck setup with food court, bar, different seating layouts....it's a great option if you're like me and the many other midwesterners who are in Fort Myers/Sarasota/Naples FL often.  If you look at a map, the way the keys curl back to the southwest, it's actually a pretty straight shot as the bird flies.  https://www.keywestexpress.net/

Maybe they can start selling Solarium Day Passes. 🤣🤣🤣

Not sure how serious this comment is

Radio chatter gave us permission to proceed so away we went to catch our first glimpse of the Silver Origin.


Our guide points out a Blue Footed Booby near us.

 



A glass of sparkling wine was waiting for us.

After a brief wait to check in it was up to lunch.  Not a bad lunch view...

 
 

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