dr martini

Sounds like an excuse to book another cruise on Harmony.

And on the flip side, time in port limits casino time, which also costs money.

I feel like this has literally been every trip between Nassau and Coco Cay.

Yup. The extra day of vacation and night in a hotel is just the part of the cost of cruising. We live within 4 hours of Galveston and still go down the day before.

I even feel nervous about booking a later flight the night before. I like for there to be additional flights after mine should something go wrong.

You'll find this advice in various blog posts, threads and just about everywhere.  Yesterday while traveling unrelated to a cruise I saw some unfortunate cruise guests learn this lesson the hard way.
My own travel was changed three times due to a canceled flight and then separate delayed flights for my alternate itineraries.  This has become a new normal occurrence on more and more of my air travel recently.  I'm well used to misconnects and delayed flights as a former business traveler who used to take over 250 flights per year, year after year mostly domestic.  Yet I'm experiencing it more now and the time to recovery is greater than it ever was back in my hayday of being a very frequent flyer.
Yesterday as I was in the process of working with a gate agent to find new alternatives for a delayed Seattle flight I saw two separate groups explaining to other gate agents they are going on an Alaskan cruise and now they were going to miss their cruise.  There was nothing the gate agents could do, there was no alternative flights to put them on.  Our plane broke to the point they took it out of service and they were working to find us another aircraft.
One party stated they had bought travel insurance.  That was wise but they are still missing the cruise, a cruise they probably spent a lot of time preparing and planning.  Getting some or all of your money back through travel insurance softens the financial impact but insurance will never make up for the time invested and the disappointment of not sailing on a cruise you've been excitedly waiting for a long time.
In my case they re-routed me (again) through a different city but I followed the progress of that delayed Seattle flight and it didn't work out well for any cruise passengers looking to sail yesterday.
I heard one gentleman ask the other party impacted "they'll give us our money back right?".  That's when the other party stated they bought the travel insurance so they'll get their money back.  The blank response from this person told me he hadn't bought travel insurance.  You could see his mind doing the math to calculate his losses.
Many years ago I learned this lesson myself the hard way.  Flying from Denver to Houston the day of a cruise involves a short direct flight.  Southwest had five flights that would work and I was on the first one.  What could go wrong?   We got on the plane right on time.  Fully boarded we were ready to depart on time.  That's when I noticed they hadn't closed the boarding door.  Then we didn't depart on time.  Then they cancelled the flight and asked us to deplane.   
No problem right?  Four more flights could get me there.  I was solo.  I just needed one seat.  The best Southwest could offer was the same flight the next day.  All of their flights were already full.  By that point the ship would be well at sea.  After a prolonged battle with my travel insurance provider I did get all of my money back, eventually, but I still missed the cruise.
So as tempting as it is to save the cost a hotel room, just don't do it. 
Don't fly in the day of the cruise.  

While Royal  promoting all the great pay options on Coco Cay please promote how they’ve severally downgraded the inclusive options you had. Especially how they’ve stripped away the DJ from the Oasis Lagoon to downgrade the experience there for the mass of  passengers in order to make profit off of the for fee Hideaway Beach. It’s misleading to have people believe that Coco Cay is an upgraded experience when the only upgrades are at a cost and the experience we have all come to love has severely been downgraded. I know I speak for so many especially those traveling with minors who don’t have luxury of partaking in the Hideaway Beach experience.
#BringbacktheDJtoOasisLagoon

Docked in Grand Turk this morning. It’s our first time here. The beach looks beautiful. I am not a beach person so after Hubby is done on the wave, we’ll probably just go out and take walk and check things out. If my girls were here, they (Hubby & kids) would most definitely be headed to the beach. 
Some pics from our balcony.

Just spotted this this morning.
When researching cruises, there is a link that says "View Ports and Map"

And when you click on it it shows you the itinerary map in the same way Celebrity does.

I like seeing a map so I'm delighted to see this return after being missing in action for some years following one of Royal's infamous website "enhancements". 😁

No.  Vintages tapas are not covered by the UDP.

👍👍👍👍

1) The menu will be different from lunch to dinner, with dinner having more options.
2) Order and share away!
2a) yes!
3) Anything except swimwear will be fine. Shorts, hats, flip flops…no issue in the least.
4) Just order what sounds good to you. Everyone here has different tastebuds and you will not find a consensus on what is good and what isn’t. 

Also, I found this while wandering. I don’t know why some ships have the model of another ship. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Some info in this thread you may find helpful...
 

I get one hour of internet access every day in exchange for my soul

I was on the Vision of the Seas this morning and at a Q&A a guest asked the captain if he preferred smaller ships or larger. He said as a captain he liked the smaller ships and then said Royal Caribbean is ordering up to 8 new ships that were 130000 tons through 2029. I have no idea how accurate this is but I heard it directly from him and thought I’d share. 

The prices haven't skyrocketed. The quietly went up in 2023 and have stayed the same baseline until there is a sale. I am assuming you haven't bought said items in actual retail because those prices have indeed skyrocketed. It is $9.99 for a 12pk of soda. Water which used to be 24pks for $3/4 are now $6+ and in Chicago a .05 tax is added on each bottle in the pk. 

The Pesky Parrot is getting  WAAAY more business than that stupid robo thing.  GOOD decision to get rid of it.

No midnight balloon drops. We get 99 Red Balloons.

(99 is a rough estimate.)
The inaugural crowd is leaning little more nursing home than South Beach.  I'm not sure this is how the typical World's Biggest Weekend was imagined.

The prices in the port area itself are all listed in dollars.  You could use peso's outside of the port area, but it is just easier to use a credit/debit card. You get very good rates on CC purchases.  

I would counter a bit and ask what are you expectations with dining and travel in general like now vs 2019?  Nothing seems quite like it used to be, and I work in the food business, I'm not terribly picky and understand what most hospitality businesses are going through.  
I can say that our family trip on Symphony in March 2022 was quite simply a mistake.  We were back and forth on it bc of restrictions etc, but wanted to get out of the house just like everybody else - the ship and staff were not at all ready for spring break crowds, the food and service and general overall experience were not great and nothing compared to previous cruises outside of one meal at 150 Central park that was very well done.  I shouldn't be too dramatic, it was still better than a week of working in winter weather at home, but was it worth the dollars paid?  I don't think so.  Probably should have just rented a house on/near the beach somewhere.  Hindsight 20/20 etc.
My parents and I have done several cruises, shorter freedom class, week long oasis class and one serenade from January 2023 to now and they've been miles better than March 22 in almost every way - activities, staffing, food and drink (big ups to the specialty dining).  Some small hiccups here and there, still not the more refined classic family cruising I recall from first taking Royal 15-20 years ago but I don't think that's ever coming back again.  Everything is just different now with almost everything, I haven't had any hotel visit or restaurant meal that's really been bang, wow, incredibly vibrant or great value either.  It's a drag we're just in transition to a new world and economy with a new set of standards and value.  I guess we just have to adjust.
 
 

Utopia was here yesterday…

Wonder docked next to Allure…

8:20am and it’s almost as empty as when here alone.

Empty Mason Jar earlier (trying to take pics of something other than food & drink)…

selfishly want navigator back in the Caribbean somehow but with all the new ships the last couple years that's not in the works.  maybe something stationed outside of FL like in the bahamas or on another island (like they did with Grandeur out of Barbados?  never heard much about how that went but obviously not ideal timing) do we see that happening again anytime?  the big FL ports have room for 4-6 RC ships each?