WAAAYTOOO

When we cruise out of Port Canaveral and arrive a day ahead we do the following:

1.  Rental a car at the airport from Hertz for a one-way rental to be turned in at Cape Canaveral.  There is no one-way surcharge for a one-way car rental.  

2.  Stay at the Residence Inn 8959 Astronaut Blvd, CC  321-323-1100.  The cost was $195 plus tax

The reason to rent with Hertz is b/c the Hertz car rental office shares a parking lot with the Residence Inn.  You are able to use your rental car all day to do whatever you want to do - go sight seeing - visit Kennedy Space Center - eat lunch, dinner whatever you want.  Then you can return the car after hours, leave the keys in their late night drop box and walk a few steps over to the Residence Inn for the night.

The Residence Inn has a shuttle to the port the next day.

21 minutes ago, Oliver said:

I was in a Junior Suite on the Ovation ofthat  the Seas in July and it was our first time trying Coastal Kitchen. While I agree that the service is much better and the I love smaller dining room compared to the MDR I did not find the quality of the food significantly better the the MDR. A little better yes. If I have access to it there I certainly will. But not enough to get super excited about. Of course being in a junior suite I did not have access to breakfast or lunch. But the service was indeed great.

I agree with this, completely. 

1 hour ago, BB1 said:

Specifically on Allure. 

On Allure they moved filet night from night #1 to night #4 or 5 (can't remember !). Most of the ships have filet night on night #1.

Welcome to the Blog !!

2 hours ago, Yo2slick said:

4 more days!  Cant wait!

Then we must be on the same cruise !  25 August out of Galveston

Chef's Table - no.  Johnny Rockets - yes (I think).  But even if JR is included, it will not include the shakes unless you also have the Ultimate Beverage Package.

I'll let you know for sure as we will be on Liberty next week and have the UDP but not the UBP !

Does anyone else remember when they used to play the same 3-week-old soccer game over and over again in the "sports bar" on the Radiance class ?  It used to be just outside the casino.  How far the internet at sea has come !  TV reception/schedule, and most particularly, sports, has definitely come a LONG way since those days !!

These guys don't know ANYthing.  Mermaids aren't afraid of a little jumping.  Hmph <eye roll>

I find the questionnaire to be absurd and a waste of time for the most part.  The only parts that make any sense to fill out are the ones about what I like to eat and drink and the kinds of hours I like to keep.  Most of the time I don't think the Genie even reads them although I have read of a few people who believe that they do.

I'm sure you've "heard" me say this before but one aspect of Star Class that I do NOT enjoy are the constant interruptions.  They seem to be knocking, ringing, calling every five seconds for one thing or another - particularly at the beginning of the cruise.  One of the comments that I made to Yen on our last SC cruises was to please try and minimize the interruptions and I don't know what she did, but it worked !  We had almost no interruptions that first day.  It's so important just to relax and unwind and if you have to be popping up every few minutes it's just not relaxing at all.  That is particularly true in the 2-story suites when you are upstairs trying to take a nap or just relax and someone knocks on the door.  We got to where we didn't even answer.  We just let them either come on in or turn away and leave.  People will often remark, "it doesn't matter what kind of room I have b/c I don't spend much time there".  That really isn't true when you are in a big suite.  You WANT to be there and spend time there intentionally.  It's just nice to have some privacy.  You don't always get that with SC.

1 hour ago, twangster said:

First noted on Empress so I inquired some more here on Majesty.  Powdered or "bulk" scrambled eggs are a thing of the past.  They were having trouble with the product turning black upon cooking so the fleet has standardized on fresh eggs being used for scrambled eggs, in fact for all egg purposes, only fresh eggs are used.

This is the best cruise news I've heard in years !!  YIPPEE !!  Thanks.

Those aft JS are very addictive.  That's how it started for me !  Have a great time.  I didn't realize Explorer was coming home.  Nice to see !

The buy-in will be either $75 or $100 and there are lots of rebuys permitted.  If they get enough entries, the prize will be a free cruise for 2 to the tournament finals (usually the first or second week in December) and a seat in the finals.  If there are not enough entries, they will award the first few finishers cash (after a generous rake).  They run the satellite tournaments on sea days during the cruise and generally the final satellite will be the final sea day night.

I guess it’s possible that the son was Pinnacle on his own. It would be difficult but not impossible. If he had his own Pinnacle pin then I would have to believe that he has attained Pinnacle status, himself.

Not THAT terrific...

I was very surprised to find that the sauna/steam rooms had been removed on NAV. I don’t care for them but Dan loves them and he was so disappointed. 

1 minute ago, Bob_KY said:

Is your next Oasis cruise your Grand Panoramic Suite?  Anxious to hear your opinion.  -Bob

We are in a Grand Panoramic Suite on this year’s Oasis Cruise (1 Dec 2019) and in a Star Loft Suite on next year’s Oasis Cruise (6 Dec 2020).  We’ve sailed in Star Loft Suites before but it will be our first cruise in one of Panoramic suites up on 17.  My only concern is the rather smallish balcony of the GPS. The big balconies are normally a big selling point for us but I’m sure we’ll manage . I am happy to try the single floor suite. I’m not all that fond of the loft suites stairs even though the openness of the 2 stories is very impressive. If I end up liking the GPS this year I may switch over to either the GPS again or the OPS for our Dec 2020 cruise (assuming they are still available, of course). If I am turned off by the small balcony I will just keep the SLS and slug out the stairs.

Just now, ChrisK2793 said:

Yes ...... But what happens if the parents are Pinnacle when their child is born?  Does the child inherit the lower Diamond Plus?  Or do they get no status at all as someone suggest above?

That one I cannot answer. I’m going to guess D+ but it’s just a guess.

1 minute ago, cobra614 said:

I thought that I saw an option to take credits out as a room charge whenever I swiped my see pass card. I do remember talking to a fellow gambler that mentioned that her husband was upset on how much she kept "downloading "to their room account.  Like I said, we brought cash, so I never tried it. 

No.  Not on Royal Caribbean. 

3 minutes ago, TJ! said:

Thanks for the heads up waaaytooo!

Although a bit uncomfortable bringing that amount of cash on-board I'll try to set it all up prior to sailing.

Going to look into their M life rewards/membership since I do have one and see where that plays into all of this.

I definitely recommend that you check with MLife ahead of time. It’s entirely possible that you could qualify for benefits that I am unaware of.  Also, if you are seriously interested in high stakes gambling, you can prearrange an onboard account (line of credit).  I’ve never considered doing this but I know it can be done.

2 minutes ago, uniongodess said:

Don't kids start over at 18?

Not exactly. Kids are allowed to keep their “inherited” status but only keep the number of cruise points that they have actually earned. So if they “inherited” Diamond status from their parents but only have 50 actual cruise points, once they turn 18 they will be Diamond members with 50 points and will not turn D+ until they have sailed enough times to achieve 175 points (or whatever it is for D+....I can’t remember) on their own.

The casino is cash only. If you want to charge against your onboard account (Sea Pass) you can do that either at the cashiers cage or at a table but unless you are at least a Prime level VIP player with Club Royale (their casino rewards program) you will be charge a 5% “convenience fee”.  I think there are some provisions for MLife players too but I don’t know those rules.  I believe that all has to be prearranged prior to boarding.

There is no such thing as putting your Sea Pass card into a slot machine and getting credit to play.  Carnival does that (or used to) but Royal Caribbean does not.

Bottom line....if you are new to a Royale Caribbean, bring cash to play in the casino.

$100 OBC was all they gave you ?  Holy cow !

16 hours ago, Hoski said:

If you buy the dining package for specialty restaurants it isn't good on the holidays.  They sell special holiday meals in the specialty restaurants at a higher rate.

I'm not sure how this works on all the ships...I can just tell you that on Grandeur the past 2 Christmas/NY sailings it only applied to Chops.  We had the UDP on both of these holiday cruises and we were able to eat at Giovanni's or Izumi on the "blacked out" holiday dates....and to be completely truthful, I'm not sure they actually DID black out Chops.  I just don't think those special holiday meals are very popular.  My guess is (but I did not try to find out) that if we had shown up at Chops on Christmas Eve or Christmas day or NYE we could have gotten in with our package.  We made "other" arrangements just so that we knew we had a place to eat but I really do NOT think that they blocked off Chops on those nights.  My guess is nobody bought the [very expensive] special dinners and they just treated those nights like any other night.

Maybe on the bigger ships they have better luck with the special dinners.

1 hour ago, VinceC said:

ALSO, JUST IN CASE YOU GET ON ANOTHER RPT CRUISE.....  They are saying now that they set aside a conference room for the RPT now.   Because the Casino cannot be opened except for time when they are at sea.   They are planning 4 days tournament, approximately 6 hours per day.   I am in it next year, and I am considering playing really hard the first day and if I loss, then I enjoy the rest of the cruise and if I am winning, then I would have to be winning pretty big.   so we will see.....

 

The time that we went, the event was on Liberty (this was before the O class ships !!!!) and they had the event in the conference room.  I assumed that's how they did all of them....but maybe not.  We are also on Oasis next year in early December (December 6 - 13).  This is precisely what Dan did...played hard on Day 1, went out and then we enjoyed the cruise stress-free ! 

2 minutes ago, VinceC said:

Are You a Poker Player?  Royal Poker Championship is happening on the Oasis, Dec 1 to Dec 8.   $750 Buy in of you are already booked, expecting 200-300 player, 4 days approx. 6 hrs per day, over $100,000 in  prizes and 1st place is $50,000 plus a return Cruise Next Year and the seat in the Championship.

Actually, we are both poker players but are not involved in the RPT this time. Dan was in it years ago. Not particularly thrilled to find out that this is the RPT Cruise. It was a circus the year we went. But it is what it is.  I know it’s held the first or second week in Dec but didn’t realize it was on Oasis this year.  Oh well. The casino will be a zoo.