WAAAYTOOO

While tip money is ALWAYS a good idea, any 18% gratuity will be added to your cruise BILL. I guess you could take the cash to Guest Services and pay it indirectly but that's kind of a hassle. If you book any specialty restaurants onboard, just be prepared to have it added to your bill so that it's not a surprise when your final bill comes.

I agree with this ! If it was a 3 person room then it should not have been in general inventory, available to be booked by 2. Of course, that doesn't help the OP. In similar cases I have read that they give the original bookers at least an equivalent, and often an upgrade, to what they had originally booked. I hope that happens for the OP. This seems like a Royal SNAFU to me.

Of course ! What a friends for ?

Yes, the standard hibachi dinner includes an appetizer, a choice of some meats/chicken, rice, veggies. I don’t remember a dessert but maybe there is. Any additional “add-ones” can be ordered at the time you get your dinner. If you want to order things like sushi you can do that, but there is an additional charge.

If you do not prepay your gratuities then they will be charged daily to your onboard account.

Yeah....flamingos !

Hmmm...definitely not typical from my experience. Do you mind if I ask the name of your Genie ? Did you receive the SC questionnaire a month or so from your sail date ? What kind of questions/information did your Genie provide in the email you did receive ?

We're here....we're here !!! So the van driver dropped us off - as far away from the purple Star Class signs as you can possibly get....and of course, we were caught in the crossfire of those who were disembarking and looking for rides and those, like ourselves, who were just coming on....and the teamsters were all trying desperately to get us to give them our luggage (looking for tips, no doubt). But we made our way through the maze to the purple Star Class signs - finally. The Star Class "greeter" instructed us to turn our luggage over to the Star Class porters. Nope. We were waiting for Yen...who showed up almost immediately. Yen told us to ignore the greeter, that she had everything ready for us. She already had a porter with a cart waiting for us. The porter loaded up the cart and we all began to proceed through security. I have already told the story a couple of times so make it brief this time...but just as promised, our luggage never left our side, even to the point of it being put through the regular carry-on luggage scanner. Yen took my request QUITE literally. Best embarkation EVER. They were not yet boarding the ship, so she asked us to have a seat (after introductions and a brief chat) in what I guess must be the Suites and Pinnacles' waiting area. It was hard to tell, really. So we sat down and waited maybe 15 minutes. We saw the other 2 Genies with their charges but surprisingly, we were never introduced to either of the other 2 Genies the entire 2 weeks. Yen reappeared and we all proceeded through a side entrance (nobody else was boarding through this entrance) and we proceeded to a private elevator. So it seems that the porter that we had (at this point) was a terminal porter who was not permitted to board the ship. We had a very short delay while a porter FROM the ship came out and continued the trip with us and our luggage up a private gangway and onto the ship. Yen told us that our suite was not quite ready yet, but that we would go there first anyway to drop off the luggage and then we could go and wait wherever we wanted for her. So off we went to the suite. You can imagine how difficult it was for all of us, bobbing through the onboarding traffic with a full porter's cart, weaving in and out of people with luggage in tow. We made it onto an elevation and the ship's porter brought our luggage in and took it upstairs for us. Yen gave us the standard welcome aboard briefing (we had been through this a number of times so we knew what to expect). By now it was after 11:30 but not quite noon, so we decided that we would just go to Chops and do lunch. Honestly, I don't think they were really ready for us but Yen escorted us in and they seated us immediately. It was nice and quite....for about 15 minutes until The Key horde hit. I'm kidding...it wasn't bad at all. It was busy - no doubt...but we had a wonderful lunch and then went back to the suite to settle in. YIPPEE !! We made it !

That looks really hard. I've seen them practicing. Waaaytooo many moves for me to remember ! Cute though

LOVE the pink swan ? drink floats.

My dushi ! Cucarao, I mean.... ?

What ship are you sailing on ? Only the Quantum class and Oasis class ships actually take reservations for performances....so unless you're on one of the "big" ships you won't see any opportunity to reserve a show.

Can I be your friend ? ?

As a rule, there is generally an "early" comedy show that is appropriate for children and then a "late night adult" comedy show that is definitely NOT appropriate for children. I have been in some of the late night shows where parents bring their children even though they know it's not appropriate and the comedian is ruthless to those parents. Don't be THAT GUY.

You're lucky ! You will have Black Friday in there before you have to go so you will DEFINITELY get some kind of sale prior to sailing.

Thanks, Stephanie !

Well...now the other side of my split personality will come out...and say that often (lately) it has been more about having options than $$value for me. I am absolutely, 100% positive that the drinks package is NOT a financial "win" for me. I am not much of a drinker to begin with and as the cruise goes on I am normally even less interested in drinking BUT when I have the DBP I know that I CAN drink anything that I want at any time so I find some kind of twisted satisfaction in that. The same is true of the dining package. I like to have the OPTION of eating anywhere I want and I blame Star Class for this. I will call this SCES (Star Class Entitlement Syndrome).

As long as you are all in either traditional dining or My Time Dining then you should have no problem sitting together.

Welcome Copteacher ! Thank you for everything you do.... It's hard to really pinpoint when those options will become available. They tend to wait to post prices for the following years' cruises until much closer to the first of the year. As a GENERAL rule, most of the pre-purchase (and pre-reserve) options become available ABOUT 90-120 days out. Some come out much sooner some come out much later. I wish there was a way to know but there just isn't. Keep checking...but start expecting to see some of those options become available at about 120-90 days.

Very interesting. Navigator was the very first ship to receive the virtual balcony technology way back in 2014. We went on it when she was sailing out of Galveston just to try the VB. I guess they must have upgraded the whole system as part of the Amped upgrade. We loved it ! Glad yours is finally coming online.

I purchased both the UDP and the DBP on our Christmas/NY cruise on Grandeur last year (12 nights) and honestly, I don't think I would do it again. As much as I love the specialty restaurants, how many times can you go to Chops, Giovanni's and Izumi (nobody's talking to you, Matt ?) for lunch and dinner with 6 sea days ? The drinks package was pretty much the same way. After a week or so, I basically used the drink package for canned Cokes only. There is a scenario where you can wait a few days and purchase the UDP later in the cruise. But typically most people do their heaviest "partying" at the beginning of the cruise so if you are one of THOSE people then you probably wouldn't want to wait. Unfortunately, there is no way to buy it early and cut it off for the last days of the cruise....

Well, you'll have to wait until I get to that part of the story...but I will give you a hint. Yen is apparently a genius and obviously controls EVERYTHING on the ship.

YIPPEE !!! Embarkation Day !! Do as I say, not as I do. Since this cruise embarked on a Friday, we chose to fly in on embarkation day to save a day of leave. Now, this is a very bad plan for a couple of reasons: 1. Anything can happen 2. It's NJ in February, For God's sake ! 3. Anything can happen. But the cruise gods were with us and everything went swimmingly. The limo picked us up at home at 5:30 AM, dropped us at DCA by 6:15 and our plane left right on time at 7:55 AM. We arrived in Newark at 9:13 AM. Because of this being a rather high risk plan (flying in on sail day), I had purchased EVERYTHING through Royal Caribbean - airfare (Air2Sea) and RT transport between the airport and the ship. Normally, we never do ANY of this but given the potential for utter catastrophe with nearly every aspect of this embarkation day plan, I thought it best to try and put as much onus on RC as I possibly could. Once we were on the ground in Newark and had our bags with us, my anxiety level fell to a reasonably sane level and I was beginning to believe that we really would make it ! Our transport to the pier turned out to be a small van vs a big bus, which was a relief. There were only a couple of others sharing the van. Soon we were on our way. Sidebar: It had been my intention to keep the whole "Star Class" thing a secret from Dan right up until we got to the ship. #1, I wasn't sure he would actually be happy about it and #2, I wanted to surprise him. I began to run the whole boarding day choreography in my head.... < ....and we get to the port and the bus starts unloading our luggage and the teamsters start grabbing bags and throwing them on their carts....WAIT !!!! We have to go to the purple Star Class banners WITH our luggage !!!...I am screaming "No, WAIT....DON'T TAKE OUR BAGS". Dan looks as me as if I am from Planet Zero. Now I have to hurriedly tell him that we are STAR CLASS and we have to keep our bags with us. He curses me and starts running after the Teamsters...> Reh-Roh So about a week prior to the cruise, I felt it best to let him know that we were going to be Star Class to avoid a TOTAL Charlie Foxtrot at the terminal. Had we been arriving in a taxi or Uber, I would have just instructed the driver to drop us off at the Purple banners....but with the whole bus scenario (which turned out to be a van scenario), the risk was just too great for a colossal F-UP. It turns out he was VERY happy and he was glad I told him ahead of time. Chasing after Teamsters to try and retrieve your bags once they have them in their possession is not a great way to start the cruise... So we made arrangements with the van driver (in the form of a $20 pre-tip) to please keep our bags separate from the others so that we could keep them with us. He did NOT understand why we wanted this but the $20 convinced him to go along with us. All was well with embarkation SO FAR.

No, you are not expected to tip on top of what they have already charged you in automatic gratuities (beverage package). Only if you feel an extra tip is warranted. If you are seriously considering dining in a specialty restaurant, I recommend that you pre-purchase either a small dining package or just pre-purchase the individual meal that you want. If you pre-purchase, you will NOT pay the additional 18% gratuity. If you purchase a specialty dining meal on board, you WILL pay an additional 18% on top of the cost of the meal.

I found a savings !! YIPPEE !! The DBP is being offered on my Freedom April 28 cruise for $44. I had previously paid $47 so I cancelled the $47 package and purchased the $44 package. When I checked earlier this morning I could not get to the Cruise Planner for this cruise so I didn't know until just a little while ago that the DBP was actually "on sale".' YIPPEE !!!!!