WAAAYTOOO

Suggestion: If you ask for "the lobster" in the Coastal Kitchen on lobster/formal night, be sure you make it clear that you want the lobster tail being served in the MDR. We once asked for "the lobster" on lobster/formal night and they brought us some nasty, rubbery lobster bits in a yucky orange sauce. NOT what I had in mind. So there is apparently a "lobster dish" that they make in the CK; they might misinterpret what you are asking for and bring that, instead of the lobster tail. We just got off NAV and had the whole Maine lobster in Hooked a couple of times. It is not large, but it is far and away better than the lobster tail that they serve either in the MDR or in Hooked as an accompaniment to other dishes. Currently, they are not charging anything extra for the whole Maine lobster in Hooked. I cannot see that continuing. You can get surf and turf in Hooked for nothing extra, but the surf and turf in Chops is +$21 ? Makes no sense. I look for Hooked to start charging an up charge for either their whole Maine lobster or their filet. Get it while you can.

Congratulations on a successful procedure. It’s such a miracle.

I would be very hesitant to do a RoyalUp bid from one balcony category to another balcony category. I have read of stories where people paid a substantial amount of money for a balcony upgrade just to find out that it was not a real upgrade at all. The only upgrade I would consider is from one cabin type to a higher cabin type. E.g., if you are already in a balcony of any category, I would bid on a JS, GS, OS or any category higher but I would NOT bid on another balcony category.

Of course, it depends on the ship and the terminal, but in general, boarding usually starts around 10:30. It can be a bit earlier or it can be a bit later. A 10AM arrival might mean a short stay in a holding room but it won't be long. If you arrive any earlier you might get stuck waiting outside for a while, which would not be fun.

Welcome, Brenna ! So glad you finally “came out”.

Yes. 1:00 or whatever time the rooms are ready. 1:00-1:30 usually.

Aye !

No kidding ! What a great Suites area at MIA A. We used it for the first time on our NAV B2B and just...WOW. PoL is really at the bottom of the barrel for Star Class (or any Suite, really) waiting/boarding area. Very small, dingy and NOT exclusive in any way.

We were on LIB last year and there was a steam room and sauna. Can’t promise it’s still there. When the NAV was amped the steam room and sauna were removed so my guess is that as all of the ships are amped the thermal spas will be removed. Just a guess.

That which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger !

I guess it depends on what you mean by “early”. You will certainly be able to board as soon as general boarding begins but there will be priority boarding pax who will go before you. It generally goes very quickly though. Probably no more than a 10 min wait until they will open boarding to everyone.

Ugh !

I think you’re right. It looks like a hot mess !

As a suite guest on Anthem your choices are Coastal Kitchen (complimentary), main dining room (complimentary) and specialty restaurants (extra charge). There are numerous other complimentary restaurants as well. I guess my point is that unless you are Star Class, specialty restaurants are not complimentary.

According to the new “rules” of the Unlimited Dining Package, there is no maximum number of times that you can eat in any specialty restaurant(s). As long as they can accommodate your party, either by walk-in or reservation, you can eat. We had the UDP on our NAV B2B for the pas 7 days and we have never been turned away. We ate lunch at Izumi on both days (lunch) that we were in port in Nassau. We had lunch at Playmakers, we had dinner every night at one of the specialties and we had lunch again at Izumi today (sea day). Because we were overly concerned with ensuring we had reservations, we had the Suite Concierge make reservations for us for the first half of the B2B but it became obvious, as time went by, that reservations really weren’t necessary. Any number of times, we spontaneously changed our minds about when and where to eat and we were always accommodated. The one and only time we were not permitted to have our choice was on embarkation day. We wanted to eat at Chops and Chops was being held exclusively for Key members on embarkation day. They sat us at Jamie’s. Other than that, anywhere, anytime so long as the venue was open and there was availability. This was on NAV and I suspect that each ship will have its own “rules”.

Here are a couple of friends from our NAV B2B this week.

Not sure what that is, but it looks....well...horrible. Happy Cruise day !

The location to get the shuttle to the port is up on the 4th level. They will want to see a receipt from you car rental but the driver barely glanced at it. I asked if he was going to the PoM just make sure. He was. They stop at all of the port terminals but they start at Terminal A so we were the first stop, yippee !

Not sure about Adventure, but on NAV they would not allow anyone except for Key people to eat at Chops on embarkation day. We have the UDP and we had to eat at Jamies twice on our B2B on embarkation day

Haha. Together we had all the answers !

You (Mariner) are right down from us ! We are in Nassau on NAV. Hope you have a great rest of your cruise. Tomorrow is our last day. ??

I have no idea what kind of OBC you have, but if it is refundable OBC you can withdraw whatever you don’t use from Guest Services and so you would have cash to give the Genie. I would simply ask the Genie to confirm what type of OBC you have and ask for his/her help in getting it refunded in cash. They can pretty much do anything for you. As for tipping in the Specialty restaurants, we always (whether in Star Class or not) tip as follows: $5 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $20 for dinner no matter where we eat, even if it is in the Windjammer or Coastal Kitchen. We tip in cash but you can certainly charge it to you Sea Pass account, which will essentially consume your OBC. Star Class do not pay a daily gratuity (well...of course, you are paying it but it isn’t charged separately).

Since this topic seems to come up every so often, I thought I would provide a little insight with a recent example. We are currently on a B2B on NAV (3 night + 4 night). On turnaround day we had some business to conduct and since there were going to be a few stops along the way, we decided that rather than Uber or taxi (as we had done in the past), we would use a “free” rental day from National. This gave us the latitude to conduct multiple stops without the time, pain and expense of hiring numerous rides. Let me offer some sage advice for anyone who wants to try this. MAKE ARRANGEMENTS BEFORE YOU LEAVE. This brilliant plan only occurred to me on day 2 of the 3 day cruise and I have to admit that trying to research this onboard was a grand PITA. It would have taken maybe all of 5 minutes to do from home but was a major ordeal using the fabulous NAV Voom. The primary problem for me was that, while I felt very confident that I could get a shuttle to take me back to the ship once I was done running around Miami, I had no confidence whatsoever that I would be able to get one from the port at 9:00 to take me TO the rental agency. Trust me when I say that nothing online was helpful in the least to getting my question answered. In the end, we figured that the worst that could happen would be that we would have to Uber from the port over to the airport so we moved forward with our plan. Online, I was able to log into my National account and reserve a midsize car using one of my (many) free days. I received multiple confirmations on this reservation so I was confident that all was well at least with the reservation. Once turnaround day came, we went by Guest Services to relieve our new Sea Pass cards, disembarked, went through the facial recognition scan and made our way towards the Terminal pick up area. I held my breath as I asked one of the agents standing about, “can you direct me to the rental car shuttle bus area ?” The agent directed me to cross the street and go all the way “left”. To our amazement and relief, there was the National, Enterprise and Alamo bus just waiting for us ! Yippee !!! As we stepped onto the bus the driver asked to see our reservation, which I had readily visible on my phone. I am assuming they are precluding scoundrels who would try and cop a free ride to the airport. After a very short wait we were off to the airport. At this point I felt all would be ok...this was the part of the plan that was tenuous, for me. While I did not stop and take notice, I assume that other rental car agencies had shuttle busses at the terminal as well. We were able to find a vehicle we were happy with (my only requirement was for an integrated GPS which was fairly easy to accommodate), a brand new red Range Rover. First time in one, ever ! We easily found our way to the stops we needed to make (I had research addresses that we needed to find while still onboard) and were back with the rental car in less than 1 hour. Shortest car rental in history ! The total cost for this entire adventure was $28.47 with $10 of that being for bus driver tips ! There were some taxes and whatnot associated with the “free” rental day. We were back on board by 11:45, just in time for our turnaround day lunch at Jamie’s. So...bottom line...yes, there are free rental car shuttles at a Terminal A in Miami that will take you round trip, if necessary. NOTE: I assume, but do not know for sure, that once the ships sail out of port for the day (e.g., around 5:00 ?) that these shuttles stop running. If there are no more customers to pick up/deliver then there would be no point.

...and Quantum class

This is my prediction