WAAAYTOOO

I just got my Genie questionnaire for our Sept. Harmony group cruise so we must be getting close !  YIPEE !!!!!!

Your blog post was quite a bit longer and more detailed than this. ;)

This doesn't bother me very much.  I don't decide to book a cruise or not based on the deposit.
I'm always going to book refundable, so I can get my deposit back.  And you end up paying the same total at the end.
Sure, it ties up a few more bucks.  But I don't tend to worry about that very much. I know others aren't in the same situation.

That picture just screams vacation!

... omg why have I never thought about doing that? It's ALWAYS a cookie error for me and incognito mode never occurred to me.

I'm on this Harmony cruise in Feb. 19 too !!

I feel your pain. Having also recently started a new job, my vacation time reset. Worse, I had a few cruises already booked when I started my new job last fall, so I actually had to go negative in my vacation balance to keep the cruises.
As it stands now, my vacation time is fully allocated for the next five cruises that I have booked between now and March 2019.
Fortunately, though, in October 2019, I'll start earning an extra week of vacation per year. That'll help make booking cruises easier. 

^ YIKES ^

Remember when Amazon just sold books ??

Thanks, Kris !

Remember when Amazon just sold books ??

Elevator party, now that is a really cool idea! Of course, it will have some ups and downs.

I've always had MTD in the past, and never made any reservations. Just walk up, tell the person at the desk "table for two please", they get your cabin number, ask you to wait a minute as they decide which table, and you head in. Never waited more than 2 minutes. The beauty of MTD. Eat whenever you want. 

I don't think any cruise line is 100% smoke-free.  Even Celebrity, which is known for its "no smoking policy" still have a very limited area for smokers onboard.  IMO a line would be foolish to ever try and go 100% smoke free.  There are just too many customers (particularly in Asia) where smoking is prevalent.  I don't think they would shoot themselves in the foot like that, but you never know !!
Royal has been "experimenting" with smoke-free casinos in the last couple of years so they may be hoping to go smoke-free in the casino but that's about all I have "heard" on the subject.

Rude people pushing to get on the elevator without waiting for people in the elevator to get off....my pet peeve everywhere!!!!

Couldn't agree more. The charge for these restaurants is even more ridiculous when you consider that you are not eating in the MDR or Windjammer that evening and you technically already paid for it. I just don't want to see the industry turn cruise ships into a giant strip centers at sea that are specifically designed to generate a certain amount of revenue per square foot. I worry we will have to buy tickets to shows in the coming years. My wife and I's favorite part about cruising is being able to go out to a great dinner, see an awesome show, and then go listen to great live music and dance late into the night all included in the cruise fare. I fear that is going away one small change at a time (Specialty Dining Fee, Room Service Fee, Escape Room Fees, Corking Fee, etc.). If this continues ships might as well have passengers with 1st class tickets that can afford to take advantage of all of the amenities and others with 3rd class tickets that can only access the Windjammer.
Obviously this is hyperbole, but I do see this as the general direction that the cruise industry is sailing. I think the question they are all asking each other around conference tables at Royal's corporate office is, "How can we generate more revenue from the passengers on the ship". While this a valid question for a business to be asking, I think they are going about this wrong. I think the question they should be asking is "How can we create the best possible experience for our guests while keeping all of the costs within the standard cruise fare?" In my opinion, the first question will ultimately lead to less revenue and ultimately failure while the second will lead to more revenue and success.
Even with all of the changes cruising is still the vacation with the best value. I just want it to stay that way.

Let me tell you something about this group.  I've never met anyone in this group that made me feel like an outsider looking in.  You will be welcomed with open arms...this is the most positive group I've EVER been associated with and I credit that to Matt and his positive outlook on life and cruising.  No need to worry if you are a newbie or not, or left out, or anything like that.  The only way you'll be left out is if you stay in your cabin or avoid the group...which BTW is hard to do!!!

I know we will never get discounts for our casino play. Although I worked at a casino years ago, I am a $20 a time guy at best and my wife less that. But I wish good luck to all those who do! Remember to "let 'em roll" and "double down"

I personally will be wearing nothing less than Dockers and a collared shirt for dinners. But that's just me. You cannot force people to be who or what they aren't. People are going to wear what they want unless they are forced to wear something different. The dining rooms don't have dress codes, but have dress suggestions. If RC was concerned with dress codes, they would have their staff's enforce dress codes. But they don't want the backlash from all the cruisers who don't want to have to dress up. Some people I'm sure feel they shouldn't be told how to dress. They are spending money like everyone else and maybe more. '
I know one thing though. I won't let whatever somebody wears or doesn't wear affect us or our experience.

I literally had the exact same experience as the person above me. My wife and I went on Navigator in 2015 and were incredibly impressed with the MDR food as well as the Windjammer. When we went on Liberty in April of 2017 we expected the same. While it wasn't terrible, there was definitely a shift in quality from what we remembered. We still had great service and the food was still very much acceptable and at times great.
In my opinion this shift in quality is due to the recent changes to the "dining experience" on cruise ships. Now you have to pay what they will call a "small fee" to enjoy the same experience that used to be provided in the MDR. I will never be convinced that a meal for $30+ a person is a great deal. I would say that's about what it is worth, and probably even relatively expensive for the average person. We ate at Sabor on Liberty because they were running a $15 promotion at the time and it was good food, but it wasn't any better than what I could get for the same price in my home town. (Except for that Avocado Margarita, that is worth twice as much as it costs)
Even with the lower quality we noticed in the MDR we still choose to dine in the MDR mostly every night because we believe the value received from the complimentary meal in the MDR far exceeds the value received for the fee in the specialty restaurants. I definitely have a thing against specialty restaurants and kind of see them as a microcosm of what the future holds for the cruise industry. I wish that cruise ships were taking steps back towards an all-inclusive experience rather than taking steps away from it, but the wheels are already in motion and I don't think it can be stopped. From a business perspective I'm sure it's a great revenue generating move for Royal Caribbean, but from this cruiser's perspective it's starting to feel like I'm being driven towards paying extra if I want the same quality of food that used to be included.  

Slots are easy, since the machine always knows what you're betting, but table games are still a mystery to me.  I have seen pit bosses walking around scanning tables with tablets in hand--maybe they're taking note of what the players have on the table at the time and the system figures out an average based on those samples.
I know some Vegas casinos are using machine vision in the cameras over the tables and RFID tags embedded in the chips (chips in the chips...) but I doubt Royal's that fancy.

To be honest, the only place where I have seen loungers on JS were in the aft balcony cabins with the extended balcony.  I don't recall the regular JS having loungers.  It's been a while since I booked a JS though.

I'm on this Harmony cruise in Feb. 19 too !!

Montocguy, have you ever called Club Royale to see if you are a member and if you are eligible for any discounts ?  They will NOT tell you (your friend's experience is very unique)...you have to find out for yourself.  I'll never forget the time that I finally called, after MUCH haranguing from my husband, to discover, completely unsuspecting, that we were eligible for a casino discount.  I guess we would never have known if I hadn't finally called !!  That was way back in "the day" of course, and these days it's completely different but you may WELL be a member and not even know it.

WAAAYTOOO, explained it to me this way, gamble what you gamble, but make yourself visible to the Casino host, introduce yourself, make a point to talk with them every night, then towards the end of the cruise ask the host how you are doing and if you have anything available. I was on Liberty in June and did all of this, we didn't gamble much but may have cycled through $2000-3000 during the week, so not much, but when we visited with the host towards the end of the cruise we had a cruise discount certificate waiting for us, not a lot of money but at least it was something...