Geoff P

Not sure they would be able to, Canada closed down until July, Bermuda isn’t accepting ships through May I believe, only option would be doing something to Coco Cay and Bahamas (that’s assuming those places are open by then but highly doubtful) but that’s usually a 7-8 night sailing, so my guess would be that cruise will be canceled unfortunately

We had ours saved on our phone for our most recent cruise and we printed them just in case and the guy that did our check in at the port asked for the hard copy...not sure why but glad we had them. I’m not sure what they would’ve done had we not had the printed copies as we had the electronic copy on our phone and our passports, but at least we had the paper copy and just handed them to him and we’re on our way.

I was actually surprised with how long the paper straws held up for...then again, I didn’t tend to let a drink sit around for too long either 🙂

Not sure what the pricing is for your cruise, but with our recent cruise the cost of the refreshment package was just slightly more than the $13 a cocktail costs without the DBP. If you think about it like that, and you plan on using the DBP “to the max” as you said, you could purchase the DBP for you and the refreshment package for your mother, and more likely than not still save money and come out ahead, plus anything she uses her package for would be a bonus on top of that. Depending on the cost of the DBP per day, you probably only have to order 4-5 cocktails a day to break even, not to mention coffees, bottled water etc.

We did this itinerary on Enchantment for our honeymoon, but just out of Miami not Galveston, and we personally enjoyed the itinerary. Enchantment is definitely an older ship, and does show the age in some places, but we still had a great time and if Enchantment was doing an itinerary that we wanted to do I would book again. If you’re planning on drinking more than 4-5 drinks a day the drink package is probably worth it for you, plus you can use it on Coco Cay. We told them it was our honeymoon prior to boarding and they did little things to help us celebrate, like decorating a plate when bringing our dessert at Chops, and they did cake and champagne in the Viking Crown lounge one night, couple little things to help make it a little special.

With the most recent change, Port Canaveral and Coco Cay are set at the originally planned times, Nassau has been cancelled

Yea just saw that, hoping they stick with this itinerary now, guess we’ll see

With boarding at 1 tomorrow now, what time should we get to the port?

We got an email from Royal as we were pulling into the cruise port this morning, it was kind of a little unorganized at the port with employees not really knowing a whole lot of details, but they’ve got us in a hotel for the night, we’ll be boarding tomorrow with a little bit of OBC for some drinks :)...it’s not ideal but what can you do?

Yea, it leaves Friday the 7th

I'm on this same cruise (getting excited)...I don't remember where i saw it, but I'm pretty sure the formal nights are day 2 and 7...with Broiled Lobster Tails on the menu for day 7.

Thank you

I can't seem to find it anywhere, but is Izumi on Anthem open for lunch? They have a dinner option available in cruise planner, but nothing for lunch like Chops and Jamie's offer.

Would LA or West Coast in general make sense being that the ship is LNG powered with California's regulations? If they are truly re-doing the port over there to make a couple spots for cruise ships, RC could make a little splash with a new ship...although, being from the northeast US I would also (selfishly) like to see it be in NJ 🙂

I completely understand why you’re upset...that said, I don’t think RCCL is targeting a specific group or discriminating against anyone with this pricing strategy. They’re simply doing what is best for their bottom line, which as a publicly traded company, they’re supposed to do. Do I like that choosing my own room is more expensive than letting Royal choose it for me? Nope. But I completely understand why it benefits RCCL to make the GTY reservations less expensive and allows them the flexibility to fill cabins as they see the need. As some people have noted on this site, it has worked out very well for them with upgrades. Again, I understand your frustration, but I don’t see an intentional discrimination here.

Just curious how much the wow bands cost initially?

We uploaded ours when doing the e-check in on the Royal app. We scanned our passports and at one point it prompted us to upload a picture if we wanted to, so we did figuring it could save us time later on, but as others have said, they can always just have you re-take it at the port regardless. We did our on our phones with the app, not sure if it's different on a computer or not.

You can also check out this thread, which is currently discussing 3 ships docked at coco cay on the same day

Has this been pretty typical of the internet on Anthem? We're on her in a few weeks and just wondering what to expect with it. How is the quality in the stateroom? We would really only care for using things like FaceTime.

Can you buy any of the stuff in this link pre-cruise and it will be sent to the stateroom?

I don't know the answer to your Kennedy Space Center question, but with regards to the wine, everything I have seen on this site has recommended putting it in your carry-on so you don't get called down to retrieve your checked luggage.

I’ve never been on Vision, but it is on the smaller side, I’d wait until some of the more seasoned cruisers weigh in with their insights. Even on the smaller ships there is a lot to do, maybe just not as much as Explorer.

We were on Enchantment in 2018 for our honeymoon, didn’t hate it but didn’t love it either. She is definitely showing her age and lacks the restaurant choices some of the other ships have as there is only Chops Grille for specialty (I believe Vision has Chops and Giovannis) and then the MDR and WJ. All of these ships are smaller than Explorer, with Vision and Enchantment being roughly the same size and are in the same class, Empress is the smallest in the fleet. We enjoyed the entertainment on Enchantment but we also didn’t go into the trip hoping for great broadway shows either. We enjoyed the pool deck and solarium. The staff we interacted with were great. I guess it really depends on what is important to you with the trip, we were only on a short 4 night cruise on Enchantment and I don’t know that I would want to do a longer 7+ night trip on her, but that’s just me.

We did MTD for our cruise coming up in February 2020 and we were able to select whether we pre-paid the gratuities or not (I hope I'm understanding what you're asking correctly)...we chose to pre-pay just to get it paid up-front, but at least we had the option. Not sure if this is new for 2021?

I saw on another post here that Allure is getting AMP'd prior to home-porting in Galveston if that helps. I haven't sailed on any of the Oasis class yet so can't really comment any further than that.