Ampurp85

Most of the Odyssey Caribbean sailings I have seen have been either 6 or 8 nights. I am on her in Nov, and she is 6 nights, which also has stops in Labadee, PDCC and Falmouth. Maybe that is why they have changed them, it sucks that PDCC is being dropped, I jumped at the opportunity to do both private islands on one sailing.

No, unfortunately the powers that be allow all charges to go through regardless of if you can afford it or not. So no to an actual limit but whatever you tell them verbally.

It should be Platinum and above based on most reports.

Yeah it was pretty weird how many people were walking around asking about cups on my last few sailings. Some people didn't even know they were owed cups as nothing was communicated.

I was on Indy this year and yes, the gym has a scale.......why is anyone's guess.

No, the dining packages are per person. The pricing on the cruise planner might be the cheapest it will be. If you had a group booking, like 15/20 people, they might give you a discounted rate for specialty dining. But no there is no way to use any package for one person to pay for more people.

Souvenir cups post covid can be gotten anywhere on the ship that serves drinks. They are no longer in your room, unless you are a star class pax.

Like another person mentioned, where would they house contingency workers? I sailed Freedom in Feb at 50% but it was fully staffed. With the exception of entertainment crew, these ships have been fully staffed the entire restart. They were paying full staff for 50% or sometimes even lower sailings. Before covid was only 2500 or so crew for the 6000+ pax. A lot of people cruised with reduced capacity and seem to forget it was a higher ratio of guest to crew. IMHO the cruise lines have it much better when it comes to staffing than any other business, they have a higher pool of applicants. So, it is exacerbating circumstances that are affecting them and not regular staffing issues.

Yep. There will be a special line that says the Key and you will be processed through there.

Depends on ports, staff and days. Some staff will make you wait in a line until your appropriate time. I read they are stricter on weekdays than weekends, but who knows. Some ports like Bayonne and Seattle are very strict, while Port Canaveral could care less. But if you share a room/linked reservations, they will usually allow you to board together.

Yes, priority boarding is one of the only true perks of the Key.

So, to be honest I would not purchase a 3n plan for those restaurants. Best bet is to get a Chops + 1 and then do Giovannis as your second restaurant. You will save a bit. For example: a 3n plan might be $122 with gratuity and the Chops+1 might be $86 with gratuity. Chops on its own goes for about $65 and Giovannis might be somewhere around $53. Both Playmakers and Portside are given $20/25 credits and the thing of it is you could spend that much once and get a lot of food for all of you. So, you aren't saving by going to only 2 specialty restaurants and then a quick casual. Look at the children's menu for Chops and Giovanni, you could just pay the cover charge for each child and split some of the food you order with your daughter, its often a lot. Or you can get the Chops+1 for your daughter, if you feel like she will only eat off the adult menu. I have done Playmakers a la carte plenty of times and never gotten close to that credit amount......granted I am solo but. The items are decently priced at both places, especially for cruise food. If it is about getting your money's worth, I wouldn't use a dinner on places like Playmakers, Johhny Rockets or Portside BBQ.

I can see why the waitstaff and cooks might be lumped in together. Lots of crew work multiple departments and positions. I will bet that while the chefs stay chefs, some do prep and may move about the departments. I don't mind the mention of the survey, but I hate when they go into detail. It seems like they're fishing for high scores. The survey is very generic, and I was told that not only do they give the crew evidence of great reviews, but they also reward them. So, a great score could get that crew member a pick of detail, i.e., not working the WJ but maybe getting to bartend, or a day off faster in the rotation.

Considering a bottle of water is $3+ with grats, a soda can be $4+ with grats, etc. there won't be any way you are leaving "money on the table." Most packages will pay for themselves before lunch. The main purpose of purchasing a package is to save you the hassle of counting.

What I mean is it might be a feature left over from before the restart. My Oct 2021 Allure sailing said I could book entertainment online and I knew I couldn't. I had sushi and other food classes booked, that were later cancelled and removed. Lots of feature show up on the planner that later get changed or deleted, so not odd. Dec is a good 6 months away, lots of things can and will change.

I personally don't think the Key is worth it. However, with the Key you get priority boarding, so you can show up at 11:30 and thus not miss the welcome lunch.

Yes and no, the onboard credit could be attached to a person or the entire reservation. If the two people on the booking don't share a spending account, it will only be able to be used by the main person on the reservation. You can just use the main person's seapass until it is gone.

Oasis and Quantum class use to allow you book shows about 30 days in advance. That might come back before then and it might still be the way of the restart come Dec.

There will be no problem with mixing packages. You just need to link the reservations and reserve the proper number of guests for each one.

Ha! If I am in a city, I convert money as to not stick out. But I have done European river cruises and they love USD. Even more so because it is a tip. However, many of the crew on RCG ships do all types of itineraries, so I would personally treat every sailing the same and tip in USD.

On a 7-night sailing it is normally night 2 and 6. It will also be listed on your reservation documents.

USD is pretty good throughout. Truth be told, unless you are dealing with a completely foreign line, USD is okay. It will be the same type of crew you encounter on Caribbean sailings.

I would just like to say it is a possibility Ovation will be understaffed for a while. I was under the impression, based off talking to crew during reduced capacity, all the ships are fully staff. In that they have the required number of crew to support full capacity but things like covid (and the ramp up of capacity imho) reduce the ratio. I think the issue is they don't have back up staff, so when a good portion of sick crew members happen, they can't replace them.

RU is a third-party service, and it seems like they only care whether they can sell your room for more than the upgrade. They don't care about how many people are in rooms, their age, or the location. With RU you get put where they want you. So even if they offered a RU for two adjourning rooms, there is a high chance, like 90%, they won't be anywhere near each other. Having a room for 4 is usually a different ball game and with a pre-teen and teenager, you will need at least two bathrooms. Even if one room won, it would only be valid for the people on that rooms reservation, so if you tried to add people, they would reprice at the prevailing rate.

While I am sure they can do a manicure over her acrylic nails, I don't know if it will be up to a teenagers standards. It will probably be a very basic mani/pedi for a ridiculous price. She might be better off getting that done before the cruise, it's what I do.