Peachykeen

Wow - we are nearly in the exact same situation! We are going on this same sail date, in a 2BR ATS, our first time in Star Class and first time on RCCL, with our DD5, getting a cabana at Coco Beach Club! I guess great minds think alike! Is Alan R your genie too? I'll see you onboard!

I'm just going to throw this out there: It was only after reading @twangster trip reports that I decided to book a star class cruise with Royal (formerly went with DCL). I'm sure I'm not the only one either. For someone providing Royal with essentially free advertising resulting in who knows how much additional income, you'd think they might want to treat this person a little bit better in this situation. Don't they know who you are!!!

I thought of that myself - but certainly they could increase the number of upsell options with room service like alcoholic drinks, specialty foods, brand name prepacked goodies, etc. Sort of like, after making your order, "do you want to add fries to that?" but "Do you want to add a kraken pina colava to that for only $xx more?"

I agree that having more staff serve food from various food stations and preventing self-serve is the most likely direction they will go because this is cheap and easy to implement - however, there is still a problem with people crowding around each serving station or not being able to seat everyone in the WJ if the tables need to be spaced apart. (Granted, I know we can argue about whether social distancing is really possible on a cruise ship, but setting that aside...). Two options I have not heard discussed much are: 1) making room service free to everyone to encourage eating in one's own room / distancing 2) Mobile order. Disney uses this system to let people place an order and they get a message when it is ready to pick up, so people don't have to line up to pay, select food, etc. Royal already has an app for many ships and adding a mobile order option for the buffet would allow people to still have a wide variety of food choices and still be spontaneous about when they want to eat. Then the food could be plated for you and you would receive a message when the food is ready for pick up. This would require minimal investment in terms of programming/software update on the already existing app and work best for eliminating crowds. Thoughts?

Speaking of prices, this post is makes me want to know: in general, which ships/ports have the most affordable star class? I know time of year matters and I assume older ships would be less, but anyone have a read on this?

Yes, I saw that! We planned on trying to get to those so we will aim to be among the first to disembark, because I suspect it will be in high demand. Matt just posted a picture yesterday of the new Coco Cay map which clearly shows many more daybeds in the Coco Beach Club that are actually there (in the area where they currently have chairs/couches on the wooden boardwalk, multi-tier area). So I hope they plan to eventually add more, as the competition to get a daybed in the club is a bit stressful for an up-charge experience designed to be less stressful.

Easy rule to remember about vegetables: if it grows below ground, it's high in sugar (that includes onions - mmm, caramelized onions...). If it casts a shadow and grows above ground (besides corn), it's low sugar and you can basically eat as much as you want.

So a big part of my job is nutritional counseling for weight loss. Hard alcohol (like vodka, gin, and whiskey) contains zero carbs so drinking any of these straight is the best bet. (However, these are not low calories). That being said, if it were me, I'd follow an time-restricted feeding, intermittent fasting approach on the cruise where you limit eating/drinking to at least a 12 hour window, which includes the time you sleep. If you can limit it to 8 hours, such as drinking and eating between 11:00am - 7:00pm, even better. A low carb/keto diet works by limiting the amount of sugar we put in our liver so the body ends up burning more fat for energy. An intermittent fasting approach likewise works (and actually results in further reduction in waist circumference compared to keto/low carb diet - as well as a lot more other health benefits) in a similar way by increasing the amount of time we spend burning fat rather than relying on liver sugar reserves. Anyway, I wont bore you with the science on this...

I understand that there are always going to be haters and personal opinion plays a large part in this, but again my understanding is that the main attraction was seeing the robots in action, no so much the drinks themselves. But good to know about the reviews - I'll be sure to look for those! And again, if anyone has any secret recipe you've concocted, or just a solid choice on the standard list, I'm all ears! Thanks folks!

So I know the Bionic Bar doesn't get much love from repeat cruisers - my understanding from these forums is that it's a "one and done" type experience, largely because the drinks are not too good or too syrupy. That being said, I'd like to have a good time when I do check out this experience. So, if you could only order drinks from the bionic bar, what is the "best" cocktail or drink to go with here? (including, perhaps, one you've created on your own). Cheers!

I think a great couples retreat in Cozumel is the Nachi Cocom Cozumel beach club. It's a quiet, all-inclusive but affordable, beach break. It's also an easy taxi ride from the ship so totally doable on your own.

"the ROYAL you"...I see what you did there ?

Turns out the new policy is to ban all travelers holding Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passports from boarding its ships due to concerns over coronavirus...regardless of how long it has been since they were last in these regions. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/royal-caribbean-cruise-passengers-n-j-screened-coronavirus-4-taken-n1132266?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma

My family with 4 yo daughter is in a similar situation. We too are a bunch of pale skin, shun the sun types that burn all too easily. Beach beds don't really provide as much shade as you might imagine, except when the sun is directly overhead. The thin fabric shades blow very easily in the breeze so it's something but not really shady. We ended up going with the new beach club because there looks to be a lot of comfortable seating that is very shaded (where you can order food, near the pool) but open to the outside breeze. Also it's a more calm environment in the pool. Finally, with the kids pricing for the club lower than adults, you may even save money compared to getting two beds. For us, there total price for the club admission was the same cost as one bed (around $200).

Well in the end we decided to forgo the beach bed and do the club instead. Reason being, far as I can tell, RCI seems to change things on a whim all the time and often unexpectedly. I've seen the beach beds moved around to many different places recently and different versions of the Coco cay map following the club opening that show them on different areas. Seems like they are just trying out different options. So between now and my Sept cruise, who knows if the beds will be moved yet again. At least they can't move the club as easily. Better to go with what is a certainty - the club - than take the risk of the very movable (therefore unpredictable) bed.

No luck on casino cash out? Darn. Well as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true... Guess I'll have to find some other clever way to make that obc work for me.

Is this serious? I don't plan on playing at the casino, but can I still go there and cash out my OBC?! That sounds like an excellent idea, if it works. Can anyone confirm?

I literally just did this yesterday for my Sept Harmony sailing. Being in a suite, I got a $300 OBC after rebooking. So while the price "increased" $140, I am "saving" $160 with the $300 OBC. Granted, I had not really planned to spend $300 on the ship, so I'm not really saving anything technically, but actually just spending more. But no mater, now I get to feel less guilt about spending that credit...or better yet, I may just use that to give better tips if the service warrants it. Now if you really want to get technical, by giving RCI more money up front, you are actually losing the interest you'd earn by saving that money until the end of the cruise to pay off the account, but that's just splitting hairs and really we're talking about saving less than a dollar on interest. End of the day, this is all just the psychology of influence (getting people to feel good about spending more).

Well, I wasn't going to mention *that other site* but, if you follow the link provided above, within that same forum they mention the beach beds are not in South Beach. But again, it's not clear if this person is speaking from assumption or experience. So I'm hoping someone can confirm, one way or the other, if beach beds are no longer in south beach. I tend to trust Matt, and he says they are, but definitely getting mixed messages here.

I too am looking to find out if the beach beds are still available on South Beach? I see cabanas on videos and photos since it has reopened, but no beds. But Matt said in the comments section of his review of Coco Beach Club that the cabanas and beds are still there. I called Royal and they said the beds weren't available to book in South Beach and we were instead placed in Breezy Bay. To further complicate things, I've found different versions of the Coco Cay map post opening of the Beach Club which show beds in all sorts of different places. For example, the beach club appears by the map to have many beds on the multi-tiered boardwalk area where they have placed rocking chairs, tables, and sofas. Anyone "on the ground" that can confirm the bed situation in South Beach?

So looking at newly released videos and pictures on a variety of online sites and forums, I can now confidently state that beach beds are no longer an option on South Beach. They have been moved to Breezy Bay at Chill Island. *tear* The closest thing to this now is the beach beds at the Coco Beach Club, of which I count about 8 so I imagine those are going to be highly competitive to get. And they don't have any shade. At least the price - for us anyway - is the same for a beach bed or the Coco Beach Club day pass ($199 for beach bed or ~$200 for my family of 3 to get into the club). Hrm...

As I stated in a different post, your question may be irrelevant or a moot point because I'm not sure if beach beds are even available anymore on south beach: Last night we went to book one for September 2020 and it showed as available in the planner but after booking the email confirmation stated location as "breezy bay" At chill island - NOT south beach. Calling RCI didn't help because the person had no clue if they were available on south beach and said it was a website glitch. She said it wasn't sold out but simply no longer even an option on their end. I hope this is wrong. As a related question, the map looks like the new Coco Beach Club has lots of beach beds but do we know if these are shaded? The map image suggests not...

Does anyone know if south beach is offering beach beds now that the Coco Beach club has opened? Last night we went to book one for September 2020 and it showed as available in the planner but after booking the email confirmation stated location as "breezy bay" At chill island - NOT south beach. Calling RCI didn't help because the person had no clue if they were available on south beach and said it was a website glitch. We cancelled because if it's not south beach, we aren't interested. As a related question, the map looks like the new Coco Beach Club has lots of beach beds but do we know if these are shaded? The map image suggests not...