Pattycruise

Definetely use a TA Children's cabins must be booked directly across from or adjacent to the adults. do a little research on the ships you are interested in to see about availabilty. If all the adults are buying the alcohol dirnk packages great. If you have couples who are not interested in booking 2 alcohol packages the second adult must get the refreshment package- If you wanted to avoid that then book 1 adult in each cabin with a child. You can get extra keys when you board. If you do the "work around" about the drink packages you can consider going 1 or 2 cabins away (comfort level) but be aware if something bad goes wrong and they see the kids are "unsupervised" by being 2 or more cabins away-could be a problem. I may or may not have booked liked this when we had a large group! 8 cabins gets you a credit of 1 fare....when I did this I asked my TA to give every cabin a portion of the free fare OBC as opposed ot keeping it for myself. (which is also fine-it is a lot of work to coordinate) Collect all names as is on official documents and birth dates. If they have C&A numbers get those too. and defintely an email for all concerned. I made the mistake of using my email address for my kids as well as myself. It has been a real pain to have this fixed. It cuts off promotion emails as well as casino related emails/offers communications. So I advise creating an email address for you to use for the kids....if that is even a thing. Children's cabins must be booked directly across from or adjacent to the adults. If you do the "work around" about the drink packages you can consider going 1 or 2 cabins away (comfort level) but be aware if something bad goes wrong and they see the kids are "unsupervised" by being 2 or more cabins away-could be a problem. I may or may not have booked liked this when we had a large group! Finding cabins that are near each other (for the whole group) at this "late date" may be an issue. QUantum class has the spacious ocean view all the way forward in the corner the room holds 3 and I belive the adjacent holds 2. Problem is THE WALK....you will be walking FOREVER, espeially when someone forgets something. Dining is aft, so lots of walking. We did this with a large family.....and heard lots of complaints about the walk, Quantum also has the virtual balconies on the interiors. Interiors are typically money savers. We did a large group on Adventure and to save money adults booked balcony and the kids were in a promenade interior. This was great for me-my kids being 12-10-8 and I figured if they had a balcony someone's stuff would be going overboard. Just asked my now adult daughter how I had them and she said she slept on the couch-I guess I booked her in my cabin and then sent her to live with her brothers across the hall! LOL There are some ships that have family promenade or family interior (very hard to find these). I honestly do not know if they work out cheaper but keep in mind that means sharing ONE BATHROOM!! Connecting cabins seem to be more expensive too (where you can open the interior door that connects 2 cabins) but don't rule them out. Remember every adult can carry on a bottle of wine. When I organized a large group booking for family/friends I created a facebook group for us. I listed all the cost varations by Type of cabin as well as by # of people in the cabin for the ship I had planned. This let everyone know the pricing ahead of time. I also only gave pricing on the cabins that had availablity and did the 'ole "pricing may vary at time of booking" BTW-55" may get a small discount (though doubtful in July)...so consider running your costs with that, the state, C&A if anyone has one etc)-if it gives you some decent savings you may consider booking one 55" in one cabin with a kid etc. It's also great to have dicussions on packing lists, flights (if any), payment dates etc. Each cabin can bring along a 12 pack of water/soda or combo thereof and one bottle of wine per adult. Definitely use a Travel Agent but being aware of the restrictions with the kiddies is good to know. Someone posted here (or it was on a FB page for one of my sailings) that they were looking to change out cabins as they had booked the kids too far away-so I guess there is not "failsafe" to prevent that. Dinners-when it is just my family we all dine together (rule). and When it was a group of family/friends we all dined together. It was a great way to meet and dicuss the nights plans, what went on during the day and what everyone was doing the next day. All reservations must be linked and the same dining time picked. My kdis knew they had to show for dinner, then were free. Consider bringing some favorite snacks along. Great for excursions. SInce there are no potato chips/pretzels etc most everyone wants them! Sticky notes were my friend back then. Now they can communicate via the app free texting to each other-however kids under 13 cannot gain access. Some report here that they log into their kids devices so they have access but then you have 2 RCARD texting and answering so you would need to specificy in the text this is "kid" or this Is "adult" etc. Those families with 3 kids each....any chance you can take 2 of those kids and create their own cabin? It might be easier to find cabins that way. *more 2 person cabins than 3 person cabins sometimes)

Sailed on Jewel to Greenland this past September. I enjoyed the ship. I would prefer Oasis class but this was fine.

Employees get room and board. Sheets employees are paying rent and food. Big difference.,

I used to walk around looking for a chair but honestly didn’t spend time in it. It was so much easier to put my stuff on a towel in the area of the pool and just enjoy the pool, when done dry off and leave.

We went to Alaska in 2019 and loved it. We were fortunate to earn casino comps for May 2024 and will be doing B2B for port fees/taxes and a small upgrade fee to ocean view on Radiance. Can’t wait. Sounds like Alaska is so out of reach financially. This will likely be our last trip to cruise Alaska.

I guess I should have asked my husband! On the days he was in the solarium he saw these empty. Another passenger said they sat empty for hours, when no one was in the pool

I’ve not seen receipts last month or this month. I do tip cash. Even the theater, where they don’t know if there will be a tip-no receipt when the drink was brought.

I was on the sailing but did not visit the solarium. I inquired in one FB group for this sailing. Apparently it’s real, person not there….for hours on end

Oasis and Quantum are larger and have a better selection of shows. Since they are larger consider booking midship area or as close to midship area as possible. The dining room and windjammer are aft-so a cabin located midship closer towards aft means less walking overall during the day. If you love to walk this isn’t an issue. My preference is as close to the aft elevators as I can get. I understand your concerns. I left an expensive family cruise very upset that I missed out on a lot. Now I read this forum and learn as much as I can. If you are a “paper person” ask your stateroom attendant for the cruise compass and tell him/her you’d like it nightly. Then be sure to peruse it and circle things you want to do. The cruise director and staff run things-I wouldn’t rely on them to tell you what to do and when. When you do pick a cruise feel free to come back here and ask questions about the ship and I’m sure you’ll get plenty of input.

18 cruises booked with 2 per cabin with most cruises at 7 days, a couple 8 days and a 15 day. Time to prepay and save significant $ I wonder if this is a way to help pay down their loans-sort of borrowing my $ for cruises that end by next Oct.

I’ve got this booked for February on 2 different sailings. I don’t expect I’ll be able to purchase this again as the prices are reported to have already gone up. I was fortunate to experience the Beach club during the restart when it was a “reasonable” price, now this. I’ll be perfectly content to be at the free beaches.

I did a closed loop cruise out of Galveston that required passports due to the Columbia stop. if Royal had it on their pages I would think it’s accurate, ok-I would pray it’s accurate.

I try to be guided by Air2sea when figuring out what time to book my flights. It is Royal’s flight booking company https://www.royalcaribbean.com/plan-a-cruise/transportation

I think you should call your TA and see what they say.

True. I have a Nov 26 sailing. We are skipping one port. Others on this site have reported their various November sailings were shipping s port. it’s been Florida or Nassau that’s being shipped.

Carry on 2 bottles of wine and a 12 pack of water/soda. You can buy water at the port and carry that on. Save the vouchers for alcohol. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/food-drink-onboard-policy

Hubby gets zero emails regarding cruises we have done together. His email is also in the booking. I’m thankful I’m the planner or we’d be trying to book all things onboard!

Just gave a bottle of champagne to the crown and anchor loyalty person onboard. I did ask if she drank champagne and if she could accept the bottle. She was thrilled.

Click on naturalization papers and skip the passports. Once the app works you can edit the document to the passport. If you forgetthe gate agent will scan the passport for you.

Sad to see a lot of people order their voucher drinks and do not tip. For the non believers, sit at a bar at closing time and watch. I’ve met a lovely couple on my current sailing who will be Diamond after this sailing. I’ve gifted them a few drinks and they see the tip. They acknowledged that’s what they will be doing since they understand no tip is included. I’m grateful they understand. (They also now do the tip for the drink I gift them)

I was on that Transatlantic. There’s a whole thread here in these pages regarding that review. Sadly I can confirm it was all true. I don’t know those YouTube people, never met them and don’t follow them but I did see that video because someone posted it-it was that bad and more. that said, I had THE BEST chocolate chip cookies EVER on that sailing. I don’t typically eat them-they do nothing for me, but these were different, all lumpy looking like a home made cookie. Phenomenal! Only one night in the coffee shop and I ate at least 8 of them. If those were on every ship I’d have to change my name to “2toncruises”

I have not. I’m currently on Anthem. Unfortunately I do not have any Oasis class booked , but I’ll keep that in mind! Thank you!

Currently on Anthem. The food in the MDR has been great, which has been a pleasant surprise! just had Chops for lunch and I was extremely disappointed. The shrimp cocktail were not cooked, mine also smelled “fishy”. We let the waiter know, and declined a replacement. The head person stopped by and apologized for the undone shrimp, we declined a replacement. The chef came out and apologized and offered to make us cooked shrimp. We politely declined. my filet was not medium, but medium well. It was tasteless and dry and a portion I had to spit out-grisly?IDK. (Filet in Coastal kitchen was AMAZING!) I didn’t bother to say anything about the filet-the key lime pie is not “limey”-it wasn’t that way at the Cheers with an officer nor at the MDR. I’m thinking there are no limes onboard? This was a second bad experience with shrimp in Chops -last time was Oasis in May -I wrote corporate about that May lousy experience (more than bad shrimp) and was refunded. I think I’m done with Chops I have them booked for an upcoming cruise, I’ll be cancelling. It’s a shame it used to be fantastic. we were given a glass of champagne each for this chops bad shrimp. It was a kind gesture.

Oh boy, the names are now gone from the reservations. Not happy

I can see the 4 linked cabins, with names, on my Feb Anthem cruise as well as a 2025 cruise.