Pattycruise

It's always the area I decide to walk through and I always forget. 🤢

Actually, I am just as excited today as I was last October when we started our 14 cruises thus far this year. Eleven more planned before Feb. The last cruise, we didn't even get off the ship. Do we like one ship over the other? Do we like one Port over another? Yep. However, I enjoy it all. Yes, we have a lot of data points, but we know what we want: refuge, sameness, free stuff (food, drinks, room). We set different goals. Our current goal is 26 different ships within 3 years. January 2023 gives us 15 of the 26. Our secondary goal is every different Port we can hit. Jenny, I'm a simple man, but I do like to cruise. 
I feel a tad sorry for the once in a lifetime or once a year cruiser who has a bad time. These people put a lot of resources in a very special event and I hate that everything does not work out (flights/weather/excursions/entertainment/rooms). 
RCL has 26 ships and hundreds of Ports. If the first time is not perfect, please try again. We love it. 

As a platinum member you’ve had experience with Royal before.   What was different this time around? Is it a post Covid thing?
What is better about Carnival? (I’ve never sailed them) and have you been on Carnival post Covid…is the experience the same as preCovid?/better than Royal? And if so how?

I’d get really creative if for  some reason you can’t play the games, I’d FaceTime into a loved ones watch party and have them point the phone to the tv!  

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

This is the new cup, on Oasis. 

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

For Indy:

The Cruise Compass section on this website has many Cruise Compasses that previous cruisers have sent in after their cruise.  Smoking areas are always listed on the cruise compass.
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=276
 

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

We actually received a call the week before the cruise telling us they could not validate one of the vaccine cards. It was a married Vs maiden name change issue so I added a photo of the marriage license with the vaccine card and it was accepted.

Sharing opinions on the ships does help others to ponder whether or not that ship might be a good fit for them.  
my very first experience on Anthem, I had a gorgeous ultra spacious ocean view all the way forward.  I thought my feet would fall off from all the walking ( traveled with the kids, had to go back to the cabin multiple times for things forgotten). It was all I could focus on, how much I hated that walk.  However, reading things like that here (didn’t know this site then) I’ve learned to not book that forward on  ship that size and to really think of cabin placement. Same can be said for small ships with the centrum, learned yo book “down the hall” to avoid the late night party noise from the centrum. For that particular cruise I didn’t want late night partying, knew nothing of the centrum and all the noise that came with it, just a bad fit.  So I can appreciate the gripes, I sympathize and learn from them as well as share the knowledge I’ve gained to help others.  Btw, I’ve sailed Anthem many times after that first “bad” experience, and to me, it’s a great ship, it’s the cabin location that had killed it for me.  Glad I gave it another shot.

One caveat to that wish. The next booster will be outdated before it even hits the market:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will not require companies to submit clinical trial data on COVID-19 vaccines modified to protect against the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of Omicron in order to authorize those shots, a top FDA official said on Thursday.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/fda-will-not-require-clinical-trial-data-authorize-redesigned-covid-boosters-2022-06-30/

Not just one's liver - I don't know about you guys but on a cruise we eat richer food than we usually do (and more, to be honest) which affects alcohol absorption in the stomach. Also we tend to drink frou-frou drinks during the day, which include more ice, fruit juices and other mixers that water drinks down.
I understand your concern about the bar tender pulling out a different bottle, but as a professional bar tender (and drinker *cough*) RC crew do not water down bottles of booze. The well stuff is awful and often lower proof than the call stuff but that is true in every bar. It's their adherence to the jigger that does it - most bar tenders not strictly required to use a jigger (either metal like on ship or those awful plastic measures they use in many airports that count each pour so the bar tender CAN'T give you a stronger drink without charging you for it) use a count system and often the count works in the patron's favor. 
The different bottle from under the bar? A higher proof. Rum for example goes from 55 to 151 proof. Vodka runs about 60 to 125 proof. Unless it's really fruity and frozen try to always specify the alcohol, not just from a "stronger drink" perspective but also so you know what it will do to you the next morning when you've been drinking all day. 

This.
When I originally had a B2B on Serenade to Alaska, I picked earliest times for both.
Then when I had to cancel the first leg after my kids caught the flu, I still had a good check-in time for leg #2 (which became leg #1).

I was on the May 1st sailing of Oasis out of NJ, it’s first of the season. There was a new staff for the Aqua show, they were in their second week of training and were not scheduled to show. However they did an awful lot of practice and put on a wonderful nearly full rehearsal show,NOT billed as a full show-nor was it, but I’ve seen Aqua before and it was pretty darn good. I think this was an announcement, or it may have been in the cruise compass.   I was with 2 friends who had never seen the show and they were in awe.  

As for Cats, I think they had cast that were sick and cancelled it, nothing that hadn’t happened with other shows on many of the other sailings I’ve done since August.
the comedians were the best I’ve seen on Royal, Paul Ogata was funny as heck, the other guy was good  as well.    I did not see them in the theater  I saw them in the adult nightclub   I liked them so much I went back and stood on the standby line to see them again 
the problem with the app is there are no notifications of cancellations.  The cruise compass had up to date info, but that doesn’t help if you don’t get it (it’s not always delivered to everyone) or if you just don’t expect to see the changes because we’ve been trained to use the app. They do make the announcements about changes but I typically never hear them (why they just can’t post it somewhere and put changes on the tv is beyond me)
frozen in Time ran as did the Hush party…I’m sure other things ran as well but I did spend time on the casino so did not go to everything.
 
as for the prizes, you must not sail RC, typically it’s a keychain, pen or highlighter for trivia. It’s somewhat a running joke.     I’ve seen them do medals, water bottles and backpacks but those are the “big game shows”, not trivia.
regarding alcohol, I try my best to remember to ask for the top shelf alcohol.  I’ve watched bartenders make drinks with the jigger and no extra pour (stay away from the white shirts (management)or anyone working next to a white shirt) and I’ve tipped with each drink.  Some bartenders make better drinks than others. 
this is not an easy time to go back to sailing.  I’ve done many cruises since August and all have been very different experiences.  It’s unfortunate that  Covid has had a huge impact on the sailing experience and that this cruise also had the change of staff impacting Aqua.  
 

 

I choose to pick my check in for  the 2nd half as if the first portion is not taking place,  you never know what might cancel that first week.
also upload all documents into the 2nd week, the onboard staff had to do this for the majority of back 2 back cruisers because they failed to do it on their own,

It’s difficult to start a sailing with that surprise parking lot at Bayonne, been there find that..  
the casino set up on Adventure leaves a lot to be desired.  The narrow path between table players and the railing leads to being pushed and elbowed by passers by  im so thankful I go to need a wheelchair or  walker as it’s near impossible to navigate that casino without.
the pool staff can address the towel situation if you point out particular chairs  in violation   It took a near uprising on Oasis to get it done   But that ship is reportedly better on marking the chairs with a warning and  then following through with the removal of items.
 
As far as the food, I sailed Adventure the end of May and it was fantastic,  I can’t imagine what’s happened between now and then.
This is peak sailing season for kids.  I know it’s easy to forget that when ours are grown or if there’s a particular itinerary you are interested in.  Celebrity cruise line might be the one to go with for a different vibe. 
 

I choose to pick my check in for  the 2nd half as if the first portion is not taking place,  you never know what might cancel that first week.
also upload all documents into the 2nd week, the onboard staff had to do this for the majority of back 2 back cruisers because they failed to do it on their own,

Patty, I know it’s a process and I totally support the crew and their processes.  I love cruising and understand that these times are difficult for many.  Good for you on going on all these cruises!  You are our mentor!

As a platinum member you’ve had experience with Royal before.   What was different this time around? Is it a post Covid thing?
What is better about Carnival? (I’ve never sailed them) and have you been on Carnival post Covid…is the experience the same as preCovid?/better than Royal? And if so how?

As a platinum member you’ve had experience with Royal before.   What was different this time around? Is it a post Covid thing?
What is better about Carnival? (I’ve never sailed them) and have you been on Carnival post Covid…is the experience the same as preCovid?/better than Royal? And if so how?

It’s difficult to start a sailing with that surprise parking lot at Bayonne, been there find that..  
the casino set up on Adventure leaves a lot to be desired.  The narrow path between table players and the railing leads to being pushed and elbowed by passers by  im so thankful I go to need a wheelchair or  walker as it’s near impossible to navigate that casino without.
the pool staff can address the towel situation if you point out particular chairs  in violation   It took a near uprising on Oasis to get it done   But that ship is reportedly better on marking the chairs with a warning and  then following through with the removal of items.
 
As far as the food, I sailed Adventure the end of May and it was fantastic,  I can’t imagine what’s happened between now and then.
This is peak sailing season for kids.  I know it’s easy to forget that when ours are grown or if there’s a particular itinerary you are interested in.  Celebrity cruise line might be the one to go with for a different vibe.