USFFrank

If you plan on booking with a refundable deposit, do it now. Once on the ship, reserve a time at Next Cruise to see if there's a price difference. If there is a savings and/or the onboard credit is worth it, cancel the one you booked, and re-book it there and then. You should also be able to get the same cabin you originally booked too.

BTW if you do book at Next Cruise it would be non refundable.

If something was said about this, sorry I missed it.

I couldn't help but notice that there are now 2 Royal Caribbean Blog Facebook pages.

The first one called Royal Caribbean Blog which was created 5/11/20 only posts the videos you would normally see on YouTube

The second one called Royal Caribbean Blog.com which was created this past April 11 only posts the stories you would read here.

Any reasoning for the separated Facebook pages?

My Adventure of the Seas cruise for April 2025 had a few excursions available I think as early as late last year. Last week they added a few other cruise planner categories including dining and beverage. 

Sometimes. You'll have to check in at the shore excursions desk from time to time to see if there are any openings as a result of people cancelling.

Most of the time the Windjammer serves some of the same menu items in the MDR that evening as well. If I get a hankering for what I had earlier and they haven't closed yet, I'll stop by for a plate.

Been keeping tabs on my next Royal Caribbean cruise in 2025. Originally booked it just over 1 year ago, and the price has never come close to what I'm paying for it since. I've been checking the prices daily since original booking, but I didn't start writing down the prices until April of last year. That price was $149.00 more and has since skyrocketed. The most it has gone up so far was September of last year when they were asking $1,089 more. If I were to book this cruise today (2/26/24) it would be $851 more. And this is for a promenade view cabin which there are plenty left to choose from on this cruise.

 Needless to say, I've been shopping around and have found better bargains. I'll be going on one of Carnival's newer, bigger ships late next year, and I'm also doing some more land-based vacations that fall within my budget. I can no longer be loyal to Royal. And yes, I know there are others who will pick up the slack.

1 hour ago, jeffmw said:

More cruise ships? 

This month (Feb. '24) there is an average of FOUR ships per DAY, and on four days there are SIX (which I assume is the current maximum). Do we really need a port with seven large cruise ships docked in one day?

And what do they mean larger? We've seen Icon dock there. How much bigger are we getting? 

Just speculating,and I could very well be wrong, but how many of the larger size ships can Nassau have in port on any given day. Can all of those berths handle a large ship? Perhaps they want to be able to take on more larger ships at one time.

 This is strictly my opinion, and I'm sure someone here is going to try and correct me, but this is all I can see right now after reading this announcement. I thought Royal Caribbean had a debt to pay. They jacked their prices up so much on everything in order to pay this debt that I can't afford to cruise with them now.  Maybe I should thank them for this. Because of what they are charging, I'm branching out, I booked a Carnival cruise that was less expensive and goes to 3 ports I have not visited yet. Now instead of building a smaller ship like they had hinted at, they are now going to build another giant ship with a limited itinerary that you need to take out a second mortgage out in order to sail on, not to mention jacking up the prices again on every other ship in the fleet. And yes, I know the sailings will all sell out, but I won't be on them. And for those of you who do choose to buy them, more power to you.

While on Adventure of the Seas during Easter 2019 the Mass time and location was listed in the Cruise Compass.

Best thing to do is once you are on the ship and have your seapass cards,  check to see if they all have the same table number.  If yes, then you should be OK. If not go down to your main dining room to see if you can all be seated together.

3 hours ago, Southern Dan said:

If I had to guess they will make them as large as they possibly can and still do the inside passage in Alaska, get across the Panama Canal and service ports like Baltimore/Tampa.  That is Radiance class size, no?  Would a ship sized in between Radiance Class and Voyager Class fit all the above criteria?

Radiance and Vision size ships sail in and out of Tampa & Baltimore. Voyager class and above are too tall. These new ships need to be able to sail under bridges in order to get into open water from those 2 ports. Not sure of the size criteria for Alaska & the Panama Canal, but maybe they could be a little longer and wider than the Vision & Radiance class and have a retractable smokestack like the Oasis class ships.

If you request a copy of the Cruise Compass with your room steward, it will be provided for you.

It may depend on what you might need the insurance for.

In my case I wouldn't necessarily need it for the travelling to port part for I live within a 4 hour drive to Miami, FL, and even less to the other 3 Florida ports, so I take my chances on traveling out early on embarkation day.

But for health insurance look and see what Royal offers.

On previous vacations I used Allianz where you can customize the type of travel insurance you need.

I know we're going off topic, but I just got off Mariner of the Seas, and the bacon at Windjammer while it was well done (the way I like it) for the most part, it was very greasy. I didn't eat as much of it as I would have liked too out of fear of having digestive problems.

The aqua show will run in place of the halftime show I'll take Hideaway Heist over what the NFL puts out anytime.

There are plenty of shops and restaurants just outside the pier.

I've seen that before. Seems like they really want you to choose your cabin.

Looks like they don't.

https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/ships/Icon-of-the-Seas

They're basically coolers, or chillers. You can request a refrigerator on Royal's special needs form.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/resources/guest-special-needs

Stayed in the Ben and Jerry's Sweet twice. Booked those cabins 2 years out. Enjoyed the cabin and the perks that came with it.

There are 2 ways you can go down the zipline. I believe you are referring to the way where you're going down the zipline flying like Superman. The other way is you're kinda sitting in a harness.

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

RC is missing out here!

Ride with someone you know: 29.99

Ride with a perfect stranger who could be insane: 49.99 - YOLO right?

 At the rate they're nickel and diming everything, I wouldn't put it past them. We booked a jeep driving excursion in Grand Cayman thru Royal. I thought we were getting our own jeep to drive. Perhaps maybe I didn't read all the fine print, but we were forced to have 2 other passengers on the cruise go along in the jeep with us. Wasn't too happy about that.

You can't fix stupid.

Be still my heart. The refreshment package for my next cruise finally went down from $30.00 - $33.00 a day to $24.00 a day. Extremely doubtful that it will get any lower. So, I cancelled and re-booked. Once upon a time, not too long ago I had gotten it for $16.00 a day.