Chuck586

Can we select where or which cabana we would be booking?

My guess (fingers crossed) is June 1. Likely with a vaccination requirement for over 16. Here is my logic. First, the emergency health order expires on April 21 or so. That order trumps the CDC order in that the CDC conditional sail order is based upon the emergency health order and if the first one expires the second one automatically expires. Second, a member of our facebook cruise page contacted customer service for Royal about our check in process being shut down. They were told that the cruise has not been cancelled and that the check in process is temporarily down to be u

I just thought I would throw in my $.02. I have nothing against vaccines, in fact I volunteered to be in the phase II for the Pfizer and Moderna tests but was not needed. Unfortunately I had not qualified for the vaccine and ended up coming down with Covid. For those of you sitting on the fence of whether or not you should get it because it might make your arm hurt or you might have a headache for a day, take it from me, I would have done that every day for a month instead of getting Covid. It is not a pleasant experience and I did not have a case which required hospitalization.

Following this topic as we will also be cruising out of NJ in June 2021.

Thanks for the reply. My family of 4 is traveling with 2 of my wife's sisters who are sharing a balcony room. They purchased the unlimited dining and unlimited beverages plan so there would not be any issues expected in terms of riding on our check etc. I am just hoping to coordinate the dinners together at a table for six instead of four. What is your experience about inviting folks to the coastal kitchen? I understand that we can do that as well. Have you ever had any instances with that? Again, thanks for your wisdom!!

We are booked for the Oasis in June in a Star Class cabin. We understand all of the "perks" that we are paying for as part of that room. Our question centers around the fact that we will have family members on board who will not be in a star class cabin. On those days when we would like to eat together at one of the specialty restaurants will our genie arrange for reservations for our entire group including the non-star passengers? I am just trying to understand the logistics and don't expect the family members to get some kind of service that they did not pay for but we also d

Always, Always, Always travel the day before. Murphy's law will always rear its ugly head if you don't. That being said, here is a funny day of cruise travel story. On our first cruise 20+ years ago we were travelling with my parents out of Detroit Metro to Miami to board the Sunsation. At that time flights and transfers and pretty much everything was booked through the cruise company and they advertised that they would get you to the boat if there was a problem with the flight they booked, blah blah blah. In any case, we show up at the airport for our 6:00 am flight on Northwest to M

Quick drink package question for those with experience and deep knowledge! We are sailing Star Class in June (fingers and toes crossed!) and have a question about Starbucks. I understand that Starbucks is not covered under the drink package but I have heard others indicate that Star passengers can get any drink, just not pastries from Starbucks. Was there a change in availability or am I understanding things correctly?? Any clarification is appreciated.

It is still a spectacular place. Some would call it ..... PureMichigan.

I absolutely agree with both that there is no "requirement" to tip but I just hate the way it feels to ignore the bar or restaurant line that asks for an additional tip. We have a wonderful resort hotel here in Michigan called the Grand Hotel. It has always been a "no tipping" resort. The expectations are clearly spelled out for the guests and the staff alike and it just makes everything clear for everyone. The resort fee at the Grand is $140.00 per night which would cause some to fall over but if that's the cost of doing business so be it.

I just ran across this post and had another question about tipping. First, however, an observation. All of the tipping rules for Royal are simply confusing and, I believe, intentionally vague in an effort to increase tips to the staff which, I imagine, has the unintended consequence of shorting tips to staff a lot of the time. A better system would be to simply charge each person $XX per week based upon the average purchases at dinner, the bar, etc and just allocate it towards the service employees with a rule that there is no other tipping. That would seem to me to be fair across the boar

We will be sailing on Oasis on deck 17 in an upcoming (June 2021) cruise. We have some family members that will be sailing on the ship in a balcony room. I understand that the rooms on deck 17 are secured behind glass doors which require key card access to even get into the hallway. Is there a phone in the lobby area for people to call the rooms to "buzz" them in come down and open the doors?

New to the boards but I have a tip question. What is the general feeling about adding an additional tip to the receipt if you have the full drink package? Since 18% is already calculated in is an additional something expected or no? Is the guy or gal that does not add something more ignored for the rest of the day?