Cakemeister

I think they could bump D+ to 340, Diamond to 175, and Emerald to 80.

I've sailed on Liberty seven times between 2015 and 2022, half of all my RCL cruises. Yes, she's a little worn. But I love the shows and she's got a great Diamond lounge (for now at least)

Anyone recall which of these has the repositioning cruises?

For me: 1. The ship that I'm currently on. 2. My next ship.

Yes, 2% cash back on a $5000 cruise is the same $100. I look at the OBC as a dividend. $100 OBC, if the stock is at $100, is a 1% dividend you get with every cruise you take.

Link: Shareholder Benefit Request - 5.25.23 | Shareholder Benefit Request - 5.25.23 - Online Surveys (questionpro.com)

Makes me want to sail on Virgin, lol.

I never gain weight on cruises. I fast for three days after Bon Voyage dinner.

Makes perfect sense. Rename the Viking Crown lounge the suite lounge if it is bigger. (no idea if this is true) Then make the suite lounge the pinnacle lounge.

FTFY.

That's news to me. We sailed on September 3 and got our points a few days after we returned, just like always. The FAQ says two weeks: Who Can I Speak with Regarding Missing Crown and Anchor Points? | Royal Caribbean Cruises

The newest Oasis class ships are/were built a long time after the first ones. In between there, they built the Quantum class. It took them from 2009 to 2024, fifteen years, to build six Oasis-class ships and five Quantum-class ships. Covid caused a delay, of course, so call it 13 years of shipbuilding. In a similar way, maybe we will have the three Icon-class ships, then the Discovery-class ships in the 2028 to 2032 time frame, then three more Icon Plus/Icon Ultra-class ships starting in 2034. That'll take us to 2036, thirteen years from now. For this timeline to work, Project Discovery must have already been on the drawing board for several years. They probably didn't have anything better to do during lockdown. Speculation is fun.

I saw a random article that says the average land-based vacation costs $1919 per person per week, or $3838 for two. Average vacation cost: Breakdown of travel expenses in 2023 | Pacaso I cruised on Allure a couple of weeks ago and I paid maybe $2300-$2500 for everything. The final bill hasn't come in yet. My transportation cost was only the cost of parking as I drove, so adding a flight could raise the cost to $3K pretty easily. I also was in an interior cabin. I think the 40% number is bogus. Cruising on the cheap like a lot of us do is a good value, but it costs a lot more than 40% of the equivalent land vacation.

Indeed. If you like spending time in the Diamond lounge, maybe Allure is the best Oasis-class ship.

By then, Icon 2 will likely be ready to go. If a regular cruise ship makes $300 per passenger per sailing, Icon will likely be more, say $500. Matt's calculation was here: Here's how much Royal Caribbean makes on each passenger | Royal Caribbean Blog $500 times 6K passengers (5600 at double occupancy + a few extra) times 50 sailings in a year = $150 million per year profit from just Icon. The ship will be paid off in only 13 years at that rate. And people wonder why the trend is to bigger and bigger ships, and why Royal is blowing Carnival and NCL out of the water.

We had fun. Oasis-class ships are impressive. Food was great, shows were great. Getting on and off the ship was super-smooth. There was a line when we disembarked, but nothing horrible. I will likely not book another Labor Day cruise for a while as the weather was quite warm. Next year we're sailing in January and November.

If you postponed to April, you could take in the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Most of S.A. will have some amount of totality. You should make your reservations now for that, though. National Eclipse | San Antonio, Texas | April 8, 2024 - Total Solar Eclipse Has anyone mentioned Sea World or the historic missions? I live in S.A. but I don't know anything about downtown hotels or restaurants. How long is your trip?

I saw Blades last night. It was amazing! Especially the hula hoops!

Are B2B cruisers locked out of their cabins? On my last cruise, the hallways leading to passenger cabins were blocked off until I think 1:00. We're doing our first B2B in January. Can't wait!

I've seen Saturday Night Fever on the Liberty probably five or six times and it is always great. I go for the singing and dancing, not for the subject matter. I dimly remember the movie being rated R when it first came out and later was changed to PG. I think some of the lights have burned out on the dance floor of the set, if I recall correctly, and I think the stage and the theater in general on the Liberty are part of what should be refurbished in her amplification. I loved everything about sailing on the Liberty when she was in Galveston. I sailed on her six times in seven years. Hopefully she will be amplified soon.

Mostly, I love MTD. Sometimes there is a conflict with the show times. People in the very early MDR seating can go to the second show, and most of the time the very late diners can go to the first show. But that is not always the case. Sometimes, with MTD, you can miss both shows. This might be different on Oasis-class as I have only sailed on smaller ships. With regular dining, you eat with the same folks every time, which can be good or bad. Generally, like Ampurp85 said, when you eat at MTD your party is seated separately from other parties, there are no groups. With regular dining, you also are seated with the same waitstaff every night. Again, this can be good, bad, or neutral. There's no guarantee of having the same staff with MTD. Some staff will tell you to ask for them, probably if you tip, lol. I find the speed of service, quality of service, and quality of food the same between MTD and regular.

Me, too. I've already booked one cruise on Princess, just to try them out. I'll probably book one on Norwegian as well, and MSC when they come to Galveston. Princess are price-competitive now, and if the food is better then Diamond benefits won't keep me with Royal, even if Icon 3 does come to Galveston.

Someone had mentioned in one of the other threads that the pizza thing was just a distraction from an across-the-board price increase. Give with one hand and take with the other.

There is a blog post: I used my Royal Caribbean loyalty perks on Celebrity Cruises. Here's how it saved me a lot of money | Royal Caribbean Blog

Who's that?