JasonOasis

I think it also depends on the cruise director. Prior to covid Royal had excellent cruise directors who really love the job. Post covid there have been cruises where I've had to ask myself how did this person become the cruise director they are horrible at this job. Cruise director in my opinion is one of the most important jobs on the ship and I get the job can become monotonous week in and week out but excellent cruise directors first and foremost really love their job and know how to keep it fresh every cruise. While cruise directors who are just biding time waiting for the next opportunity to move up the corporate ladder can at time allow things to run stale and it comes across in activities, their morning show even just seeing the cruise director around the ship you can tell the ones who absolutely love their job vs the ones who are just there waiting for their next opportunity. In my opinion its not just the love and marriage game show its also shows like The Quest which is now the Crazy Quest. I know early on in the cruise whether or not I'm going to The Quest and it all depends on the vibe I get from the cruise director on day 1, day 2 of the cruise.

Personally I don't like the infinite veranda. While I haven't' yet set sail on Icon I did sail on Celebrity Apex just this past March on a 7 night cruise and we booked a infinite veranda and I personally would never book that category of room again. In my opinion the infinite veranda is more like a room with a window than a room with a balcony. I like being able to wake up in the morning and if I want to just sit outside I can do that without turning off the air conditioning in the room. My husband sometimes sleeps in but if I have the window open on the infinite veranda after like 20-30 minutes the room is hot which isn't comfortable for him while trying to sleep. It is a unique room/balcony but I will say it isn't for everyone or for every couple. We both loved our first experience on Celebrity but we both agreed that we would never book a infinite veranda ever again.

Interesting idea but since Oasis is a warm weather ship I have to ask how cool or chilly does it get in the Mediterranean from Mid-November through mid-April. Earlier this year NCL announced they were canceling their plans to leave both the Epic and Getaway in Europe for year around sailing beginning in November/December of this year do to low demand and would redeploy those ships from the US to places in the Caribbean where demand is high. One could argue both Epic and Getaway are suitable all weather ship more so than any Oasis Class ship, they are also smaller than any Oasis Class ship. If there isn't enough demand on those smaller ships from mid-November though mid-April I don't see why Royal would homeport an Oasis Class ship in Europe on a year around basis.

All the major rental car companies have locations close to the port. My last cruise out of Port Canaveral in October/November of 2023 we used Avis and they also run shuttles to all the terminals. A few years before that we used Uber to get us to the port I believe for an SUV our Uber cost around $140 dollars. Going back to our October/November B2B 2023 cruise after the cruise ended we use a taxi to get us to MCO it only cost us $120 dollars. We thought about doing the one way car rental thing again to go back to the airport but I was like I don't want to be bothered with those lines at car rental facilities in Port Canaveral we are extremely long on those days and a rental would have cost us almost the same price as a taxi around $100 dollars so we just took a taxi straight to the airport.

Don't take this the wrong way because I mean no disrespect but you should know better than to trust what the CEO of a large corporations says. At the airline I work for most of what the CEO says is aspirational at best when it comes to the future or future planning By the time network planning, revenue management, maintenance control, network operations gets involved the whole plan changes from what our CEO said to what actually happens. CEO's have these grand visions and some of them runs their mouths and announce plans before the people who actually do the work crunching the numbers and compiling the data have given them the okay to actually make the announcement. At the end of the day it all comes down to money, whether its a cruise line or an airline, once the data is compiled these companies are going to place their assets in markets where they will get the highest return on their investment and Royal can get a higher ROI from having Wonder in the 3-4 night Bahamas market than they can if they were to keep Allure in that market and send Wonder to Texas. Right now Royal is raking it in on 3-4 night Bahamas/Coco Cay cruises, and with the success they've reportedly seen since Utopia has gone on sail out of Port Canaveral it is really a surprise to see Wonder relocate to PortMiami to do the same thing? Again we have cruise lines like NCL and MSC taking similar paths with using newer larger ships on their 3-4 night Bahamas cruises and Royal has positioned themselves as the game changer in this segment of the market. The largest market for 3-4 night cruises here in the US is Florida so to be a game changer means they have to have their biggest, best and yes newest ships sailing out of the Florida market where they will reap the highest ROI.

Well I think you should book a cruise on Wonder soon. The market has changed even NCL is now shifting from older smaller ships on 3-4 night Bahamas cruising and is now using Joy and Breakaway. Although neither of those ships are brand new they are some of NCL's most popular ships with a lot activities onboard, to keep guest occupied from start to finish. It wouldn't surprised me if Carnival who just order their 4th Excel Class ship brings one of those ships to the 3-4 night Bahamas cruise market. Allure is a great ship it's still an Oasis Class ship I don't know why people now see Allure as this black sheep within the Oasis Class that is to be avoided.

Dress your best in my opinion is what people should do every night while on a cruise. Don't miss understand what I'm saying because I refuse to wear a suit and tie on a cruise I have to wear those things every time I go into the office and will not put that mess on when I'm on vacation. However I always wear either a polo or a button down shirt and either some nice slacks or dark color jeans during the evening. To me that is dressing my best on vacation.

Freedom is fairly large nearly 5,000 guest can seat sail on that ship at any given time at full capacity. Freedom is also a one of Royals most favorite ships there is a lot to do onboard. I've personally sailed on Freedom numerous times and wouldn't hesitate at all to book a 7 night cruise on that ship.

I was on Symphony this past January and yes they had wow bands at guest services. Also you can save your wow bands and reuse them on future cruises all you have to do is bring the band to guest services and they'll reprogram it for you. So its no longer a one and done type situation.

I'm an AT&T cellular customer have been for over 20 years and I'm telling you go with VOOM. VOOM is reliable and for the most part has great download speeds. Now if you are looking to use your cell phone while in port while away from the ship then you would need AT&T's international day pass, it's $10 dollars per day and it covers over 210 countries.

The popularity of weekend sailing continues to grow as Matt posted on the main page Royal isn't the only cruise line devoting large cruise ships to the weekend 3/4 night sailing market out of Florida. Both NCL, Carnival and even MSC are devoting more of their fleet to 3/4 night cruises. I've done a few weekend cruises myself on Freedom and they are a lot of fun and they are the ultimate party cruise. Having said that I also feel your pain in that Royal has pulled back on European sailings in order to fuel their expansion in the weekend 3/4 night cruise market. These are the ebbs and flows of the travel industry even in the airline industry this coming summer neither United, Delta or American are planning record number of flights to Europe for 2024. Most are saying their summer European season this year will be flat or the same capacity as it was last year. But looking back summer of 2022 and summer 2023 there was unbridled growth to Europe from all these carriers however for summer 2024 Europe seems to be cooling off as Americans look elsewhere for vacation. This season of 3/4 night cruises will stick around for a few years but like any thing else as the market changes Royal will adjust.

I'm going to take a different approach and celebrate the win. According to an article on this sites main page Royal will now have 2 ships sailing out of Los Angeles start in October of 2025. I love 7-14 night cruises like anyone else and right now they only offer 3 and 4 night cruises out of LA on a singular ship. To base a Quantum Class ship in LA even if it will only be sailing between 3-6 night itineraries is still a win, win for Royal cruisers and I believe it will be a win win for Royal as well leading to perhaps 7 night itineraries or longer out of LA on Quantum. Another thing I noticed is (although I don't think they've announced anything) it is showing MSC will base a ship out in LA as well. The MCS Bellissima is showing sailing out of LA start in late 2025 as well. Things are for sure starting to heat up in the LA cruise market with the arrival of a second Royal ship and perhaps the arrival of MSC.

It most certainly did not backfire. With all the negative press cruise lines endured both in both on social media and news media they had to do something because some in the media were basically blaming cruise lines for the spread of covid. Without double points promotion I don't know how many loyal cruisers would have put up with all the things we had to put up with just to get on a cruise ship. You had to get vaccinated, boosted, then tested within days of departure (and when cruising first resumed they wouldn't take the rapid antigen test), you had to answer health questionnaires, when cruising first resumed you had to wear a mask inside certain venues on the ship, social distancing and more. There were a lot of hurdles the cruise industry had to jump over then passengers had to jump over just so the CDC would let cruising resume. We were already diamond when cruising resumed and would have needed 2 cruises to make diamond plus instead we made diamond plus in one cruise and we also took 3 other cruises during the double points promotion. Without that double points promotion it is doubtful either myself or my husband would have put up with everything passengers had to put up with to get on a cruise ship when we could go and had gone multiple times to Mexico and really didn't have to deal with any major restrictions to get into Mexico. Think about it Florida was fully open, Las Vegas had opened back up and those hotels were packed in Las Vegas we took a trip to Vegas as well during the cruise industry shut down and Mexico were booming and the cruise industry or Royal had to come up with something to get customers back on their ships not just one time but multiple times. For people loyal to Royal that double points promotion along with insanely cheap cruise fares is why we jumped though all those covid protocol hoops just to go on vacation.

How many people are in your room can also determine how many free bags of laundry you get. My husband and I get 2 free bags of laundry on cruises because it is a bag per person. Those laundry bags can hold quite a bit of clothes if you fold them and compress them in there. As long as it's in the bag it qualifies for the free wash. We use that service when we do our B2B cruises we each do a bag of laundry the first week and then again the second week. At first we thought it was one free bag per room but it is one free bag per person at D+ or higher. As far as should there be another level I don't know whether it would help or not. We both just passed 360 points on our last cruise this past January the benefits are nice but when I look at the benefits for pinnacle they are great and better than NCL, Carnival, and MSC but it isn't enough to keep me loyal to Royal which is why my next cruise is on Celebrity and next year I've already booked a cruise on Virgin. Diamond plus is good but with pinnacle being so far away I kind of feel free now to go explore other cruise lines that are not NCL, Carnival or MSC (I've already cruised on those several times) because to reach pinnacle is going to take years.

No it doesn't help with traffic, and that traffic is caused by the bottleneck U-turn and reduction in lanes all vehicles have to make to enter Terminal A. The OP stated they had to wait 30 minutes to even get a porter, that is extremely unfortunate and for sure not the norm at Terminal A even with an Oasis Class ship in port. There have been several cruises where my husband and I showed up at 10:30 if not a few minutes before and not all the porters were out front. But what people have to remember is those same porters are also helping passengers who are getting off the ship. Showing up early does allow people the opportunity to board early but you still need to pack patience because although the ship might be empty people are still leaving the port and not all the porters are in position to assist the now arriving passengers.