JasonOasis

Those ship engines are overhauled every 2.5 years. Much like aircraft, the age of the ship doesn't mean it's going to have more engine issues than newer ships.

@bobroo I found an article from 2019 that went into a little more detail about this disagreement between San Juan and several cruise lines.  In the article it is reported that Carnival Cruise Line in addition to Royal Caribbean had grown increasingly frustrated with the conditions/infrastructure of the docks, the Port Authority in San Juan had not invested any money in the docks and their financial situation at the time in 2019 didn't allow them to invest in money in upgrading their docks.  It was reported that Puerto Rico back then was looking at privatizing the cruise docks although the article does not divulge which company they were looking at.  However it is reported in the article both Royal Caribbean and Carnival asked the local government to stop the sell or privatization because both cruise lines were willing to invest their own money into repairing the docks.  (I'm assuming if both Carnival and Royal wanted to repair the docks they would have also taken the time in upgrade the docks to handle larger ships.)  Their offer was rejected at which point Royal decided they would pull out of San Juan.
However now in 2022 San Juan signs a deal with Global Ports Holding this company manages ports around the world just look at what they doing at Nassau's port. I think this is a deal both Royal and Carnival can get behind.  I think the whole reason behinds Royals frustration was do to the fact that the Port Authority had allowed the port and docks in San Juan to fall into such disrepair and they didn't have money to fix it and who knows how long talks or negotiations had been going on.  At a certain point Royal and Carnival was like we will pay to get this fixed (probably because it was impacting their customers experience) and that offer was turned down Royal decided to pull its ships. Luckily for all everything worked out Royal is still sailing from San Juan and the contract to privatize was awarded to Global Ports Holding.
https://www.theweeklyjournal.com/business/royal-caribbean-cruise-ships-canceling-calls-to-san-juan/article_adf16aa2-1084-11ea-9748-b31d04b39438.html

Can to share with the rest of the class what you are talking about?

I don't think Project Discovery is going to be another mega class ship like Icon and Oasis, but at the same time is isn't going to be the size of a Vision Class vessel either.  I think as others have pointed out it will probably fall somewhere in size between Radiance and Voyager Class but probably closer in size to Voyager Class than Radiance.  With a ship that size there are still a lot of ports around the world Royal can visit.  And I'd imagine depending on how successful/profitable Royal's upcoming around the world is they could even do another around the world cruise on their new Discovery Class ship at some point. 
When I read your post and saw "there is no loyalty benefits to crossing brands" my mind immediately went to airlines and their loyalty programs, where I can fly Lufthansa but have the miles added into my United Airlines MileagePlus account, that isn't going to happen in the cruise industry.  You can't cruise with Celebrity and have those points added to your Royal Caribbean account.  However just because Royal doesn't allow that does not mean there is no value in crossing brands or no loyalty. What Royal does allow is this Celebrity will match your Royal status on the cruise meaning you will get the benefits on Celebrity of the status that you've earned on Royal.  As far as the points go the points will go into your Celebrity account which they will open for you automatically.  
If your goal is to reach Pinnacle status with Royal I would suggest stay with Royal because as we all know the difference between Diamond Plus and Pinnacle is huge.  However if you are Diamond or even Diamond Plus with Royal and don't care about reaching Pinnacle then by all means book a few cruises with Celebrity especially if they are visiting ports of call that you are interested in exploring.   

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 the Symphony February 10-18th, bought one at Guest Services for $10. I was in a GS so they are not free for suite guests.

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 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 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.

An influx of new D/D+/P members is a good problem for the company.  
Time and again I see threads on “the problems” with so many loyal returning guests.  Hello?  That isn’t a problem.  That’s a great thing and proof the loyalty program is doing precisely what it is designed to do.  It’s a phenomenally successful program and from the company perspective it’s a major win.  
Returning guests who dislike being among so many other loyal returning guests is only a “problem” in the minds of those that choose to make it so.  

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.

This cruise is normally on Anthem which Odyssey is in the same class of ship (Quantum Class).  I've don't both the 11 night and the 12 night cruise on Anthem in January and February several times my most recent 12 night cruise in January on Anthem was January of 2022.  
The truth for the first day at sea the solarium is going to be crowded however the temperature once the sun comes up on that first day at sea will be in low to mid 60s.  For people like myself coming from Chicago where it could easily be  with windchill -25, mid 60's is a heatwave and I'm in shorts teeshirt and flip flops.  However by the time the sun comes up on your second full day at sea temperatures will be in the mid 70s and the solarium won't be as crowded.
Of the flip side when you're sailing back to Cape Liberty on that last full day before arrival when the temp during the day is back down into the 60's in my opinion it never seemed like the Solarium was overly packed.  I think that is because the cruise blues has started to set in as people realize that on the next day it's back to reality. 

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.

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.

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.