Reigert2008

Hello and congrats on Diamond! My wife and I are Diamond as well and we had the same dilemma. Since we are not "drinkers" we had always purchased the Refreshment package on our cruises. Once we made it to Diamond, we dropped down toe the soda package and then use our vouchers for the various non-alcoholic drinks on the ship. With the newly expanded "zero proof" menu the vouchers are are great way to try out the menu. Things to remember: There are no refills on soda with the vouchers, so each soda is a voucher With the Freestyle machine, the kid will have vastly more choices than at the bars I would highly recommend getting them the soda package since they will probably go through more than 4 sodas in a day and if you get the price right it would be a better value. Vouchers are "sharable" so if you have his card, you can order whatever you like (i guess his card "could" be limited to non-alcoholic if they are under drinking age, so you may need to figure that out, I have no children, so haven't thought about that until typing this.). Good Luck!

It has been a little off all week. For me it was showing Cruise Planner items priced in CAD and not USD, so that was weird. I logged out and back in and it figured itself out.

Another perspective that may be helpful is if anyone had to deal with cruise cancellations while going through Costco. I’m thinking cancellations like COVID, emergency maintenance, longer than expected drydocks,etc.. Luckily I’ve not had to deal with those other than COVID, but my previous agency was not good during that and led me to finally make the jump to MEI. while hopefully nothing like COVID happens again, those types of cancellations not under the cruisers control would really show the merits of the travel agency. personally, I prefer having the TA specifically so I don’t have to do the leg work if an issue arises and it gives me peace of mind. I’ve looked at Costco for short trips and getaways, but not sure I’d rely on them for a “larger” trip.

I do not see it on the special needs form, but you can always call the special needs department to clarify. There is also a section on the form for "other accommodations" where you could put it in. If I were you, I would complete the form and and then reach out to the department. Good luck. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/resources/guest-special-needs

Fun fact: Puerto Rico does NOT do the Fall Back/Spring Forward, so make sure your devices update correctly once you arrive on the island! https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/puerto-rico/san-juan For example, it is now 1:07 PM "EST - eastern time", but 2:07 PM "AST - Atlantic Standard Time" The last time we went to Puerto Rico, we fly in on the weekend of "fall back" on the Saturday and I was so paranoid that my phone would mess it up and we'd miss our scheduled Lyft for Sunday

I’d certainly check your credit card(s) that you used. Most Visa cards these days have a lot of benefits that people overlook. Personally, I wouldn’t take any clothes that would be considered “pricey”. If you get a spill, the laundry facilities may not be able to clean it properly. We’ve had a few things cleaned over the years and the results are ok, but not great. good luck

It’ll be interesting to see if anything happens with cruises since the FAA has now banned flights from going there for 30 days. https://apnews.com/article/haiti-violence-gangs-airport-90dc8d26bc58eb9b214385ac10f315a2 I I’ve been to Labadeee several times and have always felt safe during the visit, but no one wants to be on the first cruise that has an issue. Much like these flights that were shot at. Luckily nothing catastrophic occurred. I think it’s reasonable for people to ask questions about these things especially when new events occur.

Same here, it never downloaded for me yesterday, but this morning it was fine!

I know! I was excited when I woke to the notification in my app that a new episode was available.

@Matt, I'm sure you're extremely busy and maybe i missed something, but it looks like the most recent Podcast episode is from October 23rd. I had recently switched to a app and thought I had forgotten to add the show, but its there. Hopefully the podcast is still ongoing and just on a break. Thanks in advance

Bermuda is great, but I don't have any information about the beaches and caves. I really just wanted to make sure you were aware that Liberty does NOT have the Freestyle machines on the ship (which is lame), so your soda options would be limited to whatever the bars carry. We use the Freestyle machines to get Powerade and sparking water, so Liberty threw us for a loop when we sailed on her in the past. She's a great ship, just the non-existence of the Freestyle machines was weird. Good luck.

I've always wondered about this. If this is truly the case, why to they sometimes not swipe my card when getting a drink that is included in the soda/refreshment package? We still paid a gratuity when making the purchase, so I've always thought it was odd when they just look at my card and then give me the drink. My biggest irk with them not swiping is that it doesn't show up in my account, so I lose track of the "purchases" and then cannot ever tell if my package was "worth it". Not a big deal, but as we've moved to Diamond and dropped down to the soda package, I'd like to have real proof of how many sodas from the bar that we really get. We are getting really close to dropping the soda package on a future cruise, but we've been able to get the package a a good enough price that we've not ventured down that path, yet.

The assignment can come at anytime and there is not really a schedule. We’ve Had assignments made days after booking all the way up to a week before the cruise. If you still don’t have the assignment when your cruise documents / boarding pass become available then you can add your set sail passes to your Apple Wallet and the last digits of the barcode are your room number,but it could still change (although we’ve never had it happen). good luck!

If you cruise with the same people, like I do with my in-laws, you can do what we do. Each year around Christmas, we all line up and I get a good high quality image (with my phone) that I save and use for the check in photos. Then I have it available when I do the 1 AM check ins . So far, we've not had to retake pictures at the port, so it seems like our process works. I treat it like a passport photo, but do allow people to wear thier glasses

While I think this is a huge benefit for Texas based cruisers, I think it will entice cruisers like us who hood not like western Caribbean itineraries. Sometimes we’re limited on options due to timing and we get “stuck” with a less than ideal western route since it’s cheaper and we’re cheapskates this will add a good port stop,for us when we end up out that way. but I agree most people won’t pick cruises solely based on PDMX.