Reigert2008

i recommend that you work with a good travel agent. Many of us here, use MEI travel (a sponsor of this blog) and have had great success with many “odd” booking situations . If you go to the main page of the blog, there’s a box you can complete and someone will contact you shortly. using a good travel agent doesn’t cost you anything and then you have someone who will go to bat for you in all types of situations. good luck!

We've always had our amazing agent make the request for a table of two and then just confirm when we board by walking through the MDR and finding our table. We've never seen what our table was before we boarded and I'm not sure how much that would help unless it says how many people are at your table? If you tell me table 203, i'm still going to have to look. Can anyone tell me what information you get ahead of time? Thanks!

Totally, we swap out items all the time. However, if the thing you don't want is due to a allergy or health thing, you would want to have that conversation so that they can accommodate you throughout the cruise.

I would contact the special needs department to discuss this. I'm sure you are not the first person to have this as a real need. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/resources/guest-special-needs [email protected] (866) 592-7225

I drink a ton of coffee and enjoy both the included options and the options at café promenade. My only complaint is that they do not make the drinks correctly. If you order a latte, macchiato, or a cappuccino, you're really getting a latte. I drink mostly Americanos and shots of espresso with a "splash" of almond milk, so it doesn't affect me too much. I've been listing it on my post cruise survey for a couple of years now and hopefully it will get corrected. I'm sure it's just a training issue.

In my experience, the only sugar free syrup available at cafe promenade has been vanilla.

I have no suggestions as to what to do, but want to follow along. we have a cruise out of Everglades in 2023 and are staying near Las Olas blvd, if that helps. I hope your early early morning flight works out. I’m way too nervous to fly in on embarkation day!

I guess we’ve been lucky. Anytime we’ve wanted a chair, we’ve never had issues finding one that was acceptable.

Royal or your travel agent need to link the reservations for dining. This allows people to sit together, but not have to link the whole reservation. Some groups may go travel together but not want many of their reservation details shared. You can see it on your RCI receipts under Stateroom dining with booking Id.

Totally! we're not sure yet if we will carry anything on, since it's one more thing to lug around all day until the room is ready. It'll probably depend on the boarding time, length of cruise, and ship. thanks!

I totally agree that it is certainly a choice that differs greatly for each individual! For those of us that don't drink alcohol, it gets even trickier to figure out the best plan of action. We have always purchased the Refreshment Package and generally do not drink sodas much at home, but on the cruise it's different . However I drink a ton of espresso based drinks and sparkling water, while the wife drinks no coffee or sparkling water and does plain water and sodas. So trying to find the balance has been difficult so far. We will turn diamond after our next cruise and our first diamond cruise will be in early 2023. Here is our current plan: Crown and Anchor "Welcome Waters" - 2 bottles in the room Diamond Lounge Coffee Machine - will use for hot and iced espresso type drinks (i mostly drink espresso alone or make it "americano") Diamond Vouchers - 4 per person per day - plan to use for Frappuccino style coffee drinks, smoothies, and mocktails Soda Package - for each person - plan to use for sodas in venues and Powerade, sodas, and sparkling Dasani from the Free style machines Maybe we end up back at the Refreshment package or maybe we end up dropping the soda package at some point, but we were too nervous to not have at least the soda package (it was $8.99 a person) for the first time while learning the new diamond ropes. We know we can "carry on" some things, but since we typically fly to the port and not have a car it is sometimes difficult to find small packages at reasonable prices. It's also a pain to carry heavy items on since we travel very lightly. As long as we spend less than $400 total on the drinks, we're still ahead of buying the Refreshment package ($23.99 pppd for 7 nights, plus 18%)

How is Babbel? They have a Lifetime subscription for 50% off and the I get 10% back from my credit card, so I’ve been looking into that. I can get a lifetime for barely more than what a year would be.

In some video on Youtube from RoyalCaribbenblog.com (that I cannot find now), @JennaRCB mentions that she took some brief language classes while onboard Harmony. I've looked at some of the cruise compassed here on the site, but cannot find the section where they may be listed and what languages they may offer. Does anyone have any insight as to which languages are offered and when they may occur? I agree with @JennaRCB where it is nice to at least know some basics for various ports of call. I need to learn some French for a land vacation in 2023 and maybe I can learn some French while on a ship! Thanks!

No, they are not. If someone "steals" your towel, you should go to the towel station and report it so they can update your count. It's also a good idea to check your count when you return your towels. We always return all of ours at the same time, so I always ask to make sure I'm back to "zero". In my opinion, it's best to return the towels at the end of each day and make sure you are back to "zero" and then get new fresh towels each morning when you need them. Doing this we have never had an issue with being charged for a towel.

That's good to know! Thanks!

Did you use a travel agent to book this? I'd suspect a good travel agent would have been aware of the interporting and at least been able to prepare the guests for differences or suggest an alternate sailing.

my wife and I will turn Diamond after our next cruise this year. We already have a cruise booked with her parents and that will be our first as Diamond, while they will be either Platinum or Emerald (I forget). We’ve been having so much fun “reminding” them of our future status. Any time we talk about the trip, one of will say something about “I wonder what snacks will be in the Diamond loung on the sea day” or “we’ll get you settled before visiting the lounge”, it’s been a hoot and they kick it back to us as well. We’ve also started referring to ourselves as “pre-Diamond” or “pre-pre-Diamond plus” it all started when my father in law asked why our set sail passes were different colors they will actually move from Gold to Platinum with the next one.

MCO is ceasing operations at 10:30AM on Wednesday 09/28/2022. I read some place that is was through Friday the 30th, but have not seen a verified time of re-opening.

If it helps, we used Lyft on September 11th after our cruise and it was $67.78 plus tip to get to Hobby. We did some walking around after the cruise and was picked up at 11:09 am about a half mile from the port.

By chance, did you turn off the “master switch” by the door? We were on the Oasis back in February and my in-laws were complaining about the A/C not working the first two nights (it did during the day) and I showed them how to not use the Master switch at night and the A/C magically worked the rest of the cruise

im not a TA, so I don’t fully understand the process, but you have a short window to move it to a TA and the cruise cannot be fully paid for. A good TA is the most valuable thing you will never pay for we’ve used our MEI TA for both cruises and land vacations.

With GTY rooms you may not even find out your cabins until the week of your cruise. If having connecting or close rooms is a requirement, you may need to move out of the GTY category so you have more control. If you still have time, I’d recommend moving the reservation(s) to a travel agent ( I recommend MEI travel) as a travel agent has expertise in these matters and can guide you through options. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com has a big yellow box where you can fill out a form to be contacted by an agent. good luck!

We just returned home from our first cruise out of Texas. One thing that struck us as different was that the Texas flag was hanging on the promenade, over the "TV" at the pool, and off the bridge. These were only there on embarkation day and then disappeared until the last night / early morning of disembarkation (next embarkation). With Royal, we have cruised from Maryland, Washington State, and multiple ports in Florida and we've never seen a state flag being displayed in this manner. Is this some Texas regulation or something that requires ships to do this?

perfect! Thanks so much!

Thanks! We're still taking things slow and are trying to avoid public transportation as much as possible. We've been looking at a couple of excursions that may work, but we also enjoy walking and tend to walk pretty far anyway We were last in Grand Cayman with Disney way back in 2013, and i think we ended up about half way without even trying and was just wandering through town hitting up shops and such.