CruiseRoyalDad

This is a perfect solution. I'll take it one step further even if I might expose how "frugal" I have the ability to be. Most of our favorite specialty restaurants are on deck 8. We love deck 8 for convenience to central park and Boardwalk. In addition, when that glass runs empty...a little fresh air jaunt to a centrally located cabin is worth refilling with a quality wine. So maybe I went to the restroom and came back with a full glass of wine. Not apologizing.

Umm...some context? Any will do but can you start with the ship and sailing. Also, welcome the blog!!

But wait there are a few more considerations. I like the question about how old the children are. If we are talking toddlers the point about the JS and the bathtub can't be overlooked. Also, double points is nothing to turn your nose up too. Finally, is this a sky class JS? Those benefits may even warrant sharing a JS with older kids. For the most part though, if the kids are nearing tweens and especially if they are teens the two rooms is most often the way to go.

We are lucky to be on one of the final 7 day sailings on this beautiful ship. Super disappointed in Royal about this...but that's a topic for another thread. My wife and I are cruising with our four children Girls 12,7,4 and Boy 10. We have a three other families cruising with us, one diamond plus family, another diamond, and a newbie family. We would love to make more cruise friends and find a AO companion for my shy 7 year old girl. We have connecting balconies so if we can get the steward to swing open the balcony divider in time, no reason why we can't have a roll call sail away happy hour in our room. We've often hosted roll call families on sail away! By then we won't be strangers!

Here's to hoping, for sake of their relationship, that she told a little white lie to lessen the embarrassment.

Last time in a connecting we clearly heard the neighbors doing a lot more than the handle jiggle. It gave us quite the giggle. Luckily, it was only once and in the middle of the day, so not even really an annoyance. I could see though, with that much noise bleed through the connecting door, that any noises can become a huge issue if the neighbors are inconsiderate night owls.

Almost forgot, as we've never cruised without kids, and honestly don't look forward to the days where that will be the case, I do feel that it would be very simple to isolate ourselves from the annoyance of even the rambunctious unattended children if we wanted to. We know the Oasis class ships well and there are plenty of places that just don't interest the kids of all ages. So many that are unfamiliar with cruising, cite crowds as a reason not to cruise. When the kids are at AO or otherwise occupied with grandparents or family, my wife and I find it odd that on a ship with so many people we often feel completely alone!

For us, RCCL cruisers since 2014, I do feel RCCL has always been a family focused line. Mixing a quality cruise with a family vacation. We have four kids and have been cruising since our eldest (now 12 year old) was 17 months. At least two of them cruised in utero. I might be wrong but I'd like to think we've raised them to be respectful cruisers. I do agree that the bars themselves should be mostly kid free with parents ordering and moving their families to the lounge areas away from the countertops. I'd go so far as to say as making lounges NO kids zones at around 9:30pm-10pm. It gets a little dicey here because I've seen many a sleeping child in the arms of vacationing parents passing time with friends and family in night time bar setting. This extends to a tweens doing the same, just spending time conversing with family. Nobody being bothered or acting up in those cases. There would need to be somewhat subjective enforcement of a rule like this. Kind of like pool chairs being reserved. Unattended children would be the first to go. The real problem are the children that run wild. It's not that their parents don't know how their kids act unsupervised, it's that they don't care. Have you ever wondered why so many arcade games are broken even on the newest ships? Spend 20-30 minutes in the arcade in the evening and see how some of the older unattended kids treat those games and act in that venue. Thankfully, the games are very well secured into the ship because if not we would have heard more stories about machines falling on kids than norovirus hitting ships.

We have three hockey players ages 7 - 12. They were not happy about the skating rules which included no backwards skating. It's almost second nature to the hockey player. It's normal in their movements on the ice. Tell your hockey player to temper his expectations. It is unique though to be ice skating while out to sea!

My thinking has evolved on the agent fee. If a worthy agent has enough of a client base that their time itself becomes valuable, the hours of work put into generating quotes that sometimes lead to a dead end is lost income that they were unable to realize. So if you don't like the up front fee, don't use that travel agent for sure. I'd venture to say though that agents normally retaining an engagement fee and have returning customers are a cut above others (maybe). They may be using the fee as a way to figure out who's serious about the trip, so that they can appropriately focus their energy. This allows them to focus on a smaller number of serious requests rather than every person knocking on the door inquiring about trips they likely are not going to take. I do think most agents should want to get to a point where they have to differentiate who they serve based on willingness to pay a fee. Those may be the agents you want to seek out after having done due diligence on their service.

@HeWhoWaits well you're right. Scotch is just better. Especially the very deep, smoky, single malts with silky body. Don't tell St. Patrick I said so. Also, very true! All bourbons are whiskeys but not all whiskeys are bourbon. This is a very hard concept for some to grasp. You might need to swing the August 3rd Wonder of the Seas cruise. This conversation deserves some serious research.

This is a terrible situation. It also needs to be seriously considered by anyone looking to insure a cruise because it's 100% accurate. I thank @Matt for bringing the idea of getting travel insurance direct from the insurance company to us over a decade ago. The insurance that the vendors i.e. Royal, MSC, American Airlines, Delta...whoever it might be aligns itself with is most often the worst option. You need to read the fine print of coverage ahead of time. Also, even if they do use a reputable insurance company it's usually very much over priced for bare bones coverage. For this reason I never buy or have my clients buy the vendor offered trip insurance. As you said if you book a cruise line offered travel insurance it's not starting until the day you step on that cruise! Door to door travel insurance direct from the provider is the way to go. You give them the TOTAL cost of trip, beginning with the day you step out your front door and ending with the day you return and you are covered for that amount $$$ for that time period. It's superior to the offered insurance from the vendor and I'm not exaggerating when I say it could more than half the price less than the vendor offered insurance. With a good health plan and ancillary insurance provided by the right credit card, you are really hedging against catastrophic need like hospitalization in a foreign country or medvac back to home. Those are rarely covered by standard medical insurance at home and can quickly take a huge chunk out of most middle class bank accounts.

The one on Harmony was done with proper whisky glasses, including a generous sampling, similar to one that you would find at an upgraded tasting at a bourbon country distillery.

Uh OH! Now you've done it! Pitting the Scottish against the Irish and their respective spirits. That's going to cause a bar fight with some very colorful accents. As for Canadian whisky being superior to American. What!? It's time we take a tour through bourbon country together. I know what you're going to say, you meant Rye. I say US distillers have the friends up north beat in that category too!

Did this one on Harmony of the Seas August of 2023 out of Miami. Of all of the specialty tastings available I thought this one was very well priced. Maybe slightly more expensive than sitting down and ordering a few scotches outright, but the tour of the scotches with complete history of the distillery was done very well. It was interesting and worth the time and money for the experience.

Come on! @AlmondFarmer and I already put all of this work into planning the meetup.

This is wonderful comedic timing. I must add a ROTFL. Let me and @HeWhoWaits know if you can join us in August. It's already shaping up to be an interesting conversation with many laughs fueled by Day 1 efforts to maximize the drink package.

I know, I know...let's call it an inside joke left over from hygiene hysteria of yesteryear.

Thank you for that @HeWhoWaits Having grown up in New York then spending nearly a decade in the DC metro after the military, I wasn't sure if my Southern was refined enough to make an impact. Looks like 15 years of practice has made it so! Let me know what your drink of choice is I'll have it ready the English Pub on Wonder of the Seas Day 1 of cruise. I should have the kids to bed just before 10pm. Schooner bar is good too, if not a little loud. Also, I'll bring the hand sanitizer. That's for @Matt, just so he knows I'm at least making a half hearted attempt to weave back in the topic of the thread. We all know how it's a big no-no to get off topic (or that might just be me). HA!

I've only been on Oasis and Quantum class Royal ships. Anthem was my least favorite of all of the ships we've tried. Of the Oasis class I've been on Allure (twice), Symphony, Harmony, and Wonder. Oasis Class is simply hard to beat with so much to offer across the board for everyone. Allure in 2014 was my first cruise since carnival in the early 90's and it blew me away. Every time I got on a more recent version of the Oasis class ships, said ship became my NEW favorite. In my opinion, they keep fine tuning the class with what they learn to make each successive sister ship better. Wonder which we are now going to sail again in the summer is of course my new favorite ship. The only complaint I have of the changes they made to the class are reduction of one flowrider (Utopia and Wonder) and the elimination of the 2 bedroom grand suite that you can find only on the Symphony on down. The two bedroom grand suite was the perfect entry level sky class suite for our large family and now we've been effectively priced out of sky class on the newest oasis class ships.

Bless your heart, aren't you cute. You seem nice. I love CINCY, especially the Bengals, even though they can't seem to get a defense to complement the national treasure that Joe Burrow is. Still we have the panthers so even the Bengals defense would be an improvement here. Great American Ball Park TOO! Right there on the water has to be one of the best places to watch baseball in the country. Running the the purple people bridge and the Roebeling, to and from Kentucky are must do's when I'm in town. But Donkey cart paths? Really? Not a huge fan of history I presume? Major contributions made by the aforementioned QUEEN city in the revolutionary war that started it all. I hear Cincy was a little retirement community for revolutionary war vets. NICE. This is somewhat embarrassing (for you, not me) but the QUEEN city was dubbed so in 1768 after being name for QUEEN Charlotte in an effort for the original loyalist settlers to gain favor with King George. Seems the Cincy nickname didn't catch fire until 1819 when labeled as such in a newspaper article. But don't worry, Charlotte, nor anyone one else can take the flying pigs away from you. Let's discuss further at the English Pub on Wonder of the Seas August 3rd, drinks on me. All you have to bring is a knowledge of history.

Fellow North Carolinian I see! We are from the Queen City!

Very difficult to resist the washy washy when serenaded by the wonderful cruise members on way into windjammer, especially when the guitar is in use. Just thinking about something so simple puts a smile on my face.

Sure! But only the ones that work!

sorry forgot to put that in there. These are connecting oceanview balcony. One is 1D 3+ person balcony the other is a 2D double occupancy. A room for the kids and one for the parents, open up the balcony divider, and benefit from double the bathrooms.