MTNeedsAVacay

Yes! Milkshakes, sodas, smoothies, non-alcoholic drinks, bottled water, specialty coffees. Our kids are still fairly young so they never use up all their D+ drinks anyways, so we usually use some of their free ones for specialty coffees for us parents so we can save our free drinks for the more expensive ones.

I was able to use my D+ drink voucher for an espresso drink on disembarkation morning (around 7am) at the Windjammer bar on Harmony on 2/26.

Yes - photos from the ship's photographers at the ports of call are included. Cococay will usually have photographers roaming around the beaches and pool area and those pictures have been included every time we get the package.

Wanted to share an interesting tidbit from our Harmony cruise last week - it was our first cruise as D+ so we went and made a night 2 reservation for Chops as soon as we got onboard. We discovered later that night that they had accidentally made the reservation for night 3, instead of night 2. When we tried to get it switched back to night 2 (since the D+ BOGO is only good on the first 2 days), there were no available reservations. However, the solution to this was that our account was charged for the meal on day 2, and we kept the reservation for day 3. Very interesting as they explained the computer will only let them give the BOGO discount on the first 2 days, so as long as the card is charged in that timeframe, in theory we could have the reservation on a later day. 

So, not sure if this is a standard workaround for the D+ BOGO or if they were just being accommodating to us because they messed up our initial reservation, but I'd be interested to see if anyone else has done something similar (paid for the BOGO meal on day 1 or 2, but had the reservation for a later day).

Yes, definitely still make reservations and be aware they will open up the D+ reserved seating to everyone else 15min prior to showtime (definitely for AquaTheater shows, unsure if they also open up in other venues as I didn't use that seating recently). 

We were also on this cruise! Agree with the comments on the towel animals - we got 2 the entire 8 days and they seemed to be the bare minimum (a stingray and a small mouse). As an adult, I don't really care that much, but we also had young kids, so they were really looking forward to the towel animals after getting so many of them on previous sailings. We enjoyed all of the shows we saw except the magician guy on night 2 or 3 (can't remember). He was really cringe-y and just had some lame jokes that fell flat and were borderline inappropriate in a family setting. We had first seating in MDR, which was at 5:00pm. I don't remember ever having first seating be that early. Usually 5:15 or 5:30. We went to MDR the first 2 nights and again on second formal night, but service is just too slow with little kids. They brought out fruit cups for the kids every time and were good about getting all the kid food first, but each time we were there it was almost a 2 hour dinner. Other than those 3 nights, we just ate a the Windjammer for dinner, which was really great food. At the pool decks, I didn't see any staff clearing off chairs around the kids pool area - I even saw one person come and tie her towels around 3 chairs then left, and she never once came back in the 3 hours I was there. After awhile, other people came by and I told them the seats were available because no one had come back in awhile. But, perhaps if we had brought it to the staff's attention, they might have removed the stuff. 

Overall a great cruise! Can't wait until the next one!

On Harmony now and our room attendant told us they are going to single daily service starting next sailing (2/26). He currently services 18 cabins on this sailing (twice daily service) and will have 24 cabins next week with single daily service

Royal Caribbean has some playlists on Spotify with different themes based on various cities around the world. My favorite is the CocoCay playlist!

We'll be onboard with a large group of extended family, ranging in ages from 11months to 88 year old. We're all checked in, 11:30am boarding time. Flying in the day before, so fingers crossed for no bad weather/flight system crashes/cancellations/etc. 

This will be our first cruise as D+, so we're excited for a few extra perks (mostly some free laundry and extra internet).

Definitely look for older/smaller ships, and off-peak times. I just did a quick look at sailings in Nov 2023 on Vision OTS from Baltimore and some of the sailings the JS is cheaper than a balcony. 

15 hours ago, SteveK said:

 

Hi, is there a list like this for all eligible points categories?  (not just 175+)

I'm sure there is, but that is only what the C&A rep sent me when I was setting up our preferences.

13 minutes ago, Maggie M said:

I'd definitely go for the alcohol since food is free but that's just me! I hope you guys have a blast!

Thank you! We aren’t huge drinkers so our free daily D+ drinks are more than enough for us. We ended up choosing the chocolate strawberries because my kids love them and they’ll be excited for a special treat in the room. 

33 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

It is one per household regardless of separation of staterooms. That's for the gift and crystal blocks, of course all other amenities are per person.

Thank you!

16 minutes ago, Last Lion said:

I will be Diamond  Plus in March. What are the possible amenities? How far ahead did you have to chose?

Sorry the first picture didn’t work. Reposted again above. We are just over a month out from our sailing and chose today. I think I saw somewhere you should make any selections at least 10 days in advance, but I don’t have anything I can cite to know how accurate that is. 

Reposting the photo of current gifts. Hope this works!

We recently became Diamond Plus (wooooo!) and have our first D+ sailing coming up next month. It's my husband, me, and 2 young children. Wanted to see if anyone had experience with being D+ in 2 different cabins. In our case, I am booked in one cabin with one of the kids, and my husband and other kid are booking in the adjoining cabin. 2 separate reservations, but still linked. Would each cabin receive it's own D+ welcome amenity? I just got off the phone with C&A rep to set up my welcome amenity and she said it's 1 per household, even if more than 1 cabin. But based on the current list of options she sent me to choose from, only the beach towel is specified as "1 per household," which isn't what I chose anyways. So, should my husband still call and set up an amenity in his name as well? Do kids get to choose anything at D+?

Attaching the list below as what I was sent today by C&A in case anyone was curious:

I'd love to see a RC ship home ported in Norfolk, VA!

We did something similar on our June 2022 cruise on Oasis - we had connecting rooms (1 adult and 1 kid in each room). Just bought one photo package. Unless anything has changed since then, they just ask for a cabin number when your photos are taken, so we always provided both cabin numbers. That seemed to work out for us!

It was on Enchantment last week on the last night of the cruise. I didn't go, but I heard the cruise director make an announcement about it!

We were in Port Canaveral last Monday and saw the outer decks of the Disney Wish packed with passengers and the crew in their bright yellow vests doing their muster drill. Added it to my list of reasons we stay loyal to Royal 

Just providing a bit more context, while I did not witness the exact scenario OP described, I was on the Enchantment last week and can attest that the reservation book for NC had slots available for 3 separate NC reps in 30 minute time slots from just about 9am-9pm at least for the last 2 days (didn't look back in the book at the earlier days when I signed up). When I arrived for my afternoon appointment, there were only 2 reps available (I got the impression the 3rd rep was sick), leading to many more people with appointments than there were available reps. It was about 20 min after my appointment time that I was able to sit down with NC, but I can definitely see how that might have led to some unhappy people. However, I felt absolutely terrible for the 2 reps who were there, because they seemed like that hadn't had a break in hours and the rep who I saw was apologizing profusely when he stated he needed to run to the restroom before he sat down with me. 

On 10/17/2022 at 1:54 PM, Mike n Ky said:

October 2021 was early in the Post Covid return...I would recommend contacting them as I believe your family member is no longer in the queue.

Hadn't gotten around to recontacting C&A about the block, but my family member just received the Odyssey block from October 2021!!! 

24 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I will be curious to see how many suites are available

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/ships/deckplans-hub/Icon_2250_v2023.pdf

Here's the deck plans from Royal's site to get an idea of how many suites there are. I'm not super familiar with total numbers of suites from other classes of ships, but it looks like a lot.

On 10/14/2022 at 9:47 AM, Nye said:

After doing a little digging I actually saw that the staff can purée fresh veggies and fruits for your little one. Probably more convenient to bring it but still good to know that’s an option! 

Yes - we cruised in 2019 and the staff in the MDR made us fresh pureed food each night. I'd still bring along some of your own baby food too, but we were always able to find something mushy enough to mash up ourselves at the windjammer as well for all the other meals. Our daughter was about 9 months old at the time.

Hi all-

We'll be on Enchantment out of Baltimore next month, and curious if the roof over the pool is closed on the colder days, and especially on embarkation day? We'll have our 2 kids (5 1/2 and 4 y/o) who love to swim. Is it warm enough when the roof is closed to swim comfortably? 

Anyone sailed Enchantment recently who can tell us more about the pool situation in the colder months?

Thank you!