BowTieBrigade

Anyone know if MTD is open to unvaccinated kids again? I haven’t seen any announcement that addresses it directly.

Our first RC sailing was a royal-up jr suite with 30% capacity and the only ship docked at coco cay. It’s never going to be that good again

If you're bringing on beverages, I believe they have to be in your carry-on or they will get screened by security and you will be summoned for them to open your luggage. For weather, I would at least bring enough of a cover to deal w/ the rain and/or wind.

There was a good period where my wife and I thought the Pinacles were scuba sales people because they were always in the Solarium near the scuba desk with what appeared to be name tags on.

Mmmmm, El Loco Fresh

On the web

We last sailed over Christmas and then back in August. On both sailings, half the arcade games were closed for social distancing. Also, I prepurchased arcade credits on both of those sailings for my kids. We had problems with both. In August, the kids' cards didn't work in the arcade and the credits weren't loaded. Over Christmas, the wrong dollar amounts were loaded. I am not prepurchasing any credits going forward based on those experiences. But, based on your original post, I am definitely going to look into the C&A onboard offer.

I circled back with my travel agent and she is also frustrated by RCCL's customer service and IT right now. She said she was told that one of my sailings should be eligible for KSF, but the "system" wouldn't allow the rebooking. Apparently, she's supposed to follow up with them tomorrow.

No info on Jamie’s Italian but I highly recommend El Loco Fresh. It’s right on the pool deck, the food is good, and the line moves quickly.

I’m pretty sure it’s 91

No, we are trying the panoramic suite on Adventure for the first time and are super excited for that experience. Our travel agent was able to upgrade our cabin on a different sailing for less, but not reprice the Adventure sailing. She said Royal would not apply the promotion because there are no available cabins within the category. I presume RCCL is invoking the "applies to new bookings" caveat, but I've always understood a reprice to, technically, be a cancellation and rebooking so...

Ours told me that she could not reprice a sailing because all of our cabin types had been booked

People who make noise complaints when you’re just having a good time. People who give you a dirty look when you are just trying to avoid tan lines. The completely arbitrary “cut offs” on drinks. It’s called the UNLIMITED drink package, not the “you look like you’ve had too many” package.

As I understand it, the staff is supposed to request we fill out the survey but there's ambiguity beyond that. I don't believe they're allowed to outright ask for 5 star reviews, but they might be able to skirt the rule by saying something like, "I hope you found the service to be excellent and, if so, that you would rate it at 5 stars..."

Curious about what this is referring to

They’re free. However the cards don’t work at stand-alone Starbucks on the boat.

Line-cutters and seat-savers. No, it doesn’t matter that you just have a quick question; there’s still a line of people at guest services, all trying to get answers to their quick questions. No, it doesn’t matter that you got here on time and your three-generation family is on its way; all the people you are shooing away from “your” seats actually cared enough about the show for their entire party to be on time.

Having had, and been grossly disappointed by, the fried chicken served in the MDR, can anyone tell me whether the chicken from Mason Jar is different?

That’s what I said.

See, I disagree. I believe the testing should outlive the vax requirement for reasons similar to those posted by @LollyPop above. Vaccinated can still carry, catch, and transmit the virus, if they have it. You know who can’t transmit it? People who don’t have it. So, if we really want to prevent spread on the ships, the way to do it is to prevent it from coming onboard by only allowing negative tests. (I fully understand the false negative/positive issues with the tests, the fact that being vaccinated does reduce your chance of catching and spreading Covid, and that the pre-cruise testing is limited by shore excursion exposure, as well. I readily admit that this is just a gut instinct and I have not analyzed the numbers WRT any of those issues above.)

Two things: First, Matt is absolutely the best. His enthusiasm, knowledge, and quality keep me coming back for more. Second, while I am not surprised to hear of the many hang ups with the inaugural sailing, I think it was a poor showing for RC. In addition to the media side of the cruise, for which it was widely reported that so many aspects of the product were not in final form, a lot of non-media people paid full price for not the full experience. Royal needs to be better about delivering what is advertised.

@MeaganCM13AO can make or break a cruise with the kids. Definitely pay close attention to reports from people who sail right before you, especially on the same ship.

Lemme tell you, I’ve got a suite booked for next year on Adventure during an off-week and the rate is amazing!