dmattinson

I do the following and generally wait to the end of a typical 7-day cruise (note, I am generally on the Deluxe Bev Pckg) Stateroom attendant (just 2 adults that keep a clean room) - $20 on 1st sea day and then anywhere from $20-$50 on last full day (in evening for turn-down) depending on how good the service was Waiter / Asst. Waiter - $20-$40 ea (in envelope to avoid alienating the other tablemates as I don't discuss tipping with them typically) depending on how they handled us during the week - fast but efficient (and correct) gets a little more, slow and non-attentive gets less but they always get something (I haven't had consistently bad service on board and if I do during 1st night, I ask to change tables like I did when one of the servers was doused in very cheap aftershave that gave me a headache) Bartenders / drink waiters - If I park in a lounge for a majority of the week, on the last night I'll go in and spread the tips among the entire staff - again, drink package has the gratuity built in but I will give them extra. I spread around about $100 in the Boot and Bonnet on Harmony last time including the entertainer. Otherwise, if I hit a place a few times throughout, they'll get $5-$10 if they remember me (I'm hard to forget) and make the drinks good. I don't tend to take tours but if I do, depending on the service, $5-20 for two of us. A bus driver that picks up and drops off gets less. A guided tour with someone that engages the whole time gets more.

Have you tried Daniel's on E Plant St in Winter Garden? Best I've found around here... Joe's Pizza in Ocoee is the best pizza I found.

Where about? I grew up in the city, lived in Lansdale and Newark, DE (and worked in Langhorne and Newtown). Those chicken sandwiches are good with a little mayo. I’ll have to try the mozzarella and sauce now

That’s a pretty good price. I’d buy it at that price.

Thanks to @Lovetocruise2002 for pointing out a very good deal on suites on a 12-night repositioning cruise, I am booked on this sailing. Itinerary looks great and sailing on this class of ship will be a new experience for me, as well as sailing in an Owners' Suite. Did anyone else book this one?

I think this one came up as being cheap and having availability because there was a planned cruise for Northern Europe leaving on Sept 10, 2023 that was cancelled and the ship was rescheduled on this itinerary.

I talked her into it. We booked the last 1BR owner’s suite. It was too good of a deal to pass on. We haven’t been on a Radiance class yet and the stops are all great.

I ran it by the wife and she said “nope!” she’s from Boston and is concerned that once word got out, it would be expected that she makes calls to the family in the area before we head back to Florida.

Itinerary: Sun, Apr 9, 2023 Miami, Florida -- 4:30 pm Mon, Apr 10, 2023 Perfect Day Cococay, Bahamas 7:00 am 5:00 pm Tue, Apr 11, 2023 Cruising -- -- Wed, Apr 12, 2023 Cozumel Island, Mexico 7:00 am 6:00 pm Thu, Apr 13, 2023 Roatan, Bay Islands 8:00 am 5:00 pm Fri, Apr 14, 2023 Costa Maya, Mexico 8:00 am 5:00 pm Sat, Apr 15, 2023 Cruising -- -- Sun, Apr 16, 2023 Miami, Florida 6:00 am --

2 cruises this year as gold, no offers in my cabin. Something to look out for next time…

I saw someone make it into the terminal at Port Canaveral with a bag of tortilla chips and salsa, crack them open while waiting (at 10:45-11A) and proceed to have the family come and partake in the feast. If its sealed and doesn't set off the detectors, I'm sure you can make it on with it.

The only cruise I've been successful on RoyalUp was one that got cancelled

I have only done a cruise before the holidays (as the price is usually better for the period after Thanksgiving and the week before Christmas - This year Dec 3-4 and 9-10 seem to be lower priced in cruises I've looked at) but the ship will have a Christmas tree somewhere like the center of the main dining room and/or near a staircase/photo spot on the Promenade. Islands will also be decorated in varying degrees. I thought it was odd to celebrate Christmas and it be 82F and sunny. Now living in Florida, I think its alright Picture is from the restaurant next to the California Lighthouse in Aruba.

I've had cards validated overnight and on another sailing, it took weeks. If there is a problem with the image, they will give an error in the app and ask you to re-upload. @mom2bat - I don't know if they take a picture of the vax record when you check in manually or not. If they do, its getting "uploaded" somewhere regardless.

As someone that contracted COVID post a week long, Eastern Caribbean cruise in June but was fine after a April weekend cruise to Coco Cay only, I really suspect that the COVID cases on board and post debarkation is mostly coming from the ports visited. Testing eliminates the obvious cases from getting on board. New variants are contagious but lighter in symptoms. I was tired for a couple days, had a head cold and irritating cough. My wife was down a little longer but as someone with diabetes, she tends to take a little longer to get over things. She was feeling tired on debarkation day and tested positive the day after, it took me 3 days post to test positive. I could have got it from her or from anyone else. I figure though it was the shops in Sint Martin as that was 5 days before I tested. If people were incubating prior to the test, there would be a lot more sickness early to mid cruise vs. those coming down with it with 1 day left or post cruise.

I fold then roll. I wear the bulkiest shoes I am bringing (usually sneakers) and limit my other footwear to 1 flip-flop/sandals and 1 dress shoes. I can get 1 week of big and tall clothes in my carry-on. Its bulging a little (extender zipper isn't unzipped) but I haven't been stopped by an airline since I gave up flying Frontier a while ago. I don't bring a dinner jacket and keep my clothes to lighter fabrics. My shorts aren't bulky cotton cargo style, they are polyester golf shorts. My shirts are lightweight fishing shirts and dry-fit polos. Socks get stuffed inside my dress shoes. My toiletries get limited to a quart sized zip-lock bag. Travel bottles are key! Medications go into a pill by day holder (flat). If I pack it right, I can do layers with dress shirts and khaki's on top folded only and not rolled. Underwear goes into the flap zipper pouch. On the outside, my bag has an upper small pouch and a larger lower pouch. I can get my size 14 Olukai flip-flops in this pouch. Having clothes made with fabrics that don't wrinkle easily (or un-wrinkle when hung) is helpful. Even with this, I find I still come home with clean clothes because on a swim day, the non-swimming outfit will get worn portions of two days as they don't get that dirty.

I travel for work frequently enough that having Global Entry (comes with TSA Pre) makes sense for the once or twice a year international trip and skipping the customs lines when coming back into the US (and for $15 extra, its a no-brainer). The TSA Pre is valuable to me because, as a stocky gent, going through the body scanners has always flagged something that requires me to get the full frisk treatment pretty much every time I flew, not to mention, the lines stink in MCO, my home airport. Now, I just take my phone and wallet and put them in my bag, take off my watch as well and drop my carry-on and back-pack on the belt. Walk through the scanner (make sure to avoid bumping the sides as that makes it go off every time) and collect my things. As people have been complaining about 45-60 min waits, I am frequently at the gate 20 mins after I park the car in the garage. Time savings is huge and worth the $$!

Your time is what you make of it - and if you say you had a poor experience, you have to assume some of that blame. Saying things like "no one could tell me how the dining package worked" tells me that you weren't asking the right people. Did you even look in your app? I find that to be very self explanatory for booking shows and dining venues once on board. Yes, pools are crowded. Yes, chairs are hard to come by. Did you try the solarium? Did you wake up early to stake your claim on the chairs? (its all part of the game) Cabin steward harassed you about muster? It sounds like you didn't follow instructions, didn't watch the videos, and didn't check in at your station. The cabin steward came to your room to ensure compliance per Coast Guard regulations. The ship can't leave without muster being performed for all guest. You should have been scolded, not praised for waiting to be tracked down for that. Did you review the Cruise Compass paper that was left in your stateroom to tell you what was going on and when? Yes, bars fill up on sea days for trivia and in the evenings for sing-alongs. Theatres get busy (but your reserve a show so you get a seat) and if you want a good place to watch the show, arrive early. But unless you are sitting behind a support column, you aren't really going to have a terrible seat. Arriving early is part of the game...get a drink and talk to others. Be a traveler, not a tourist. St. Thomas cruise port - yeah, its a pier with some shops...about 1/3 of which are shuttered. But you failed to mention whether you left the pier, hopped a taxi and explored. If you took an excursion here and had a bad experience, did you talk to the excursion folks and inquire about a refund? Unless there was a crew switch-over in 3 weeks on the Harmony, I find your comments hard to believe. On the Jun 5-12 sailing, I found the staff to be friendly, courteous, and happy. They often went out of their way to engage me. Now maybe I have a bit more experience understanding the personalities that tend to be attached to folks that come from SE Asia and India from my decades of working with folks from that part of the globe, but they went out of their way to engage me. Courtesy is a two-way street. If you smile, say hello and ask how their day is, you become one of those people they engage with. If you bark out your order and don't say "please" and "thank you", then you get what you give. As far as Sorrento's, I find the line to move fast, the pizza to be decent (for quick service on a cruise ship) and the staff to be as courteous as needed for slinging pizza to thousands of guests a day. All in all, sounds like you may be a little reserved in nature, perhaps a little shy. Sounds like you had expectations of a all-inclusive, wait on you hand-and-foot experience that cruise lines like RCCL do not provide. I would hate to cruise solo on my 1st cruise with no friends / family with me (as an experienced cruiser, solo might be alright [don't tell the wife ]), especially if I were not an outgoing person.

One of my cruises I was able to get 3 pricing adjustments in a 4 day period this week. A sale, a meh “sale”, and another sale. Promos are different but base rate dropped the last two times. Another cruise I have w/ MEI changed on Thursday and I got over $200 off and my agent just got back to me for another $100 off.

Not that I’ve seen but there are a few that go to Labadee and Coco Cay on the same sailing.

I held my card off my last Harmony cruise (Jun 5-12) up to the light on my iPhone and it looks like there may be a spot in the bottom right that you may be able to punch inside the wire loop. Don’t know if that would make the card not tap anymore though.

Who else is on the sailing? We booked this while on the Explorer on a weekend cruise and transferred over to MEI for handling. Looking forward to getting back to the Western Caribbean on this trip!

My cruise on Jan 22 on IOS was cancelled via email on Jan 14. This is a ship that has been actively cruising and not on any type of docking or at sea protocol. No reason given other than state of COVID. That leaves a lot of questions on whether the crew has COVID, whether there is a restriction on testing that people are unable to make their cruises because they can't get tested, whether they are experiencing COVID cases and want to clean the ship extra well, or if the bookings were low overall and they won't make a profit on the sailing so they cancelled it instead. I live in Florida so my cruise was going to be a 1hr drive away but it is disappointing nonetheless on the cancellation after making plans and now having to postpone the trip.