FSUFAN

We are sailing the Quantum in June. Staying at the Warwick Seattle. We stayed there before. Sign up for their free loyalty program and they offer pretty good discounts. Warwick Seattle | Downtown Seattle Hotel with Breakfast (warwickhotels.com) It's walking distance to a lot of restaurants, Pike Place Market, CVS drug store is across the street if you need some last-minute stuff. There is a nearby liquor store that you can grab wine if you want to bring some onboard. Probably no more than a 15-minute Uber/taxi to the port from the hotel.

I figured that RCL has some set amount of bandwidth usage with StarLink. I know that can be monitored and if it can be monitored, it can be regulated and slowed down or sped up depending on usage. Speaking as someone who lives out in the country and gets around 25Mbps, 100 or 200Mbps seems outrageously fast and probably not realistic for long-term offering from RCL. My prediction is that in the future, RCL (and other lines with StarLink) will offer tiered internet access similar to standard Voom and Voom S+S. Something like 4-5Mbps for one price, 15-20Mbps will be another higher price. Still way faster than Voom S+S now. The speed may be going up but the price will not be coming down.

We are sailing the Norway Fjords with Holland American in August. I've found that booking thru the local operators is way cheaper than the cruise line. Not sure if that holds true for RCL, but for HAL it was substantially cheaper. A RIB boat tour in Geirangerfjord was $175/pp on the cruise website and only $53/pp booked directly. Again, this was HAL and not RCL. Most of the fjord ports are very small and chances are the local guy that you can book directly with also provides the service for the cruise line. Google the port stops and see what excursions are offered and if they can accommodate your son.

I deleted the pic, but doggone that looks good. Nothing better than a Bloody Mary at breakfast. My go to cruise breakfast - Coffee, Bloody Mary, eggs benedict, and a side of cold smoked salmon (sometimes a side of bacon too).

I booked 4 balcony cabins for me and Mrs Fan and our 3 grown kids and spouses (8 total) thru Costco Travel for an Alaska sailing. They are all linked on the RCL website. The only minor issue was that the Costco Travel site only lets you join 2 cabins for dinner at the initial booking. I had to call them to get all 4 rooms at a single table for dinner in the MDR. But it was very easy and spent maybe 10 minutes on the phone in total. I had everyone purchase insurance after explaining the benefits. Dad (me) is paying about 2/3rds of the sailing cost for each so I created a spreadsheet that shows what they owe me and what they will owe RCL in gratuities at the end. I was a Project Manager for most of my career and I really enjoy the planning part of the trip. Mrs Fan has no interest in the planning and she says "just tell me when to be ready".

@Pooch Is it... [email protected] or [email protected] Kind of a newbie so I've not used the e-mail before, but I have [email protected] in my notes that I keep. With the added L

YMMV (Your mileage may vary). Mrs Fan wants The Key due to the "skip to the front of the line" embarkation and debarkation. She is fine around the ship and at shows and stuff, but the long snaking lines getting on and off of the ship gets her anxious. For the cost, it should be more, but I am not King of RCCL. Give me a few drink credits or something.

Attica! Attica! Hey Hey, Ho Ho, this one meal policy got to go!

Thieves and robbers are not very smart people. I can't imagine what they were thinking. I'll go on this "encapsulated" cruise ship and use a stolen card and when it is over, I assume no one will be the wiser and the cops won't know where to find me as I disembark. LOL I like the "Drinks on me" comment. Also, I'd max out my time at the spa with massages and other services. Specialty dining every night with extra lobster tails. Champagne and caviar dreams. Reality, I'm not that shameless.

I have used Costco Travel and they have been good. I don't get to bid on Royal Up, but I am an executive member with 2% cash back and have a Costco credit card for another 3% cash back. So, 5% total plus they always have a Shop Card add-on. I got $190 shop card for a cruise on Quantum and $340 for a cruise on HAL. I have not really run into any issue where I need a real hands-on TA so maybe I've been lucky with Costco Travel. We took an anniversary trip and booked a Costco resort trip. Weather (Ice Storm) messed up the first leg/day of the flight. Costco TA got us a big refund (over $500) for the delay, got us upgraded to a suite at the hotel and the trip insurance purchased thru them got me another $550 back for the delay. So, I am happy with them.

Okay so I am sailing twice this year. Once on the Quantum OTS and one with HAL on the Rotterdam. Plus, I am an old man that gets things mixed up every now and then. The Thermal Suite on the Quantum has the heated lounge chairs, sauna and steam room and the larger shower. But I am realizing that there is no hydro-therapy pool (or similar). Is this correct? If so, I am majorly bummed. As of now I have booked the Thermal Suite for the 7-day sailing on the Quantum. Update - Just now cancelled the TS reservation. Realized there was no hydro-pool or similar with the ship.

I tried @MaryCS62 advice and it didn't work for me. Still showing kids meals only. Our sailing isn't until June. I will check back in a month or so and see of it clears up.

We too have a group of 8. I requested that we all be seated together via my travel agent (large Warehouse travel). Others have said that you can contact RCL at [email protected] and request the table arraignment. I would make sure to include Ship, sailing dates, traveler's names, cabin numbers and even reservation numbers. I try to add as much information as I can so there are no questions as to your intent.

It's on the webpage. Sign in, go to your specific sailing and then to Spa & Fitness. I click on the "all treatments" tab and the Thermal Spa pops up as one of the options. For me the TS is $111 for 7-day Alaska cruise on the Quantum OTS. I got it for myself. Mrs Fan not a big fan of the sauna/steam rooms. I go in the morning, hit both sauna and steam, shower and shave. Way better and roomier than the shower in the cabin. And yes, you have to choose a time, but I think that is a design of the software and not the actual event.

CC has its place on the web. I go there from time to time looking for advice on other lines. You get an occasional crank, but if you are not "Loyal to Royal" and sail other lines then there are not many website options for questions about other lines, ships and ports. We have a HAL trip to Norway in August. I've learned a lot about HAL from CC. I heard about Club Orange from CC website. HAL's Club Orange which is similar to The Key (and generally cheaper), smokes The Key with tons of benefits that I wish RCL would look into and maybe add to The Key experience.

I just looked it up and it's now $25/pp. We are staying close to Pike Place Market. $100 for a 15 minute ride for 4 of us seems pretty steep. We will probably go with Uber or similar.

Do they have a combo offer for Trapeze School followed by muscle and joint therapy? Asking for a friend.

Let me guess. "30% off and Kids sail free!" I have not seen this new sales pitch except for every day for at least the past year. RCL marketing department has the savviness of a lump of unbaked bread dough.

We had priority tender with the Key on the Voyager OTS in Bar Harbor. The issue I had was that RCL had contracted with a local outfit that had these really nice large catamaran boats plus they used the ship's bare bones lifeboats. Getting off the ship, Key purchasers were ushered to the lifeboat tenders. Hard cramped bench seats in the pitchy, dark small boat. We were packed shoulder to shoulder. I'm 6' 4" and my knees were banging up against the bench seat in front of us. We rode back on one of the catamaran boats and the difference could not have been more striking. Roomy isles with individual cushioned seats and arm rests, large stable boat, huge picture windows. I would have waited in line to get off if I had known we were going to be put on the lifeboat tender vs the catamaran. It was virtually like "basic economy" VS "first class" on a flight.

Maybe a dumb question but is there any way to find out ahead of time what group or groups will be playing on a future cruise? We are going on the Quantum OTS in June to Alaska. On the RCL website, the entertainment tab for our cruise is in "come back later" mode. Also, I assume that once the entertainment tab is populated, we need to make reservations for the specific shows.

Prepare yourself to be mobbed by people wanting to coo at the baby. Granted it was pre-pandemic, but my daughter sailed with her first, a girl, when she was about 9 or 10 months old. She said that everyone (especially the grandma types) wanted to talk, touch and make the baby smile. She said it was cute at first, but then after a few days, she grew tired of trying to navigate the ship with (good hearted) people stopping her at every turn wanting to see the baby. It didn't help that my daughter dressed her in in frilly outfits, floppy flowery hats, pink bathing suits, even sunglasses.

You can’t compare pandemic prices when people weren’t traveling to a now post-pandemic where everyone is suffering from “cabin fever” and traveling again in near record numbers. I realize that prices are rising on most goods and services. And I assume that the cruise industry as a whole will float prices up to what the market will bear. I my opinion, the value that RCL offers grows smaller with each price hike. Their marketing department is extremely unimaginative. I’ve been seriously following RCL and these boards for maybe 14 months now. I’m tired of the “30% and kids sail free” promotion that seems to be their only strategy that plays on an endless loop to my inbox. I’ve stated in another thread that we have 2 sailings this summer. One on the Quantum OTS to Alaska and one on HAL Rotterdam to Norway. Both trips are within $500 of each other (HAL is more). Balcony room, mid-ship, deck 7 (HAL), deck 8 (RCL). With HAL we received as part of the cruise, drinks package (similar to DBP), Wifi for 2, pre-paid gratuities, one night in specialty restaurant, $100 ea. excursion credit, $100 OBC. This beats the snot out of “30% off and kids sail free” (those with kids might disagree) and this is REAL value to me as an empty nester. RCL is not only raising cabin prices, but add-ons are going up as well. Per this board, the days of $50 or $55/pp DBP are gone. Wifi is creeping up. Restaurant quality appears to be going down (at least in the MDR). Give me some pricing during shoulder seasons when a lot of kids are not sailing. Stop nickel and diming me on the on-board stuff. Beef up existing offerings like the Key. The Key should have some nice spiffs and it just doesn’t (Look at the Club Orange on HAL). What RCL charges for Wifi is obscene. I know this is a fan site, but this fan will look for greater value as prices rise.

Mine was "eat your dinner, there are kids in China who are starving". To this day, I have no idea how me finishing my plate would help solve world hunger.

HA! This is me and Mrs Fan. She goes for the bread, then picks around the appetizer and main course. Skips dessert but wants a cookie or similar sometime later, so we traipse off to the Windjammer in search of cookies later that night. I rarely get 2 entrees, but almost always get 2 appetizers. Escargot (every night) and then something else. Not sure if Escargot will be offered every night with the new menus coming out.

Mine are using Ole Dad to pay the bulk of the trip. Not the entire amount, but around 80%. As others have stated. My 3 rules. Book Early, Book Early, Book Early. Prices have gone sky-high since we booked our trip to Alaska more than a year ago. Only thing is you have to look at the website and it has 400+ days to your trip and that is a huge downer.