Marc

Here's some absolute ridiculousness on my part. We're sailing on Symphony of the Seas on the transatlantic in a few weeks. We booked ourselves a Star Class suite (Aquatheater 2-bedroom)! I've checked numerous times over the past several months to see whether RoyalUp would offer me anything. Interestingly, it always gives me the same error. I guess they're too polite to say "No upgrades for you!"

I'm not intending to be maudlin with this story; these are unfortunate circumstances. We're all okay now. We are very fortunate that we happened to coincidentally earn crystal blocks on the two burial-at-sea cruises we did for each of our sons. It wasn't planned like that at all, but it's heartwarming to have those special keepsakes from those sailings. The first was on Mariner of the Seas in February 2020. We didn't get that block onboard, and the world shut down for a while. We tried to get RC to send us the block in mid-2020, but nothing happened. We called back in spring 2021 and tried again. They found the records where it was approved to have been sent, but there was no record of it actually having been shipped (2020, again). So, that time they did send it to us. The second was on Anthem of the Seas (Dec 2022), and I made darned sure that the Loyalty Ambassador knew how important this was to us. We did get that block. Those two crystal blocks are on our mantel.

Hello, fellow passengers! My three friends and I will be joining y'all on this sailing. We booked it back when the pricing was much better and decided to go all-in for the experience in Star Class accommodations. I used to work in big tech, but not any longer, so this'll probably be my one and only chance to see what that experience is like. Plus, with all those sea days, I figured we might as well really enjoy ourselves onboard. I've done a few B2Bs totalling up to 15 nights, but this'll be my first >8-night single sailing as well as the first non-Bermuda/Bahamas/Caribbean cruise.

That is a cute game, and I also recognized that artwork. The vocals sound the same, too. I have to figure that Royal Caribbean commissioned "Wash Your Hands" from the same folks ("Tangerine Kitty"). I wonder whether the music is a bizarre coincidence. They seem too close to be likely, but I did a bit more searching for some sort of connection or overlap, but I can't find anything.

My pattern-matching abilities are rather good, thanks to a touch of the 'tism. I discovered it while riding an elevator on Harmony of the Seas last week. It was apparently in the Muzak (or clone) lineup being played onboard and immediately used Shazam to identify the song.

I did some searching around and I don't know whether anyone's noticed this, but I just discovered it and it's blowing my mind! The "Wash Your Hands" song is clearly based on Matt White's "Falling in Love (With My Best Friend)". When you get to the chorus around 0:45, you'll hear exactly what I mean.

I did see this accessibility page from Royal Caribbean that does does acknowledge that "only select programs are captioned." From my experience, content coming from the national channels (e.g., news channels) are more likely to have captions preserved, but channels featuring onboard content especially if it was produced onboard are far less likely to have captions.

I sometimes watch TV with captions enabled to help me follow dialogue when it’s not clear. I spent several minutes pressing every button on the TV remote to try to find some way to turn on captions. Apparently, not all remotes have the CC button. Upon asking, a replacement remote was offered. Why not put these in all cabins in the first place since they seem otherwise identical? (I’ve not found that this remote gives me any additional functionality with the TV over the originally-provided one.)

One of the things that I disliked most about playing slot machines onboard Royal Caribbean cruises is that my experiences getting handpays paid is unpleasant, including several times when I've had to get up and walk away from the machine to find an employee somewhere else in the casino to get assistance (during morning hours when things are quiet and not bustling or as smoky). I don't know whether their handpay alert system wasn't working, but on some ships, it seems like they depended on discovering the locked-up machine with an expectant player as they stroll through the casino. (This is compared with my few NCL experiences where it was a very smooth operation with handpays typically paid within single-digit minutes.) I will say that a significant amount of this is caused by me as I tended to be a higher-value player. (There have been times when playing the winnings at $100/spin was just how things were going for me on a handful of nights.)

I saw "wine" listed separately from "snacks" (I think) for Vintages onboard Anthem of the Seas to distinguish when the bar was open from when it was possible to order food (from a limited menu from Jamie's Italian next door). Does the restaurant you're looking at have its own bar? For example, Windjammer has the Plaza Bar that could be open earlier than the buffet itself.

That ended up being my breakfast go-to when we were on in December. Since we're early risers, we were often queued up for Windjammer before the doors open, so I'd usually get my order in at the omelet station among the first few of the morning, so not too long of a wait.

The per-passenger pricing is not an offer, simply a calculation of the total amount paid divided by the number of people booked. It typically doesn't recognize any particular passenger's pricing due to the way RCI often does their pricing (#1 – full price, #2 – 60% off, #3+ – yet a different rate). Another thing to keep in mind is that on top of the $604, there will be taxes and fees, and that can add another couple hundred onto that extra passenger. For example, 5-night cruises may go to Bermuda, and they have one of the higher port fees out there.

My husband and I have been sailing in junior suites at least on ships with Coastal Kitchen, so we'd opted-out of the main dining room. Thus, we chose MTD so as not to take a table from anyone else. We'd typically have dinner no later than 6 PM, usually 5:30-5:45. My problem is that in my older years, I've turned into a full-grown adult who used to stay up until 2 AM into an even-more-grown adult who's now up by 5AM and I really don't want to be eating a full meal somewhat close to my somewhat early bedtime. So, I've called RCI to request that my upcoming cruise on Independence of the Seas be waitlisted for early dining. I'm probably more likely just to rely on Windjammer, though, since I'm sailing solo.

I discovered a while back that if your email address is on multiple Crown & Anchor accounts, you won’t receive promotional emails from Royal Caribbean. In my case, casino offers dried up. When I got them to remove my email address from others’ profiles, including some woman who lives in Australia — who knows why she had my address on her profile — then the offer emails started again.

Would it make sense to book the likely-more-expensive one (Chops) in the Cruise Planner to get the discounted price offered there and then ask them to grant me the second-half of the BOGO in another restaurant?