Marc

I really liked Hairspray and would be slightly saddened to see it replaced by something else, but that said, I think it's more important that Royal Caribbean do what's necessary to keep the entertainment fresh for repeat cruisers. That said, I really didn't like Chicago, and now I'm hopeful to see it replaced by another Broadway production when Allure of the Seas goes into drydock.

Technically, that's against the suggestions and if you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt, they might not let you into the main dining room. I'm taking this guidance from this page where it says:

I don't have too much of an opinion of the "food truck" on Quantum of the Seas, but I will say that it's likely to be far better than what they had on Independence of the Seas. There, they offered "Boardwalk Hot Dogs" at the Squeeze Bar in the early afternoons on at-sea days. I tried one shortly before they closed it down at 3 PM one afternoon and it was horrible! The hot dog itself was unpleasant, but what surprised me was that the bun was rock hard. I would imagine that at a dedicated venue like the "food truck", they'd be able to keep their stock fresh during opening hours rather than at a makeshift location like the Squeeze Bar.

If you're willing to gamble on getting a good cruise deal, you can buy the airline tickets in advance and then wait to book the cruise until you get a good fare a few weeks ahead of sailing. I've actually done this before with success. It's certainly not something I'd recommend for most, but if you feel comfortable with a wait-and-see approach on the cruise fare, it can work. It does help if you book air with someone like Southwest where you can change the tickets for full credit toward a future purchase, just in case the cruise fare doesn't work out.

We were given a couple on our Independence of the Seas cruise last month when we checked in. We were told onboard that we could even get extras from Guest Services, but we didn't need any others. We ended up only giving one out.

My next cruise is in October on Allure of the Seas. I'm traveling with a bunch of friends from an online forum. This is the second official group cruise from our forum. We've been planning this cruise since April last year (when it was 17 months out).

We've been lucky to get a cabana onboard. We got to the terminal early so we were among the first to board the ship. We immediately went to the shore excursions ("Explorations!") desk and inquired about a cabana. They did have one available and we got it!

If you want a cabana, you should book it (under shore excursions under Labadee, Haiti) as soon as possible. They tend to get booked up quickly. All the cabanas are already reserved (the ones that were available online, anyway) for our upcoming Allure cruise in October.

The Nellie's Beach cabanas, at least the over-the-water ones, are $250. It's still worth it, in my opinion, especially if you've got at least 4 people in the cabana so the per-person cost isn't that bad.

We canceled our October 12, 2014, sailing on Freedom of the Seas and instead are going to go next year back onto Independence of the Seas on March 14, 2015.

That's about the time I try to get to the port. I like to get there early so I can get checked in, wait in the terminal, and board as soon as boarding starts, typically around 11:30. You won't be able to board at 10:30, but arriving at the port at that time isn't bad.

You should be okay. According to this schedule listing, Ocean Aria is 45 minutes long. The only show that's longer than an hour is Chicago and that's 90 minutes.

I'd have to agree with this. I'm pretty good at picking the ship, itinerary, and cabin, but I'm pedantic about getting the best price I can. I've been very lucky with my cruises this year to have really great prices when I booked, but I still monitor the prices regularly just in case. For my cruise coming up in two weeks, I've got a very decent price in a Promenade cabin. During these last few days, there have been some attractive pricing for oceanview cabins to which I could upgrade for free, but I'm sticking with what I have. Early this morning, there was a brief period when a Family Oceanview cabin became available for just $479/person for two people! If I could have snagged that upgrade, I definitely would have. Imagine getting twice the space in the cabin! Ah, well, it was gone before I checked the computer this morning.

While I've never been in the situation you're in, from what I've read, suite-level privileges would not be extended to your kids. They'll have the regular blue SeaPass cards and you'll have gold ones. Without the gold SeaPass cards for your kids, they wouldn't be permitted into the suite-guest-only areas.

Right... Royal Caribbean's policy does permit kids to be in a connecting stateroom. I've sailed that way many times with my boys.

I have a bunch of photos from prior cruises in my iPhoto library. They're easy to access if I want to browse, especially if I'm looking for a particular photo from a cruise. I also take the Cruise in Review DVDs and convert them to MP4 files that I then store in my iTunes library so I have easy access to them as well. I was just watching last year's Independence of the Seas Cruise in Review to keep my anticipation up for this year's cruise on her.

My first cruise was on a Celebrity ship (Century) and it was a fantastic cruise. Going into it as a complete newbie with eyes wide open made for a wonderful experience. I wouldn't say it was the best, though. That experience was topped by our first "real" Royal Caribbean cruise on Liberty of the Seas. (I'm not counting our actual first on Viking Serenade which was quite disappointing.) I fell in love with all that Liberty of the Seas had to offer. And then that cruise was again topped by our cruise on Oasis of the Seas. Not only was she a phenomenal ship that had to be experienced to believe, but we were also joined by a friend of ours who decided to try cruising for the first time with us on that sailing. This cruise, the one I'd consider my best, was a combination of an amazing ship and great company.

But lobster is so delicious! ... said by someone who grew up in Maine where we could get lobsters for a dollar per pound and didn't need to keep kosher.

I currently have two NextCruise/Open Bookings available, one current and one from the previous rules. I like having the assortment so that if I want to book and have need to use the included friends & family certificates, I can use the older one. On the other hand, if I just want one for myself (or to transfer to someone else), I'll use my newer one. I don't have any NextCruise bookings left from before the previous benefit combination rules applied, so I won't be able to make use of the shareholder onboard credit offer anytime soon, but it was nice when I did.

If your NCC is associated with a TA, you have to get that TA to release it back to Royal Caribbean so that it could then be subsequently transferred to Costco. You should be able to call Royal Caribbean to find out whether the NCC does have a TA listed on it.

That's too bad. I wonder whether a multi-restaurant package isn't available because the ship is new out of drydock and they're expecting that more people will be eating in the specialty restaurants anyway.

Did they have a dining package for Navigator like they do on Oasis and Allure, or did you have to reserve each restaurant separately? I really liked the dining package we had on Allure of the Seas. It was nice to get 4 restaurants in a package, saving 20%.

Hey there, neighbor! It's on MeTV which is carried on a digital subchannel of WPXI, 11.2. According to this page, it looks like Armstrong Cable carries on it channel 410. Love Boat airs weekly on Sundays at 2:00 PM. If you want to watch the rest of the first season that's already aired, you should be able to get the discs from Netflix, if you're a subscriber.

So, if I do go ahead and book this "free" (yeah, they're never really "free") cruise with NCL that I got from my local casino, I'll blame you for the idea! :D

I'm contemplating going on an NCL cruise later this year, and this dining package looks very appealing. The only concern I have is that it doesn't cover their a la carte restaurants including the sushi bar, noodle bar, and Ocean Blue restaurants, instead offering a 20% discount on those venues. I'm not sure how much of an impact that would have on my dining choices. Given the number of restaurants that NCL's newest ships have, I suspect that there would remain plenty of options. I think that an "ultimate" package like this on Oasis and Allure (and I presume Quantum, but it's early to say what all would be included there) could be very popular. That said, Oasis and Allure have main dining rooms sized for an expected number of passengers. If they offer this kind of package, will that mean that the specialty restaurants would be full more and the MDR abandoned by too many?