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At the end of the day, if you made the wise decision to board a Royal ship, its all good!
 
 

BEST THING I'VE EVER DONE IN ALL MY TRIPS TO LABADEE!!!
 
 

On demand handshake is $5 but no gratuity.  If you buy the Captain and Crew handshake package it is subject to 18% gratuity at time of purchase.

They really are the best!  Classic, old-style cruising: connect with the sea...
 

Twangster I took the liberty of annotating your photo. 
Since RCCL and celebrity are both owned by RCI, who knows which ship will use which dock.  
 

Be aware there are two cruise piers and terminals in St Lucia.  One is on the cargo side of the harbor, the other on the opposite side of the harbor.  Depending where the two ships dock you may need to pre-establish a rendezvous point if all parties won't have wifi, text or cell phone service.  It's a bit of a walk between terminals.
In this photo I found online you can see one ship at the cargo dock at the bottom of the harbor and other ships at Point Seraphine closer to the airport.  I've used both.

All the beaches here along the Space coast have been hit hard by all the hurricane activity this year.  The sand loss is huge, and none of the beaches are what they usually are.  

Ill be boarding Serenade day after Thanksgiving.  If nothing is open on 17th St I'll just grab a bite at the hotel.  
 
Did that 9 nite Navi sailing last April and it was a blast.will do it again in January!  Last Curacao visit I did the caves and city walking tour.  Caves we're ok... Natural Bridge Caverns in San Marcos was much better, but the city tour was very nice.  Wilemstead is very pedestrian friendly.  After it was over I wandered on my own for a few more hours and found a great little outdoor place for lunch.  The walk back to the pier was great as well, with the floating bridge and much more to see.  
January I'm just going to walk to town and hang out.
 
 

@ladydiinflorida and @Tammy Smith, for the discussion about what Tammy's husband may or may not know I'd recommend moving the discussion to direct messaging, available here on the forums. Just hover over the name of the person you want to contact and you'll get a "Message" button to privately email them.
Not saying this to mute the conversation here, just thinking that with Tammy's husband being a lawyer, this might be getting into potentially sensitive information that shouldn't be discussed in a public forum. Working 20 years in the financial industry makes me a little paranoid about these things. 

100% certain - booked it on Thursday. :)  

The local governments are in control of the reopening date.  They are asking for the cruise ships to return. Cruise line officials are ensuring they can fulfill that request in a safe manner.    Cruise ships in particular are a form of tourism that places less demand on resources compared to fly and stay tourism.  Cruises arrive in the morning and leave later the same day unlike fly and stay tourists who stay overnight when crime can be higher and who place greater demand on resources such as food, water, policing and potentially medical.  Crime can be higher in part because there is no money coming in and people are growing desperate in a large part because they have no income.  
Local governments want to reintroduce tourism to bring income but also to bring a sense of normalcy back, which itself helps to reduce crime and stabilize the region. Cruise ships are the ideal answer for how to a slowly reintroduce tourism.  
 This isn't the first hurricane to have this effect, many islands have gone through this before.   When I cruised to St Marteen  in the late '90s it was soon after that islands last such hurricane hit with similar devastation.  
EDIT - in another forum I participate in a similar thread is evolving.  A resident of St Thomas is posting and they want tourists back.  They are not sure how they are going to pay the rent this month and while they are not fully restored (no power at home yet), they are eagerly waiting to welcome us with open arms.  They need the money.  So for anyone that does go to a recently opened island, be generous, tip well.  An extra $5 or $10 is nothing relative to the cost of a cruise.

Well said, sir!

I've never used anything but USD (except in Cuba). 

I`m currently on a 7 night mediterranean cruise on AIDA perla and guess who`s in port with us in Palma de Mallorca? TUI Discovery, formerly known as Splendor of the Seas. Apart from the colours there seems to be not much change on the outside - I recognised her by shape. Here`s a picture for those of you who might miss her. 

While I love the big ships, I think the Radiance class is the most elegant of all the Royal ship classes.    So much beautiful glass and a view of the ocean from nearly everywhere.  The halls are VERY narrow but that's b/c the ship itself is narrow, by design.  It's been some time since I've sailed on a Radiance class ship.  I need to get back there !

I had the dry aged steak on OVation in Jan... I must admit I wouldn't pay for it again. It was 'ok' but I'm not sure I prefer it over a nice non dry aged steak. 
 

Dan had the onion soup on Harmony a couple of weeks ago so it’s still available on Harmony.  Maybe it’s different on other ships.

It was a glitch! Somehow the computer reverted to the non promotional price. Spoke to a wonderful woman in customer service named Stacey. She was able to get me an even lower fare! Wonderful customer service, and I can't wait until our January cruise! 
Thank you to all of you for your help! 
I will have to come back to this forum since you are all so nice! 

Sounds exactly what they did with Grandeur earlier this year ..... mostly internal, below the water line, things done ...... The one thing that I noticed when I was on her a few weeks ago, a new paint job.  Outside of that, no real changes from what I could see.  I would assume the same will probably be the case for Serenade.

I'm about 99% certain we'll be on the Nov 19, 2018 11 day sailing next year.  There is a group of rum-enthusiasts I belong to that did a sailing on Adventure in 2016, and are planning one on Serenade next year. :)

When I used them I still had a few hours to kick back in town and relax before heading back to the pier.
 

Yes, the shuttle to town is available, but you wait a long time waiting for it to fill up.
 
Its only about 75 steps from the shuttle place to the main gates of the port complex.  If you walk out the gates (unlike some other places, this is PERFECTLY SAFE), there are plenty of taxis waiting.  They are not allowed to come into the port complex so they wait right outside the gate.  It is/was $2 per person to go to town, and $2 for the return trip.  
Walk out, grab a cab, go to town, enjoy!
 
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