Sackboy

Hey Matt! Small world! This was our first ever RC sailing and I was wondering if that type of double up day happens with any kind of regularity from unforeseen events? We felt like we were getting almost a “special secret bonus itinerary” cruise (with all due respect and no ill intention meant to those that were evacuated).

honestly, i'd kind of love two days at coco cay. gives you more time to enjoy.

I was on the same sailing. Two days at CocoCay was not a problem at all in my opinion.

Super Mario relies on the Ship internet for his employment and I believe he is in the stock trading area (I could be wrong).

If your desire is to have a laptop setup with automated scripts that will execute based on micro-second reaction to stock trades you will be very disappointed with the latency of satellite internet available on Royal ships today.  Latency across the fleet typically ranges from 200ms to 800ms and at times like during heavy rain the internet will not available at all. Mariner latency will almost always be above 600ms.
If your idea of stock activity is simply entering limit orders in hopes the market might reach that threshold at some point over the day that may work out okay if you appreciate that the internet on board can be down for several hours at a time for no apparent reason.  Murphy's law dictates the internet will go down exactly when you need it most.  If that's going to be an issue then don't rely on Voom for your needs.  
I've done wifi calls on Mariner recently and I watched a live webinar for an hour with only one "buffering" moment.  For simple tasks like that Mariner's Voom Surf & Stream served me well.  But understand it is nothing at all like home based internet.  Expect results like 3 - 4 Mbps down and 1 - 2 Mbps up with latency around 700ms.  
Lastly it's public wifi essentially.  Have plans to secure your traffic accordingly.

IMHO Mariner's internet isn't great, I tried to do Teams and Zoom and had issues. I had the surf and stream; it wouldn't work in my cabin most times. But YMMV as it could have had to do with a lot of factors. Like cabin location, ship location, etc. 

Agree with @Reigert2008. The Zoom streaming wifi is usually passable. But even under good circumstances, it's not blazing fast by any means. It generally works for most things, but the service isn't always consistent. So I certainly wouldn't want to count on it for something that was very time-sensitive. 

personally, I wouldn’t rely on ships internet for anything that would be time sensitive, such as trading stocks.   

This seemed to be common practice in Canaveral. Saw many people bringing cases of water in the past.

It is a combination of water/soda...so a total of 12.
https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/food-drink-onboard-policy

Glitch.  Also, is day 5 a port day for you?  Are you looking at the lunch tab or the dinner tab?  Specialty dining usually closed for lunch on port days.

For the Royal up on the 5 night, I was offered room upgrade bids starting from $10 to $100 for balcony per person

For the Royal up on the 5 night, I was offered room upgrade bids starting from $10 to $100 for balcony per person

I came from a background of Disney sailing where they would often upgrade us at the check in.  I have not seen that after leaving Disney cruising except for when they needed my room for a covid floor.  I am also like you where the room does not mean that much.  What I do is look at the price and see if it is worth it to me to upgrade.  I do not put in a bid to move up to Oceanview.  I will put in a bid for Balcony if it is what I consider a low price.  So, with all that said i would look at the minimum bid and decide if that is low enough to make you move.  If you make a bid, bid the minimum +$10.  Everyone bids the minimum.

Most guests end up sailing in the exact cabin they booked or were assigned if it is a GTY booking.  

Royal Up is not always available for every sailing…and sometimes the bids they want are pretty steep to begin with!  My Allure cruise for September recently sent the RU email and I wouldn’t even think about offering what they want as minimum bids!  Crazy high!  And as noted above there is absolutely no guarantee you would win!  
If you prefer a different room type and it is available for a decent additional cost to your inside room price…do your own upgrade and book it!  If you booked this cruise through Royal…call them and make the change.  If you used a TA, you will need to call them to make the change for you.
 

Looking at booking Jamie’s on an upcoming 5 night Mariner of the Seas trip for lunch and I’m confused how it works. Can you get several appetizers, multiple pastas, multiple main courses, and desserts per person for the flat fee? I don’t want everything, but def seeing multiple things that look good 😊 

Onboard upgrades will be hard, even if cabins aren't fully sold, they really won't be giving free upgrades. RU is a gamble and since rooms are a low priority, why bother with bidding?

It might be a glitch that recognizes day 5 as day 6. Hopefully the app/cruise planner updates and it comes up correctly.
I have a three-night sailing coming up on Nav and it will only let me reserve a dining reservation for night 4........there is no night 4. I am not too worried, more so worried that nothing shows in the cruise planner for the 3night sailing and we are about a month away. 

On the Mariner last month, we skipped the soup at lunch and asked for a smaller pasta dish so we'd have room for our lasagna entree and still have room for dessert.  We were stuffed.  We actually couldn't eat all of our dinner at the MDR that night, and that wasn't until 8PM.  I don't think you will go hungry, as pointed out by CruisingNewb.

Yes, you can ask for smaller portions to try more apps, pastas, entrees and desserts. Chops is truly the only place that limits you to one entree. 

The problem is that the food is very good.  Because of that problem, even if you order multiple appetizers and multiple pastas (which aren't huge portions), you will be pretty full.  My family of 4 ordered the meat plank (a must!), garlic bread, and the fried rice balls, ordered 4 pasta dishes, and 4 entrees, then finished with 4 desserts.  We barely managed to get through it all even with teenaged boys.  
Lunch menu has a couple of offerings that are specific to lunch only.  
It takes at least 2 visits to be able to try everything on the menu unless you are in a large party.

Looking at booking Jamie’s on an upcoming 5 night Mariner of the Seas trip for lunch and I’m confused how it works. Can you get several appetizers, multiple pastas, multiple main courses, and desserts per person for the flat fee? I don’t want everything, but def seeing multiple things that look good 😊 

It is pretty simple - Order food, eat food 😂 
YMMV but the staff at the Jamie’s (we have been at three different ones) usually allow a little variety with desserts and apps but typically will keep you to one entree.  We did get offered a chance to taste another that we were interested in, but that was while sailing star class so may not have been the norm.  Likely you will find one app, one entrée and one dessert should fill you so to best experience multiple things either a group and sharing or more than one visit seems like the best strategy.
Enjoy!

Since you're familiar with Disney, one small difference in the MDR menus is that Disney splits the starters into a soup/salad category and an appetizer category and the servers will ask you for your choice of both. Royal however has just a starters category, including the salads, soups and appetizers, implying that they expect most people to order just one. As others have mentioned, however, you're more than welcome to order more than one if you wish.
Another difference is that Royal has some MDR items which are on the menu every night ("Classics") along with items that change from day to day. Also there are a few "extra charge" entree choices.
If you go over to the Live Blogs section you should be able to find many pictures of menus, both for MDR and specialty venues.