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First, good luck whatever you decide. For me, if I bought the travel insurance within 14 days of booking to ensure I was covered for pre-existing conditions, I would most likely go on the cruise. Only you can decide and I wish you the very best.

You'll regret not being right at Terminal A when the cruise is over. I recommend paying the additional.

Another vote for flying into Haneda. We like Yokohama Intercontinental Grand. There's a ton close by to help you fight the urge to go to bed right away instead of acclimating to the local time as much as possible.

..and 270 and the Music Hall

I don't love this at all. I'm a soda package guy so I'm not impacted at the moment, but it seems really stupid and I'm trying to determine their motivation. It can't be the $4.99, maybe they are trying to slow traffic to the Freestyle machines. I hope they don't get rid of them. As silly as it sounds, it's one of the tie breakers when we're deciding between the various cruise lines. RCI has generally won on Shows and Freestyle machines. I certainly don't like seeing those things degrade.

The answer to all your questions is "Money". RCI is doing what they believe will maximize their profit. Creating additional granularity for pricing analytics at the cabin type level makes sense and they appear to be offering that to drive adoption. They must feel like giving away an additional 35 bucks will get them more DBP orders that in general provide them with greater profit than ala carte drink purchases.

I know, it's such a paradox. The worry to not spend too much drives them to spend more and to pay it months in advance. "Without overspending upfront, I would worry to much about overspending on the ship..."

But that intrinsic value doesn't only exist in a world where you buy the package. It's a mindset that prepaying makes easier on folks, but it also exists for the person who accepts that they are going to use the savings to pay the bill in the end. It's a false good feeling to compare spending X+Y dollars upfront when you consume only $X of drinks and pay the extra $Y just to "feel free". We are in total control of our ability to feel free, but the stories I'm hearing is that when people don't buy the package, they still want $X worth of drinks but want to control it down further and only buy X-Z dollars of drinks only to lament the $Z drinks they shortchanged themselves from. The OP talked about $1100. Just keep your $1100, let it grow while you wait for your cruise, get onboard knowing that you have full freedom, exercise full freedom, then pay your bill and let me know how much of the $1100 you have left. Don't get onboard and try to protect the $1100 and then complain that you should have spent even more.

I would say that you don't have to think about it or ask yourself. That's a psychological choice you make and you are buying your way out of that choice with the cost of 2 drink packages you likely don't need instead of just making the other choice available to you and not thinking or asking. Do this. Calculate the drink package and Grat cost. Don't buy it, just write it down and set it aside. Then go on your cruise and don't think about the drinks, you've got them covered already with your self funded package. I promise at the end of the cruise, you've saved enough for a specialty dinner or 2, an excursion or 2 etc. It's not either or. You don't either have to have a drink package or worry. You can not have a drink package and not worry if you make that choice. Normal disclaimer here. There are people that absolutely know they need the drink package, those people do need it. It's folks on the fence about it, that will generally not drink enough, even with their waters and wasted drinks to cover the cost of it.

Don't think of it as a cruise with no drink package. Think of it as a cruise with a "self funded" drink package that is subsidized by your Diamond drinks. Go, enjoy the cruise how you like to enjoy it. Try a drink, toss it if you don't like it, get a water, whatever you want. On self funded you pay for your package at the end. You only need to be less than $1100 to still be ahead. I am of the belief that a lot of people would be better off self funding their drink packages. The unknown drives them to likely pay more. For those that know they need the package, the package is the right call. Most aren't sure and go with it anyway.

Yeah, Adventure is a great ship! Has a ton of charm. Totally love her!

I certainly believe it's a one and done for all of those reasons. I was just understanding why a post proclaiming that was apparently removed. One day it will walk like a duck, talk like a duck, but it won't be a duck and we will have run them off. I would really like to meet a person on ship who bought The Key 40 times and hear them explain their reasoning. Would be an interesting conversation.

Ok, today is Monday, it's no longer Friday. On Friday, did we know it's a one and done or just assume? Did we all not start our journey here with a join date and a first post? If that happens to be a complaint, then we seem to label it immediately as a hit and run. I'm just not sure it is as neighborly as we can be. I accept that many and probably most are indeed that, but what do we get as a group from jumping on a new user and proclaiming them to be a lower value poster? We can engage in the post content itself or not engage. That's up to us.

I'm a big fan of @jdeath tracker. Makes it super easy.

Another upvote for SAS Transportation from Miami to FLL. Professional, on time and easy.