Doug_Texas

I think Sorrento's uses lab grown cheese!

Italy just banned lab grown meat and there is a bill under consideration in Florida to ban it. Way too early to worry about it.

I know it is 1 pp but I always do both bottles in my carry on. I have never been questioned.

Hadn't planned it but just bought "cooler bag". It's Black Friday window and the 6-pack of beer with cooler bag is $37.99 and shows 30% off. We are D+ and don't buy drinks package (use coupons instead) but at $37.99 / 6 beers / 1.18 (gratuity back out) this means each beer is $5.37 and the bag is free. Sign me up.

Hadn't planned it but just bought "cooler bag". It's Black Friday window and the 6-pack of beer with cooler bag is $37.99 and shows 30% off. We are D+ and don't buy drinks package (use coupons instead) but at $37.99 / 6 beers / 1.18 (gratuity back out) this means each beer is $5.37 and the bag is free. Sign me up.

ESC for 1/27 sailing disappeared from the web cruise planner and from the app. 3 Night Dining Package re-appeared today but in "sold out" status. I constantly feel like booking this stuff is like a game of Bingo. Maybe they pulled back ESC to leave slots for UDP and Star Class passengers at embarkation. Crazy game!

With only 38 person capacity and UDP having to wait until they are on the ship to make a reservation there is a pretty good chance no one actually gets the $130 price. I like this restaurant concept - over priced, yes - but I’ll only do it once.

There is a good chance living in Texas I won't be back on an Icon class for a long time and wanted to experience Empire Supper Club. In August Matt wrote, "The venue can only seat 38 people and there will be only one seating per night, which means this will be a hot ticket to get into given its low capacity." Given pushing 3 nt and Unlimited people to post embarkation reservations I feared it would be totally booked.

Yes, $200 is individual booking.

THANK YOU FOR THIS POST!!! I have been checking the cruise planner and the app for months every day for ESC. Thanks to your post I called and booked the ESC for the maiden voyage. It's still not on cruise planner or app. You are correct, $200 pp incl. gratuity.

Is the travel insurance the Royal vacation protection or 3rd party?

Doing some internet research: Nov. 12, 2023 on Oasis of the Seas is the "2023 Men's Ministry Cruise". Probably quicker bar service and certainly no one kicked off the ship.

As a non-government entity RCL should be able to continue marketing to groups and charters. The charter thing where a sailing booked by passengers who have already paid for non-refundable airfare gets converted to a charter and the customer is holding the airfare bag is wrong. We got hit this way this past summer with an 8 day Greek Island cruise. Left holding a $3,400 American Airlines bag on a cruise we had booked for many months. On the groups, it would be great if RCL had to disclose a group and the size online (if group over 150) as soon as a group books. When you are selecting a cruise you might just want to pick a different sail date. Regardless of how the group behaves, it is likely bar and show access congestion changes on large group cruises and the pool behaviors might change as well. If you had a 4 and 6 year old with you and found out 900 Harley-Davidson Owners Group passengers were going to be on board you might just want to change your sail date (I used to be one of those years ago). RCL should also allow you to change sailing and waive the $100 pp penalty. Just my 2 cents.

Yikes, I'm on Independance Feb 3rd. Close call!

Both Brillance and Radiance are 90K GT Radiance class ships - Brillance was updated 2013 and Radiance in 2016. I'd focus on the itinerary and sail dates / price rather than the ship.

Older ships use Seapass cards with barcodes. Those can be punched and WOW Bands don’t work on those ships. Newer ships like Wonder use RFID Seapass cards you can not punch hence the clear plastic ends on lanyards. The RFID works through the clear plastic. WOW Bands work on these ships. The same WOW Bands from previous sailings can be mapped to your new sailing credentials for no charge. I’ve not observed the older ships upgrade to the RFID systems yet and don’t know if they will. In a perfect George Orwell world they would track everyone on the ship via RFID sensors around the ship and know where to add more bartenders on the fly (wishful optimism).

We have to add B2B or SBS bookings to 7-nighters because they are just too short. Once I pack to cruise and go through the airline/airport gauntlet I really need to cruise. Oh the troubles of retirement.

These “coolers” were always close to worthless. Beverages cooled barely above room temperature. I don’t know what happened but all of a sudden our cabins over the last 2 years have had these units cooling to full refrigerator temperature. Thanks RCL! I don’t know how or why we have experienced this but we love it.

I wonder if TAs are swamped with "pre-pay gratuities" calls and emails today rather than making money booking cruises? Nov. 11 is a pretty short fuse.

I don't care what they do for Crown Lounge policy from 5-8. If I go there and it is very crowded I leave and go to Sorrento's. I do think having a floating policy rather than a fleet wide policy with create more dissatisfaction and complaints in the long run.

We used to get a chair at the pool and slip into the pool often. There are now "chair hogs" and "chair cops", neither of which fun to vacation with. We no longer use pool chairs.

I always travel with a stack of $1 bills and tip $2 per drink for the drink vouchers. The wait staff and bartenders definitely react more positive to the cash than to writing a tip on the receipt.

Anytime a mass market cruise line makes a price hike move it seems the others follow. Carnival bumped to $16 pp pday in April / Suites $18 pp pday. January Norwegian bumped to $20 pp pday with Haven Suites bumped to $25 pp pday. Celebrity just went to $18 in July. I've always given stateroom attendants extra tips but when we went from $14.50 to $16 and reduced cabin cleaning to 1x / day and now bumping again to $18 I've got to say "Tip Tip Horray" is in jeopardy. We don't mind the 1x cleaning per day but having to hang up towels in the stateroom and shower for dinner with damp towels after returning from shore is definitely a dissatisfaction. I knew this was coming. Will they match $20 NCL in 6 months?

I think the Effectors II show to be as great as the Broadway shows on other ships. I didn't think I would say that before I saw it but, WOW.

The C&A web site still shows the "personalized gift" while the C&A benefit sheet in our stateroom last week had it clearly removed and we only received water. I have no idea what is going on. IMG_0785.pdf