Doug_Texas

We were there last week. Beautiful! $15 pp each way taxi, $7 pp admission, $40 for 2 beach chairs with umbrella, $7.50 Heineken.

We had CocoCay cancel last week for wind (or seas).

Have cruised a ton of U.S. and Europe multiple times as well as Australia / New Zealand. Have never surrendered passport on RCL, Viking, or Celestyal.

I have to start with a time budget. My beloved wife has a huge list of holidays and birthdays for kids and grandkids. I try to find long cruises or B2B to fit in the holes. Long cruises are great because you maximize the value of your airfare and minimize kids on board. With Europe / Australia airfare in the $1,400 - $2,200 pp from Dallas the effective cruise vacation budget has moved upward. We are "inside cabin" people on drink coupons so try to be in the $2,000 - $4,000 per cruise for cruise fare and tax / port fees. When the cruise gets into the $6,000 range we will look at upgrades like Oceana for sea or Sandals for land based Caribbean. We travel about 5 times / year and try to get vacation variety. Vacations are Royal 70% of the time and we keep going back for the value.

It's a discipline trying to be fair and balanced. I normally try to identify the wonderful cruise experiences. Cruising on RCL is typically 90% wonderful. (Any day on a ship is better than a day at home!) I also try to give providers a break when deserved. My Wonder sailing I just completed Sunday skipped "Perfect Day" but this would never become a feedback item because Royal was simply erring on the side of safety. You can hardly consume any goods or services anymore without the provider wanting feedback / survey. Despite the "ask" of giving a 10 out of 10 I think honesty is the best path to improvement.

COVID created too many Diamond and above status members. If you go to their “top tier” events where they tell you the status breakdown numbers for your sailing it is really astonishing. I think they are trying to cope with the numbers. I’ll just keep crossing my fingers that the drink coupons don’t change because it is the best perk on the ocean and costing them a great deal in lost bev revenue.

We just disembarked Wonder this morning and it was a wonderful vacation. DC already re-branded “Crown Lounge” and the 18 year old requirement in Solarium was already implemented. The Crown Lounge was surprisingly lightly attended for a ship this populated. One feature we hadn’t seen before was the following RCL policy at the Crown Lounge: “Each night from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm the Crown Lounge will be exclusively reserved for our Diamond Plus and Pinnacle Club members. Diamond members will have full access to the lounge at all other hours of the day.”

We are now sitting in Orlando airport after a week on Wonder. It was amazing that you can get that many people on a ship and not feel like it. Getting on and off at ports (pier) was amazing - perhaps the least wait time we’ve ever had. Love that they moved “sexiest man” contest away from the pool to the Aqua Theater. Was a bit concerned that there was no broadway style show but Effectors II was amazing. We picked 6th floor so we could use stairs to Promenade on 5 and Royal Lounge on 4 and it really helped in avoiding the elevators. If we could figure out how to manage unsupervised kids playing elevator games pushing all the buttons when they get off and hitting the door close button on every stop the elevators might even be tolerable.

That's not what is going on. One cruise the 3 Night Package "sold out" within a couple of hours. I called RCL to inquire if it was actually sold out or an IT issue. They told me to keep checking cruise planner because they will put it on sale again. Probably want people who book cruises later in the calendar to have a shot at the package as well. Plus the marketing benefit of constantly having people check back on cruise planner.

Another weird cruise planner effect is dining package will “sell out”, show up on cruise planner as “sold out” for a while, then disappear entirely from cruise planner only to reappear weeks later (only sometimes) as available for sale again.

Hopefully they didn’t request Cuban rum from Nassau.

This is what is great about this blog site! I had no idea RCL had something like this. I knew we couldn't get our Seas Pass cards punched on the newer ships because they are RFID instead of bar code and we adapted using the stupid plastic sleeves for putting the cards on the lanyards. We sail on Wonder in two weeks and I am all in on this WOW Band. Easy, waterproof alternative in the pool. We will see if the wife will give up her "bling lanyard".

Agree with this! I order frequently in MDR with extra hollandaise. 50% chance yolks over cooked. If you get one in MDR not over cooked it is pretty good. Windjammer 100% chance they are over cooked.

If it is an RCL excursion it is no problem. If it is a 3rd party excursion you need to reach out to them and coordinate.

True. We had two Australia sailings in Feb and they didn’t do lobster there either. RCL has always said USA lobster night is by far their most costly protein. I wouldn’t bet on how long it continues.

This is a great topic. I’m on Oct. 15 Wonder and have the same question. We all know formal night and “dress to impress” but the other nights are mysteries. I looked at a previous cruise compass on this blog site (thanks Matt) for our ship and ports for and noted Caribbean night but no 70s night or “white night”. The cruise compass was a couple of months old so my confidence is not high.

All above comments re: a week typically true. There was another recent thread on same topic that some people have had recent 3 week delays.

You are on the right track and there is no problem. When our kids were teenagers they wanted their own room so we officially had two rooms where we switched occupants and got spare keys at guest services. At the time an RCL policy was you couldn’t have two sole guests under 18 in a cabin. We were next door and it was all fine. RCL on the ship was happy with it too, I guess they had their legal obligations covered with an adult in the cabin.

Shoot, I kind of missed that. On 1/27 Icon and the only one left is $250 during PDCC. I would have considered it on sea day because we love pool in direct sun minus belly flop contests and Solarium isn’t really direct sun anymore on newer ships. I’m not too sad as I assume my cheapskate tendencies would have kicked in before adding to cart and checking out.

This might be valuable information! It’s better to wait at least 2 months after you can first book?

Maybe they can start selling Solarium Day Passes.

I’ve noticed that too. Have been crossing my fingers that it is temporary due to Paris Olympics.

The code I was referring to was not about being welcome, it was about when it happens on a ship and when not. Friends of Bill W was in cruise compass, Mass was not.

We were on Rhapsody for an Atlantic crossing and for some reason there was Mass on at least 4 sea days in “Shall we Dance Lounge” and of course ran late into Diamond Club HH. You have to traverse the lounge to get to the Diamond Club which was very uncomfortable. I never have figured out the code for either Catholic Mass or Friends of Bill W gatherings. There seems to be a disorganized factor to it.

I’ve also been told that the MDR and wait staff are linked and only a top score is acceptable. I no longer respond to the questions for that area because I am almost always very happy with the wait staff and almost always disappointed with the MDR food quality. I don’t want them to get it re-made because it just isn’t that good. If it were that good the specialty restaurants wouldn’t be so popular. I know what it will be and it won’t be great because of cost control. I’m okay with that. If I want 5-Star dining I’ll take Silversea, Oceania, or Regent and pay $10K more. I will acknowledge excellence by naming an outstanding waiter by name.