bsbrady

I was just off the Odyssey and saw it in the case at Giovannis wine bar.

Following.

We did the 12 day Anthem at the end of March. Like everyone said by the second sea day the weather warmed up significantly, enough to get some sun by the pool. That cruise was great. Not only some really good ports, the ship is great. Specialty restaurants were amazing, Wonderland & Jaime's are a must. The 12 days is a very nice amount of time, so even if the weather is so-so the first and last day you dont feel like you missed anything because you still had 10 awesome days.  

It was on the Allure and we specifically went there to avoid the Windjammer.

Thanks, we will be on the Allure this Sunday. Cant wait!! :D

Is Sabor open during embarkation. Would much rather go there than to Windjammer

 

The one thing that DOES bother me is the servers begging for good reviews on the cruise review.  I guess they deal with people who cruise a lot and those that are new cruisers so they feel they have to try and cajole you into giving them a good review but it's irritating.  Luckily it only happened once on this past cruise but I have been on cruises where they continually "remind" you that they need at least an 8 on the review or they are considered "unsatisfactory".  Basically, this tells me that the review statistics are unreliable and meaningless.  If an 8 out of 10 is "unsatisfactory" then your ranking system is flawed !

I agree, but that is Royal that is doing that. The employees are being told that unless they get a good rating the tips will be withheld. 

I believe the windjammer has a bar that serves specialty coffee's 

Before we went on our Anthem cruise, I read so many bad reviews. I was starting to wonder. But We loved it. It was one of the best cruises we did. The reviews were not what I experienced. Also, some of the reviews that are negative, people complain about the smallest details that have no impact on the overall experience. 

We are in a D2 hump on the Allure in 2 weeks. I am curious also. From what I read the normal balcony is 50 sq feet and the hump is 80 sq ft. People have said that they can fit a full lounger on them. 

I always found the specialty dining great. There is an additional cost, but if you were to go to a restaurant on land the meal that you get in a specialty dining venue would cost hundreds of dollars. The way I see it Im getting a $200 meal for $40. Always worth it at least once.

Will be at the Hilton on Jan 27-29. I will let you know if you can wait that long

I was wondering if there was somewhere I can lookup who the comedian will be on my cruise, or cover band or any other non standard entertainment. 

The thing that gets me is I pre paid for my drink package with the expectation of drink prices up to ~$12-$13, which would be covered under my package (going on allure so up to $13 is included) Now is prices are $15 - $18  per drink, I paid for the package and then have to shell out $3 - $5 per drink +18% on top of that. That should be illegal. Its like RCl increasing the price of the cruise after you book and them telling you , in order to board you have to pay us more. 

Can anyone confirm that RCL is raising the drink prices. Im hearing around $15 per drink. 

Strange, its that documented somewhere. I thought the point of the new and only beverage package is that all drinks up to $12 or $13 are included. 

We were on the Anthem 12 day and many people were golfing in St Kitts. The royal st kitts golf club is very nice. And as a side note, if anyone doesn't golf in your group you can get a day pass at the Marriott. Very nice resort

http://www.royalstkittsgolfclub.com/

The other thing why Im leaning toward the Uber, is even on embarkation day, I have to take the car back to the airport and then take a cab or shuttle to the port. Mind made up. Uber it is!

We are spending 2 nights pre cruise at the Hilton Beach Resort in FLL. Just deciding if I should rent a car for the 2 days. Will just be going to eat, maybe a little shopping, not too much traveling around. Would it be better to get a car or just Uber back and forth  

I wish they would offer the card for 4-5 night cruises to purchase pre cruise in the planner-like the cafe select card. That would be my personal drink package as I cannot drink enough to make the ultimate package worth it!

I dont think they would do that. Then no one would buy the drink package. You would just buy the 10 drink card and if you use it half way through, you can get another. They count on people buying the package and not drinking that much. 

One thing the drink card would come in handy for is when/if you want to buy a drink for friends or family or buy a round at the bar type thing. No option to do that with the drink package(well unless you want to pay full price for each drink)

 

Had friends that got engaged on a previous cruise and wanted to buy them a glass of champagne each...you would have thought I was asking them to turn the ship around....no way they wanted to do it....even when I told them to charge it to my card.....they still didn't want to "give" me more than one drink at a time

 

So perhaps in that situation a drink card would have been nice to have.

Probably would have been better to just buy the bottle. You would get 20% or 40% off depending on the cost and they would give you multiple glasses

I would suggest getting a clear heavy duty packing tape. That is what I used on my last cruise. 

I have done that before, it works. But for my upcoming trip I purchased luggage tags from amazon. They are reusable and can be used not just for cruising:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PGOCUE/ref=as_sl_pd_tf_lc?tag=royalcacom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B009PGOCUE&adid=1FEG7A640D0M53WW66YB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.royalcaribbeanblog.com%2Froyal-caribbean-luggage-tags

power strip or extension cords are now on the banned list

^{I see alot of people mentioning the cover charge. on the Anthem there was no cover, all items were ala carte. $2.95 for a burger, etc. And it was right by the pool so no burger bbq poolside.}  

Most definitely make a reservation for We will Rock you. Best show I have ever seen on a ship. The gift was OK, and to be honest Spectre was just weird.