rjweber3

We have stayed at Hilton Doubletree GalleryOne in Ft Lauderdale.  It is older but good location.  It is on canal and the water taxi stop is at the hotel.  The ocean is about 2 blocks away, mall across the street.  i think all rooms have mini kitchen and grocery store about 2 blocks away also. 

Still sailing on Oasis until August 4th 😁  
Today was our absolutely Perfect Day at Coco Cay!  Sunshine all day.  Only downer was the jellyfish in the water!  My granddaughter got stung this morning.  Took her to the Lifeguard who sprayed her arm with vinegar.  Worked great and did not deter her from enjoying the rest of the day.  

Apparently you can now.
It is wasteful how it is for sure, but people still respond to seeing printed pictures of themselves.  Royal's goal isn't to have the least waste, it's to make the most money.  If the photo waste exceeds its cost in incremental sales it's a win for them.

It is not available at every port. Basically it allows you to pay to leave your luggage outside your cabin and Royal transports it to the airport and checks it on your behalf. You won't see the luggage again until you arrive to baggage claim after your flight home.

Just a quick note / suggestion from our cruise just gone, our first ever so I’m in no way an expert, but if you have to drive after disembarking think about that the night before! In all fairness our usual Barman asked me at about 8:30pm if I was driving from Southampton or getting picked up. When I said driving he said “not too much tonight then” which I thought was a great thing. I had planned to stop at 9 anyway to give it a good 12 hours but the fact he asked was a really good and responsible thing. I had not been rolling around drunk or anything but some nights we were in there until 12 or later. I felt like he genuinely cared ?

+1 for this, especially if you're on a shorter cruise (<7 days) and you can afford to take the extra day or two to fill out the week off from work. I did that last October for our Bermuda sailing then, doing it again this year. Combined with the fact we're just driving home from the port, it makes for a nice relaxed disembarkation.
On these trips, we're that couple; the one who's hanging out in Two70 Lounge, enjoying the last beverage sold in the cafe and waiting until 9:30, when we hear that very final, "Please, if you're not doing a B2B then GTFO!" We've made sure to clear the room plenty early so housekeeping doesn't have turnaround impacted, but darned if we'll rush our breakfast or not enjoy the last bits of hospitality we can elsewhere.
I just read an article about how people in the US are reluctant or embarrassed to take their vacation time and it blew my mind. You've got it, for goodness sake use it!

Not to hijack your thread, Traveler but I have a disembarkation tale to pass on.
As most of you may recall, it was 1 year ago that LIB in Galveston lost our luggage at the terminal.  Since that time we no longer leave our bags outside the night before disembarkation; instead, we choose to keep our bags and walk them off when we disembark. Ok.  Nothing unusual about that BUT our car wasn’t coming to pick us up until 9:00 and the last thing we wanted was to leave the ship with the early birds and then be stuck out in the hot Texas sun for an hour or more.
I asked the Suites Concierge if she could help us but her time for walking off luggage was too early and walk-off scenario for later departures included stairs which was a no-go for us with all that luggage.  So, we were left to our own devices.  We decided to leave our suite at 7:30 and wait at Boleros on deck 4 until 8:30.  It was perfect. We found chairs next to power outlets and our hour passed quickly BUT we could see the departure line getting longer and longer and longer and longer.  We were suddenly not too happy with our plan.  They had security posted strategically to keep the line jumpers away.  
If things had been left to me, we would have just made the long and sad trek to the back of the line but Dan is smarter than me.  He went up to one of the security guys, told him we were in a suite (our luggage tags confirmed that as well),  and to my utter astonishment, he took us some circuitous route through closed doors, past barriers, past long lines of people all the way through to a special exit kiosk.  Even our Concierge never took us that far !  As a matter of fact, last year when we disembarked, our “expedited disembarkation” was a ticket to the back of that very long line.  We remarked at the time, “I could have done this myself.  What did I need the Concierge for ?”  I’m sure this saved us at least 40 minutes !  So the moral of this story is....don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.  Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t. Luckily for us, this time, we did.

You can walk to Junkanoo Beach, but just be prepared to say "no thank you" firmly a lot along the way.
The benefit of a tour is you should be able to meet a guide and avoid anyone asking to "help" you.

We are taking Mariner 9/29 - 10/7 and booked Cruise Control Transportation to take us from MCO to Port Canaveral and back.  We are staying at an MCO-area hotel the night before the cruise so they are picking us up at the hotel the morning of 9/29.  Our flight home (out of MCO) is on the afternoon of 10/7 so they are taking us from the cruise terminal to MCO that day.
Since it's just the wife and me, this option is way cheaper than Uber/Lyft and gave us the flexibility of picking us up at the hotel the morning of embarkation and taking us back to the airport on disembarkation day.

aw this is just a lack of communication - your agent just has to ask them to refund the $200 and they will - but airfare is so tricky if you or your agent do not know "key words" when talking to air desk people is so confusing - I always tell my clients until they have air ticketed its not really active for them and you can ticket anytime once they are held, but you should not have had to go through the million calls to find this out- bummer air is the hardest part of travel nowadays

I think in general he is correct.  So many return guests don't leave the ship.  Why is that?  They are near the bottom in surveys just above Freeport.  That's doesn't say much about how Nassau is received by the cruising public.
If you are into drugs there is a beach you walk to be and you'll be offered a choice of drugs.  That's not a good look and a pretty poor family experience.
Royal is building their beach club next door to establish a place that can be something to do and somewhere to go because without it there is little point getting off the ship. 
Nassau needs to be honest with itself if it wants to change.  Griping about cruise ships guests not leaving the ship won't accomplish anything.  Someone needed to say it.  

I have a Canon that has wifi connectivity. You just download the canon app and connect the phone to the camera under the phone's wifi settings. No internet required as you're only using wifi to connect the two devices. Then you can transfer the photos onto your phone. 

AS I've grown older in cruising, this has become more and more important!! After 25+ cruises over 20+ years, the numbers are not as easy to remember as they were.🥴

AS I've grown older in cruising, this has become more and more important!! After 25+ cruises over 20+ years, the numbers are not as easy to remember as they were.🥴

Pretty much. I think it's 48 hours, but your workflow is correct.
Last I checked, it wasn't available for all sailings yet

I always tag all of my bags, including my carry-ons.
1.  I have an easy way to recall which cabin I am in !!
2.  If the carry-ons somehow become separated from me, the crew will know where to deliver the stray bag.

I do just in case I get separated from it. Is it possible, well it happened on of first Royal cruise with the kids. Our oldest has health issues, so he can't carry anything on and my wife is taking care of him. We had 3 carry on's (med, oxygen, etc). I could carry two but let my youngest who might have been 10 at the time carry the third. Told him it was his responsibly. Anyhow going into the buffet he cleans his hands at the Purell machine and walks in, leaving the what I asked him to look after there. My fault, I didn't check on him. As we're finishing lunch I can't find the bag. Fortunately it was still sitting there at the Purell when we walked out. Many lessons learned at that moment. one being attaching a luggage tag to the carry ons 🙂 

We were waiting for pick up this morning right beside the Uber/Lyft pick up area. There were many pickups going on, and I kept over hearing people say anywhere from $75-100 for the trip to Hobby. Since we were in that area until almost 10:00 a.m., after everything died down after 9:30 a.m., there were literally Uber drivers coming up to us asking if we needed a ride. So, I think there's definitely availability! Still, it might be better to order one ahead of time.

I just called Casino Royale, the lady said Instant rewards have my name as reserve.  My first name as last name.. lolz.  If I have to check instant reward, I have to type my first name as Last name.  And the regular offer have my correct.  I asked if she can correct it, she said can't.  She's afraid it will delete my instant rewards.  I guess I will need to visit the host and have them correct it once I get on my April Cruise.  Wow since day one Casino Royale Instant reward have my name reserve.  how is that possible.

A man finds a lamp and a genie pops out.  The genie says I will give you three wishes but what ever you wish for your mother-in-law gets twice as much!  He asks for his first wish.  I want a two week cruise in a star class suite.  He is granted a two week cruise and his mother-in-law get a back to back cruise of the same class suite. He thinks for a moment and says "I want a million $$ ship board credit."  He receives his credit and his in-law gets two million.  He thinks for a moment and says "this isn't fair, I found the lamp!"  Finally he says "I got it!  I want you to scare me half to death." 

We cruised from Amsterdam in May on the X line. We disembarked in Rotterdam. The next cruises seemed to be using Rotterdam also. 
No big deal. 30-45 minute bus ride to AMS Schiphol. Actually better scenery also. As another poster said, above, it's very industrial. But if you can cruise from Newark or LA, you can do so from Rotterdam.

I'd rather have priority on disembarking. Another thread on here said people were lining up at 10:00 am for 12:30 disembarkation in Cabo san Lucas. The ship is only in port from 12:30 - 8:00, so waiting in line for 2 hours to get off the ship does not sound pleasant.  Although, I know it seems the lines are generally the longest first thing and then closer to sail away times.

We fly into Hobby and Uber to the port.  Uber is around 50-60 dollars for the trip.  We usually stay in Webster as its nice, has plenty of options for lodging and food.

We cruised out of Galveston just shy of a year ago and used Galveston Express for transportation.  We were very pleased with them and will use them again if we take another cruise from Galveston.  The whole shuttle process was simple. 
 
We flew into IAH and flew back home from HOU.  

I think one of the benefits of the design is that Adults won't have to find a quiet place.  Kids and families will be finding active places.  Stay away from Deck 7 and you'll be missing a good amount of sailors.  Down there they will splash and scream and ride the carousel and go to Adventure Ocean and even eat.