JBC

I was on Odyssey in Feb and the pool chairs were all gone by 7 am on sea days.  I also saw attendants walking around tagging chairs.  Those people must hate getting that assignment.  There just isn't enough chairs for the amount of people looking for them.  Also part of the issue is the smoking side of the pool deck.  There are frequently open tables and chairs over there because no one wants to sit there.  They really should figure out how to relocate the smoking section to a less prime spot, maybe more towards the aft of the ship.  It doesn't bother me when walking past, but I would not want to be lounging close by or be down wind all day.  A lot of lounge chairs could be added to that area.  

I was on a sold out Odyssey in February.  Can confirm that while I personally didn't have trouble operating the elevator buttons, lots of people did.  Which leads to lots of unnecessary stops and lots of waiting for elevators.  It's definitely an issue and a common complaint regarding that ship.  On a sold out sailing, it was awful.  

I echo pretty much everything the original poster said.  Super clean ship, food and service were great.  The layout is not conducive to crowds and is generally a bit odd.  I also did not go to 270 at all.  All I ever noticed going on there was "The Book" which I have seen before and is terrible.  So I never had a reason to go there.  Yet every trivia event was held at the pub or schooner, and they were all packed to the gills 20 mins before they started.  Not a good plan, the music hall and 270 are 4 times the size and both seemed very underutilized all week.  It seems I spent way too much time all week looking for chairs at the pub, schooner and the pool deck/solarium.  Way more so than on other ships.     

3 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Yes, but it is a super poor excuse for one. It wins for being the worst suite sundeck on any Quantum/Oasis/Icon class ship. There are photos of it in my blog that I linked but it's literally a strip of space and that's it.

Odyssey also wins for having the worst elevators on any ship.  The touchless buttons are sensitive, they light up anytime anyone gets near them and you can't unselect them, so the elevators are constantly making stops at floors that no one wants to get on or off at.  So the wait for elevators is terrible.  Just got off Odyssey, and I had read about the elevator issue on here before, but experiencing it in person, I can confirm it's accurate.  

Our cruise was apparently sold out, and boy, it was noticeable everywhere.  Long wait times to get drinks everywhere, the pool chair situation on sea days was beyond ridiculous (every chair "reserved" by 7am), every venue packed in the evenings, hard to get seats to anything without going exceptionally early.  Heard lots of complaints all week long from people, and witnessed a lot of testy exchanges. 

The ship itself is beautiful, but IMO it cannot handle a sold out sailing.    

Nobody with the disposable income to buy this would.  It makes zero sense.  You can't even calculate the break even point when considering the free drink vouchers someone already gets with that many cruises, plus the time value of money factor.  This is just an advertisement / marketing ploy to spur RC discussion.  

A tip in hand when making the order will usually take care of the floater cost.  

I really wish Royal would just give bigger discounts off drink packages to diamond and higher up levels, instead of vouchers.  

2 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

We knew about it for years but somehow never made it there til last month. Solid timing on my part, lol.

Giving Paradise Beach a try this summer. There's a pretty long discussion about it in the Shore Excursions forum from last month. Some forum members will be there next month.

I really liked Paradise Beach.  Lots of room, huge pool, food was decent, and the drink servers come fast and often.  Get there when they open and you will have free reign of the place, it didn't start getting crowded until around noon when I went.  I've never been to Nachi but I've been to Mr Sanchos and Paradise Beach is way better.  I will definitely return to Paradise the next time we are in Cozumel.  

8 night Odyssey in February drink package dropped to 72.99, which is what I bought it for a few months back during some sale.  It had been fluctuating between 75.99 and 83.99 in the past few months.  Internet went down to 17.99, I got a 4 device package for $320 which is $10/day per device.  It's more than I have ever paid for that but at the same time it's cheaper than I have seen it all year.  Dining all stayed the same as it has been, which is already high in my opinion.  Beach club is $253.99 and water park are $151.99, which are both crazy.  

I have no idea what a base pay is for a cruise ship employee that is part of the tip pool, but with just some conservative simple math, an Oasis class ship with 6,000 passengers is probably about $800,000 in gratuities for a 7 night sailing (blending the regular rooms with suites, less people that remove the tips).  Then say another 1,000 drink packages so that's another $100,000.  Then gratuities on dining packages, say another $100,000.  Is it crazy to say a mostly full Oasis class ship will take in a million dollars in gratuities for a 7 night sailing at least, if not more?  Not counting cash tippers on top of that.  Of the 2,200 crew, how many are in the tip pool, 2,000?  Do gratuities account for more of their pay than salary?  Either way, to me it doesn't seem as much like indentured servitude like people sometimes make it out to be.  And I am with most when I say it won't stop me from going, it's just annoying when services are being reduced.   

19 hours ago, DunkelBierJay said:

I've done third party a few times, and it's always better.

This.  I don't do any excursions thru Royal anymore, the 3rd party ones are always better and always cheaper.  Just do your research (read reviews and such) to make sure you are getting a reputable operator, and allow yourself enough of a buffer for the all aboard time and you will be fine.  No reputable 3rd party excursion operator will let you miss your ship as the reviews that would come from this would kill them.  

15 hours ago, Lisa0755 said:

WRONG!!!!!! Service dogs CAN and ARE in strollers, laps, or anywhere they need to ve to do their job!!!!! I have a small dog and I am diabetic. My dog is trained to let me know when my blood sugar is low and since he is small, he often rides in a stroller so he is closer to my face. How is he to do his job from the floor when I am 5 feet above him!!!! I am so sick of people judging others because the THINK  they can tell a real service dog from a fake. It is obvious you CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT be telling people these lies!!!!! My dog is in my medical chart and I travel with a doctors note even though it is not needed all because people like you spreading lies that if a dog is in a stroller , they are not true service dogs! You should be ashamed!!!!!

Serious question, because I have never heard of a dog for detecting low blood sugar.  Why would a dog be used for this task in place of a continuous glucose monitoring device?  I am not diabetic so I know nothing about it, but I would think now a days with advances in wearable tech (things like apple watches and such) would make it way less of a hassle on a daily basis than the logistics of bringing a dog everywhere.  I would also think a service dog trained for this task would be extremely expensive.  Again, I am genuinely curious, and am not judging you.    

2 hours ago, baltodave said:

Totally agree.  If they charge for this adults-only beach, what's to stop them from charging to enter the Solarium?

 

The way Royal has been going, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this was tossed around in some meetings.  Until the number of passengers drops or people stop doing the activities with the upcharges, it will continue. 

They will probably ease into it.  Upcharge to enter the Solarium on sea days, free on port days   

I have a question on this.  The pictures of the Hibachi tables on Odyssey clearly show 12 seats, but the cruise planner will only let you select up to 8.  What do you do if you have more than 8 people?  

I was on Mariner two weeks ago, and I echo most of your sentiments.  MDR food was ok, not great.  Portions definitely smaller.  The upcharges for the specialty restaurants are getting to the point of them not being worth it in my opinion.  Bar service was also wildly inconsistent.  If I didn't have the DBP and was actually paying $14 for a drink, I would have definitely complained at times. 

The star lounge on mariner is huge, and it seems underused at times to me.  Trivia is wildly popular at schooner, to the point that you better get there 20 minutes before it starts or you won't get a seat.  They should hold more of those trivia sessions at star lounge instead of schooner.

Gallery of Dreams is a "original royal production", and like almost all of royal's original productions, it's just singing and dancing with some costumes, and good luck trying to discern what the story actually is or what is going on.  I actually look forward to these productions just so I can walk out and say I have no idea what that actually was.  We had two different comedians, one was laughably bad.  His adult show was not adult at all, very PG.  Not a big deal other than it not being funny.  The second comedian was Drew Thomas, and both of his shows (regular and adult) were hilarious.  One of the best comedians I have seen on a royal cruise.  We had a juggler that was great, frequent royal performer "el gaucho" who was decent, and a trio of female singers that were good.  The ice show was good as usual.  Overall for not being an Oasis ship, I was pleasantly surprised by the on board entertainment.  The reggae band that played on the pool deck a few days was really good too.           

On 8/9/2023 at 3:48 PM, Al Miller said:

I know right? They already took the Anti-Pasti away. Scaled the WJ way back. Gutted the MDR menu. Rolled back cleaning service. Doubled or tripled nearly every fee on Coco Cay. That mostly all happened the first month after Fain stepped down. I could have understood this stuff more when the restart first happened and they were actually just barely getting by. But it seemed like Fain was trying to protect the product. Now, it seems nothing is off limits and they are testing the waters to see how much they can get away with. It's a slippery slope.

This is spot on from the first page.  Add steeply increased prices on drink packages and internet packages to the list as well.  One at a time these things don't seem like huge issues but add them up and you get to a huge issue quick.  I will be at Coco Cay this Saturday, will be my first time going there not going to the beach club.  The price is insane and I refuse to pay it.  So I will see what the "complimentary" Oasis Lagoon experience is like.  Odds are it won't be nearly equal to the beach club.  So that will lead to the line of thinking that maybe it's time to check out another cruise line, just on the principal of it. 

As everyone says, Sorrento's is bad to average pizza at best.  But at midnight after hitting the bars, it's good enough.  I will not pay a fee for it though.  Honestly that might be the nail in the coffin.  There is nothing else available late, and I don't want a cold sandwich that has been sitting out for hours.  If they take Sorrento's out of new builds, what are they replacing it with?  What hot food option could be cheaper for RC than Sorrento's?

I really hope people start speaking with their wallets.  Although Disney Cruises did this same thing (extraordinary price increases across the board) many years back and it didn't seem to slow their demand.   

I did this once on Anthem.  I personally didn't care for it.  Two of your sea days will be cold weather.  Yes, there are things to do inside, but I prefer to be outside on sea days.  The solarium is enclosed, but to me it makes it feel like the indoor pool at a hotel.  I guess I just prefer the tropical outside air.  This cruise I also experienced the worst seas I have ever experienced out of several cruises, barf bags in the hallways in both directions off the coast of the Carolinas.  Flying to Florida sucks because of the cost, but I would rather start right out in the warm weather.  Obviously this is personal opinion.    

My rule of thumb is if someone is bringing me a drink, like a server, then I will throw them a buck each time.  I'm talking about servers at the pool, servers in the theater, servers in Schooner, etc.  If I walk up to a bar and get a drink myself then I won't tip anything additional.  If I am sitting at a bar for a while and have multiple drinks, I will leave a couple bucks when I leave.  In principle it bugs me since I already paid 18%, but at the end of the day, the dollars mean way more to them than they do to me.  An extra $50-$100 over the course of a week vacation isn't an issue. 

I will say, in my observations, I feel like I am not the norm in this regard.  I see a lot of people get drinks from servers and they just take their cards back and that is it.  No tips.  The servers don't seem bothered, honestly it happens constantly, so I think they are numb to it.  I always do receive a thank you though.     

Starlink for me so far on a couple of cruises hasn't been great.  Very spotty in both my room and on other areas of the ship.  One day on the pool deck I could stream music from my phone fine, another day nothing.  Same seating areas.  Same with my room, sometimes worked fine, other times it was unusable.  There are lots of threads about this on here, various tips and what not.  I think the main factors are the location of the ship, and then your location on the ship.  Also the connectivity settings on your devices.  If it is really necessary to the point where if I am not on this teams call I will lose my job, then I would be very, very hesitant to count on it.  Everyone's mileage will vary though.

@twangster I believe has had some helpful posts on here about this topic.  

$284 for my Feb 2024 cruise on Odyssey.  I've been there three times, never paid over $100.  It's nice, but not worth anywhere near that.  

I'm actually glad it's priced that high because I don't even have to think about it.  If it was like $150 I might be on the fence.  

Add another step

5.  Be prepared for the internet connection to be spotty and at some times downright unusable.  If you can climb one of the communication towers on the ship, that may help.     

My first cruise ever (many years ago) was on Disney Wonder.  They made a fabulous banana daiquiri.  I have never been able to find a similar creation on Royal.   

I once made a 9:45am flight out of FLL after a cruise.  It was extremely nerve wracking and I vowed never to do it again.  10:55 would be very tempting, especially if the next alternative is 3:30 out of MIA.  I hate waiting around too long for flights after a cruise.  

I think the issue with rising tide is that there are so few seats there.  I've been on 3 different Oasis class ships, and I have never "rode" the rising tide bar.  Every time I've walked past it, there are no seats available, or only 1 or 2 seats.  I'm always with a group, 3 or 4 people.  I don't really care though if a kid is taking up a seat, whatever.  I'm sure there are adults sitting on there for hours riding it up and down, so that could be looked at in the same light, being inconsiderate to keep taking up seats.

Kids in a bar don't really bother me, but at the same time if it is later in the evening, and depending on the venue, I don't want to have to be overly cautious of doing or saying something because there are kids around in an adult setting.  Obviously on a royal caribbean cruise no one is getting too wild, but you know what I mean.  

Cigars are a different world entirely from cigarettes, pot, vaping, etc.  It's a shame they are still shunned all the same, and now relegated to the same outdoor area on deck as anyone smoking anything else.  The connoisseur clubs were great, I am glad I got to experience one on Freedom before they took them away.  I am not a huge cigar smoker, only have them occasionally, but there are few better spots to enjoy a cigar than on the high seas!    

Almost no deals exist on board, regardless of the advertising.  They are preying on you being in "vacation mode" and getting sucked into the vibe and what not.  People like shopping and buying things, and they know that.  Those watch sales are particularly ridiculous, but they continue to be on every cruise, so people are buying or they wouldn't be there.