JBC

The worst cup of coffee I think I have ever had in my life was on a Disney cruise. And it wasn't just an off cup, the coffee was consistently bad all week, just completely bland, I couldn't believe it. Everything Disney does is great, right? Yea, not the free coffee on their ships. On my first RC cruise, I was relieved that the coffee was much better.

I hate trying to get a good spot by the pool on sea days. The chair saving is ridiculous.

Does sound like a dumb time to teach kids to swim. Swim lessons for kids take at least a few outings. I agree that it sounds like something else the parents can pay for to pawn the kids off for a while. To each their own though I guess.

I have a February 2018 sailing on Harmony booked and I am keeping an eye on this. For my cruise it is currently listed as regular price $55 a day, so when you add the 18% gratuity it takes it to $65 a day. I am figuring there will be a 20% off sale at some point, which is essentially save the gratuity. Hoping for sure maybe on black Friday. We will see.

I have sort of an on topic question. Last cruise I got the drink package and my go to drink during the day poolside is a margarita. Just a regular margarita. Depending on what bar I happened to be at, sometimes they would make it with patron and sometimes they would make it with the well brand tequila, despite both being available at the bar. All I ordered was a margarita, I didn't say a patron margarita or a grand margarita, so what was I doing wrong? It wasn't a huge deal, especially after a few of them, but why drink well brand when you can drink top shelf? The basic margarita made with patron was covered with the drink package, so what would have been the proper order to get one made with patron every time? You can file this under first world problems, by the way, lol.

I have seen people turned away from the MDR wearing shorts on formal nights, but not on regular dining nights.

Think of it as having breakfast in the main dining room with an expanded menu but before you eat you get a tour of a large commercial kitchen. Some parts of it are interesting, but I think kids would get bored quickly. They do have some nicer food items though, like cheeses, shrimp, etc. Kids attending would be totally fine, it's not adults only. My wife and I did it on our last cruise, it was just ok for us. We wouldn't do it again.

I agree with Floski on the MDR. Before going on my first RC cruise, I had read mixed opinions on the MDR, and having already sailed Disney, with their great food, I was sort of mentally prepared for a let down. Well, I was not let down. I thought the MDR was great, both the standard items and the items that changed each night. Throw in all the specialty dining options, plus the Windjammer that you can go to whenever you want, and I would argue the food and dining options are better on RC. On Disney, you are assigned a specific restaurant each night, one of which is their buffett and depending on the length of your cruise, they will repeat. They are all great, but outside of that, the specialty options are only one or two places. Again, not to bash Disney, but considering the thousands more that the overall trip costs, I will stick with Royal. Like someone else said, it is more a la carting rather than nickel and diming.

I have sailed both Disney and Royal, balcony rooms on both, and even after paying for the extras on Royal (beverage packages and internet package), the Royal cruise was just just about half the price of the Disney cruise. I haven't researched a Disney cruise in a while, and maybe my memory is foggy, but other than soda I don't remember anything else being included in the fare on the Disney cruise. It is all personal opinion, but we are Royal converts now because we feel it is a much better value for us, plus we feel Royal offers more for adults. Disney is great for kids, don't get me wrong, but their cruises are very heavily geared towards kids, and at some point on the vacation, the wife and I like to enjoy adult stuff. Royal offers a great mix for adults and kids at a better price. Again, purely personal opinion.

On a recent Freedom sailing I had this issue with my kids, they were 9 and 7 and fell into different age groups. Neither of my kids really cared, as they are both pretty outgoing, so they were fine going to separate rooms. I found that most evenings and some other times as well that due to there not being that many kids in the clubs they combined the groups anyways, so as others have said, I think it depends on the amount of kids and the situation. I think if you go there and talk to the people, tell them your situation, stress that they are brothers and in 2 months the younger one turns 12, please don't split them up....I would be very surprised if they told you no. They get these kinds of requests on every sailing, and if they told everyone no exceptions you would hear about it, and it would also make for a lot of angry cruisers. I really wouldn't worry about it, I don't think you will have any issues.

I agree that with the prevalence of drink packages, they definitely limit the availability of alcohol in certain areas. MDR for sure, I also noticed it in Labadee. We rented a bungalow, got there pretty early, like 9 am or so, and I don't think the bar was open until close to 11 am (we were told they had to "set" it up). You can bet if there were no such thing as drink packages that the bar would have been ready and waiting to take your money at 9 am!

One of my only disappointments with my recent cruise on Freedom (first Royal cruise for me) was that the bar service in the MDR was very lackluster. I had a beverage package, as did a few others at our table, and it was very difficult to get at most 2 glasses of wine during the course of dinner. The server handling this seemed to have way too many tables to service, when he would finally get to us he had like 25 cards and slips on his tray. We requested bar service from our waiter and he would get the bar server but then you would see your wine about 20 minutes later. After day 2 I started stopping at Vintages on my way to dinner to grab a glass there to bring with me, since it was so difficult to get a glass of wine in the MDR. My other alcohol related complaint was that when I was ordering margaritas during the day, some bartenders would make it with Patron and some would make it with well brand. It's not a huge deal, but even when mixed in, you can taste the difference. I know I could have probably requested the Patron without an issue, but I didn't. Next time I will just ask what the difference is and if I need to request the drink differently or something. I try not to be a complainer, so it takes a lot for me to say something.

My kids were in separate groups on our last cruise (6-8 and 9-11), and I would say about 50% of the time when we went to pick them up the groups were combined in one room. Sign up for family dining. Anytime you are having dinner in the MDR, they will bring your kids meals first, and then after like 45 mins you take your kids to the entrance of the MDR and the AO people will be waiting there to take them to AO and you get to go back in and enjoy the rest of your meal. This was wonderful and we were glad we did it. Confirm with your waiter that you signed up for this so they know to bring the kids meals right away.

I asked this same question on my last cruise. The AO staff told me in the event of an emergency, they can call the cabin, check the system for sea pass card activity to send someone to find us, and last resort would be a page over the PA. The lady told me it rarely happens and they almost always can handle the situation without needing to get a parent. I do not recall hearing a page for a parent once on the entire cruise, and my kids never had any issues. On Disney they give every parent a pager, and all your kid has to do is tell them they want you and the staff pages you. This is good and bad. On Disney we got paged many times and some of those times when we arrived our kids had changed their mind and didn't want to leave. So it can be annoying.

Normally you have to be out of your rooms by 9 am and the last groups are debarking around 1030 or so. On our last cruise we had a late afternoon flight and our group got off around 10:15 or so. We were one of the last groups but they seemed to be ahead of schedule. I believe the Windjammer closes on debarkation day at 830 or 9. They definitely want you off of the ship. Debarkation day is awful anyways, so I would rather just get up early and get it over with instead of waiting around.

I'll echo those saying good pizza. Sorrento's barely qualifies as pizza, the cheese is god awful. There are many frozen varieties that are better. Along with that topic, a place for quick late night eats would be nice, other than Sorrento's. Something with quick bar type food, chicken fingers, fries, burgers, etc. After a few alcohol infused hours in the various bars on the ship, come midnight or 1 am something to soak it up on the way back to my room would be good. I can't believe I am complaining about lack of food availability on a cruise.

We just did the galley tour on Freedom last month, I would assume all galley tours to be very similar. It was advertised as $35 per person, but our waiter offered it to us for 20% off, so it ended up being $28 a person. So you may want to wait to book it, your waiter around mid point in the cruise will mention it to you, I would assume they all have the ability to give a discount. The brunch is a pretty good spread and you can have as much champagne and mimosas as you want. The tour itself was ok, there were at least 100 people who did it on Freedom, so they broke us up into groups of 20 when we went on the tour. To me there was nothing really ground breaking about the tour, it's a big, high output commercial kitchen. It is something different to do, so I guess if you can get it for cheaper it is worth it to do it once. I wouldn't do it again though.

I have these and I love them. Very supportive, pretty much like a regular sneaker. https://www.amazon.com/Columbia-Supervent-Fashion-Sneaker-Charcoal/dp/B01015XQ2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486733829&sr=8-1&keywords=columbia+mens+supervent+ii

I have two of these booked in two weeks. How do you go about getting golf cart service from the pier?

18% gratuity is already included in the price. When given a slip to sign for each drink, there is a spot to add additional gratuity. Some people add additional, an extra buck or what not, and some don't. You are not obligated to add anything.

WhiteSoxFan - I am taking the same exact cruise as you in February, so I look forward (and appreciate) you bringing those compasses back!

We try to do one "big" vacation per year. Have only been on 1 cruise before, it was Disney Wonder and it was great. Since then we have done the complete Disney World experience, every park, etc. Next year's trip we decided to do another cruise and I wanted to try one of the other Disney ships, and like others, I was shocked when I looked to see how much Disney had gone up in price since we went before. So I started looking elsewhere, and the general consensus is that RCCL is almost on par with Disney for families with kids. Found a great itinerary, 8 nights on Freedom, half the cost of a Disney 7 night the same week, went for it. I am not a casino person, nor is my wife, so we don't really care about that, but we do enjoy the night life stuff, and I found it to be pretty quiet on the Disney ship. None of the adult bars were ever close to crowded, and in a way, it affected the atmosphere. We are lucky in that my parents insist on coming on our "big" vacations, and they are not interested in doing the bars late at night, so we get connecting rooms and at least one of them, if not both, are fine with being in the room at night, sitting on the balcony while our kids are sleeping in the connected room, so the wife and I can go out. Another plus for RCCL (for me) is that Disney does not offer any drink packages. My drink tab for my wife and I was like $500 on the Disney cruise for 5 nights, and most of that was me. I was never drunk at all, but damn, they add up. A few $12 drinks at the pool, glass of wine or two at dinner, a couple of drinks at night and well, here's your $500 tab. So I am expecting that the drink package will work out well for me, and I will just pay for the few that my wife has. That's not a knock against Disney, I completely understand why they don't offer drink packages or have casinos on their ships. But taking these things into consideration, along with double the price, and I don't see the benefits anymore. One point for Disney though, if you have young kids and they are into the characters and what not, all of them are on the ship, and they are way more accessible there than compared to the parks. The ships have character photo sessions all throughout the day in the atrium of the ship, and you get the schedule before hand, so you can plan it out to have your kids see who they want. 15 minute wait tops to get their picture taken, unlike the sometimes hour waits in the parks. When we went to the park, we didn't do any character meets, other than Mickey, because my kids had done them all the year before on the ship. Anyways, super looking forward to Freedom in February.

Read too fast, didn't notice you were going out of Miami and staying in Lauderdale. Uber would be my suggestion, worth the extra cost over a shuttle for the personal service.

Uber is so much better than a traditional cab, and it is not even close. Never had a bad experience with Uber. Not sure that you can use them without the app though. I have a cruise departing from Lauderdale this February, we are staying at the Marriott not too far from the cruise terminal and they provide a shuttle to the port. It is not a cheap hotel though (I don't think those exist in Fort Lauderdale!). I think a lot of the hotels in the area normally have a shuttle, even if there is a fee, it's normally less than $10 per person.

I emailed the question to Royal. The cup is still pictured on the flyer in the windows for all of the packages (select, premium and ultimate). Would make no sense for one single person to to have to puchase more than one drink package. The response in their FAQs is what is bothering me.