jticarruthers

If your talking Symphony fair enough, but that's been the story for a while on Harmony now and by 2019, she's hardly a "new ship". Think I just need to adjust to Royal costs more and either its worth the premium or its not. So far I keep coming up with not but we shall see. Since Harmony launched, I have already sailed on NCL Escape and CCL Vista that launched after her and plan to sail on MSC Seaside and CCL Horizon that both launched after her and in all cases the prices have been significantly better than comparable RCL ... so the new ship premium is apparently only charged by RCL.

Thought I would finally be booking Harmony finally today ... but no she's still $4K in my booking windows somehow so I guess I will have to keep doing alternates for another couple of years and see if the price ever comes down to something I am willing to pay.

Made Diamond last year and I would say the only perks we noticed are the Diamond Lounge, 3 Free Drinks and the free photo. So far we have only done 3 nt cruises since making diamond but I would say those have been "revolutionized" for us ... tired and not really interested in dressing up for dinner ... sneak into the lounge and grab a plate of snacks ... dinner's done. Couple of free drinks in the lounge and then 3 more at a bar .... night's done. Kind of "super casual" cruising :)

Have had aft corner cabins on several of the Voyager/Super-Voyager class ships and would gladly kill to get another one ;) The way the aft slopes on those ships each deck sticks out a few feet further than the deck above, so even if you are "under" the windjammer you are under the seating right against the window. Had that location last Thanksgiving on Adventure, heard nothing from Windjammer, loved the huge cabin with the pole in the middle and the large covered balcony.

To the best of my knowledge Royal does not have a timer that stops you from ordering. Years ago I struck up a conversation with one of the head bartenders and he was explaining to me that they look at patterns like multiple drinks within 15 minutes as a flag of possible drink sharing violations. However, given how much the onboard staff goes out of its way to not challenge rule breakers, I am pretty sure that monitoring the drink package usage in that way is just an exercise not something they actually use for anything constructive.

Specialty dining prices are headed rapidly into ridiculous territory ... stopped doing them for the most part already and seeing the prices skyrocket with more "addons" as well isn't doing anything to tempt me back into the fold.

Why stop at 18% .. if they are adding a hotel, stick a bed tax on there as well and see if anyone notices ;)

Coming soon to the boarding process ... Please step to the next window to process the gratuities for the engine room crew ... the next window after that will be for the accounting team and then the next window will be for IT ... oops wait we still don't have IT so you can skip that window.

Since we are veering into the tip/rant discussion, I have always had an issue with the flat 18% "gratuity tax" on drinks and was extremely pleasantly surprised to find out the Carnival doesn't charge it on the self-serve beer stations ... actual logic .... if you aren't receiving a service you aren't charged for it !! Back to Royal though, it has always rubbed me the wrong way to pay a flat 18% on all charges ... if you take the time to hand make a great cocktail for me, absolutely you deserve a tip and I have no problem giving it ... if you take the top of my bottle of beer and hand it to me (or better yet, put six unopened beers in my cooler for me to carry around and open later) not feeling that to be worth 18% ... maybe i'm just a cheapskate but sorry the level of effort involved doesn't warrant it in my book.

Not able to respond specific to AUS/NZ market but I know for the US market that the 18% gratuity is not optional and not removable. I know this because it is automatically added to some purchases in the "gift shop" and I was unpleasantly surprised to be paying an 18% gratuity on the bottle of childrens Tylenol I was trying to buy (at an already ridiculous price). Needless to say the Tylenol supply is always updated pre-cruise now after that learning experience.

Not a big drink package person so it is possible I am out of date but as far as I know the 2 key rules are: 1 -Must purchase the package for the rest of the cruise , IE once you buy it you cant turn it off again. 2 - Must purchase for at least 4 days (although clearly with 3 day cruises there are some exceptions). So, assuming you are asking about being able to turn it on for a day in the middle of the cruise and then turn it off again you would run afoul of rule 1, unless you were to try activating it just for the last day of the cruise in which case rule 2 would come into effect. Not to say that, if alcohol sales have been poor on the cruise, you might not find a bar manager that would be willing to sell it to you for just the last day of the cruise but I definitely wouldn't count on it and not sure that trying out all the drinks on the last day of the cruise would be a lot of fun either ... although it probably would help with the drink fatigue issue ;)

Definitely a fan of BlueIguana ...nice to be able to get something fresh and control how much of it you get :)

Its funny, I think I tend to get there early and never once have I seen any form of orderly lines being boarded in order. Orderly lines checking in ... yes, but its always been open boarding for me ... maybe I have been missing some secret. Typically aim to arrive at 11 and usually on board by noon.

Sorry to hear of your ongoing frustration, I wouldn't go so far as to say RCI has lost a customer in me yet but they have certainly lost me as a "loyal to royal".

My experience has been Thanksgiving football on the big screens, haven't seen the parade televised but to be fair I have never looked.

In regards to decorations they have been getting earlier and earlier, last year the decorations were already up before thanksgiving (for Christmas). Every ship is probably a little different but I would expect to see the ship decorated when you board not during the cruise.

No real regular rotation that I have noticed, after however many years of continuous "Sales" it has been now I don't even notice what they are anymore.

Sounds like RCI IT department has struck again ...

Looks like the sale of the day has now extended to the drink packages as well .... every day is a different sale but the amount you pay never changes ...

Heck, im lucky if I even see a barperson in the MDR once a cruise, never mind the same one each night !

There are websites that list drydock schedules (Don't have any off the top of my head but google usually finds them for me when I am curious), they tend to all be mostly right with some contradictions between them ;) Royal in particular seems to be very secretive about what is going to be done at drydocks, the cynic in me believes its because they haven't managed one successfully in a while so it is better to not say what they were planning to do up front ... saves embarrassment when it doesn't all get done.

NCL not Royal for this Thanksgiving ;) , I declined to bid ... I liked the cabin I chose, but the two other groups we are with bid on balcony/suite upgrades ... will let you know what their experience is.

Only issue with Tampa is an occasional fog day in the winter ... if its foggy they hold the ships outside the bay which is about 2 hours sailing from the port still .... so it does lead to an occasional very delayed disembarkation ... probably affects 1-2 cruises a year but just FYI.

Not a C&A benefit must be the "nice people" one

We were invited to bid on upgrades for our Thanksgiving cruise out of Miami later this year, so I would say North American market has it :)