jticarruthers

I have not tried it personally but have been told that if you DO NOT prepay tips you can go to Guest Services on board and ask to have the automatic daily charges stopped. They may argue with you but ultimately you should be able to stop them and pay cash at whatever amount you choose. However, if you DO prepay tips it is apparently much more complicated since the ship accounting department did not charge you the prepaid tips the "onshore" department did, so the onboard crew doesn't have access to issue a refund, so on and so forth.

The airport is close so if you did a walk off I would say probably no problem. If you are going to let them handle luggage and pick up in the terminal it is probably ok but could get tight if there is any kind of delay/backup. On balance I would suggest walk off or later flight to be safe.

Two of our first three cruises were on the old/small Fantasy(?) class, obviously we enjoyed them enough to want to keep cruising, but swore we wouldn't do Carnival again. With the newer bigger ships and the 2.0 upgrades we have allowed ourselves to be talked into giving them another try. Personally I felt our problem was more older/smaller ships than necessarily Carnival vs Royal so I am looking forward to the Vista next year.

Traffic was bad for us but we just took a cab, I think it was about 30 mins and something around $20-$25. There was a line of about 50 cabs and no passengers waiting for them when we got out of baggage claim so it was an easy cab ride. In regards to timezone, IIRC they stayed on eastern time the whole cruise so that 830 dinner slot is going to feel like 630 for you in terms of "stomach" time so its probably not a big deal. For the first night its always a bit less formal in the MDR so if you wanted a special first night, I would go ahead and do a specialty booking for 900 or so, shouldn't be hard to get .. Chops looked like a graveyard every night on our cruise so they will probably be happy to have you :)

We did the Jewel out of PR back at the end of March. Had a great time. We flew in around 11 and were onboard and at lunch by 1230. Early dining time so we were done by the time sailaway kicked off IIRC. One question for you, what time zone are you flying in from ? Might make a difference with "perceived" dining time vs dining time onboard ship for example.

Nope, not interested in staying connected with everything at home ... that's why I am on a ship out on the ocean :) If we really need to post some photos or see what the latest "meme" is going around on facebook we can check for free at the next port.

Its nice to see them working on the suite program, I cant see myself ever booking anything above a JS though and even the JS rarely seems worth the upgrade to me. As long as the suite perks done get in the way of me enjoying my cruise, those who pay for them are deserving of all the perks they can get :)

We started cruising a few years back and quickly settled on Royal as the right line for us, but over the last couple of cruises have opened up to the idea of trying other lines again. Specifically NCL Escape and Carnival Vista both new builds next year. Based on that I would have to say that on some level Royal is "disappointing" me if I have gone from only checking their website when we wanted to cruise to considering other alternatives. I cant really put my finger on a solid area or two that it has clearly slipped but the experience does not feel as special as it did. The service feels a little less special, the food not quite as good, the prices a little higher, the nickel and diming a little more intrusive. Could you just be a function of "familiarity breeds contempt" (think I got that saying right) or it could be slight changes adding up to a lesser experience. The big bang new ships aren't doing a whole lot for me as they are priced so high I wont be trying one anytime soon (as compared to the NCL/Carnival new builds both of which priced below comparable RCI cruises when booked).

We have become spoiled, but I think we would probably do a 4 night if we were "introducing" someone new to cruising (We did last summer and it went fine). 3 night or shorter doesn't seem like its worth the effort now :)

1 out of 2 on Disney, never on RCI.

I have definitely heard feedback from others that MTD now no longer requires prepaid tips, it might be one of those areas though that RCI decides to help you out by automatically suggesting you prepay unless you can navigate the website of doom to find the checkbox to turn them off ;)

In my case the TA just serves as a middleman making the booking with RCI so they have always been able to pick any room that shows as available on the RCI website. I understand there is an option where a TA can reserve a block of rooms and then try to sell you one of those specific rooms but have never experienced it to comment on how it actually works.

We just did the Jewel of the Seas out of San Juan at Springbreak. I think the biggest takeaway for us was that you need to think about what you want to do and plan a bit, not necessarily plan out every moment of every day but think about what you want to accomplish. We are morning people and not big drinkers/partiers so we settled into a pattern of getting up at a reasonably early time, doing breakfast, etc. so that we were ready to be off the ship and in the first wave of excursions. The excursions would usually have us back to the port/ship by early afternoon and we could get a couple of hours of down time at the pool (swim, read, relax, etc.) before dinner. In terms of excursions I wouldn't say there were more of them offered but because you had 5 port days and 1 sea day it felt like there were more options. We sat down and went through the book figuring out what we wanted to do each day, for example we knew we wanted to snorkel at least once, were interested in kayaking, etc. so we started by looking for things that we could only do in one port and gradually narrowing down our selections that way. On one of our stops we selected a late morning excursion and did not care for it, felt like we were up, ready and killing time waiting for the excursion and then racing back on to the ship after the excursion since it was all aboard time already. On board activities seemed like they were a little less than usual but since we were off the ship most of every day it is hard to say.

I guess that makes sense Matt.

I agree that they don't really care, you can show up to white night not wearing white for example and its no big deal, just seems like it would be a bigger/more entertaining thing if you knew ahead of time.

I recall a 70s night, but don't recall what other theme nights they might have had. It would seem that if you are going to have theme nights it would be nice to send out an email to the guests and let them know so they can pack appropriately. All the emails on buying drinks, dinners, excursions, spa treatments, you would think it would be easy to slip in a "here is your entertainment schedule with the theme and MDR menu for each night".

Panama Canal is on the bucket list but will probably be a few years away. The time of year they are generally offered is always when school is in session and taking our son out of school for 2 weeks and/or leaving him home with someone else for 2 weeks isn't doable. Maybe in high school but probably waiting for him to be off to college :)

I am 18 months away on Adventure but assuming you are still looking by then I would be happy to pick you up one.

I started a little self conscious but over time have come to realize that its not a big deal. I actually find I am more active on a cruise than I am at home (pool, shore excursions, stairs, walking around the ship vs. desk job) so I really don't "blimp out" on the cruise. Not saying you should order two of everything, but an extra appetizer or entrée is not a big deal. As our waiter would say in response to every request on our last cruise "why not?"

The free drinks are available all day except for the juices which are only at breakfast. You can always buy wine either by the glass or the bottle.

Agree with Matt, one of the nice things with MDR is you can basically get what you want. Feel like the portions are small, order double, Cant decide between the beef or the chicken, order both. I definitely try not to be wasteful and/or gluttonous but frequently order a salad and an appetizer, or two appetizers if there are several that look good. I cant remember which menu it is but there is a chicken tikka salad that always conflicts with something else that I like, so I usually order both and eat most of both ;) Lobster night is of course infamous for ordering multiples ... my mother and son had a close run contest last Thanksgiving. IIRC the final score when to her on the strength of 3 lobsters vs his 2 but he did go 4 rounds on the shrimp and she stopped at 2.

Is it a better experience .. assuming your kids like DreamWorks .... yes absolutely. Is it a must have or the cruise wont be worth taking .... definitely not. Basically you see the characters around the ship for meet and greets where you can stand with them and take pictures. There are a couple of parades where all the characters go up and down the promenade with some fun music. The sailaway party features the DreamWorks characters. A lot of the kids on board activities will reference DreamWorks but the activities aren't really different as far as I can recall. Better experience for kids yes, but Indy isn't a bad experience.

It would be nice if they asked but they don't, it is automatically assumed that you aren't changing anything in regards to Travel Agent unless you say something,

Sounds like a mixed message to me. If you used a travel agent to book your original cruise then the Next Cruise booking is automatically assigned to the same travel agent.

Trying NCL for the first time next year and as a a "non-specialty" person it looks like there are enough free options where it wont be a problem for me for now, will see how it works out. In general though one of the attractions for me of cruising is the MDR experience. No figuring out what we feel like eating tonight, what time, etc, etc. so continued movement towards a multi-restaurant system (aka DD on RCL) didn't interest me to start with, now if you throw on top having to pay extra for almost all the choices, I don't think I like it at all.