JLMoran

An añejo margarita, of course!

Just squeaking in there, dude! And weren't you just (or maybe still are) on Anthem?

Daytime snorkel? -- check! Evening fun at the beach bar? -- check! Realizing the ship is leaving in 30 minutes and joining the pier runners? - Check-a-roo-nee!!! ?

@Fuzzywuzzy, for what it's worth this is why make rather heavy-handed use of emoji. ???

Teens club is a bit different than the others. Based on my own kids' experience on Freedom the couple of times they went, and feedback I got from others here prior to that cruise, it's much less structured and much more loosely supervised. For the most part, the teens meet up in the teen club on night 1 of the cruise, and it's more to figure out who wants to hang out together, exchange contact info for messaging on the ship, etc. After that, the groups just decide on their own where they'll be meeting up / what they'll be doing on the sea days and each evening. My one daughter said the staff there were pretty uninvolved as far as trying to organize any kind of activity, but I would imagine that if you spoke to one of the staff on that first night and explained that your son is on the spectrum and has some difficulties "breaking the ice", they would help out. I do recall hearing on one of Matt's podcasts that all of the staff involved with Adventure Ocean are trained in working with kids on the spectrum and others with special needs, so you should be in good hands. They may decide that even though he's 12, he could go with the younger group that normally caps at age 11 (if you think he'd be comfortable with that) so that he'd have a bit more structure or chance to meet other kids at his own pace, rather than trying to keep up with a probably boisterous group of teens running all over the place and doing things on the spur of the moment. On a related note: One of my friends has a son on the spectrum, and she took him on Anthem last summer for an Autism on the Seas cruise; she said the ship staff were amazing and worked unbelievably well with all the kids on board, and that her son had a fantastic time. This wasn't a case of the whole ship being chartered, it was maybe a couple dozen families with kids on the spectrum who sailed with the rest of the passengers. I don't recall if her son was the same age as yours, so he may have been in a "regular" AO group rather than the teen one, but it's one more data point.

I've found that the Schooner Bar on both Freedom and Anthem has Paulaner Salvator doppelbock, but only in bottles. I'm surprised that Playmakers doesn't have it on their menu, but maybe you'll find it in your ship's Schooner Bar.

You're using the wrong metric. $28 is 2 cocktails or glasses of wine; 4 beers; 7 or 8 specialty coffees or fresh-squeezed OJs; or 14 bottles of water. ?

Thanks for the great live blog, @Irieman!

Hi @Erika1971! I can only give a recommendation for St. Maarten, as that's the only one of those three islands I've been to. We booked a day trip with Soualiga Destinations, spent the day boating all around the island and seeing both the French and Dutch sides. Trip includes two snorkeling stops, two beach stops (one on nearby Pinel island), lunch, and beverages. Was a great time that my family of four really enjoyed.

Given your description of your family, I’m also going to say Jamie’s.

I second this. I've only been to Labadee once, but the Cabana for my family of four was worth every penny. And regarding the cost -- Maybe this is becoming less frequent, but I got a cabana for under $300 when we went there on Freedom last April. It was a one-time deal that I spotted somewhere around a year before sail date, but if you check regularly you can find deals like this. You can always start off by booking the bungalow, and then if you spy the cabana for as good or better a price, cancel the bungalow and switch over to the cabana.

@Mrs. RoyalMoyal, most likely the bungalows aren't showing yet simply because it's too early. I think the earliest they typically show up is about a year away from sail date, but your mileage may vary. Do check regularly (like, weekly) for when they appear. These are one of the few items in the Cruise Planner that only get more expensive as times goes by, because the inventory dries up and demand skyrockets. Soon as you see a price you're comfortable with, book it! Then, if you find the price actually drops later on, do a quick cancel and rebook.

Hey KW! No, payment is charged to your credit card as soon as you make the booking. They take the credit card information each time you make a purchase, so you can rotate cards if you want to manage the billing cycles or if you have a rewards card you prefer. If you have on-board credit through a booking promotion, you have the option of paying with that instead. Yes, canceling and rebooking is completely fine and very easy to do online.

If you want to have a group of regular table-mates and are concerned about whether they'll be there every night, I'd recommend getting the late traditional dining slot. Yes, you're eating at 8:30 every night, but based on my experience and what others here have reported, this is the ideal traditional dining slot. Especially if you want a big table. MyTime Dining is just about done by this point, so the wait staff can actually catch a breath and aren't running all over the place; this translates into better service You get more of that "classic" experience of getting to know the wait staff and them getting to know you While it's not guaranteed you'll lose fewer table-mates to specialty dining or other things, it should be less likely The food quality should be better since the kitchen isn't as hard-pressed to keep up with demand

I first read this as "go full on Kobayashi Maru on the ship", and was trying to figure out what kind of no-win scenario could be contrived from the various dining options. ?

Wow, that's amazing that it was caught in time to save him! Hopefully that is the end of it and you will have many more years together to enjoy travel and other things. As far as our 2019, nothing too major this year. Possible trip to Niagara Falls this summer Return to Bermuda on Anthem in October Probably a couple of day trips or weekend getaways to places in driving distance in the warmer weather (Asbury Park, Poconos, Cape May; maybe Cape Cod / Nantucket or a return to Newport if we swing north)

Welcome to the forums. You picked a great first ship to sail on! I did my first cruise on sister ship Freedom of the Seas (same class of ship) last April, and was where you are now a bit over a year ago. You've gotten some great info from the others on this this thread already. I'll just add that with over a year to go, you're in a great position. You can take your time finding the excursions and other things as they become available, and spread out the purchases so your credit cards aren't crying "Uncle!" in any given month. Also, don't feel you have to wait for the best sale price to buy a certain thing, or that when you see the first good sale that you need to get everything at once; Royal offers several sales in the Cruise Planner throughout the year, so if your monthly budget doesn't let you buy all the excursions or all the on-board packages at once, you won't miss out. And if you find something you bought earlier is at a better price later on, you can easily cancel it and re-buy at the better rate.

Hi @bobbydx, welcome to the forums! My family also was told the same as your buddy, but several folks here have gone down the zip line with GoPros or even their phones held in one hand and only the other hand on the top bar. So it seems to be luck of the draw with who you get for staff. Definitely have a wrist strap, head mount, or other means to solidly secure your GoPro to yourself, as you really don't want to accidentally drop it into the ocean and rocks below, or onto any people who might be below you before you get over the water.

Oh, and welcome to the boards! You've joined one heck of a great community here!

I can recommend a great option for St. Maarten, although I'm not sure if they have two slots left at this point as they tend to sell out quickly. It's called Soualiga Destinations; I did their "most popular tour" last April with my family and we all loved it! Great, friendly crew, a great tour around the island with two snorkeling stops, two beach stops, a stop by Maho Beach, and lunch plus a cooler with a variety of beverages included. They don't book through Royal, you email Capt. Bob directly (email address on their site), and he'll let you know whether he has any openings.

Not offered for Anthem in October, unfortunately. Maybe another few months and I'll start seeing some DBP sales.

And in NJ it was down in the single digits all day yesterday, and all of mid- to upper-20s today. Freaking JUNO and REYKJAVIK were warmer than us!! ?

Never mind the people who decide that Times Square is the best place to relieve themselves, rather than losing their place in sight of the ball drop. ??

Interesting, that they've done a shift to all-white for the dining room chairs and and whites / grays with blue accent for the rooms. If you take a look at Celebrity's page for the Celebrity Summit and click the links for accommodations and dining about halfway down the page, you'll see examples of the new look under the "Celebrity Revolution" revitalization program. That also has a shift in decor to mostly white and gray with small accent colors, but even more pronounced. The accommodations page doesn't show regular rooms until you go most of the way down, as it's mainly dedicated to the suite changes, but you can see a couple of examples of regular rooms as well. Given the earlier discussion between @twangster and me of how Radiance class is nigh-indistinguishable from Celebrity's Millennium class ships in terms of size and other "base specs", and how they might be working on a long-term plan to phase out those smaller ships from Royal's fleet and get the people who like sailing them (and the ports they visit) to move over to Celebrity, synching up the decor to a degree would be a smart move. Then when you move from Radiance class to any Celebrity ship, you get a sense of familiarity while noticing that the decor is kicked up a notch.