JLMoran

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.

@twangster's influence strikes again, as yet another succumbs to the desire to answer the question, "WWTD?", with the answer, "YOLO! Book it!!"

Pinging @WAAAYTOOO, IIRC she's a regular Texas Hold'Em / poker player when she and her husband sail.

Freedom was my first EC ship, sailed her just this past April and thought she was great. My teenage girls, not so much. ? I blame their refusal to go to the Day 1 teen meetup on that, because that left them with no one to hang out with on sea days. My live blog of the trip is linked in my signature, if you’re interested. Lots of photos of the ship during the sea days and embarkation day.

Following! Have a great trip!

Thanks for the really great blog and photos! I especially loved seeing all the stairway art! Some of it I remember from other blogs on Symphony, but a lot of new items here as well.

Are you sure about Freedom? My two daughters were booked in one room and my wife and I in the other for our sailing on her this past April. I supposed it could be a change tied to her change in home port from FLL to OSJ, but that would be odd to me.

Hi Chad! Welcome to the boards! If the rooms are next to each other (don't have to be connecting) or across the hall, you can actually book both of your kids in one room and yourself and your wife in the other. If you are doing the booking yourself, I don't think you can directly do that with an online booking; rather, you will need to call Royal and ask them to enter it that way. If you're going through a travel agent, he or she can take care of that arrangement for you. I've done this with both of the sailings my kids have traveled with us, and it's been no problem. Makes getting ready for dinner each night a lot easier! And you're absolutely right about getting two rooms rather than packing everyone into a single Jr. Suite or other suite. It's fine to book a suite for a special occasion or other time when you're willing and able to splurge, but for a "regular" vacation getaway I say save that money for excursions and other things to enhance the overall trip! ?

Very nice video! Thanks for sharing with us!

Oh, my god!! What the heck did Comet and Cupid do to deserve that?!?!?

If the OBC is something you got at booking through Royal, as part of a promotion, the total is evenly split among each passenger. The individual Sea Pass cards will have it pre-loaded when you board, so each of you can just get whatever you want on board and not worry about it. I think it will be handled the same if you go the OBC directly from your travel agent, but confirm with him/her. If it's any kind of OBC you earned from a rewards credit card or similar thing, that will just be applied to you individually AFAIK. But as noted by @Atlantix2000, you should be able to request to have that split out among each person in your group if you'd like to do that.

This article goes over the basics and gives typical hours. Do note it says you need to get the exact hours when you board, as it can vary slightly from ship to ship. Hope this helps!

Thanks for this review! I don't know when I'll be heading back to St. Maarten next, but if I don't call @Matt's guy Leroy Brown, I think I'll definitely give Bernards Tours the lead slot for a land tour. We went the sea-based route last time, so seeing the land would be good for a return trip.

This is 100% true for tender ports. It may or may not be true for ports where the ship can dock. But in all cases, you will receive documents in your room at least one day before each excursion, if not all at once on embarkation day, that say where to meet / what to look for / when to be there.

Susie, after reading all of the comments I don't think you're in a minority on this at all. Every comment I read included a statement of sympathy for this poster's family member, and that's a sentiment I share. Having someone become sick out of the blue in a way that's serious enough to require cancellation of any kind of vacation or other plans is always a horrible event. But... The poster also made a point of making a claim that Royal's behavior in this case is shameful and that they're taking advantage of her. And here also, I agree with the general sentiment expressed. Cruises in general are a big expense, and one that typically has to be purchased a year or more in advance. No one plans on anything bad happening in that year, let alone the 3 months after final payment, but the universe doesn't care -- Bad things still happen anyway, and completely at random. It's one thing to take a gamble like that for a week or two; the odds are very much in your favor. But carry that out to three months or longer, and while the odds are still in your favor, they do get worse and worse as the time increases. To not purchase travel insurance on every single cruise is, to my thinking, rolling the dice in way that you have to be ready to pay for. To @Janyth -- I too am sorry for your family member and whatever diagnosis they received. And I am sorry that you had to pay a financial price for having to cancel after final payment. But I am not going to blame Royal for shabby treatment when this is spelled out clearly as the price you'll have to pay for canceling at the last minute without insurance to cover this possibility.

I'd argue this is already in progress as we speak. I had noticed when looking at the various 2020 sailing options for more "exotic" cruises that Royal had the annual transatlantic from Copenhagen to Boston. That itinerary is extremely similar to the one I've booked with Celebrity, replacing the ports in Canada on X with two ports in Norway on Royal, plus being one day longer. Yet the pricing is almost 100% identical for the two sailings. Royal 15-night (9/2/2020) Celebrity 14-night (8/2/2020) ------------------------- ----------------------------- Inside $2,023 $1,949 Ocean View $2,419 $2,699 Balcony $3,315 $3,399 Hardly what you'd expect when looking at a "mass market" line vs. a "premium" sister line. Celebrity is charging a little more at the Ocean View and Verandah levels, but hardly the gap one might expect on hearing that X is a "premium" line. Considering that the Celebrity sailing is in peak season, while Royal's is in the shoulder season, it's basically equivalent in my book. Maybe this is an outlier, as both itineraries are more "exotic"; but Brilliance and Celebrity Summit are identical ships in terms of basic specs -- same tonnage, same size, same passenger capacity. The amenities differ, of course, but that's kind of the point; especially with the refurbishment Summit it getting in a couple of months, I'm looking at this and thinking I'm getting a heck of an upgrade in experience and treatment for zero extra cost. And it's not like my kids would complain about a lack of things to do any less on Brilliance during the sea days; she doesn't have all those extra amenities of the bigger ships, and most of what she does have is outdoors and most likely wouldn't be usable during the sea days in those colder northern waters. And I have it on record from a rep I spoke with at X that they're actively courting a younger demographic, trying to get more older families with teens to start sailing with them. Between that, what I'm seeing with itinerary pricing, and the already pretty good loyalty reciprocation, it sounds an awful lot to me like they're already working hard on a transition.

I'm always scared to do this, because I don't trust that if I cancel and re-buy to get a better price, the OBC will be properly returned to me instantly for use in the re-purchase. Royal's IT has fouled up enough times that I can totally see it happening at least some of the time. See, my feeling is that spending that extra $100 up front (or at least 90 days ahead of sailing) for $100 in OBC is just giving Royal a free loan with my money. If I get the case like @VolFanInGa mentioned, where the gap is more than a 1:1 in favor of the OBC, then I don't feel so bad because the "loan" is being repaid with some "interest" (extra OBC). But I'd still rather just have a smaller overall bill at the end. ?

I've been meaning to ask this for a while now, finally getting around to it. I'm really curious how many value OBC over getting the cheapest cruise fare possible and having that bit of extra money available for whatever -- excursions, dining when in port, or even stuff on the ship that you didn't pre-purchase. We've certainly used the bit we've gotten on each of our two cruises, but it wasn't like we wouldn't have bought those things on board (spa service, drink overages on my package, etc.), and it never amounted to so much that it would have made a huge difference; I think each of our cruises it was around $125-$150. We certainly used it (and more; disembarkation charges were about $150-$300 each time), but I feel like I could have maybe saved more on fare than I "gained" in OBC if I pushed for that with my TA. For me, the lack of a draw for OBC after two sailings is that I'm already buying so much in advance of sailing -- drink packages, specialty dining, excursions, etc. -- that having any OBC at all just seems unnecessary. My transatlantic next year will be the first time I'm worrying about it at all, only because I'm not planning to buy an alcohol package (which would be crazy expensive on a 14-night sailing, and a likely waste when 8 of those days are port days) but I still expect to be buying wine and other things above and beyond what the 4 bottles I can bring on board for two cabins would cover. And even there, I'm working within the "minimum booking price at all costs" goal by leveraging the promo that was offered through the Royal / Celebrity Visa card to cover the OBC, rather than looking for any with the cruise booking.

Hi @SoSiWe, welcome to the message boards! As far as things to bring, I think a big one that many of us here take along is some kind of USB charging hub for our various devices (phones, tablets, cameras, etc.), as even the newest ships (outside of Quantum class) don't include any USB ports in the room's outlet complement. If you don't yet have one of these and want to get one, there's a unit made by Anker that I own and can highly recommend. It passes the safety requirements for use on a ship -- no surge protector, not a high current draw -- and it can charge up to 5 devices at once, one of them using higher speed / higher amperage charging for a faster battery top-off. If you happen to require a CPAP when you sleep, you don't need to bring an extension cord or distilled water. You can email [email protected] and let them know your requirement, and they'll provide both to you at no charge. Which ports are you going to? Some of them have rockier beaches (including Adrenaline Beach on Royal's private destination, Labadee) and a pair of water shoes would be a good thing to have for them. That's really all I can think of after checking my usual packing list. Hope this helps!

If it's not, consider springing for Chef's Table. Still does wine pairings as a focus of the meal, and the wines are all good quality selections from Vintages. Higher price for that meal than that other option I mentioned, but such a good meal and experience!

I wouldn't bet on that. The Millennium class is already almost 20 years old and all of those ships, along with the Solstice class ships, are being fully upgraded in the Edge Revitalization program. The Millennium herself is already in dry dock, and sister ship Celebrity Summit follows right after.

No curfew, but you'll find that most of the island's shops and other venues shut down around 5 or 6 PM. Some of the restaurants stay open later, and the Dockyard area where you port may have some spots that stay open late, but that will be it.

Funny you mention this. Someone recently posted that they saw an offering akin to Chef's Table, but held in Vintages. Can't remember who or what ship, or even what to search for to find it. I think it was four courses instead of the five offered at CT, but otherwise the same concept of a meal focused on wine pairings. So maybe Royal is trying to find new uses for the space, rather than scrapping it like they've done on some of the newer ships. And I may be an outlier, but I actually like sipping a glass of wine while sitting and chatting with friends or family. Do that all the time at holiday gatherings and such. If my wife drank wine, or I was cruising with friends or family who do, I could see being there a lot in the evenings. Especially if they added some live music of a quieter nature so we could have conversations without shouting. (I'm looking at you, Schooner Bar on Anthem!! Why do you have a piano and its singer's mic amped as loudly as a lead electric guitar?!?)

I think it's more likely if the mass-market lines (Royal / Carnival / Norwegian) stick with building larger ships (Q and O class sizes, maybe Freedom class size), they'll simply "cede" those more exotic ports like the ABC islands, the Mediterranean, and Norway / Scandinvia / Iceland to their premium sister lines. Higher-end lines appear to sticking with smaller ships (though they do appear to be creeping upward a little -- see Celebrity Edge or HAL Koenigsdam / Statendam).

I dunno, looks to me like you crossed the red line there. ? Lot of nice pics, great job so far! Enjoy the rest of your trip!