JLMoran

Still been waffling on this, because I'm trying to avoid adding any more charges to my card this month. Did another check on Cruise Planner, specifically for my cutoff date, and just saw that I have until midnight this Thursday (Oct 11) to make purchases, which is a day later than I expected and is perfect. My card cycles on Wednesday after 5 PM (close of business), so I'll hold off another few days, book it Wednesday evening so that it shows up on the next billing cycle, and then if I do end up canceling to take advantage of an on-board sale I'll be golden since it's all on the same billing cycle. I have noticed, though, that the 7 PM slot for Wonderland is now gone. So I'll have to hope that 6:30 and 7:30 stay available until Wednesday. Otherwise it'll be a late night dinner yet again. ?

Was working for me not 30 minutes ago, looked the same. Now when I try to go from my dashboard I just get the old lookup screen. ?

All deck 6 staterooms on Quantum class have the lifeboats directly below the balcony. That's the obstruction -- you don't have a clear view down to the ocean.This YouTube video I put below should give you some idea of what your view will be like. The room is just three cabins down from you, so the balcony view will be similar. You may not have all the lifeboat crane / winch hardware in the way like this cabin does, but then again you might have something pretty similar. Starting at 1 minute in, you can see the balcony view. What I noted as I watched it was that right at 1:14 (and ONLY for that 1 second) you can start to see further down to the left that the lifeboats and winch hardware appears to be a bit lower, so there may be a bit less of an obstructed view there. I've put a screen shot of that particular frame below the video. Going to the left is heading towards your room, as this same YouTuber has another video of cabin 6660, which I can see is located on the right side of 6658. Still frame showing the next winch just barely visible to the left of the one sticking above the balcony line. That next winch is almost hidden by the balcony divider and glass. So, you may have a slightly less obstructed view than this room has, depending on where your cabin falls relative to the lifeboats and winch hardware. Honestly, from @twangster's reporting on his multiple Alaska trips, it might be worth it to switch to the ocean view and get the extra loyalty points with the single supplement fee, as long as you are OK with spending that extra bit of money (or getting it back? Not clear if the $200 difference is less or more for the OV room). He noted that he was constantly moving around the ships he was on when they would go to the glaciers, or would be sailing through the channels and giving lots of scenic views on both sides of the ship. Had he been in a balcony room and just staying on his balcony, he'd have missed a lot of great views.

Dude, you look like the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman!

I would say Giovanni’s, but I’m more partial to Italian food than steaks. If the pasta is anything like what we had at Chef’s Table on Freedom, you’ll be very happy.

Are you sure you’re ok? Did you fall and bump your head or something? Slip on the ice during open skate? Wait a minute... HE’S A POD PERSON!! RUN!!!!! AND DON’T FALL ASLEEP!!!

I’d suggest calling the Casino Royale toll free number and speaking with a rep. Since the cruise was last year, they should still have it in the system; it will probably help if you still your reservation number so they can look it up more quickly. Their number is (888) 561-2234. I hadn’t had any problem with them after my first cruise last year, but I did choose to call them to get a sense of what my very paltry play translated to in terms of rating points. They were able to look it up and told me with only a few minutes wait. Hopefully they can do the same for you.

Easier to just open an Incognito mode (Private Mode) window. Cookies and locally stored data are then hidden without having to wipe out that stuff and start fresh on all your sites.

No, I think we all just log in to Royal’s site regularly, possibly using an incognito mode window so it doesn’t recognize us and give a different rate, then find our cruise and do a mock booking for a similar cabin to what we’ve booked.

And a follow-up by the same poster...

Unfortunately, no. Haven’t been able to buy the last few seasons of WSOP finals, and since I don’t have cable tv any more, well...

Just saw this on Facebook, wanted to share. This may be as reliable as any other port site listing upcoming ships, but if true then that kind of puts the kibosh on any chance of a summer 2020 CA/NE group cruise. The second screen shot includes four pics from the Port St. Maarten web portal, simply showing the specific dates listed in the first screen shot I took. I don’t know if this really means that Adventure is replacing Anthem for summer 2020, or if she’s just switching around with Anthem for some of the other itineraries. But given the other threads posted here recently showing Anthem moving to Southampton in 2020, it does seem to lend some credence to the idea.

Wait, when in April were you on Freedom? I was on her for the March 31 to April 8 sailing. Now I’m wondering if I maybe saw you when I hung out at the Flow Rider on the first Sea day.

I see Brilliance was the Izumi Express option, so that's not surprising. AFAIK, it's all to go for that service. Anthem is surprising, regardless of you being Star class. I'm definitely going to follow up on that now -- reminder is already set and I'll just keep hitting "Remind me again tomorrow" until the day I actually eat lunch there.

Good point! And I do plan to stop there for lunch one day, so I'll put a reminder on my phone to ask about that and have it fire each day at lunch time so I don't forget it. ?

The "Izumi To Go" feature is something offered on ships like Freedom / Liberty / Independence that don't have an actual Izumi restaurant on board. It's a cart they wheel out onto the Royal Promenade for a couple of hours around lunch time, and it has pre-packaged sushi boxes that passengers can purchase a la carte. We'll still need input from @Matt or someone else as to whether the actual Izumi sit-down restaurants and bar-style offering on Mariner offers actual take-out options.

Wow, I hope your daughter is feeling better now! Just a short-term virus? It's really cool how you and your wife will alternate writing the day's blog, yet you have such similar writing styles that until I see a reference to one of you that I can't immediately tell who's writing. And for sure, whenever I make my way out to Copenhagen for a Norway or Baltic cruise I will be getting that Copenhagen Card. Sounds like in the two days you've been there, you more than got back your original investment.

There is also a second "secret" way. On Deck 5, go into the Star Lounge located all the way forward. As soon as you walk through the door, turn right and go through the double doors on the room's side wall, and then the second set of double doors just outside. You'll be on the deck 5 walking track. Turn left and you're a short walk from the stairs leading up to the helipad. The same "secret" way is on Freedom (where I found it) and Indy. Sometimes they will lock the double doors in the Star Lounge, but generally they don't as it's an emergency exit doorway.

I'm actually not a fan of any sports team. Don't watch sports, don't follow sports, don't even have regular TV service any more. Now, eSports and Texas Hold'Em Poker are another matter... ?

It does that, but it doesn't address the other concern raised by @Susie, lack of activities for her son that only start showing up on Voyager class. And that class is definitely too big / tall. Now, if it turns out her son is an aspiring pool shark, then maybe Radiance class could be a good option... ?

And here I was thinking @twangster meant this:

What she said!

When you book the specialty restaurants, they have a separate tip that, per @WAAAYTOOO's comment above, is included in the price when you pre-order through the Cruise Planner, but is charged separately when you book on board. Your daily gratuity is for the dining staff in the main dining room, who also work the Windjammer during the day but (as I understand it) do not work the specialty venues; since specialty dining has its own separate wait staff, this is why there's a separate gratuity.

Hmm, torn on this. Anthem’s CA/NE skips a port or two that Adventure goes to, but having a B2B that gave a return to Bermuda...

Hi Micks, welcome to the boards! Several of us here use MEI Travel, which is a sponsor of this site and helps the site admin, Matt, to keep things running. There is a link on the site's home page that you can click to request a quote, and you'll be put in touch with one of MEI's agents. They don't necessarily offer the lowest rates, but they do have very good service and several here can talk about the extra mile that their agent with MEI has gone to fix an issue that came up, or get a difficult booking worked out, or just answer a million questions from a total newbie to cruising (yeah, that was me just shy of a year ago ?).