JLMoran

That's surprising to hear that a Country Inn & Suites would locate itself in what sounds like a rough neighborhood. All the ones I've stayed at (admittedly, none in NJ) have been in nice areas that we never felt worried about walking around as we went out to dinner or just got some night air. I can't answer whether they have a complimentary shuttle, but given KathyC's comment I think it would be prudent to park at the Cape Liberty on-site garage. The price is reasonable and it's well-lit and secure.

@Baked Alaska, I haven't seen such a list here on the site. I'm on iOS and use the podcast player "Overcast" (which is awesome and the one I recommend to anyone on iOS, but unfortunately doesn't have an Android version), but if Google Play / Anypod are anything like Overcast, you should be able to view either the entire episode history or a large chunk of the most recent podcasts from them. In Overcast, I just tap on the name of the podcast from my main subscription list to get a screen where I can list only unplayed episodes or all episodes. The latter gives me the past 100 episodes, but not all the way back to episode 1. Your podcast player should have a similar feature somewhere. If neither of those work, I believe that Pocket Cast and/or Castro are available for Android. They're Overcast's main competitors and work hard to maintain feature parity with it.

Do you know if this also applies to Wonderland on Anthem? We'll be dining there one night on our October sailing, will be more than happy to try them out!

Big congrats on 45 years together! And welcome to our family!

Yup, we're seeing it at 2:30 PM on our last sea day of our October 5-nighter.

I think this line is the key one: Note the part about it being combinable with existing promotional offers. So as @Lovetocruise2002 said, all they are really getting rid of is the extra OBC you were previously awarded on top of the current promotion. I think the language for this aspect is pretty clear: You will still get whatever OBC is offered with the current promotion, regardless of whether you book refundable or non-refundable. Where non-refundable has been changed to (we hope) better differentiate it from the refundable bookings is in exchanging some extra OBC for extra reduction in the booking price. When you figure most people were booking either inside / OV cabins ($25 extra OBC) or balconies ($50 extra), the OBC wasn't going to be a big factor (as the claimed analytics almost certainly showed). $25 in OBC gets you two free drinks, or maybe a discounted cupcake decorating class. Even booking a suite probably didn't make the $100 in extra OBC all that worth it, considering how much more the suite costs up front and the on-board extras all true suites get. So what did people choose to compare on? Base cost. I remember at least one person here showing how selecting the refundable rate was moved to the end of the online booking process, where it was now a checkbox that showed the extra cost. And the other thing I remember was that in the example screen shot the extra cost was pretty minimal -- I want to say $35 in that particular case (let's say it was an inside cabin). Well if I'm paying only $35 more for refundable, and "losing" $25 in OBC for an inside room that I may not find terribly valuable, why not have the refundable rate and know I can cancel at any time to get back all of my paid-in money? That's not what Royal wants. Royal wants more non-refundable bookings that let them say to shareholders, "We have ships already booked at 75% capacity 12 months out, and that translates into X% improved [bookings / assured revenue / forecast onboard spend / etc]." So they'll lower the base rate by a more visible amount, maybe where clicking that checkbox raises the price by $100 instead of $35. That's a bigger psychological barrier for someone to cross, even if they're looking at a sailing 18 months out, especially if they're someone who doesn't spread out the payments and just looks at making one lump payout on final payment date. We won't know until this goes into effect in November, but if they implement it that way and make that price gap psychologically big enough... well, either NRDs will bump up the way they want, or total bookings will go down as passengers balk over being "penalized" for wanting a refundable booking. Royal wants NRDs, and I don't doubt they are on a road map to make all bookings NRD like a lot of other cruise lines. They have to make people willing to swallow that pill, and giving a bigger price gap between NRD and refundable (where the NRD is at least initially better than it was before) is a pretty smart way to do it.

SO TRUE! I totally know where you are right now (well, state-of-mind-wise, not actual location; that would be creepy!). Just enjoy the days to the fullest and you can update us when you're good and ready.

For Freedom the max is $12 per drink. Anything that costs more, you'll just pay the difference. I was just on Freedom last April, there was very little I had onboard that went over, really just the high end Tuscan red wines I was drinking at dinner every night.

I needed a moment to figure out if the "new baby" you were referring to was Mariner or an actual newborn. Long workday. ? Glad to say that I did finally clue in you meant your personal offspring. Big congratulations to you and your wife!

I haven't yet sailed on Anthem (just 74 more sleeps!), but I have a feeling that your impression of Anthem being small is due in large part to the traffic flow issues that others have commented on in their live blogs. When I sailed on Freedom, I never felt like the ship was small, nor did I ever feel it was crowded unless I was on the pool deck in mid-day; and that time of day, that area's going to feel crowded no matter what ship you're on. If part of your goal with taking this cruise is to experience a new itinerary and new ports, then let that be the driving goal and set aside concerns about the ship or the passengers; focus your energy and attention on the ports, the experiences they offer, and the memories they will give instead of the ones from the ship. Heck, I have reservations about most likely having to sail a Vision class ship for a Greek Isles / Adriatic Coast itinerary, as I think I'd prefer a Radiance class, but the ports are the key thing with that kind of trip; and with so many of them, I'm taking the attitude that any potential lack of amenities on the ship compared to other classes probably won't even be noticed, as I'll be too tired at the end of each day! ?

I'm curious about these tournaments. If I were to enter one offered on my October sailing (BIG if, as SWMBO would have to be cool with me being away for potentially hours), does that entry basically give me an initial stack of chips, and I just play until either I'm eliminated or I'm the last one standing at my table each round? Do the tourneys go all day, or just a few hours each day? Always had dreams of one day entering the World Series of Poker tournament, would settle for just being in a small on-ship tourney for some fun and some small chance at a free cruise or cash payout.

Well, that all depends if you're waiting on tenterhooks for Matt to announce whether there will even be any sort of GC for those itineraries. ? And that probably means waiting until January or February of 2019 before any such announcement comes out and we can finally cry out, "YOLO, book it!!"

If you go this route, there is a Country Inn & Suites at the airport. That hotel chain is one of our favorites (part of Radisson’s line). Hotels are always clean, rooms are pretty spacious for the price, complimentary breakfast is pretty decent, and rates are reasonable.

December?!?

I worded that badly. When I said "Cabin gratuity", I meant the entire thing -- the gratuities for both cabin and dining staff. As others here noted, Windjammer is staffed by the MDR crew, not cabin crew or others. You also have the other dining venues on board (Cafe Promenade, Sorrentos, Cafe270, etc.), all of which split the dining portion of the gratuity added to your cabin. So my recommendation was that, unless you plan to eat only in a specialty restaurant or off the ship while in port for every meal, or you plan to give cash to specific servers in the Windjammer and whatever other dining venues you visit, leave the auto-gratuity for the dining staff in place.

Oh, and I still can't make an online reservation for Coastal Kitchen, even though it's been back in my Cruise Planner for almost two weeks now. I really hope Anthem is no longer the exception to that rule, as I really want to have that one true JS-related "surprise" booked and ready when we board.

Don't forget that if your wife doesn't drink for pretty much any reason -- medical, religious, or even just personal preference -- you can call Royal directly and request an exception. Your wife will still have to get the Refreshment Package, but that's regularly on sale for $18/day, which hopefully makes the math work out a lot better for you.

Thanks, @ellcee! Made our reservations for both of those. Were you only seeing reservations for sea days? I really wanted to do North Star while we were in port so we'd have more than open ocean to see, but there were no reservation slots for either day in Bermuda. ?

Honestly, the snow day debacle this year was entirely the district's fault. They decided to take a bunch of snow days early in the season that really could have been handled with a delayed opening. I'm guessing they decided this past winter was going to be like the year before, where they ended up with extra days and extending the spring break week, and then of course we got hit with three back-to-back nor'easters in January and February that shut us down for four days more than were in the calendar "budget". I'm wagering that this year, the district is going to be ultra-conservative after the backlash they got slammed with for taking away everyone's spring break week. And of course, that will mean that the winter will be mild again, and so the unused days will go to extending the spring break week in 2019. Which will lead to 2020 being a repeat of 2018, and so on...

No, snow days are just what took away our kids' entire Spring Break week (again, not kidding). The calendar in our district always goes from the day after Labor Day until either the next-to-last or last Wednesday in June.

I'll see your Chicago June 21 and raise you a New Jersey June 27. No, I'm not kidding. ?

Exhibit A: I won't say that you will not find this level of service with AAA if you run into the same kind of problem as @alamode123 got slammed with. But at least you now know you will have it with MEI, even if you don't get a lot of extra perks up front. It may not spare you a lot of stress while waiting for the outcome, but it certainly takes a load off knowing you have that person undeniably in your corner and working to at least try and make things right.

I'd still argue this point, since the cabin gratuity, as noted, also goes to the staff in the Windjammer, Cafe Promenade, and other eateries on board that are complimentary. You'll almost certainly be eating at one or more of these establishments for breakfast and lunch, even if you never set foot in the MDR, so refusing the cabin gratuity for dining is stiffing all of those folks, not just the MDR staff (unless you plan to pass a few singles and fives across the food stations to the chefs / servers working back there, or hand some off to the staff clearing the tables...)

Thanks for the second confirmation. I knew CK and MDR were different menus from each other; just was looking for confirmation that, just as the MDR menu is the same on all ships (with a few exceptions that haven't yet updated to the "new" menu), the CK menu was likewise the same across the CK-equipped part of the fleet.

Someone here commented a while back that in terms of percentage of passengers on any given sailing, less than 10% (might have been closer to 5%) actually buy the deluxe package. So if Royal is happy whatever small percentage they're getting per sailing, I wouldn't count on lower pricing any time soon.