JLMoran

Have a good pair of flights, @twangster! Looking forward to seeing what a laid back blog from you looks like. ?

I second the candied ginger option, even on land it's helped to settle my stomach when I'd get motion sick. Make sure it's labeled "candied" and not "crystallized", as the latter is mostly sugar, where the former is actual ginger root slices. My local supermarket sells bags of the stuff in the organic aisle, yours may as well.

Yup, I saw him walk by when I was waiting at Boleros for the Chef's Table group to gather. Didn't work up the nerve to just walk over and say hello, which by all accounts he'd have been fine with me doing. Heard from our CT waiter / sommelier afterward that he's very approachable and loves meeting the passengers.

I could if I knew all of their passwords. Unfortunately, I was too good at my job as household IT guy and actually convinced all of them to use 1Password. ? All I know are their C&A numbers.

Thanks, @Matt! Is this glitch new, or have you seen it before the new site came online? And do your wife and kids all have the correct points / status?

Looking for feedback from the experienced cruisers with kids here, as I'm seeing something really weird and can't tell if this is standard procedure or yet another web site glitch. Although if it's a glitch, it's certainly a good one! I logged in to my account on Royal so I could check the latest cruise planner offerings on my upcoming Anthem trip. I glanced up at the C&A status section, enjoying that nice new "Gold Status" indicator, and saw this... Wait... 16 points?? I didn't sail in a suite, I didn't sail solo, and I've only been on a single 8-night cruise. I clicked on the "Past Cruises" tab, since nothing else was giving me a breakdown of how I got to 16, and had this surprise... I can't imagine that this is on purpose. Yes, my girls are both minors and the payment for the room is in my name / on my credit card, but they are the ones who stayed in the room, the reservation was in their names, and they do have their own C&A numbers. I'm a little concerned that I somehow got all of the points and my wife and kids might have gotten none at all. And I don't see a way to check their C&A points / status to make sure they at least have the correct 8 points. Have any of you who have sailed with your kids also seen this on any of your past cruises? Or is this a "happy glitch" that I should just stay quiet about? Should I contact my TA and ask her to verify everyone's C&A status / points?

@twangster, how was the motion of the ship in these forward balconies compared to when you were on larger ships and more forward (or aft)? I'd like to keep these cabins in mind if we book a Radiance class ship (say, for a European itinerary), just want to be sure that the motion wouldn't be a potential issue. We had a forward balcony on Freedom and really noticed the ship motion the first two days, when she was doing about 20 kt to reach the first port and had strong (17+ kt) head/crosswinds to boot. It was actually enough to make D14 mildly seasick on the second day, although the rest of us did OK. So I definitely need to keep that in mind for future bookings.

Sorry, couldn't resist! ?

Yes, there is an escape room activity offered on Anthem. You can find out more about from this review on EatSleepCruise.com. Key points I learned about this were: It's not in a dedicated room -- they have it in the Fuel teen disco on the days it's offered, and the room is decorated / repurposed accordingly Reservations can only be made once you're on board, at the SeaPlex, guest relations, or via the RoyalIQ app The review is from August 2016, when it was still pretty new, so I'd imagine the hiccups described around booking have long since been resolved.

The one notable exception to this is the Quantum Class ships, which actually have four physically separate dining rooms. This was due to the original concept of Dynamic Dining that the ships were designed to offer, where there was no traditional dining at all and you actually rotated through the four rooms over the course of your cruise; each room had different decor and different menu theming (e.g., Silk was Asian-themed, while Chic was gourmet contemporary style) Dynamic dining is now a thing of the past, but the ships couldn't just magically merge the four separate dining areas back into one combined dining hall. So there are two rooms reserved for traditional dining (Chic and The Grande), and two for MTD (Silk and American Icon). All four serve the exact same menu, even though the decor remains as it originally was in the days of Dynamic Dining. And as with the other ships, you can't change the room you're assigned to.

It means that you have several consecutive days in port, with no sea days in between. So if the trip was 10 days total, and the six day’s in the middle were all port days (say, six different islands in the Caribbean, one right after the other), that would be a port heavy trip. The good side of port heavy itineraries is that you get to see and do a lot of things in a short time frame. The bad side is that you don’t get a rest anywhere along the way, since all the sea days come at the start or end of the trip.

Welcome aboard, Tim! I loved Freedom, I'm sure you'll have a grand time on her. Definitely a good first ship to get exposed to cruising with Royal!

Nope, that cobalt blue of the deep ocean is burned into my memory. I want that view and that connection on every cruise. If I want to wake up to see a Central Park, I'll get a hotel room on E 60th for the night. Or if I want a boardwalk view, I'll drive down to Point Pleasant for the day. For that ocean view, it's got to be a balcony room on deck 7 / 8 / 9 of a smaller ship, doing a nice long itinerary. Heck, my cabin on Anthem is on deck 7 and I'm totally happy with that now that I know what to expect for the view. No way I'd want deck 9 or higher, I'd be too far up from the water! And if the ocean was that cobalt in the Caribbean, how much deeper blue might it be in the Scandinavian regions? ?

You're going in the wrong direction, @twangster. You have to look at when I end up doing the planned-for Norway / Iceland / Eastern Med cruise... "OMG, why did I wait so long to cruise on RADIANCE class?!?" ?

Have a great time! When you get a moment after you're back, let us know how it was and what you liked / disliked about lady G and the itinerary.

I have to agree with you on this. I just tried another mock booking with an Incognito mode tab, and it's the same as before -- No direct booking of J3/J4 class Jr. Suites available, only Guarantee rate. And last I checked, a Guarantee rate room is supposed to be less expensive than a direct room booking, but... well, I'll let the numbers speak for themselves... My latest reprice rate, from March 29, 2018; direct booking for J4 room 7238 on Anthem, includes $125 OBC $2,351.00 NRD base fare $ 366.40 port fees & taxes $2,717.40 total Current offer for a Guarantee Rate JS room, with only $100 OBC, for the same sailing on Anthem $2,677.00 NRD base fare $ 343.94 port fees & taxes $3,020.94 total I mean... really? I know prices go up the closer you get to a cruise date, and yes it's "only" six months away from sail date, but... This is all of one month after I last repriced, and it's for a class of room that's supposed to be less expensive to book to begin with. SMH

::smacking myself:: MANNERS, JOE! MANNERS!!! Have an awesome cruise, @Skid! Relax, enjoy, eat, drink, and be merry!

Is this a Canada / NE itinerary? If it is, let us know how the weather was this early in the season and also how you liked St. Johns and Halifax!

A rule of thumb that has been posted here when it comes to flights, is to not schedule anything before noon at the earliest. This allows for customs taking their time with allowing disembarking to begin, or any other holdups that could happen, plus needing to arrive at least two hours early for baggage check and security screening. Might be good to follow the same advice for a train trip, depending on how much time baggage check and any security checkpoints take relative to the experience at an airport.

@Skid, can you add some tags to this post so that it's more likely to come up in search results? Whatever you think makes sense. That will help when new people (or those like me who are rapidly getting the short-term memory of a fungal spore ?) want to try and find postings about the topic. There's an "Add Tags" link below the post title that you can use to add them after initial posting (just found this myself the other day when I wanted to tag one of my posts).

If you don't make a reservation, you simply go to your assigned dining room at the time you decide to eat, and let them know you don't have a reservation. Then it will be like any land restaurant, where they will see what's available and, if all the tables are currently full, they'll tell you about how long a wait it will be until you're seated. There are several here who only use MTD, and they pretty much all say that it's rare to show up with no reservation and wait more than 15-20 minutes. Unlike traditional dining times, where there's a somewhat fixed flow to the meal, MTD seems to be more focused on allowing people to complete their meal at whatever pace they indicate they want to go at. And by all accounts, that tends more towards "fast" than "leisurely". ?

That would definitely be a mixed bag for me. I liked what I had of Sabor (just small plates and guac), and would really like a chance to try it again. But I'd also like a proper Izumi on board and not just the Express variety, with its pre-made from who knows how long ago rolls and nothing else. I know it wouldn't be big enough for the teppanyaki section, but at least make real, fresh sushi an option! Is it too much to ask to have both on board? ?

Interesting. Photo Gallery space still isn't that big, and there's no connecting path from that space to any existing grill / kitchen area. I guess they could put the bar area on one side of the aisle go through from fore to aft, and the grill / kitchen area on the other side, but that strikes me as an odd layout compared to what they have for Symphony in the Boardwalk area. It was why I was thinking of commandeering the existing JR space -- they already have a grill setup to work with (gas feed lines, fryer, etc.), space is laid out right for a sports bar, and it has that outside exposure like the Boardwalk area would have. But Freedom ≠ Symphony, in practically every way, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out you hit the nail on the head.

Really? Deck 4 on Freedom was Schooner Bar, Sabor right next to it, and upper entrance to the main theater forward; casino mid-ship; and then the photography display area, Boleros Lounge, and MTD MDR entrance aft. Doesn't seem like any good place to put a sports bar and grill out of those options, unless they were going to replace the Schooner Bar or Boleros with Playmakers (which would be a bad call IMO due to fairly small space in either location).

Wow! @jticarruthers, that is a heck of a... not exactly a 180 from our experience on the exact same ship, but maybe a 120? Was your cruise before mine? Most of the items you mentioned were not at all the case for us, as best I'm recalling, so maybe they heard your feedback... When not getting our food (or bringing extra surprise portions), our waiter was typically close by; now, this might well have been helped by the fact the drop-off station for food orders was not 6 feet from our assigned table, but still... He definitely was checking on us regularly and making sure we were happy with our orders, and the couple of times we had to send something back (like when my daughter made the mistake of ordering her prime rib medium rare), it was replaced very quickly and without fuss Assistant waiter was refilling everyone's water glasses every time just one of us got to even slightly below half, and my wife (who was the only soda drinker from my family at dinner) was always asked before her glass was emptied if she would be wanting another one; our table-mate, who was always having soda, had a refill next to her not-quite-finished glass at least on later nights of the cruise, if not the early ones I never drink more than one glass of wine with dinner, and keep it going the whole meal, so can't speak to alcoholic beverage refills; but my order was taken promptly every meal after the first time I asked for the wine list, and after the first two nights the MDR had extra staff on hand to deliver bar orders much more quickly (always before the appetizers were on the table) The head waiter missed our table on night one, but apologized profusely for that fact on night two; after that he came by our table every night and spent just a minute or two asking us if we had a good day in port, if the meal was to our liking, and joking around with us a little The bread tray was always present on our table after we sat down, as I remember our table-mates and my wife always enjoying the pumpkin seed rolls before dinner got underway; I don't recall that we ate so much from the tray that it was ever in danger of emptying, so can't speak to it being kept filled As I said before, we were the 8 PM traditional dining slot; maybe it's a function of being in that, with waiters who are assigned a smaller number of tables, and a smaller general number of diners at that hour, that made our experience so much better. OK, I'm done hijacking the poor OP's original thread topic! Let's get back to discussing the merits of Hawaiian shirts on formal night. ?