JLMoran

The “cars” of the coaster seat up to two people. Rear person has a seat belt, second person sits directly in front of the other one and I think only gets a lap belt. Doing it this way, you should only need one ticket but I’d confirm that with a rep from RCI.

Thanks for another great live(ish) blog, @CGTLH! WJ Recon for the win!

More follow-up on this, at 77 days out from sail away: United has gone up by about $420 on base rate from what I paid, and that's using the departure times with the lowest available rate; the rate to upgrade to Economy Plus also appears to be increasing. JetBlue has gone way up since I bought my tickets. Unless they have a price drop at the 60-day mark, it would seem that at least with this airline (and Southwest, based on some earlier comments here) it's best to just buy on them the moment the fares are announced. Seems they follow the cruise line model -- lowest price you'll find on announcement day, and just going steadily up from there.

You want your $50, I want my luggage tags more than 40 days in advance... To-MAY-to, To-MAH-to.

Hi @Joeyaziz, welcome to the boards and our little family! @Sabrinaklai already answered your question, I'll just add the detail that you can call the 800 number for Royal that's used to buy any excursion, drink package, etc. and plead your case there. I personally had to do this as my wife cannot drink due to medical reasons, and they were quite reasonable about it. No formal documentation from her doctor was asked for in my case (although they may change this as time goes on), and once they accepted the exemption for her, it was simple enough to then purchase the Deluxe Package for myself and the Refreshment Package for her. Even better, when another cruise planner sale came along that dropped the price of the Refreshment Package even further, it was super-easy to just cancel her drink package and re-buy at the lower rate. I called in to do it, as I didn't want to take a chance on trying through the Cruise Planner and finding my Deluxe Package canceled as well.

I had asked about whether specialty dining went on sale during overnights, but only to figure out if I should just wait until we're at the port to make the reservation or book the dining in advance. For the OP, while the pricing of the drink package as the D+ member won't be as good if you pre-purchase on the Cruise Planner, it's still a 20% discount vs. on-board purchase, so you're not losing out on all discounts. And I have seen some deeper discounts offered on the cruise planner that put it closer to your 33% D+ discount. My sailing on Freedom in 77 days had the drink package stuck at $55 per night forever, but then it suddenly dropped to $43 (right when the change in purchase policy kicked in). So maybe do the advance purchase, keep an eye on the Cruise Planner to see if you can cancel and re-buy at a better discount, and then if all else fails you could still try to do the on-board cancellation and repurchase with your D+ discount. Just looking at the numbers, it seems like your "loss" from not as good a discount is still more than offset by the Gold person's "gain" from getting the discount in the Cruise Planner.

Well that sucks! I have to wait 37 more days? Unacceptable!!

Now, the follow-on question that doesn’t merit a separate post: If I’m officially checked in and ready to go, why aren’t my luggage tags showing up for printing? ?

Now that’s what I call a definitive answer! Thanks, @twangster, case closed!

When you cruise with the kids, do you usually have two separate rooms, and have to book yourself in one and husband in the other? When it's just the two of you, have you always seen a separate print button for each of you? Maybe this is specific to non-Oasis / non-Quantum class, or a combination of it being neither of those ship classes and the fact we're in that connecting room setup so both the wife and I are in one room. @Matt, does any of this look familiar to you? How have you ended up printing your Set Sail Passes on your recent trips on Freedom-class vs. Oasis / Voyager / Radiance class? I think we need the Windjammer Connoisseur to chime in!

Thank goodness! So it does sound like I'm all set (sail) here, since all four of us are listed on the one pass.

Here's what I'm talking about: My reservation, after clicking "Online Check-In" with all steps finished and pass ready to print: And here's my kids' reservation -- note that they're in a connecting balcony room right next to my wife and I: So just one Print button that appears to apply for all four of us in one shot. I have to say, I'm kind of relieved I'm not the only one who's feeling confused by this!

Nope, on my reservation (wife and I) there is only one button to print -- that far right column has only one "cell" for the two of us. The kids' reservation (separate room, connecting to ours so we get away with not needing someone over 21 in there) also has only one "cell" in that far right column, but it's blank.

My kids' reservation has no option to print a pass -- which makes sense since they're both minors. For the reservation that my wife and I are on, I see no option in the Set Sail Pass screen at the end of Online Check-In to print for all. Nor do I see any option for that in the pop-up window that opens after I click the Print button on that final Online Check-In screen. Further, on the copy of the pass that I see, the table in the first page that lists all the passengers has "Certified By:", followed by my name in the Cruise Ticket Contract column; my wife and I both have a check mark. That also makes sense since they're minors and I had to complete their online documentation for check-in. What's kind of weird is that the kids' room number isn't listed in that table's Room Number column, it's just blank. There's a "What's This" popup I can view on the Cruise Documentation page, before I drill through to try and print the Set Sail Pass, and I do see it says this (emphasis added): And the pass definitely lists all four of us. So maybe they've made some changes recently, or maybe because it's a Freedom class ship there is really only one Set Sail Pass printout needed? That text definitely makes it sound like I just print out one copy, and as long as all four of us are present at check-in with our passports, we're good to go.

OK, so big moment here. We finally got all of our passports and, thanks to that, we were able to complete online check in! And you know what that means... Our Set Sail Pass is ready to print!!! Looking at it, I see it lists all four of us on the first page, with me as the primary pass holder, and then only lists the room number for the cabin my wife and I are in. At the end, there are sample luggage tags showing both room numbers, the passengers in those rooms, and our muster station (B, as it turns out). So, do I only have to print one copy of this document and it's good for all four of us? Or should I be printing four copies so each of us has one and can use it for things like any beverage purchases or the like while we're on board and waiting for our rooms / Sea Pass cards to become available? I was always thinking there would be one Set Sail Pass for each of us, with our name / cabin # / etc; and then each of us would show our individual pass and passport in order to board. Would be happy to find out I'm wrong.

Saw this, tempted, BUT... Next cruise is wife's pick and I already know she wants a full-family outing during summer or a school break. While by 2019 the older daughter will be solidly aged out of Adventure Ocean teen club (18 or 19, depending on sail date), the younger one (15 by then) would probably still want some option for hanging out with other kids her age, at least a little bit. I'm sure during a school break that at least some Celebrity sailings would have a higher percentage of teens on board than usual, but not sure if it would be enough to make the younger one feel less like a fish out of water. Of course, the younger one is the foodie and artist of the family, so a Celebrity sailing could still be up her alley, at least from what my TA Heather has told me about the line.

Can anyone comment on how Abe / Alexander are? I think I remember seeing positive comments about Abe from @twangster in his recent Freedom live blog, but if anyone else know either of them from other sailings they were on... And of course, if they're good then hopefully they're not also switching ships or going on vacation before March 31.

@Sabrinaklai, not taking it as an argument at all. I may well have not worded my comment carefully enough. I fully agree that all of those additional staff (vacuumers, bus people, etc) are necessary and absolutely play a role in the overall experience. My point of my comment was only that I'm seeing the argument against these so-called "gratuities" that are, in fact, a service fee and just another component of these employees' day-to-day wage, not a true gratuity. The other part of my comment is that with this understanding of how these fees are spread out to the crew, that I'd like to see a little more truth in advertising and either flat-out call it the service / hotel fee that it really is, or just bundle it into the base price. And then, in addition, go back to making actual gratuties a thing that are paid into envelopes (or put on your SeaPass card via the app / TV console) at the end of the cruise. I think my comment was missing this last part, which might have made it a little less provocative. We already have a line item for port fees and taxes. What's the issue with having an up-front line item for service fee / hotel fee / whatever the heck the lawyers or marketers want to call it? People who want those deep-discounted base rates can still find them, they'll just see the fee up front and pay it up front. And they're free to tack on additional true gratuity at the end of the cruise, just like they can today on top of the current front-loaded "gratuity" (mandatory service / hotel fee).

If you happen to be seated at a larger table with other guests, I've heard it's still good to let the MDR know you won't be there that night. This is so that the others at the table aren't kept waiting for all expected guests to arrive before the wait staff starts taking orders and bringing out meals.

@Cez, thanks for that breakdown from Carnival that you posted. That's even more detailed than what @monctonguy was able to find for Celebrity. I had a suspicion that the tips were spread out in the way that was described, and it's nice to see it spelled out so clearly. I imagine all cruise lines follow the same model with this, so we can assume Royal spreads it out similarly. And seeing that, I really do have to agree with a lot of the sentiment that's being expressed. Let's just take the person vacuuming my hallway. I may pass the person a dozen times or more during my cruise, I may say a polite hello or even engage in some small talk at the beginning or end of the cruise. But this is not someone who I'm actively interacting with in any kind of direct service way, and it makes just about zero sense to me that this person is getting anything that legitimately would be called a "tip" in the standard sense of the word. That portion of the Housekeeping Team gratuity is really just a part of that person's salary, which happens to be subsidized by me and everyone else in that corridor. If that's what's really happening, I'd rather just see this charged as an up-front service fee like hotels charge on top of the room rate, as part of my overall cruise fare. And then reduce the gratuity portion / restrict it to only the actual individuals with whom I have that direct interaction and can make the judgement on level of service. Of course, then someone booking that inside cabin for $450 per person will be asking why they're being charged a 25%-35% "service fee" for all these unknown / unseen individuals, and stop sailing. I imagine that wouldn't help the cruise line's bottom line all that much. That actually brings up a separate point -- Why are interior, ocean view, and balcony all charged the same flat per-day rate when the cabins themselves have such a wide price spread? Aren't gratuities / service charges supposed to be a percentage of whatever you actually paid on the baseline service? I realize everyone's final cabin price is going to vary somewhat based on sales and such, but shouldn't it at least be some "rack rate" based on the cabin class? Same could be said for suites -- sure, their gratuity rate is a little higher than the non-suite rooms, but they carry such a premium that the gratuity is practically a pittance, particularly when you get to the highest suite categories. Just using a sample 2019 7-night Southern Caribbean out of San Juan on Freedom, I'm seeing this: Base $14.50 pp / pd gratuity Interior @ ~$97 pp/pd -- 15% Ocean View @ ~$110 pp/pd -- 13% Balcony @ ~$155 pp/pd -- 9% Suite-level $17.50 pp / pd gratuity JS @ ~$220 pp/pd -- 8% GS (1 BR) @ ~$346 pp/pd -- 5% OS @ ~$423 pp / pd -- 4% GS (2 BR) @ ~$642 pp / pd -- 3% I can see where people who thought they got a great deal on their interior cabin would suddenly be feeling a little shafted when they realized how much of their base fare was being added back on again as "gratuity". Meanwhile, suite guests are barely blinking at the surcharge.

You're kidding me, right?!? The worst casino in AC still gives 2:1 odds on a $5 table. Yeesh, I may just skip the casino entirely. Especially if it's the smokehouse I also expect it to be.

Thanks for the great live blog, Jay! Really appreciated, especially when it meant taking some time out from your vacation to make these posts, edit the photos, not to mention the time every day for WJ recon!

Umm. I think you meant "blender"? Maybe? But I feel like the word that actually came out might be the better context. God knows I wouldn't mind a good bender right now.

Without going in to the painful number details (@WAAAYTOOO can give those if you really want them), suffice it to say that just betting a few hundred bucks into the slots or tables, even allowing for some wins prolonging the time there, won't come close to cutting it for making any meaningful rewards. You have to bet thousands of dollars across every cruise to maintain anything remotely resembling a good ranking and rewards profile. I've already resolved that I will just go on board with a $200-$300 budget at most to play craps and maybe a little dollar slots, solely for the reason that I really like playing craps and the slots can be entertaining for a little while; I have no hopes or expectations of making Club Royale or getting any kind of comps with that tiny play. It will be my personal "mad money", will not go larger than the budget I bring, and will only be used on tables with a $5 or $10 minimum (if I can find any).

Now we have to go for the stretch goal -- facepalm! ??