tkltomp

I'm so excited to announce for the Wonder of the Seas Group Cruise in December 2022 we're going to Maya Chan while in Costa Maya!

Anyone that's booked with MEI Travel for the Wonder of the Seas group cruise is welcome to be our guest for a complimentary visit to Maya Chan as a thank you for supporting our travel sponsor for this cruise!
When: Day 5 (December 22)
Just email Beci Mahnken at [email protected] with the names of everyone on the reservation and how many guests in your cabin.
If you've never been, Maya Chan is an all-inclusive day pass spot with limited capacity and a pool!
Here's a recent visit I made: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/09/09/odyssey-of-the-seas-live-blog-day-4-costa-maya

Yes, the Wife & I are going.
 

Yes, the Wife & I are going.
 

Yes, the Wife & I are going.
 

MEI is great.  My MEI TA (Jacki) also keeps an eye of the sales, automatically.  It's great to get an email letting me know the fare went down and I picked up some OBC.
On my upcoming B2B on Oasis I had to re-book because RL got in the way and all it took was an email to Jacki.
I know most of that doesn't apply to the group cruise but a TA sure makes life easier.
She also handled a Disney World vacation for me.

I don't smoke but I don't mind smoking sections.  Live and let live.
However, there are reasons cruise lines fear smokers, and its another case of idiots ruining it for everybody.
 

I've been counting down the days until she arrived at port.  Here she is as seen from my office window!  July 23rd can't come soon enough!!
 

There is an Embassy suites that is at 95 International drive.  It has free shuttle to the port and free airport shuttle 

Greetings,
During our recent Oasis stop in Saint Martin, I did the Down Hill Trek and did not have a great time. 
When I disembarked and met the guide on the pier she was a little distracted and inattentive.  We walked over to the bus stop and filled out a wavier, then waited about 20 minutes for a bus.  We got on that bus drove through Phillipsburg and parked at a construction site for 20 minutes.  Then, a smaller bus pulled up and the guide told us we were on the wrong bus.  After that we went straight to the park.  We offloaded and were offered walking sticks (take one) and got on the truck to take us to the top.  At this point 5 of the 16 people on the tour asked about bicycles.  The tour guide was confused and after a few moments of conversation those five people were surprised to discover that "down hill trek" meant walking not mountain biking.
We got in the truck, which took us up the mountain.  Once we got there we unloaded and walked a short distance to two different overlooks for pictures.

We then started the hike down.  The trail was not very well maintained (I definitely recommend a walking stick).  The trail was overgrown and filled with ruts from running water.  Several people (old & young) had trouble navigating many parts of the trail.  The whole hike was about 2.5 hours and there was some rain which the trail a bit more challenging.
Once at the bottom the bus was nowhere to be found.  After another 20 minutes the bus showed up and took us back to the pier.  The bus stopped downtown to drop off three people, who wanted to shop.
 
Overall the trip was ok, the confusion/delay with the buses was annoying. 

Scheduled to leave YYZ at 930am. Scheduled to arrive at FLL at 1215pm.
 
At about noon we are cleared for approach. Then we go into a holding pattern for an hour due to t-storms in Fort Lauderdale. After an hour of left turns we are almost out of fuel. We have to land at MCO for jet fuel and to wait out the storm.
 
We landed safely but by the time our bags were off the carousel it was 4pm.  If we were flying in the day of departure we would have missed the ship!

True, you cant please everybody but a little common courtesy on all sides goes a long way.

This is/was the Star Princess. It was speculated that a cigarette thrown from an upper balcony MAY have started the fire. If memory serves, there were other issues as well with the furniture and this is another reason why the cruise lines don't want anything left on the balcony.
As @monorailmedic has stated, a smoke-free ship has been tried and it failed. Had it worked, we'd see more smoke-free ships. And given that approximately 20% of the population smokes and that 80% of people have never cruised, I don't think any of the cruise lines, which are growth businesses, are willing to cut out any portion of the market at this time unless they can ensure a large increase in passengers.

I hate the RCL website
 

Can't argue with that. I would have done the same thing had I not left our ship early to spend some extra time elsewhere.

We are doing a Navigator Baltic cruise in June.
We are going to bite the bullet and take the Stonehenge tour which drops us off at Heathrow afterwards.
We just could not resist seeing Stonehenge, but its not cheap.

I writing my thoughts here cause it took a few years and a few rc canceled cruises to finally try RC. Yes we were reluctant to cruise RC. When we finally started our drive to Port Liberty I must say I had my mental clipboard in my mind ready to rate negatively every issue we encounted onboard RC Anthem of the Seas.    So for my fellow dcl'ers heres my review:
Checking In for Cruise:      RC  about 5 min         DCL   about 20 min
Parking:                             Easy at both
Entering ship: Very Impressive atrium on dcl upon entering ship, plus visually amazing every time u pass through it. 
Adult Area on Ships:  RC seems about twice as large. 4 huge beautiful Jacuzzis. RC adult area on deck 14 is enclosed, which is a huge deal. Weather controlled. It doesn't matter if it rains, and is cold, etc. It's called the Solarium and that describes it. Warm, tropical and beautiful. Multi level mid size pools and u can just sit back and watch the path the ship takes.The Solarium is totally enclosed in glass There's even a very nice small cafe in this area. Very nice. DCL Jacuzzis are much smaller and "metal" looking. No where close to RC's. The RC Jacuzzis stay on all the time. Very rarely did we have to press the button. Jacuzzis open to midnight. Some pools open to midnight. 
For 10 and older:  RC has tons of activities. The rock climbing, the surfing area, the Ifly which is also super fun to watch, the NorthStar. How about the FunPlex area: Huge inside area that has a full court basketball area, that turns into a skating area, also a bumper car area. However the dodgeball game held here was hilarious. Each side had about 50 adults/kids playing. The game I saw, a younger female adult dressed in formal outfit ending up beating everyone. It was amazing to see her catch the balls thrown at her in her outfit. Fun!
Main Theater Show:  The RC shows were extravagant with special effects, lighting, singing, etc, but for us, the shows were weird. However, everyone we spoke with loved them. So I guess we'll give it another chance next cruise. Disney Shows are of course Fantastic. 
Dining: Here of course was one of our main concerns. I didn't like that we couldn't visit all 4 of the different dining areas. Oh well. Quality of dinner I thought was about the same between RC and DCL. DCL does present it a little better, but no big deal. DCL has a bit more variety for the dinner menu as well. 
Service: I found the staff at RC to be very friendly and willing to assist. Of course DCL is pretty much fantastic, but after 7 cruises on dcl, maybe they are over the top! Too much. And dcl always hints to please give them a top rating, like almost every day. 
Windjammer vs. DCL buffet forgot the name?  The first day dcl has the shrimp and crab legs and Windjammer doesn't. After that they are pretty much the same with these few exceptions: Windjammer has way more variety. The omlet station is much easy to deal with. A few different people are making omelets. I found I had to wait at dcl for a few people before me all the time on dcl. RC also had a few staff making spaggetti with vegetables of your choice and it was really good. Windjammer seemed larger as well, more international type foods. On the last full day of the cruise, Windjammer had "special" desserts. That was a nice touch as well. 
Pay for soft drinks:   Not even a big deal for us. Besides ice tea, juice is available in the morning, plus flavored water drinks that were really, really good. Didn't miss the soda at all. 
Stateroom: Very, very nice. I think the size was 198 sq ft, a little smaller than the 214 stateroom were usually reserve on dcl. We reserved a bed topper months before so the bed was fine. Sheets were very comfortable similar to dcl. We did miss the split bathroom a bit, but did enjoy the glass shower. 
Night Entertainment:  RC seemed to have way more and a better variety. At least 2 comedians during the cruise. Also the ship has 3 bars or clubs which rotated different bands on different nights. They were really good to watch and listen to. 
Public Restrooms:  Ok here is the place where RC needs lots of work. The Men's Restrooms around the ship are dirty most of the time. My wife said the Lady's room was fine. I'm glad for that, or she might have jumped off the ship. Not sure if this is a male thing...but the public restrooms don't have a little button to override the automatic flush, when the auto flush doesn't know that someone has left. I think it is also confused by the fact that sometimes the seat isn't closed. I don't know what it was, but RC put the little button on the toilets, so guests can manually flush the toilets. I hated that and so no need for that at all. 
Rebooking:  RC absolutely kills DCL on this. They have 4 or 5 stations for this. Plus a book to reserve a time slot. DCL used to have a drop off box. I always researched and knew my next cruise info, and when dcl discontinued that box, I had to wait a long time in line while people who didn't research would ask begining level questions like "What ship is cruising from what port???  All stuff u can find online before u take up 2 hours just chatting. Last dcl cruise I just left my info on the managers desk and said "book this or not and getting rid of that mailbox for next cruises is a disaster from those of us who know what we want to do. I don't want to give up 2 hrs of my vacation time, cause someone higher up isn't smart enough to make the right decision."
 
All in all, forgetting the public bathrooms, we had a great time on the Anthem of the Seas. I went in trying thinking it would be horrible, but we had a great time, like strolling around the ship at night and watch all the people having fun.   (ps- I don't know how so many people drink so much. I was so full from the meals, I couldn't keep up with the drinking. But everyone was having a great time. 
 
 
 
 

I think "soon" is relative. It's still going to be a couple of years.
I'm working with MEI to book a post-cruise trip to both WDW and Universal. They had very competitive group rates on the hotels for Marathon Weekend and was quite surprised by their rates.

My guess is it has to do with legal documents and what documentation they use to coordinate with government officials.

From what I remember from our Dec NAV cruise, the fridge was empty but there was a "order sheet" to use if you wanted anything stocked in the fridge.
 
I agree that this is a much better system.  #1, it leaves the fridge available for use if you have something you want to put in there, #2 it avoids unintended/erroneous charges and #3, you only get what you want in your fridge.  I guess you could add #4, the bar service person no longer has to bother you to "check" the fridge unless you do have it stocked, in which case I guess he/she is still going to come by occasionally.
 
So the mini bar service has not actually STOPPED, it's just been modified.

I heard that the stateroom mini bar service will no longer be available and I for one am glad to see this go.  It has been more of an inconvenience for me to get the charges reversed for something that I did not consume in my 2 previous cruises.    I believe the confusion was the Evian bottled water that I brought to the room from the casino were mistaken for mini bar consumption.  So if you happen to see this in your stateroom and do not plan to use it, you can request them to be removed from the mini fridge/room.

For me JR's is all about the Milkshakes.

Welcome!
You may find this blog post helpful: Royal Caribbean itinerary recommendations for first-time cruisers

But we would all buy them!   But then id have to keep shifting my sea pass btw that and my red wings lanyard!  Decisions, decisions....   Jane

@FManke Pretty much the same, but with a fixed cover charge, so it tends to cost less. It's a great place on the ship for a complimentary breakfast, though. 

That's great to hear!