Bob_KY

I'm just hoping by the time we cruise Alaska this May that we won't have to wear masks at all! (fingers crossed) 😂

Are you using an app or the website?  If they app....try deleting it completely and reinstalling
 

I will just add that, if you have the money to spare, extra tips for room steward and dining staff are greatly appreciated, though not expected. We always “pretip” our cabin steward $10- $20 as a nice to meet you/thanks for prepping our room. The service we get in return tells me it is received well.  We also tip and express appreciation on the last night  
There are envelopes available the last night to give tips to those who have helped you through the cruise. Again, it’s not a problem if you stick with  just your prepaid gratuity. But if you are comfortable giving extra, they will be grateful. 
 
 

I was very surprised to see my bid to jump from a Junior Suite to an Owners Suite was accepted today - 32 days out!  It was on Liberty of the Seas March 13th.  

Latest poll: 70% of Americans are ready to put Covid in the rear view. Double vaxxed and boosted are getting sick too. I don’t think boosters are the answers to what appears to be the new common cold. 
 
I’ve got 3 cruises (Caribbean, Alaska and Holy Land/Greece) through October. I’ll do the damn booster to take the 2 bucket list cruises but I’ll stop cruising after that if boosters are required year after year after year. I’ll have to retire as a brand new Diamond Plus and never get to enjoy the benefits. 
 
70% is a pretty substantial number. 

I don't think many would say "ditch all protocols" but I think many want realistic protocols that match the current state of things.  Most protocols (other than vaccine requirements) developed by CLIA and CDC are from summer 2020. 

Diamond equates to Elite level.

.......... interesting observation: About a week prior to this 12n, S. Caribbean sailing on Equinox, I received an itinerary update. As I'm in the remain flexible mode, I paid little attention to the modifications which involved COVID measures implemented by local health authorities in the ports to be visited. One of the changes was new restriction on going ashore on your own in the 7 ports of call on this sailing. Only way to go ashore was with a Celebrity curated tour with one exception that allowed you to go ashore but a restriction to remain within the port shopping area. Within this area, you could book "government approved" tours by local vendors.  
I had a private tour booked with a local vendor in Barbados. After contacting him, he told me he was not "a government approved" tour operator and I had to cancel. Of the 7 ports visited on this itinerary only one allowed you to disembark at the port and explore on your own (Antigua and Barbuda). All ports stipulated masks to be worn indoors and outdoors regardless of vaccination status.
I find this both troubling and these kinds of COVID measures to become more common and more restrictive. While there is a trend within western governments, not including Canada and others that are already returning to very restrictive containment measures in the face of Omicron, to recognize that managing SARS2 and it's variants can be done more wisely than imposing the draconian, costly and largely ineffective mitigation measures of the last 15 months. I doubt that is going to happen in Caribbean governments. What will be interesting is how the cruise industry will engage local public health officials at all the ports cruise ships call on, both in the Caribbean and globally, in an effort to continue cruise operations going forward in this emerging reality of persistent SARS2 and COVID presence. 

Sailing on Celebrity Equinox out of Fort Lauderdale on a 12n S. Caribbean Itinerary as I write this. This isn't going to be a cruise review. See the subject line.
We live in Fort Lauderdale. We're lucky and have friends that will drive us to the port (Terminal 25). You can park steps away from the Terminal 25. Convenient but expensive ($10/day). Come a day or 2 early, park in your accommodation's lot and take a shuttle or Uber/Lyft. That's going to be cheaper unless your cruise is 5d or less.
Don't bother arriving before your scheduled boarding time. Boarding times are enforced by terminal staff (not Celebrity employees). The boarding process is organized, plenty of staff to guide you (and herd the guests). They are good at what they do. Follow instructions.
Have hard copies of you boarding pass, vax card and test results. Organize them for easy access and display to staff when they ask for them. Don't count on finding that stuff on your phone! Guests behind you will appreciate that. 
Check in is entirely digital. It helps if you do everything you're asked to do before boarding ..... Celebrity will send you lots of emails to insure you know what to do. Do it. Other guests wanting to board expeditiously will appreciate that you were prepared.
Terminal staff use tablets and scan documents. Your Sea Pass card (room key) will be in the holder at your cabin.
Avoid the elevator (1 of 4 blocks of 4 cars) adjacent to where the gangway brings you to the ship's entry way on deck 5. Go all the way forward or aft and use those elevators. Avoids all the guests standing around the entry way wondering where to go.
You'll have local network (4 or 5g) connection on your phone until your around 6 miles off shore. To connect to the ship's wifi to use the Celebrity App aboard, select wifi in your settings and click on the Celebrity Equinox Wifi link. Follow the on screen instructions to connect (You can select your internet package here) to set up your account and pass word. Once you've done that and had a look at the Celebrity App, you can use your connection to the 4g/5g local area network to make phone calls, texts etc. 
Don't forget to put your phone in Airplane Mode as you sail out of the port and leave the range of the local area network. If you don't you'll connect to Cellular at Sea for phone and texts. Unless you have a huge bank account, you'll want to avoid connecting to it. After switching on the airplane mode, go back to settings and turn your wifi back on. Connect to the Equinox wifi and sign back in. 
The ship's Wifi is OK for most things you will want to do on the internet. You can't stream with the standard package. I don't think it is worth it to buy the streaming upgrade. It's not cheap. (pricing and that option will appear when you set up your onboard wifi account I described above).
I learned that just recently, crew from countries previously denied access to the US because of the vaccinations they received in their home countries were not approved by the US CDC. That's been resolved. Accordingly, crew staffing has improved dramatically and Equinox was being staffed for a full passenger load (about 2800 guests).
Before the sail date, there were 2200 guests who had booked this sailing. within the last three weeks before the sailing there were in the neighborhood of 400 cancellations (Fears of Omicron?). The ship sailed with roughly 1800 passengers and a full compliment of around 1260 crew members.
Circulating wait staff in the restaurants bars and lounges were notably more numerous than when we sailed Apex in July, Equinox in August and Millennium in November. We've sailed aboard Equinox maybe 6 or more times. Staff friendliness, engagement and service were outstanding as usual .... partly because of increased numbers of crew but mostly because Celebrity in general and Equinox in particular pride themselves in delivering excellence.  
Hope you learned something new here. I'll post again if anything new comes to me.

The Beach Club on a cold windy day is basically a really expensive lunch

+1 for Coke snob !

I sailed on NCL's Pride Of America once.  I was warned that the experience on Pride is far different than other NCL ships. Indeed, the on board experience was below average in every way. You sail Pride of America for the itinerary.  Not the ship.
However, it did expose me to a few policies that would be fleet wide as follows:
Royal allows you to bring two bottles of wine and a 12 pack of soft drinks on board.  NCL does not. Royal will give you a price break for the 3rd and 4th person in your room. NCL does not. The shareholder benefit on Royal can be used for gratuities.  NCL does not allow this. Are these show stoppers?  Probably not.  But it is good to know these things ahead of time.

When we were on Odyssey in November, I thought the same thing …….. the pool/whirlpool space barely cut it for the size of the ship and were always very crowded at roughly 40% passenger capacity.  I can’t imagine trying to use those when the ship is full to capacity!  I don’t know that I’d want to sail on a Quantum class ship in the Caribbean again when things are back to normal. 
 
 

I've sailed NCL, RCL and MSC mentioned here. I've also sailed Carnival, Disney, Oceania and Celebrity - mostly Celebrity. First, I love to cruise. The cruise lines, even down to the ships operated by them, have differing but nevertheless something to do with your cruise experience. You'll enjoy either NCL or RCL but that's just my take mainly becasue, well, I love to cruise no matter. 
The things I value about cruising are not worrying about making beds, doing laundry, figuring out what to eat, cooking and cleaning up, being served. It is the complete life of leisure - the longer I can do it the better and we've sailed continuously at times for 45 or more days ..... never get tired of it or want to get back home and sleep in my own bed. 
My take is that cruise companies have differing corporate level objectives that define the onboard guest's experience. All of them want to deliver "the best", most luxurious, eating and drinking, fitness/spa, gambling, entertainment, whatever experience for their guests. Some do it better than others or some things they do better than others. Corporate also tailors a guests experience around a target cohort, like kids, boomers, gamblers, buffet and big dinner eaters, spa aficionados, sun worshipers, port of call lovers and the like.
RCL is definitely family oriented. At the peak of cruising in 2019 if you were sailing RCL, you'd see lots of kids, some very well behaved, some not so much. Right now, I don't think that separates NCL from RCL. I think the concept of serving your guests graciously is carried out better aboard RCL's ships than it is on NCL. That goes right to the heart of corporate's HR and hiring priorities. When you inquire of crew aboard RCL (definitely aboard Celebrity - an RCL co-brand) of which lines have they worked for and which lines they like the best, parsing bias, RCL frequently comes up as a preferred place of employment. Happy employees, happy customers, right?
I have a hard time separating food and food service between NCL and RCL. It depends a lot on your expectations: 5* dining or burgers and a milkshake. NCL keeps up with leading trends in putting varied restaurants and menus on their ships. If you take, for example, NCL's newest ships and RCLs newest ships, I think RCL wins that comparison hands down when it comes to restaurants, menus and food quality..
Entertainment is another thing worth comparing. I'd say NCL tries, RCL delivers. If you're not into theater productions or stage performances in general, that shouldn't be a deciding factor for you.
Being based in Europe, I'd look at Celebrity sailings out of Athens (Piraeus) to the Greek Isles  - a great itinerary (I love Greece) more sedate, older cohort of guests with, right now, not many kids at all. However their youth programs are very good for all ages if you plan on sailing with your kiddos. As well, MSC has some beautiful new ships and a more European flavor as far as guests, food choices and menus are concerned. If you speak French, German, Italian or Spanish, you'll be very comfortable socializing - something we value onboard cruise ships. At the same time, if you speak only English and just get by with a foreign language, I never met a European that travels and that I've met on a cruise ship that doesn't speak the English language at a conversational level.
I hope this helps. Cruising is a very personal sort of thing with tastes among cruisers that post here and elsewhere varying widely. For me, if I'm on a cruise ship, I like it .... the one I'm currently on. You can't go wrong with RCL nor with NCL - for me, they each offered a different experience and I preferred the ones I've had on RCL. I don't think anything tops Celebrity but that is a hugely biased opinion. We know lots of Celebrity crewmembers that we see over and over again through the years. That makes you feel like family every time we board - 7X since June 26th, #8 next week on Reflection. We like feeling like family that is extended to us when we board .... a lot.        

Headliners are different than the production and/or Broadway type shows.  Headliners tend to be changed very frequently, in some cases there are more than one headliner on a particular cruise.  
The Broadway type production shows do not change often.  They are massively expensive to install on a ship and on a typical cruise more than 50% of all guests have never sailed Royal let alone that ship.  Of the C&A returning guests many have not been on that ship.   In reality the repeat cruiser coming back for a second cruise on the same ship are the minority, probably around 20% - 25% of the ship guest count. 
It takes up to two months to rehearse and place a new cast onto a ship.   It can take a month just to install the set on a ship.  The cast on some ships can be 25 to 40 performers on a ship like Odyssey with two theater venues. There can be dozens of backstage crew supporting each show.  Not all ship theaters are equal.  Some shows just can't be placed on certain ships due to limitations or the design of that theater.  
The most significant costs for the production style Broadway shows are the initial licensing and setup costs.  Once they'd laid out millions to get a show from development into production they definitely want to keep that show going a very long time to cover the costs associated with creating a new production.  
There are 26 Main Theaters, 5 Aqua Theaters,  5 Two70 venues and 13 Ice Skating Studios with more coming.  Many of the venues have two shows.   
To change the shows on every ship in the fleet every six months in every venue with new shows and new cast being trained and rehearsing would probably cost $50 million a year assuming you could actually accomplish it which can probably could not be done.  It's just not worth it for 20 - 25% of the guest count going on the same ship.  
There are frequent cruisers who have been on many different ships many different times.  It would be impossible to change the production shows fast enough to accommodate this group.  
 

No American has that figured out either. Especially liquor sales.

I use Michelle Cunningham. [email protected]
I found her recommended here on the boards and have been very happy with her service.
One thing to bear in mind is that your cruise pricing has to be in US dollars so the exchange rate against your currency may sometimes be in your favour and sometimes not.

Ordering.
Room.
Service!
The TV ordering was either broken or not available on our Odyssey cruise and I've very quickly gotten used to not having to talk to people to get what I want. Lol. I wish I could have just picked the items I wanted right there in the app rather than calling and yelling over their busy kitchens. Ability to pick theater/ show seats for sky and star class/ suite guests. Something like this would definitely be farther down the road but it'd be cool to have a reservation for an exact seat. On some of the freedom class ships, we found the seats in the reserved area were occasionally more narrow or had less leg room than others but more comfortable seats were in less desirable locations. Be cool to know what seats are available without having to get there 30 minutes before showtime. I second a countdown to cruise! I find it so odd that's not in there! More information on non-booked shore excursions. I spend more time on my phone than i do a computer and it'd be great to scroll through shore excursions right there in the app pre-boarding or during the cruise. I think I could be okay with booking being a thing that needs to be done via cruise planner but it'd be cool to get some quick bits on offerings. even if its just a series of videos like I get onboard on the shore excursion channel. Lol

First, let me say I understand a lot of frustration in and with the cruise industry due to COVID. Its supposed to be a great vacation and customers pay a good price for the experience.  The media likes to dwell on cancelled ports and sick passengers and empty ships sitting at anchor. All the misery and misfortune in the headlines sells. No one wants to go on vacation and be limited to mask wearing, subjected to nasal swabs, flight disruption, port dismissal etc.
On the other hand, trying to take a purely scientific view point ...
Though ships have been called a Petri dish (generally with negative connotations), at the same time they are a somewhat unique controlled population sampling. Here you have literally thousands of people that are vaccinated and following masking protocols etc. Its not perfect but when you look at infection rates, those aboard ship are less than one percent compared to over 30% on land.
To me this is a perfect example of how an experiment works. You have two populations, one with generally well kept protocols and controls, and the other, not so much. The difference in infection rates is dramatic. It just shows vaccines, masking and isolation of known cases works.
Ships have other issues such as limited space for isolation and medical facilities. Their systems are not perfect but the numbers show they do work.
 
 

We like to do this as they always seem to appreciate it. For us it is an extension lead, mattress topper, and robes.
Then depending on the wife's mood, either beds together or separated. Ouch, the bride just backhanded me

Fresh ice, extra hangers and wine glasses. I always like to give our attendant $20 on the first day while making these requests...their smiling reactions are awesome!

My highly anticipated Black Friday sale is a bust.  Not only is it still 30% off but the base price went up a couple weeks ago so that 30% is actually $3 more each.  I know, I know you snooze you lose.  

There is no "best ship" but "best ship for you"
There's absolutely nothing to be leery about older ships. They aren't clunkers headed for the trash heap. They just don't have all the bells and whistles as the new ships. And those bells and whistles are of no value to many.

We did the Northbound on the Radiance and then a 3-day post land tour.  We loved it!  Radiance was a great smaller ship.  I would totally do it again!

I got back last week from 5 nights on Adventure.  It was interesting, because I was on Adventure out of Nassau which didn't require masks.  I had no issue wearing them when required, the only negative for me was just forgetting it at the table when getting up for the restroom or something.  So basically it was just like what happens everywhere else in life.