Atlantix2000

That would be 3 points per night (start with 1 pt/day, +1 pt/day for suite, +1 pt/day for solo)

Of course it's allowed but that's not the point.  I was responding to the part of the post that said the wife wouldn't actually use the non-alcoholic package.  If that's the case, it's not a matter of whether Royal allows/requires them to purchase the refreshment package.  It's a question of whether it makes financial sense to purchase any packages at all.

It's actually one punch per shot of espresso (where 12oz = 1 shot, 16 oz = 2 shots, 20 oz = 3 shots).  So two 12oz drinks is more liquid but less espresso.  So the value depends on how much caffeine you want.

It's actually one punch per shot of espresso (where 12oz = 1 shot, 16 oz = 2 shots, 20 oz = 3 shots).  So two 12oz drinks is more liquid but less espresso.  So the value depends on how much caffeine you want.

Companies have learned to spread their "best" sales across multiple days and weeks because they can capture more customers.  There's a limit to how many things I can shop for on a single day (whether in person or online).  Thus a Black Friday sale is now a multi-week sale followed by a multi-week Cyber Monday sale.  It doesn't matter what the sale is called, just look to see if there are good deals.  That's true any day of the year.

I think you've misinterpreted the 6 month rule.  Where it exists, the 6 month rule refers to how close your passport is to expiring, not to when it was issued.  You can always travel with a brand new passport because it is valid for 10 years (or even longer? I don't remember).  Countries with the six month rule are concerned that you would enter their country with the intention of staying for a week but due to medical/legal/etc issue, you end up staying in the country longer and your passport expires before you leave.  (This would mean you are now stuck in their country).  So they require that your passport will remain valid for 6 months after you arrive.

First, Royal's website is known to not show all available inventory.  Second, you said this cruise is in Jan 2026 (over 2 years away).  That's a LOT of time for bookings/cancellations/rebookings/cabin changes/RoyalUp/etc to drastically change the inventory.

First, Royal's website is known to not show all available inventory.  Second, you said this cruise is in Jan 2026 (over 2 years away).  That's a LOT of time for bookings/cancellations/rebookings/cabin changes/RoyalUp/etc to drastically change the inventory.

It's a quirk of the card processing systems in combination with Royal (and most hotels/resorts/other cruise lines/vendors/etc) trying to save money.  Whenever you run a charge on a card, the vendor gets charge a fee from the payment processor.  There are actually 2 parts to this fee - one set fee per transaction and one variable fee based on the size of the charge.  Therefore, it costs the vendor more to do five $20 transactions than one $100 transaction.  In order to minimize costs, the vendor is allowed to place a hold and modify they size of that hold.  Then, when they know the final bill, they cancel the hold and put through one final/real transaction.  This works great for the vendor but not for the consumer because cancelled holds don't cancel immediately, but the new charge does go through immediately.  This means for a short time, the card appears to have been charged twice.  (The length of this time depends on the policies of the bank that issues the card and cannot be controlled by the vendor.)  So how does this effect the consumer?  It depends on whether the card is credit or debit and whether whether there is enough money to cover both the hold and the real charge.
For a credit card, the issuing bank has plenty of money to cover all possible charges so the hold has no real effect.  The only question is whether the hold plus the real charge plus any previous balance would hit your credit limit.  If you're under the limit, great.  If you're now over the limit, the real charge gets denied and you'll have to use another card or cash.  The important point is that the hold effects someone else's money (the bank's).
For a debit card, the money in your bank account has to cover all the charges and the holds.  Your bank won't know the hold is cancelled so it ties up your money twice.  That can lead to denied charges or overdraft fees depending on your account's rules.  The important point is that the hold effects YOUR money.

It's a quirk of the card processing systems in combination with Royal (and most hotels/resorts/other cruise lines/vendors/etc) trying to save money.  Whenever you run a charge on a card, the vendor gets charge a fee from the payment processor.  There are actually 2 parts to this fee - one set fee per transaction and one variable fee based on the size of the charge.  Therefore, it costs the vendor more to do five $20 transactions than one $100 transaction.  In order to minimize costs, the vendor is allowed to place a hold and modify they size of that hold.  Then, when they know the final bill, they cancel the hold and put through one final/real transaction.  This works great for the vendor but not for the consumer because cancelled holds don't cancel immediately, but the new charge does go through immediately.  This means for a short time, the card appears to have been charged twice.  (The length of this time depends on the policies of the bank that issues the card and cannot be controlled by the vendor.)  So how does this effect the consumer?  It depends on whether the card is credit or debit and whether whether there is enough money to cover both the hold and the real charge.
For a credit card, the issuing bank has plenty of money to cover all possible charges so the hold has no real effect.  The only question is whether the hold plus the real charge plus any previous balance would hit your credit limit.  If you're under the limit, great.  If you're now over the limit, the real charge gets denied and you'll have to use another card or cash.  The important point is that the hold effects someone else's money (the bank's).
For a debit card, the money in your bank account has to cover all the charges and the holds.  Your bank won't know the hold is cancelled so it ties up your money twice.  That can lead to denied charges or overdraft fees depending on your account's rules.  The important point is that the hold effects YOUR money.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

then most people are purchasing specialty coffee.  For the original question, perhaps we can sum this up that for Royal (and most of the world) - Espresso is always Specialty Coffee, Non-Espresso may or may not be Specialty Coffee.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

Apps showing schedules allow flexibility that paper schedules don't.  They can be updated throughout the day if the weather/illness/etc causes a change to an activity/show/etc.  It's also more environmentally friendly than printing something that is only valid for a single day.
You can eat at the same time with the same waiter whether you do "My Time Dining" or traditional.
There's no shuffleboard because most of Royal (and Carnival's) guests have never played it!
Much of your complaints are a generational issue.  I mean this in the kindest way possible, but it sounds like you are older than the target market for the mainstream cruise lines.  There's nothing wrong with that, but you may need to seek out smaller, more luxurious cruise lines to find what you are looking for.

What is a mummy's favorite style of music?   Wrap Music!

What is a mummy's favorite style of music?   Wrap Music!

I wouldn't put much faith in a phone call to a representative that doesn't specifically mention Martinique in their answer.  The reply as written is the standard reply for most normal cruises.  If the representative didn't understand that there are exceptions, they'll just repeat the standard scripted answer.  As for the Roll Call admin, I also disagree with that statement.  My understanding is that you enter a country by entering their waters.  Staying on the ship changes nothing.  If you don't have the proper documentation to enter a country, you will be denied boarding.

I don't have nearly enough nights at sea to make such a definitive statement as "always", but in my experience, there's been a Drink of the Day every day I've been on board.  To the best of my memory, there was always a sign on the bar (but not necessarily every bar since not every bar has every ingredient).  No idea if it was in the Cruise Compass or not.