Orange Crush

Glad to hear you're on the mend! The only piece of advice I've really got is make sure you follow the doctor's directions to the letter! After my ankle surgery, my doc gave me little "homework" excersizes I had to do with a rubber band type thing. They seemed silly and weren't very fun, but it was important for the healing process and I'm glad I did them!

I think there's a non-monetary aspect to visiting Puerto Rico and the other islands hit by the storms too. People need to get back to work to pay their bills, but it's also important to be able to get up out of bed and get their lives back to something resembling normalcy. Having lived through many hurricanes, once the storm has passed and the critical life-safety stuff is taken care of, I really just want to get back to work and have normal days again.

I'll be on the Allure in a few weeks for a 7-night cruise and I've booked the 4-night specialty dining package and plan on using the MDR for the remaining three nights. I understand that this arrangement doesn't really let me pre-book the nights and restaurants via cruise planner and Royal's going to auto-assign the Specialty Restaurants for me and I'll find out once I board. I want to go over the selections and make any adjustments I'd like pretty much the moment I set foot on the ship so it's all sorted before the masses arrive. Where do I go to get this changed? Head waiter of the MDR, or should I book it over to a specialty? I'd really like to set up reservations for all 7 nights to lock them in so if there's one stop I can make to take care of it all, that would be ideal.

As far as I'm concerned, their "sales" are completely imaginary because of the base price underneath doing whatever they feel like. Whether they say it's buy one get one 50% off or 60% off or 30% of the whole thing, it's usually all within a few tens of dollars. I have found that no matter what the apparent sale says its is, earlier is better and check often. Occasionally there is an actual price drop and that "20% off" this or that might sound like a worse deal than the "30% off" or whatever you booked it for but the bottom line could be hundreds of dollars cheaper. I saved almost $200 on my Christmas Cruise by keeping a close eye on it. A good TA will do this for you automatically too. Same with cruise planner add ons. Excursions, drink packages and internet packages bounce around all over the place. Unless you're getting really close to your sailing, that $45 drink package might still pop back up. Although it seems like the Internet packages have been sticking around $15/device/day for a while, cheaper prices on those might be gone for good.

As first time cruisers, I recommend traditional dining. You keep the same table and servers and I think it adds to the overall experience. You don't also don't need to reserve times with traditional dining, you have a fixed time and assigned table every night.

We had Bobby Broughton on the Majesty over Christmas and he was great; not sure if he's sticking around after dry dock or heading to another ship though, although I may be able to find out through the grapevine.

Uber used to be banned from airport property and you had to work around it by cabbing it to somewhere nearby and continuing with Uber from there. Not sure if that's what Matt was referring to, or if there's still some significant cost benefit to getting away from the airport before continuing on to Cocoa Beach.

How DARE you! I'm actually going to try Sorrentos again when I'm on the Allure next month. For science. I cannot fathom how anyone could find what I had on the Majesty remotely decent, no matter how much the drink package has been utilized. I'm really curious if it's any better on other ships.

The lack of transparency is what frustrates me. I have no idea what Royal is paying them, vs what percentage of their income is coming from gratuity. How much of the increase do they actually net, or is Royal pushing grats up so they can keep the salaries lower, which is really just shifting more of their labor costs onto the guests and the crew members aren't actually making more when it's all added up. I want the people waiting hand-and-foot on me to be happy with their careers and make a fair livable salary. But I also don't research the cost of living and regional job market differences for my waiters and cabin stewards or compare their total compensation packages including benefits and time off across cruise lines sailing in different markets and regions because I don't work for Royal Caribbean's HR department, so why the hell is so much of this decision making being left to me? It's a bad and confusing system.

I just pre-paid my gratuities yesterday for my upcoming March cruise on the Allure. Paid the old rate of $13.50 per person per day.

They'll still be getting $0.00 from me.

The 4th to the 11th, so we'll miss each other by a few weeks. On the bright side, they should have enough time to resupply the food & drinks for your sailing.

I don't see any paid options on my upcoming March Allure sailing. It's all complementary. I think you need to be closer to the sailing for the free reservations to show up.

Obviously, the propeller was damaged during her skirmish with the Carnival Magic last year.

It was going to be my birthday present to myself, but I'm not too torn up about it. No flight booked, it's an easy 4 hour drive to Port Everglades from where I live. I booked it because the price was hard to beat and included a drink package and wifi, the itinerary didn't even matter much to me (Key West & Cozumel). I was in it to try out the Celebrity experience and see how it compares against Royal. The email they sent is strangely worded, I'll have to call them to clarify, but it sounds like they're offering a choice of: Full refund, nothing else Rebook the same ship & itinerary for a different date and original price is protected Rebook a different ship/itinerary and get $100 OBC It's unclear if the $100 OBC also applies to option 2. It also says "Brand promotions" will be honored, so that might mean I get to keep the 2-free-perks offer if I go with option 2 or 3. I haven't decided what I want to do yet, I'll have to look at all the alternate itineraries and pricing options.

I just got an email last night that my 2/16/19 cruise on the infinity was outright cancelled because the ship was chartered. :( I'll call in the next few days to see what my options are.

I wouldn't say "avoid at all costs." If your ship will be there late, it would be worthwhile to pay the $10 or so for a cab over after 7pm when the aquarium is free and walk around. Just don't do any tours, they're a waste of money and time.

To be honest, I would have to be pretty severely ill to even consider missing a cruise or other vacation. I wouldn't let a cold keep me down. Have some hot tea in the morning and enough alcohol to forget you've got a cold and you'll be fine. The flu or a stomach bug could change my mind--it's not fair risking other passenger's health and nobody wants to be vomiting and utterly miserable on a ship any way. Regardless, you've got a month till you sail. Plenty of time to shake a little cold.

On the Majesty we had first seating in the MDR and would go up to the Windjammer later for after-dinner snacks because why not. It was definitely different from what the MDR had and it all looked pretty good. It also wasn't crowded at all (9ish). We never skipped the MDR in favor of the Windjammer (why do one when you can have both!), but I wouldn't have been mad at all if we did. They had good stuff up there, I would be totally fine with that being my only dinner for the day.

Covers non-cruise travel too, which ups the value even more. I ran a quote from the site you linked and it came to about $500 when I entered 2 adults. Does that mean $500 for both adults (so like $250 each), or $500 each person?

I had no idea this was even a thing that existed. That changes my math substantially if I don't have to buy insurance for a particular trip and can instead apply the same premium to a whole year's worth of travel. It's FAR more appealing to cover multiple "what-ifs" than just one specific trip and watch the premium dollars go to waste. I mean, peace of mind has value, but it's a lot more valuable when I'm not thinking so much about cost-per-trip. Let me know what you find, I happen to be a USAA member as well so it would save me a phone call!

Well, having just sailed on both Carnival and Royal Caribbean in the past couple months, I have them both pretty fresh in my mind and can say without question that I strongly preferred my cruise on Royal Caribbean. There were pluses and minuses to both, some areas Carnival is a clear winner on and there are some areas where Royal clearly won. People weigh aspects of the experience differently, so I can totally understand how someone with different preferences would like Carnival better. The Carnival Liberty is a much newer and bigger ship than the Majesty of the Seas, but they both run similar 3-4 day itineraries out of Port Canaveral and pricing is about the same, ignoring balconies. The Liberty has regular balconies, the Majesty only has a handful of Junior Suites which are much more expensive. Carnival wins on: Staterooms. They're bigger, there's more of them, there's more variety, and you can get a regular-priced balcony. Drink package: Royal doesn't have an official drink limit, Carnival limits it to 15 in a 24 hour period, but Carnival doesn't charge extra for top shelf with a per drink maximum of like $50. Royal caps at $12 and charges extra for anything more, which is less than a lot of their featured drinks of the day and premium cocktails. Bugers & Pizza: Guys Burgers and the Brick Oven Pizza are neither the best nor worst burgers and pizzas I've had, but they're serviceable and don't cost extra. Royal's Pizza is literally the worst I've ever had and their comparable non-buffet Burgers come with a surcharge. Notable mention: I liked that the onboard app let me check the daily agenda & my folio account balance and transaction at any time while on the cruise and didn't require a wifi package. Royal wins on: Service. The staff was always very friendly and made it clear they would go to great lengths to make us happy. They seemed sincere and eager to help. Carnival's staff did not. A couple people stood out as nicer than the rest, but the vast majority was pretty surly, terse, or just seemed put upon most of the time. Primary Food. Majesty's Main Dining Room was a slight step above Liberty's (and Majesty's service was miles better). Windjammer beat the pants off the Lido deck buffet except for pizza and burgers. Deli: The Majesty's Compass Deli was much nicer than whatever they called that quick-order window on the Liberty. Entertainment: Royal had more theatrical shows, Carnival seemed to lean more on questionable stand-up comedians. Notable mention: Wifi. Despite being stuck in the late 90s in nearly every way technologically imaginable, the wifi connection was substantially faster, better, and better priced than Carnival's. There are a lot of other differences that don't matter much to me that might be important to somebody else--kid's club, for instance, I have no children so can't comment on either line's approach there. The Majesty also had a much smaller Casino compared to the Liberty. If you drink top-shelf liquor and gamble a lot, Carnival's probably your boat. I'd rather see a show, have a nice dinner and watch the piano player in the Schooner bar with a glass of wine.

I went with an aunt & uncle who toured it last year. I'm not the target audience, but I'm pretty sure I'd absolutely hate living there. It's like a homeowner's association on steroids that also runs the local government all the way up to the county level. That's a plus for some, but it's far too restrictive and rule-scolding for me. You have to use this approved landscape company, you can only have these approved plants, you have to have an approved color, floorplan, pool enclosure, roofing material, driveway size and shape, etc. It's also sounds like fee-city. There was an association fee, an activity fee, a this fee, a that fee, and they probably have a covenant that lets them add and increase fees whenever they feel like it. I haven't spoken to people who actually live there to understand if it's really as bad as it sounds, but that's the impression I got from the tour guide attempting to sell people on the place, so I'm assuming if it sounds that bad when they're trying to paint a rosy picture, the reality's even worse. That said, having your neighbors on a tight leash and clearly defined parameters for how everything has to be appeals to some, so there's a lot that's just a matter of preference there. I just feel like it's way too controlling. The other big big issue I'd have with it is the fact it's a bit of a wasteland outside the borders of the compound and you're basically 2 hours from anything else. Airport, Port Canaveral, Disney, Downtown Orlando, etc. It's all 2, 2 and a half hours away. If you don't plan on leaving much, that isn't an issue, and there are certainly a lot of activities on property (you're paying dearly for them, may as well take advantage).

Well, I'm partial to Orlando myself. Good job market, lots to do, you can be a Disney kid and go as much as you like; you can avoid it all and never set foot on that side of town; or you can split the difference and go once in a while until you get sick of it, and then pretend it doesn't exist for a couple years! Cruise ports galore from 45 minutes to 4 hours away. The only snow you'll see comes in a paper cone with a choice of 15 flavors. If you like beaches, scuba diving, kayaking, gambling, broadway shows, roller coasters, college football, professional soccer, jumping out of an airplane, etc. we've got it all. Cost of living is reasonable, no state income tax and only 7.5% or so sales tax (varies a bit between counties). We do get hurricanes, but they don't happen every year and as long as you take them seriously and take precautions, you will be fine.

It's paid, not sure if there's a free option. It was one of those "buy 5 years for $50 deals" that came up a while back.