Orange Crush

What's interesting here is that was under the old CIO, Michael Giresi. He quit and went to Aramark in September of last year & Royal named Martha Poulter the new CIO just before Christmas. There's no way this started after Poulter took over, this project had to be in the works well before Giresi left. But I cannot fathom why they'd move forward with throwing the switch on such a big PUBLIC FACING infrastructure change that early into the tenure of a brand new CIO. There's no way she's gotten a handle on all the projects going on and what every team under her is working on and responsible for in three months on the job. This is pure conjecture on my part, but having been up close and personal with some big corporate software-related projects, I bet you that website redesign was horribly behind schedule and fraught with problems. Giresi either ran away screaming or got pushed out and Poulter was hired on to make the new code ship come hell or high water and that's exactly what she did--damn the bugs, we'll fix 'em as we go. No way does a brand new CIO do a major release three months in to a job unless that's what they were specifically hired to do.

I'm not paying an upcharge for nachos and potato skins on a cruise ship. If I'm going to pay more for food on a vacation, it's going to be for an experience that wows me like Chef's Table, Chops or 150. If I want fried food or chips and dip that badly, then I'm going to support the local economy of the place I'm visiting. I ain't paying Royal for that. This is yet another continuation of a nickel-and-diming trend I'm getting less and less patient with. I'm the sort who budgets a whole vacation and prefers to pay over time and up front for everything so I don't have to have a care in the world while I'm actually on vacation and there will be no big surprise bills at the end to close out my vacation on a sour note. I do not enjoy spending money WHILE on vacation. I want all of that sorted before I put my flip flops on. Cruising Royal used to accommodate me on that, but that's becoming less and less so. And not only are they adding more for-pay options, they're degrading their complementary offerings too. I've noticed a distinct nose dive in food quality from the MDR and Windjammer on ships with more specialty restaurants and upcharges. And there's that rumor they're going to nuke the drink package benefits on Coco Cay soon. Gotta squeeze the guests more for that water park . . . If I have to shift my vacation dollars to all-inclusive land resorts or start taking a fresh look at the other cruise lines competing with Royal but offering more for the money without all the nickel and diming, then that's what's going to happen. It's certainly looking that way more and more.

Call them (or your travel agent) and check. They ought to have been posted in the system by now, so it's possible they've already sold out, but RC systems are screwy on the best of days and they just did a massive overhaul to their website. It's very possible they're available and hiding.

Following up on my earlier post, my C&A points have been corrected. They responded to my email and basically said it was a known issue and a fix would go out in a week or two. I just checked today, and my C&A points now show the correct balance.

You're talking about the Allure of the Seas, though, right? At best, the app was only mildly useful aboard, but it was pretty much garbage. I say that because while it was handy to have the ship maps, cruise compass and all the MDR and specialy restaurant menus (and you don't need a wifi package to use it), that's all it was really good for. And the itinerary on my sailing got shuffled due to the weather, shows got rescheduled, and there were all sorts of changes and NONE of the updates made it to the app. None of them. At that point, it was outright wrong information and useless. Fortunately, there are big touch-screens by all the elevators that were kept up to date and worked very well.

I guarantee you that they merged, migrated and restructured databases on the back end and there's no practical way to walk it all back to the old data structures while preserving everything that has been booked or changed since the rollout. So it's damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.

The pastries are free and the coffee drinks are all included with the refreshment and deluxe drink packages, but not with just the soda package. The only other upcharge restaurant onboard the Majesty is Johnny Rockets.

Depends on the ship. Some of them post all the menus in the mobile app. (Allure did, Majesty did not). If not, try asking your waiter, they may have them already printed.

I emailed their support address, we'll see what comes back. In the meantime, I did a little digging. It looks like the "grand conversion" happened January 21, 2011. Prior to that, it looks like the system was: 1 point per sailing +1 additional point for Junior Suite or higher +1 additional point for 12+ night sailings When they converted old points to new points they used some funny math. It looks like they based it on where you were relative to your C&A level so that if you were one cruise away from the next level, you'd be in the same relative position under the new system. I found this conversion table:

What's odd is that my cruise from 2000 was worth 8 points before this website "up"grade, it's only dropped to one point since they changed the site over. Were your 1 pointers showing that way before the new site?

The Allure has a pool in the Solarium at the front between the two jacuzzis. Aren't the Oasis and the Allure pretty much identical (for now)?

I didn't understand what that meant either. I figured it was just waving a steam wand at the thing and hoping for the best without putting it through the press. I guess it's better than hanging it up in the bathroom while taking a shower but still gentle for items too delicate to press?

On the Majesty the show performers sang Christmas Carols in the promenade one night, but this was the actual week of Christmas. They also did a short show in the main theater with various other performers doing Christmas music on Christmas Eve. Not sure if they'd do that for the weeks leading up to Christmas though.

The only times I've flown with a suit have been on Delta and the flight attendants always took my garment bag and hung it up in the little closet they had up front. I had a backpack carry-on with me as well that I kept with me for the flight. We used the pressing service on the last cruise. Just laid the garments on the bed with the form filled out on top and gave our attendant a heads up as we left for dinner. They came back pressed the following evening. Make sure you leave the "make up room" card in your door in the late afternoon so they can deliver it before you want to start getting ready. Here's the price list: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/en_US/pdf/LaundryPriceList.pdf We had to ask our attendant for a form, but they sometimes leave a few in the closet.

Grand Suite and above can go sideways. Junior Suite guests are only allowed to go up and down.

Can confirm. It was $9.95 on the Allure a few weeks ago. I asked about that. You can go for just milkshakes and they won't charge you the cover if you don't order food.

Anybody noticing errors in their C&A point balance? They're only showing 1 point for a cruise I had in 2000 that should be worth 8.

Up to you, there are no bad choices, but for a first cruise I recommend set time. I think it adds to the overall "Be Our Guest" sort of experience.

You can still buy drinks for other people if you have a drink package (and pay full price for that drink). Just tell your bartender and they'll charge your account instead of ringing it up as a drink package drink. If you both have a drink package, most of the bartenders will let you get two drinks if you bring them both Seapass cards, but they technically are only supposed to serve the actual cardholder, so YMMV. The pool bars in particular are pretty lenient about that.

Vegas has a gambling commission that sets the percentage machines have to be set to for payouts and conducts regular book and physical audits to enforce compliance. As far as I know, RCI can do whatever it wants and doesn't have to answer to anybody on what their payouts are supposed to be vs. actually set to, so I think it's safe to assume the slots are much tighter. Tables usually have better odds anyway.

I've only done specialty dining on the Allure: 1.) Chops 2.) 150 Central Park 3.) Giovanni's I semi-agree with @twangster, there are better steakhouses on land than Chops, but I wouldn't compare them to Outback. More like Ruth's Chris. 150 and Gio's are about even in my mind and I'm only giving 150 an edge because of the bread and fancy salts they bring out as well as the cucumber martini. I did feel like the whole shtick of 150 was a bit on the pretentious side, though. (the waiter introduced herself as our "culinary guide." The plating and presentation was nice, but slightly silly in that "Taco Bell in Demolition Man" sort of way). Food was good though. I really wanted to try Sabor & Izumi, but we just ran out of time.

On the Allure, I had a filet at both Chops & Giovanni's. Chops was better. Had a much nicer crust & sear. We also really liked the sharable sides (Asparagus, mushrooms & mac and cheese).

I'm pretty sure the Cafe Promenade had Frappucinos on the Majesty. If not, you can approximate it by ordering a blended iced latte with one of the flavor syrups (I recall seeing vanilla, chocolate, hazelnut and caramel).

Hold up . . . So if I get a drink package, and I don't use my cup, it never activates? What happens if I bring that cup on a future trip? Will it activate then and work for the whole cruise sans-package? (not that it matters, I'm pretty much always going to get the drink package, so I guess we'll just amass an ever increasing number of RC soda tumblers.)

Yes, Goose, Belvere & Tito's were all on there w/ no upcharge, so was Absolut (including the flavored ones like Citron)