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A Worthwhile Endeavor?


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I have been on 5 Royal Caribbean cruises so far.  Now I'm having this desire to sail on all the ships in the RCCL fleet.  That would be 22 ships to go for me.  Would this be a worthwhile endeavor?

How would this compare to just aiming for sailing on one ship in each class?  That would just be three more classes to go - Freedom Class, Vision Class, and Empress

My cruises so far:

Oasis Class - Harmony

Quantum Class - Ovation

Voyager Class - Mariner

Radiance Class - Serenade

Sovereign Class - Majesty

 

 

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I'd say go for both goals! 

Sailing on each class would be the one that seems to be a little more attainable in a quicker time frame.... but it could be a part of the larger goal to sail on all the ships. 

 

Personally, not an overt goal I have specifically set... but in the back of my head I have thought to myself how cool it would be to of sailed on all the Oasis class ships. 
In a way I feel like they have redefined modern cruise ships and set a new standard right around the time I really got into cruising. So far I have sailed the Allure and Oasis... with a sailing on the Harmony in 14 days. 

 

But by all means... GO FOR IT!  

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I do think that there's a fine line between doing a cruise to go on a ship vs doing a cruise to sail an itinerary. I don't know the exacts about where your previous cruises have gone, but if you have done, say, three western Caribbean cruises then you might as well wait until a different itinerary comes around before choosing a western Caribbean cruise on Empress. The exception of course is always Oasis Class. 

Then again, a second cruise is always better than no cruise, so if the opportunity presents itself, why not!

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45 minutes ago, brycemo said:

I don't know the exacts about where your previous cruises have gone, but if you have done, say, three western Caribbean cruises then you might as well wait until a different itinerary comes around before choosing a western Caribbean cruise on Empress.

I've gotten good itineraries on my sailings ... almost no repeats on ports except Nassau and Coco Cay

Oasis Class - Harmony - San Juan, PR | Labadee | St Maarten

Quantum Class - Ovation - Alaska

Voyager Class - Mariner - Nassau | Perfect Day

Radiance Class - Serenade - Ponce, PR | Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis | Castries, St Lucia | St George, Grenada| Bridgetown, Barbados | St Johns, Antigua; 

Sovereign Class - Majesty - Nassau | Pre-Perfect Day Coco Cay

 

My planned cruise for November 2020:

Vision Class - Vision - Puerto Limon, Costa Rica | Colon, Panama | Cartagena, Colombia | Oranjestad, Aruba | Willemstad, Curacao

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some of those ships are rather old, and lacking in amenities.  They still sail because it is affordable or fills an less popular home port.

Personally, I look at the opportunity cost, and I would not want to use my limited vacation time to fly north to Montreal to sail on a 28 year old Empress of the seas along the Canadian coast...  

 

 

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2 hours ago, RatedPG said:

I have been on 5 Royal Caribbean cruises so far.  Now I'm having this desire to sail on all the ships in the RCCL fleet.  That would be 22 ships to go for me.  Would this be a worthwhile endeavor?

How would this compare to just aiming for sailing on one ship in each class?  That would just be three more classes to go - Freedom Class, Vision Class, and Empress

My cruises so far:

Oasis Class - Harmony

Quantum Class - Ovation

Voyager Class - Mariner

Radiance Class - Serenade

Sovereign Class - Majesty

 

 

Go for it!  I've got a "cruise bucket list" and on it is sailing on every class (which we've done with the exception of Empress, which we will be on in August 2021) - we've even sailed in a class that doesn't exist anymore!  Another that we've done is sail from/to (some repos involved) every (current, but we did sail into one that RCCL no longer goes from/to) US embarkation port on the east coast.  We may expand that to ALL east coast ports, as we're only missing Quebec City at the moment.  Up next is hitting the south (Galveston, New Orleans) then the west coast.  I'd like to sail on every ship in one class, which at the moment we have (Majesty, haha, as she is in a class of her own). 
 

Sailing on every ship is not on the list at the moment, but as we check off each item then we may need to add more. 

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Why not. If you can afford it and it's something that you want to do, go for it. If you do, I'm not sure how many people can say that they have accomplished that. I know a lot of people here has sailed many RC ships, but I'm not sure if anybody has sailed all of them.

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Definitely neat to say that you've been on every ship. If its in your budget and vacation time, then go for it.  Guess my only comment is that if you try a ship in a class and you don't like it, them it may not be worth it to try the others as they are probably similar (unless a specific amenity that you want).

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It's an interesting objective if you can make it work while not forgetting why you cruise.

Perhaps start with trying to sail all within a class such as all Oasis class or all Vision class.  

I'm missing Rhapsody in that class but I wasn't going to sail her to Cozumel at a premium price compared to other ships that can get me to Cozumel.  Along came an interesting Greece itinerary next year so I'm looking at it which will complete the Vision class for me.  

Same with Jewel in Radiance class.  

Spectrum and Voyager at the moment represent a challenge.  That's not insurmountable but cruising out of China just to say you've sailed it isn't my thing, I'd rather put that money towards a bucket list itinerary on another ship even if I've sailed that ship. 

I've found a South Pacific on Voyager in 2021 after she is AMPED that is bucket list so that will complete the Voyager class for me but my purpose in that booking wasn't to sail Voyager so much as reach some specific ports in the South Pacific.  

So if you can make it happen in the long term that's great but don't forget why you cruise in that journey.

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5 minutes ago, WannaCruise said:

Guess my only comment is that if you try a ship in a class and you don't like it, them it may not be worth it to try the others as they are probably similar (unless a specific amenity that you want).

I have the 2019-2020 Fleet Guide comparing the features and amenities by class.  Is there an article comparing all 27 ships on the fleet?

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14 hours ago, vanelli56 said:

Personally, not an overt goal I have specifically set... but in the back of my head I have thought to myself how cool it would be to of sailed on all the Oasis class ships. 

After sailing Symphony and then Harmony, I made this my goal as well.  Just got off Allure and I have Oasis booked in November..so that will be all four Oasis sisters in just around a year's timeframe.   By far my favorite class of Royal ships, although I have yet to sail on Freedom class.

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8 minutes ago, twangster said:

Spectrum and Voyager at the moment represent a challenge.  That's not insurmountable but cruising out of China just to say you've sailed it isn't my thing, I'd rather put that money towards a bucket list itinerary on another ship even if I've sailed that ship. 

 

The cost to get to China just to say you've cruised on Spectrum would definitely afford you another cruise in the fleet.

I agree with you about remembering why you cruise. Cruising on a ship, just to say you've cruised her, doesn't do it for me. I've always been driven by itinerary and just get assigned to the ship that's going there.

It's the long held debate between those that book a cruise for the ship or book a cruise for the itinerary. No right or wrong, just different approaches. 

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22 minutes ago, RatedPG said:

I have the 2019-2020 Fleet Guide comparing the features and amenities by class.  Is there an article comparing all 27 ships on the fleet?

The fleet guide is a great reference.  Good question about any article...I've seen various things just by googling but not sure if Royal itself has anything.

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4 hours ago, FManke said:

I've always been driven by itinerary and just get assigned to the ship that's going there.

I’m driven by itinerary myself, as you can see from my previous sailings. I want to see new destinations with each booking.  But in the long run, if I can visit new places booking on ships I’ve not been on, then it’s a win-win for me.

Actually, the port of origin is also a big factor for me. I try to avoid having to fly to a port. It’s a good thing ships are rotated on a regular basis.  Being from Jacksonville, I have 4 ports within driving distance, although I always fly to FLL and MIA. Just from these ports alone, I can get on about a third of the ships on the fleet. If I add the Northeast ones in NJ, NY, MD, I cover more than half the fleet.

The long range plan is go on all the Royal ships, but the immediate, attainable goal of going on ships from nearby ports should keep me sailing 1-2 times a year for a good amount of time.

 

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22 hours ago, RatedPG said:

I have been on 5 Royal Caribbean cruises so far.  Now I'm having this desire to sail on all the ships in the RCCL fleet.  That would be 22 ships to go for me.  Would this be a worthwhile endeavor?

How would this compare to just aiming for sailing on one ship in each class?  That would just be three more classes to go - Freedom Class, Vision Class, and Empress

My cruises so far:

Oasis Class - Harmony

Quantum Class - Ovation

Voyager Class - Mariner

Radiance Class - Serenade

Sovereign Class - Majesty

 

 

I plan on doing this as well and I'm way behind you having only sailed Explorer 10 years ago!    I'm also itinerary driven and will likely hold off on ships like Spectrum until they either reposition or I reach a point that it's schedule seems appealing or more affordable.  But I honestly believe if spaced out the right way the ports/itinerary will easily be the deciding factor and I won't feel like I booked sailing just to say i've been on a particular ship.  I've always wanted to go to UAE so we plan on doing that in 2023 and Australia in 2025.  I live in Saskatchewan, Canada which unfortunately means flights but on a positive note i'm so far from each port that i'm not faced with feeling guilty about flying away from a "home port."

 

With all of that said how often do ships reposition.  I've only been back in the game so to speak since early this year.  It seems like ships spend many, many years in a home port.  

 

for reference:

Apr 2020 Enchantment to Cozumel

Sept 2020 Mariner 2N Perfect day

Dec 2020 Oasis Western Caribbean

Mar 2021 Rhapsody to Belize/Roatan

May 2021 Grandeur to Bermuda (planned based on previous schedule)

Nov 2021 Vision 11 night ABC islands (planned based on previous schedule...notice the vision class focus 2021).    

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I haven't really paid attention to the Classes and deck plans but I had the chance to compare them recently.  Now it's clear to me that ships within classes share almost identical features and layouts.  So I'll go by my immediate plan of trying at least one ship per class and then, in the long run, try to book as many of the ships on the fleet as I can.

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my thought (based on my experience/preferences) would be to go for each class and only try a different ship in that class if you didn't care for something about the ship you sailed on. by way of example, we have sailed on both oasis and allure. we vastly prefer oasis to allure, but we tried oasis first. if we had not tried oasis first and liked it so much, we might not have tried allure. while this is the opposite order of what i'm advocating, my point is that, had we tried allure first, we probably would not have tried oasis and would have missed what is now our favorite ship. i hope that makes sense. i will remember this for my future sailings - to not dismiss a class if i don't care for the first ship i experience in that class.

side note - the above ship preference is for example only and not intended to start any kind of debate - just our personal preference.

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22 minutes ago, RatedPG said:

@tzb, I get what you're saying in your reply.  I've only been on the Harmony but I know that Oasis Class ships have almost identical construction and design.  May I ask what about Oasis of the Seas made you prefer it over the Allure?

sure thing, RatedPG. in our experience, oasis was cleaner, the crew was friendlier in general (warmer and more customer service oriented), the food was somewhat better and the overall vibe was a bit more laid back and friendly.

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