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I'm going to Alaska for a cruise on Aug 11...I kinda want to do this inaugural sailing and I could *probably* get off of work but I think my wife will kill me if I bring it up since I know she can't go lmfao.

The price varies. Buy it at a price that you're comfortable with, and check for price drops. Only look at the price per day. Don't pay attention to the percentage off, as it really means nothing. It is always more expensive on board.

Oh, you are new to me I see. LOL. I'll try, but it's going to hurt. LOL.

@CanHardlyWait For every negative thing, you have to write 3 positive things going forward.

Aqua show from the handicap seats. The one's with no backs are hard and painful.

When is the best time to get the drink pkg? Will they ever have 40%off or is it cheaper to get it on the first day boarding??

The pool being closed constantly would annoy the shit out of me...pun intended.

Well, day 1 and a pool has been closed for cleaning till tomorrow. It's the strangest thing. The lifeguards don't tell the kids to not dive in, jump in, splash, don't run, etc. None of it. They just walk back and forth looking for floating stool. Then every 10 minutes another lifeguard will come by and the two will walk past each other looking down left to right, right to left. Then from opposite ends when no poop is found they give each other a thumbs up. 10 minutes later, it starts all over again. Zero actual lifeguard duties. I have never seen anything like it on any other ship. A kid could dive in and break there neck in shallow water and all the lifeguards do is look for floaters. Royal Caribbean does not handle the children thing like Disney Cruise line does. Day 2 will be interesting.

I have never been asked for military veteran verification either but always bring a copy with me jic

The pics of Europe are simply sublime

Anyone seen uncle Rico ?

That's what I mean. Those who sufficiently do all their stuff ahead of time will basically just be escorted on board (or to the waiting area).

Hey Guys! Back from a fun day of pasta cooking and shopping to recap yesterday, Friday, our second full day in Rome. Yesterday was another cold and rainy day. The first half of the day we took a semi private tour of the Vatican and the second half of the day we had a walking food tour. We started our day with breakfast at the hotel. While it was very civilized for hotel breakfast, the coffee was self serve at a crown lounge/suite lounge-esque coffee machine and not good according to both my parents who are coffee drinkers (I am not so I would not be the one to ask), and the food was just ok (this I can confirm myself). I forgot to catch pictures but needless to say we are not going to be doing it again. We then ordered an Uber and headed on our way to the Vatican and the meeting point for our Vatican tour. One quick note about Ubers in Rome: there is only Uber Black offered, you can also use the Uber app to order a cab but we haven’t tried that, we have stuck to Uber black as well as traditional taxi stands when they are convenient for us. You can’t just hail a cab in Rome, you have to go to a Taxi stand and in some cases that additional walking to find a taxi stand is not great for my mom. Anyways, after about a 30 minute ride with some traffic, we made it to our meeting point for our tour, the Caffe Vaticano, and it seems most tours meet outside of there so it was quite hectic. That combined with that fact that it started down pouring rain shortly after we got there provided for some interesting challenges. We were also a bit early for our meeting time. Anyways, after a short time the LivTours check in person arrived and we checked in and were pointed to our guide, Monica. The tour was just us and one other couple for a total of 5 guests. We headed across the street to the Vatican Museum. The entry times had gotten backed up, not entirely sure why but we waited a bit with our group (in the down pouring rain) before we were allowed to enter. Once we entered, we went through security. Security was very simple, you had your bags go through an x ray machine and walked through a metal detector. I had read online that they didn’t like reusable water bottles so we opted not to use ours as we didn’t want them taken away but the other couple in our group had theres and had no issue so in retrospect we would have been fine but your mileage may vary. It also looked like there was a bag check for oversized bags. Not entirely sure the rules there nor how you would be able to get them back since you don’t end the tour at the starting point so probably a good idea to look at the size restrictions on the Vatican website. My dad had a classic Jansport backpack with some jackets and umbrellas in it and had no issues, and same with my mom’s and my crossbody Travelon bags. Once through security, our guide had us take a brief pause to use the facilities and also dry off a bit. There was literally a line for the hand dryer in the women’s restroom but I managed to use it to dry off my jacket and it was better than nothing but I definitely did the tour pretty drenched. Speaking of my Travelon, it was also completely soaked including all the contents. I just had to live with it for the duration of the tour. We then re-grouped and were given radios to wear throughout the museum, even though our group was small, our guide Monica didn’t want to have any issues since it was extremely crowded. We then entered the museum. We spent about 1.5 hours going through the museum, after losing the first half hour of the tour to the wait outside as well as security, etc. It was very busy but Monica did a great job of keeping the group together as she talked us through each gallery. She shared loads of anecdotes about each room and I don’t know what we would have done without a guide in there. It was truly overwhelming between the crowds and the sheer magnitude of it. I think I took close to 100 pictures in the museum. We then spent about 15 minutes in the Sistine Chapel. Before the Sistine Chapel, she talked us through what the different paintings on the ceiling were and what they represented and prepped us where to meet her after our 15 minutes were up since she wasn’t allowed to guide us through that part. Then, we exited the museum, and had to turn back in our radios as they were the ones owned by the museum. From there, we proceeded directly into St. Peter’s Basilica. The biggest advantage of doing a guided tour was that we directly entered St. Peters from the museum and did not have to wait in the general entrance line. As someone who has waited in that line multiple times before, I can confirm this is a great perk. Once inside St. Peters, we spent the last half hour of the tour going through the highlights of the property. All in all, the tour was 3 hours long. Monica also gave us some advice about where to go while in Rome at the end of the tour. She really was a great and thorough guide and we were extremely impressed. As I said earlier, the tour was operated by LivTours and I purchased it through Viator. It was called “Rome: Skip the Line Vatican, Sistine Chapel, St Peter 6 PAX Group”. It was pricey, but definitely worth it and a lot cheaper than a completely private tour, even after factoring in the cost to Uber there (the private version of the tour offers a hotel pickup). The was my 3rd time to the Vatican and St. Peters but I definitely got the most out of it doing a guided tour. It was also our first time going into the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel so those were both very neat experiences. Probably the closest thing I have to compare it to was when we did the hermitage museum in St. Petersburg in 2016 in terms of how crowded it was (I know, probably a terrible comparison), but I got a lot more out of this thanks to how small our group was and the truly fantastic guide. Here are some photos from the experience (I took a ton so this is just a few to give you an idea): After St. Peters, we headed out to the Vatican and found a side street where we were able to order an Uber to pick us up and take us to our hotel. Thankfully the rain had stopped and the weather was starting to clear up. One good thing we have noticed is we have had an easier time finding Uber pickup points on side streets here than in other cities such as London. We had originally planned to spend some time shopping and exploring independently then but we were all a bit tired from the Vatican between the crowds and the weather along with the walking and many steps. The tour is definitely not handicap accessible, which we knew going into it, but I don’t think we realized the amount of walking for my mom. Thankfully, she was a trooper but we definitely all needed a siesta after. We opted to skip lunch as we knew our food walking tour later would have enough food to suffice for lunch and dinner. After an afternoon siesta, we once again took an Uber from our hotel to our meeting point for the 5:45pm walking tour. It was about a 15 minute drive from our hotel to the Piazza Mattei, the starting point for our tour. We had gotten in the habit of leaving early for tours to account for crazy Rome traffic (I could literally go on a diatribe about how crazy people drive in Rome but I won’t, I will just say I am constantly amazed I have not seen an accident here) so once there, we stopped in a bar so my dad could get some coffee. Many of the bars here also have espresso machines so you can order cappuccino, americano, espresso, etc. We then headed out a few minutes before the meeting time when it became obvious that other people were there waiting for our tour and our guide Andrea arrived promptly on time. We had a group of 10 people for this tour and it was a really great mix of people in our group. From there, we headed into the Jewish Ghetto where we started our tour covering some of the Jewish history in Rome, including the history of the Jewish Ghetto and saw one of the only synagogues in Rome, lots of Kosher restaurants that were closed for the sabbath since it was a Friday night, as well as one thing I remembered from Amsterdam last year: Stumbling Stones aka Stolperstein. They are these metal cobblestones in front of properties where people who were sent to concentration camps lived prior to World War II. They contain inscriptions with the names, birthdates, and other details about the people who lived there. It was truly sad to see so many of these again especially when you think about how only a handful of Italian Jews who were sent to concentration camps survived and the unfortunate parallels with current events. Most of the Jewish population in Rome still lives in this area and we saw numerous Israel flags outside windows and a very sad Bring them Home banner, none of which were things I anticipated seeing in Rome. Our guide Andrea then took us to our first stop. It was a Kosher-style restaurant. Here, we ate "carciofo alla giudìa" which are artichokes fried and salted. They were actually really good, quite the unexpected gem of the tour. Our guide talked about how over time the Jewish people had become good at taking cheap ingredients and making them taste really good, and frying anything makes it taste good. Our next stop was another Kosher Style restaurant where we had a sampling of 3 different appetizers: roasted zucchini, roasted tomatoes, and anchovies. These were all a bit unexpected. After that stop, we headed out of the Jewish ghetto and got a taste of two different types of Roman style pizza: Pizza Marinara and Pizza Margherita. Roman style pizza is a square pizza that is a bit thicker than Neapolitan style pizza but it is cooked at an extremely hot temperature so it gets really crispy. It is also sold by weight so you literally tell them how much you want and they cut off a piece and weigh it for you. We enjoyed the pizza with some Peroni beer. Next, we headed to Campo de' Fiori where we learned the history of this square, went on a little quest for a Virgin Mary, and then headed to our next restaurant where we sampled some pasta dishes. The restaurant was a very unique location with some literal ruins in the basement. At that restaurant, we sampled 3 kinds of pasta and an eggplant dish. My favorites were the cacao e pepe and the eggplant dish (kind of like lasagna made with slices of eggplant, I think they called it eggplant parmesan but it was definitely different than the fried dish with that name that I have had before. We also had a choice of a glass of white or red house wine at this location. My dad says he has not found a bad house wine in Italy yet and he is finding lots of great, inexpensive wines here so he has been happy (heck, the 3 bottles he bought on Thursday for the cruise were combined cheaper than many single bottles he buys at home, granted he does have expensive taste). Next up we headed to Piazza Navona for some Tiramisu. From there our guide talked us through the history of the square as well as explained one of the Baroque fountains to us. Finally, our last two stops were for espresso and gelato. Once again, I am not a coffee drinker and it was both too late for my mom to drink coffee and she also only likes her coffee heavily polluted with cream and sugar but my dad partook in the espresso and he continues to rave about it. He is comparing his shot of espresso to a milkshake in consistency… take with that what you will but he loved it. Finally, we headed over to a Gelato place and got a choice of a cup or cone with two flavors. I personally had Hazelnut and Cream in a cone and it was really good. I haven’t had bad gelato here yet, and the same story with tiramisu. From there the guide Andrea wrapped up our tour. All in all it was about 4 hours long. My parents and I definitely enjoyed this tour as well. It was the second year in a row of great food tours abroad for use as we also had a great one in Amsterdam last year. This tour was called “Jewish Ghetto and Campo Dè Fiori By Night Food, Wine and Sightseeing Tour” and it was operated by Food Tours of Rome purchased through Viator. I would also like to add from a walking standpoint that it was definitely less walking than the Vatican tour in the morning and the walking was more spread out in terms of being a slower pace with longer stops. My mom had no issues other than needing some assistance from my dad on some steps. Here are some photos from the food walking tour: After the tour we Uber’ed back to the hotel to get to bed after our longest day out in Rome. Thankfully, today the weather improved and we were finally able to enjoy some time outside independently. I will try to get in a post about today tomorrow sometime but tomorrow is probably going to be a busy day as we are finally boarding the beautiful Odyssey of the Seas in Civitavecchia. Also, I promise I will do a thorough hotel review in the next few days. Thanks again and TTYL! - Ashley

Yes. They fit the size, white background, etc perfectly. A CVS passport photo covers all the bases for this kind of stuff.

Used them for what? As the photo you uploaded?

God I hope not. LOL. We put in the work and effort. Used our spare passport photos. Right shape, size, etc. If we couldn't find, we were going to CVS to have new passport photos made. LOL. And we use passports. Little online effort at home can really pay off at boarding. Just need all your online check in ducks in a row. Totally worth it!

If the price goes up, would you say that's an IT glitch? I'm confused why you would blame technology team first for later boarding time options? Obviously it's working by design.

For lack of a better place to put it, I found this amusing

I only started cruising back in 2018, when my family and I did our first cruise on Freedom. (and I became a huge follower of this site) Since then, my wife and I have done all of 5 cruises, 3 of them on Royal and 2 on Princess. Two planned cruises got wrecked by the Dark Times. We have two more cruises coming up; our first time trying NCL in October, and then back with Royal for my 55th birthday in late January 2025. I'm hoping to retire in a little over 5 years, and at that time I'm hoping to seriously raise my cruising game. But that will mostly depend on how much PTO my wife is getting at that time, unless she becomes OK with the idea of me sailing on my own for some more exotic locales she wouldn't care for anyway (if I can manage them at that time).

Thank you. I hope he wins too

I believe it costs $25 to enter the tournament. Check with the slot host or at the cashier window the first night of the cruise. The tournaments are typically held on sea days. I think there are about 8-10 machines used, but there are several rounds, so a larger number of players can be accommodated. I tried it once many years ago. It was fun, even though I didn't win anything. I hope your husband enjoys it!

You can certainly ask. Nothing to lose. Worst case... they say they can't help but they will usually do what they can in my experience. We had early seating on Allure in October... but when we boarded our sea passes said MTD. We went to the MDR in the afternoon on Day 1 and were told the computer screwed up a bunch of people. Long story short, there was no room left in early traditional but an MDR manager told us to show up around 5:00 every night and they would seat us within a few minutes, it just wouldn't be at the same table each night (which didn't bother us). So that's what we did and we were given our preferred 2-top each night with no more than a 5-10 minute wait.

I always print mine out too. No need juggling whatever I’m carrying to get my phone open. Hand the papers over…all set.

yasssss happy early anniversary!!!!!!! also, unpopular opinion, BUT: i absolutely ADORE PDCC on the last day!!!!!!!!

that one dessert with the meringues on top looked so good!! did it have coconut or am i seeing things??