This week, let’s talk about my just finished cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas. So much happened on my 7-night eastern Caribbean adventure and I want to talk about my experiences onboard, exploring the new changes, what I did on the islands, two weddings and more!
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It doesn’t get much better than this week because I’m previewing my upcoming cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas next week. Let’s discuss why I selected this cruise, my plans for onboard and onshore, as well as what I’m really looking forward to on this cruise.
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When you sail on your next Royal Caribbean ship, there is a good chance you will find Coca-Cola's amazing self-serve beverage dispensers known as the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.
The Freestyle machine offers guests 100+ flavors of various Coca-Cola products that you can mix together to create the perfect drink for you. Royal Caribbean is the only cruise line to offer Freestyle machines.
In order to use the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines, guests must purchase an all-inclusive beverage package or the Royal refreshment package and use their complimentary Coca-Cola souvenir cup. The Coca-Cola souvenir cup has a special chip in it which activates the machine.
The following Royal Caribbean ships have Coca-Cola Freestyle Machines
It seems that Freestyle machines are only available in the United States, Canada and limited availability in the UK and Europe and Royal Caribbean has added the machines to ships based mostly in the United States.
Using the Freestyle machines is pretty simple too, you pick a base flavor (like Coke or Fanta) and you can customize the drink with fruit flavors (Orange Coke or Orange Fanta, Lime Fanta, etc). You can also stop a drink mid-pour by just releasing the dispense button and select another drink to mix two together. So if you want to mix Orange Fanta with Mello Yello Grape you can!
Some of the base flavors available to choose from are Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Fanta, Fanta Zero, Minute Maid Lemonade, Minute Maid Light, Dasani, Dasani Sensations, Powerade, Powerade Zero, Hi-C, Barq's, Diet Barq's and Seagram's Lemon Lime Seltzer. and more.
The special souvenir Coca-Cola cups that Royal Caribbean sells also has a time restriction, which prevents guests from getting refills until 10-15 minutes have passed since their last pour. This time restriction is to prevent abuse of the Freestyle machine privileges.
Use of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines is available with a few unlimited drink packages:
Have you tried the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines on your Royal Caribbean cruise? Thinking about using them on your next cruise? Tell us about it in the comments!
Which do you prefer: big or small Royal Caribbean ships? That is the topic we debated on our 100th episode. We broadcasted this episode live on July 1, 2015 and invited our listeners to call in and talk live. We discussed big vs small as well as wealth of other Royal Caribbean topics.
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Enjoying a refreshing drink on your Royal Caribbean cruise is something many folks look forward to, but just because you are not on a cruise right now does not mean you cannot enjoy the same drinks at home!
Blog reader Paul Westbrook sent us recipes for the drink of the day for each day of his Freedom of the Seas cruise.
Each day of a cruise, Royal Caribbean selects one tasty cocktail to be the drink of the day, where the price of the drink is reduced a bit and featured all over the ship.
So get those blenders ready and enjoy these great drinks!
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Shake and mix well.
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Served on the rocks with a splash of sprite
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Shake and serve on the rocks.
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Top with soda water
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Serve on the rocks
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Shake tequila and mago juice together and then add triple sec and sweet & sour mix.
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Top with Sprite and serve on the rocks.
Taking your first Royal Caribbean cruise is very exciting but there’s a lot to know before you ever step foot onboard. From the best way to book your cruise, to being prepared for what’s waiting onboard, to where to eat and so much more, there’s quite a bit to cover. This week, I will share what first time Royal Caribbean cruisers need to know so your first Royal Caribbean cruise is a huge success.
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A fan favorite of Royal Caribbean has to be the Radiance class of ships, which offer a lot in a small package. The four Radiance-class ships can travel to nearly any cruise port around the world and what they lack in size, they make up for in range and experience. This week, I want to share why the Radiance class is such a fun bunch of ships to cruise on and why size isn’t everything when it having an incredible Royal Caribbean cruise.
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Royal Caribbean has a flexible dinner option called My Time Dining that is perfect for someone that wants to be able to have dinner at different times of the evening.
It's a simple program where you get to eat in the main dining room on your own schedule. All of the mainstream cruise lines offer something like this, but Royal Caribbean has its own twist.
Here's what you need to know about My Time Dining.
Essentially, My Time Dining is a program where for dinner in the main dining room, you can select times to eat between the hours of 6:00 and 9:30 p.m.
It differs from traditional dinner, where you have the same time, table, and waiters every night of your cruise.
With My Time Dining, you can choose a different time each day, so you can fit dinner around the rest of your onshore and onboard plans. You can pre-book a time or show up and wait for an available table.
For example, you could have dinner at 8:30pm on the first night of the cruise and then have dinner at 6pm on the second night. Just like traditional dining times, you can skip the main dining room all together and eat at a specialty restaurant or the buffet.
There is a maximum of 10 guests per reservation.
Yes, it's exactly the same menu for both traditional and My Time Dining.
Booking My Time Dining is simple, you can select it as your dining option when making your cruise reservation or at any time prior to your cruise by contacting Royal Caribbean or your travel agent.
When selecting My Time Dining, you must pre-pay all gratuities in advance.
It is recommended that you make reservations in advance of your sailing if you prefer to dine at the most popular times, between 6:30pm and 8pm.
You can make reservations onboard your ship, although there will be less reservations available by that time and typically the crew members will try to steer you to keeping the same time each night.
In general, the larger the group, the less flexibility you have to modify your dining time.
If you don’t get the time you prefer initially, keep checking back to see if you can change your dining time. Even during the cruise, time slots open up.
Read more: How to book My Time Dining on Royal Caribbean
On your Royal Caribbean ship, there is one deck of the main dining room dedicated to My Time Dining.
You arrive at the main dining room at your reserved time to be seated. You can optionally arrive without reservations, but you should be prepared to wait for a table. Often, this wait can be up to an hour.
If you are more than 5 minutes late, your table may be given away to a stand by group
Generally speaking, My Time Dining is great for those that think dinner before 6pm is too early and 8pm as too late. Additionally, My Time Dining is good for those that may want to change their time for dinner depending on their plans for the day.
The evening shows aboard the ship are more structured for those in early and late traditional seating.
The challenge is to try and book way ahead to get the limited number of slots available between 6:30pm and say 7:45pm.
Smaller groups provide the greatest flexibility. There is usually just a few tables for 6 or more when you’re asking for a table for just your group.
As an example, on a cruise on Independence of the Seas last year, there was only one table for 10 guests, so there was not much wiggle room for changing times.
Without reservations, how important reservations are depend on your table size.
If you are up to two guests, you may not have much of a wait to get a table. Groups of 4 or more and you have to wait 30-60 minutes until a table is ready.
The crew members will give you a pager to let you know when your table is ready but going to dinner without My Time Reservations is a gamble in terms of how long you will be seated, especially if you are trying to eat during the prime hours of 6pm to 8pm.
If you make reservations for the same time every night, it is more likely you will have the same wait staff.
You may request a certain waiter each night, although it may increase your wait time, even if you have a reserved time.
Altering your dinner time will increase the change substantially of getting a different pair of waiters in our experience.
Yes! That does not mean you will get a table for two, but the crew members will try their best to accommodate your request.
Just like at a restaurant at home, you may need to wait for a table for two to open up.
Your best bet is to make reservations in advance, as those with a reservation already seem to get preferred treatment over people that show up and ask for a specific table.
If you want to have a table for two every night of your cruise, my advice is to ask the head waiter to assist.
Possibly, but it all depends on availability.
You could certainly book the same time every night of your cruise and effectively re-create the traditional dinner experience. The "catch" is My Time Dinner starts later than early seating, so you would not be able to replicate quite as early a time window.
If you're not liking My Time Dining, the first thing to do is speak to the head waiter and address the problem. In many cases, there could be a simpler solution that changing you to another type of dining.
A big thank you to Ken Slusser for assisting in writing this blog post!
When you take a Royal Caribbean cruise, one of the costs to passengers are gratuities (tips) to crew members during your cruise. Gratuities are the way guests can recognize great service aboard their cruise.
We provide this guide to help you understand how gratuities work on the cruise, when you can expect to pay them and how much it is.
Royal Caribbean automatically adds a daily charge to each cruise passenger's SeaPass account to reward the great service its passengers receive.
Each day of your cruise, Royal Caribbean will add a charge per person that will be divided among several people that you interact with likely on a daily basis:
As of November 11, 2023, the daily gratuity amount is $16.00 per guest, per day for those guests in standard accommodations. Guests in suites will pay $20.50 per person, per day in gratuities. The daily gratuity amount is the same for all passengers, regardless of age.
Guests have the choice to pre-pay their gratuities before their cruise to help split up the cost of their cruise vacation.
If you are a My Time Dining guest, you must prepay your gratuities.
In addition, if a guest feels they want to alter the amount of gratuity they pay, guests can go to Guest Services aboard their cruise ship and ask to have their automatic gratuity charges changed or removed.
Pre-paying gratuities allows you to lock in the current gratuity rate, as well as assist in budgeting the total vacation cost by having part of the cost be paid at different times.
Pre-paying gratuities is a simple process. If you booked directly with Royal Caribbean, you can pre-pay gratuities by calling 866-562-7625 or logging into Royal Caribbean's website before the sailing.
If you booked with a travel agent, simply let the travel agent know your preference and they can take care of the arrangements.
If you order beverage onboard your Royal Caribbean cruise, such as alcohol, you will be charged an automatic 18% gratuity when you receive the bill.
The gratuity amount is for the service you receive from the wait staff to serve your drink. The gratuity amount is added to what you purchase and indicated at the bottom of your receipt.
You can add an additional tip on the receipt if you wish.
The surcharge you pay to dine at a specialty restaurant aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise includes the tip.
There is no need to pay a tip on top of the surcharge amount, unless you would like to.
In addition to the gratuities listed earlier, there are opportunities to give crew members an additional tip for excellent service.
As the name implies, this is up to you and not expected in all cases. Even crew members who receive an automatic gratuity can receive additional gratuities if you feel it is warranted.
Some instances where a discretionary tip may be appropriate are for room service deliveries or luggage service by porters.
As previously noted, Royal Caribbean will automatically charge you for every night of the cruise but that does not mean you have to pay it if you are not satisfied with the service.
You can go to Guest Services at any point in your cruise and have them reduced or removed from your account if you would prefer to tip a different amount.
While a monetary tip is always appreciated, if you want to recognize great service by a Royal Caribbean crew member that will have a lasting effect on their career, fill out a WOW card.
Royal Caribbean will sometimes dispense to guests at check-in special cards to write about why a particular crew member went above and beyond the kind of service you might expect. A guest can fill out the card, give it to the crew member and the crew member will then turn the card into their manager, which will in turn be placed on their permanent file.
WOW cards can help elevate crew members when it comes time for promotions and help their careers in the long run.
If you do not receive a WOW card at check-in, you can go to Guest Services and request them.
It seems like nothing strikes fear into Royal Caribbean cruises quite like these two words: formal night. Confusion and anxiety are the typical responses I read about in emails and message board posts so this week, I wanted to talk all about formal night and explain what you need to know about this tradition and what it really means today.
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