robmtx

That's a lot of people on a TA! I want to do a TA someday, but always have the idea of them being 25-50% empty but sounds like you guys are well into your 3rd/4th berths!

Unfortunately this is parenting in 2023. It's not to say all parents are raising their children this way, but I feel like it's flipped to that of the majority of parents are more hands-off than ever before. This has resulted in a lack of discipline and social etiquette amongst teens. It's not just on cruise ships, but at the malls, parks, movie theaters, restaurants.. There's no real consequences for their actions, and they learn behavioral conditioning from Tik Tok and YouTube. At a rec league hoops game for our 14 year old last weekend a parent in front of us gives their 5 year old child the Ipad to watch some cartoon at loud volume, because the mom doesn't want to parent their child? I watched the child get rewarded for misbehaving. This child is in training for an Odyssey cruise 10 years from now! The excuse is always the same, "Well, would you rather have my child kicking and screaming because they don't want to be there?" -- sigh, no accountability

I don't know how many times I've had to do an example like this.

You pay grats on the bev package portion. I just did a mock order from my cruise planner, so you should be able to do so as well, and it will show you the amt of grats before you complete order. Then delete it from cart. The total gratuities for my mock order was about 15% of the price.

Mexican Riviera and Riviera Maya are two different geographic regions in Mexico. When someone mentions tours to ruins from a riviera cruise, I assume they mean the Riviera Maya side of things, but then again, I can't figure people out any more. Anyway, these destinations have their problems. If you're easily triggered by warnings issued about travel, you may not want to travel. Otherwise GO, enjoy!

How did you hang that hammock? Why could you only use it through Panama? I'm assuming Panama, meaning the canal...You had a 15 day itinerary through the canal? What is hooked on the railing of your balcony?

Yeah this happened to me... Came back from trivia while wife napping with balcony door open, and SLAMMMM, she's awake!

When we were on Odyssey last month, the MDR became a dance club for about 15 minutes every evening after the halfway point of the cruise. They had announcements, pleas for 10's, applauses for every department, pleas for 10's, festive dancing music, pleas for 10, a waiter from Izumi stopped by to sing a love ballad, pleas for 10s, and a final message of thanks and appreciation...oh and they asked for 10's. Here's the mind blowing part! My prime rib was only too salty on one side!!! (this is a trolling joke)

Ok I'm bored today. Here's an example of how a RU decision might be made. I'm using the knowledge someone shared that they went from a GS to OS for $100. I'm also basing this on a similar scheme from another industry (not travel), that generates revenue in a familiar way. It's all about revenue. So let's look at two Royal Up "Tree" scenarios, and why one scenario might get chosen over another, despite someone getting an OS for $100. Accepted Bid Tree 1. Inside RU to > Balcony $200 2. Then Balcony RU to > JR Suite $400 3. Then Jr Suite RU to > GS = $700 4. Finally GS RU to > OS = $100 Total rev generated = $1,400 Rejected Bid Tree 1. Balcony RU to > OS = $700 2. Then Inside RU to > Balcony $200 (to fill the empty cabin created by step 1) Total rev generated = $900 So, in this fictional example, the cruise line had an OS available. Rather than just giving it to someone who bid $700, they give it someone who bid $100 because that generated a better revenue stream overall.

Probably had a max bid for a GS and since they saw you had a bid for an OS, they bumped you up to collect that other passengers max bid? And that probably opened their cabin (maybe a balcony or JS) and gave it to someone who put in a solid bid. Domino affect!

All crew onboard a ship stopping in US Port need a crewmember visa (C1). They also need a transit visa if boarding the ship from US Port (or wishing to disembark while in US Port) They offer a combo visa for both of these with certain countries. Appointment wait times vary by home city (the US Embassy there). E.g. the wait time for New Dehli or Mumbai is 35-39 days, while wait time for Manila is 25 days. But, in Sao Paulo Brazil the wait time is just 2 days!

Hard Pass for our family. Where did you come to the conclusion that "Everyone" loves Indian food? the other problem, and as this thread suggests, is that you may have one spouse who likes it, the other doesn't...creating a decision point that most likely favors skipping the food altogether. Idea - you should ask this in the "Ask the CEO" thread!

This just means after 4/30 people who test positive will be joining you onboard! Oh wait, that's already happening.

Bean counters don't manage this program. In fact, it's managed by an outside company altogether. What seems unfair at this point? Whether you submit your bid now or at the 30 day mark they aren't awarding upgrades that far out. What is stopping an early submission from offering to pay the most? If I have a box in my dining room, and someone offers me $20 while another offers me $25, then yeah I'm taking the $25 offer.

You're in luck! the Disco Inferno does not conflict with Capt Q&A. But I would guestimate that if one were to ask such a question in this Q&A, the Hotel Director would answer something similar to this: "We can't discuss actual salaries/compensation here." NEXT! I see one consistent element - we only hear from some crew who give us different answers. We can't rely on them as a source really (your info, my info, doesn't matter... none of us have Scientific data to present here). Crew could be making it up on the fly to tug on your heart strings, or just don't want to give you an honest answer.

Cruise Mapper is a good source. Google that for their website.

For me it would be right about the time we cross the international dateline and we have all day strategy meetings from 9am EST to 5pm EST and it starts at Midnight ship time!!

I never got a crystal block for passing 140.. Is this an automatic process or should I invest some time to make a phone call?

I'll do my best to stir the pot with this troll post: Anyone in a tipped position onboard, not on their first contract, knows how it works. If they're like most crew, they estimated their income with the thought that a certain percentage of guests remove their auto-grats. Even the ones on their first contract know after a week or two what's going on, if not before. I don't think they go around moping every time they find out someone pulled the auto-grats. These workers don't have time to mope around. Nor are they providing service below a "10" - why shoot yourself in the foot over this? I don't talk to crew too much about this, but thrice it has come up. On Adventure our stateroom attendant had no idea we had removed our auto-gratuities when we gave him $100 at the end of the week. We didn't think to ask him at the time if it would be divided or if he gets to keep it. So whereas cruise-critic folks know 1000% that crew know about this kinda stuff, I have learned that there is one stateroom attendant on one ship in the fleet that isn't aware of who removes tips! Maybe you can ask for him as your attendant? 🙂 On another sailing, we left auto-grats on, and on day 1, we gave our attendant a $20 along with our special requests. I asked him if he'd have to share the tip, and he said No he wouldn't have to share it, but he'd split the cash with the next attendant down the hall because he was assisting him a lot with something (he didn't elaborate) recently. A bartender on Oasis told me she shares tips. I think this was a miscommunication - I think she shared them with the other bar staff, similar how many bars do. She kept saying "yes they share they share the cash". Just remember, you're entitled to remove your tips by visiting GS on any day of your cruise, no questions asked! It's your vacation, it's your money!

I think YMMV depending on ship, region, and weather. But I have RDPed to my home server while at sea and it has been utter poop, and buttery smooth depending on the day. I use a non-standard port for my RDP and that port was allowed. I also have App-MFA for signing in to my RDP session and that "popup" on my phone took forever so I had to use offline codes to get in.

Which food supply company ran out of business? Royal uses many depending on location, contracts, season, etc. Sherwood and ICFH are probably the biggest in Miami and both are still operating.

Crew staffing will be a problem, industry wide. I'll stick to RCI for an example. Since the pandemic started, they have removed two older ships from their fleet and added 2 new ships. If you look at the two retired (833 + 668 crew) vs the new ones deployed (1663 + 2300 crew), we see Royal has a net gain of 2,462 crew. So, just recalling the existing crew and hiring 2,462 new crew has got to be a big challenge. Multiply this issue to cover other cruise lines who are adding bigger ships, replacing smaller ones, and the problem grows even larger, since all cruise lines recruit from the same foreign markets. Add in the fact that the cruise lines cancelled over a year's worth of sailings, losing huge amounts of cash, and it's a no brainer from a business perspective that you gotta have some cut backs. Sucks for us consumers, but I totally get it. They have some epic loans to repay! *numbers based on published crew capacity and do not reflect actual staffing needs.

We're doing the same thing, only with 3 extra 18 YO's. We got two connecting rooms with me being the primary in room 1 with an 18 yo, and a connector with 2 18 YO's. We then got a room down the hall with my wife and another 18 YO. They 18 YO's will ultimately share the connecting rooms and I'll stay down the hall with the mrs. Royal said nothing to us about the setup or the different names. I even explained what we were doing. I had to call this in to get the rooms reserved, and no mention of it. The boys all have passports and a confirmed reservation. From where did you hear about this parental consent? If you hear anything else about this, please share!

Was your OBC offer from Royal or from your TA? Depending on the source, you will need to contact the appropriate group to resolve. Are you saying you had the OBC in your onboard acct and now it's gone? If so, you can ask GS to print your invoice and look for credits and debits to see what happened. We were missing OBC from our TA. After a lengthy debate with my "soon to be ex-TA" they ordered a $100 OBC to my stateroom. The next day it was still not posted so I had to spend like a half hour at GS explaining that there was an additional gift ordered (showed them receipt from my TA). They claimed that was for my shareholder benefit, but that OBC appeared from another invoice and isn't managed by my TA. It took GS contacting shore service to get it resolved. This is the only time I was missing OBC.

It was a roll of the dice... I didn't specify anything, just got lucky. Believe me I have more bad eggs than good eggs.