twangster

Some tech data for geeks while sitting in the SL early morning just before 6am. Blue dot off the coast of Mexico

Inaugural cruise planner prices are starting to load. As expected the over water cabanas are $3,999. DX is $115 Waterpark $199

I've been refreshing for hours 🤣 I caught it while at dinner in Jamie's. Had to score my cabins before posting here.

It looks rates have gone up for Nov. 18 compared to the test load that was briefly published last week.

It's not uncommon for CAS discounts to not be loaded with new releases. You can usually call later and try to get it added once they are loaded properly. July is blacked out for DP340 so don't expect that for solos.

Booked!

I'm flying to Singapore for a 4 day cruise. Then again I'm kind of odd.

If they are under 18 then they can be brought into a relationship with you and they will have your status.

Yes/No/Maybe

No way to know. Each sail date is unique.

I have paid Voom plan so I have internet, but airtags don't just rely on my phone. Airtags work best on land where there are lots of phones to leverage. The airtag is a dumb device, the phone that passes by does all the work. That works much better where dozens of phones can report an airtag it sees. One significant issue on a ship is that iphones have no GPS fix when inside a ship. Even if a phone sees an airtag the phone can't report where it saw the airtag if the phone doesn't know where it is.

You get a $20 daily allowance in PM with the UDP. That's per person. I'm on Navigator now and have had several PM meals with the UDP. In practice I've never been charged an overage. I suspect they don't want one person with the UDP buying food to supply a table full of friends and family, so the daily limit is a safeguard. Yesterday I had the PM chicken sandwich for lunch and PM wings for dinner. No charges.

No reservations for PM required, UDP or otherwise. Port day times might vary by market, Europe vs Florida or Bayonne. Suggest you check out previous cruise compasses at Royal caribbean blog dot com in their cruise compass section.

When newly amped Voyager class were put on short Florida I asked the same question, but they proved they knew the market better than me. Then they upgauged to Freedom class, then they upgauged to Oasis class. They have some booking data now and they know the market well. The beauty of cruise ships is the ability to adapt and deploy them in response to the market. The short Florida market has changed due to a number of factors including how Royal is driving some of that change. I am confident this will work out well for Royal, not so much for other lines that are still putting old, tired and small ships on short Florida.

Existing bookings will stay the same, new bookings may have a higher port fees and taxes. However it's not uncommon for the port fees and taxes, which are estimated to begin with, to change as the cruise sells out. Existing bookings can't take advantage of lower port fees and taxes when they drop as they approach capacity. So there is some padding and buffer in early bookings.

You can see it just before submitting your bid.

It was immediately confirmed no injuries. It was empty.

Day 6 on the return to San Pedro. Inside joke?

It's odd I experienced what seemed like the old 4x2 on boarding day. I didn't think to test more because I figured it was capped. For the rest of the time my tests are consistent with no effective throttling.

I talked to the Voom specialist on Navigator. She claims the per user speed caps went away as soon as they switched to Starlink. Her statement was "They are set 999 up and 999 down, the maximum setting".

Navigator summary over several days, variety of times and locations. Ironically just as I tried to post this we had an internet outage for a few minutes.

Funny to me that all cruise lines are increasing rates substantially but then Carnival's Duffy is taking issue with the Bahamas doing the same.

June 19, 2023 Navigator of The Seas, Sea of Cortez Sony A7R4, 14mm 1.8 Post processing in Adobe Lightroom to bring out the Milky Way

Florida has the most visitors in February and March. That's not to say no one comes in April, but it's not the peak. The top source state is New York. Other northern states contribute about 1/3 of what New York state sends to Florida. New York state does tend to have an April week long break around Easter. As far as cruise trends March is strong contender then April tends to soften a bit before it begins to ramp up in June for the summer peak season that dominates the cruise market. This pattern repeats year after year.

Locally the publuc school system is operated by Brevard County. The 2022-2023 calendar can be found here for reference: https://www.brevardschools.org/cms/lib/FL02201431/Centricity/Domain/4/2022-2023 At A Glance Calendar 12-14-2021.pdf For Easter they observed Good Friday only. Their spring break is typically several weeks earlier in March. That is the week most families would vacation. With only one day of Easter as an official holiday the majority of parents won't take their kids out of school around Easter or if they do its to make an extra long weekend only rather than a full week of vacation.