OCSC Mike

Oh, if that's what the OP meant, then I'll defer to you. I was thinking of some sort of event where you wear red, lol, like white night. I'm not old but I'm definitely not looking for a techno party.

Was on Wonder last week (and in March), no red party (also never even heard of one as mentioned above).

A few... 10-12... who's counting? 🙈 The first 3-5 lbs. always come right off for me in a few days anyway due to water weight gain.

We went to a karaoke game one night last week on Wonder and we were surrounded by Hyperlink-aged kids (made me feel old, lol). In any case, they certainly seemed to be having fun. Many of them got on stage and were from all over the US so it was clear they met on the ship and were hanging out together.

Correct. RC said they’d be rolling out pre-cruise reservations but it hasn’t happened (yet? ever?).

I'm sorry if this is harsh but you paid for an OV and were given an OV. If the OV's on deck 2 weren't acceptable to you then you shouldn't have booked an OV GTY. The deck plan showing every OV on the ship is readily available. If you didn't realize these deck 2 OV cabins existed, that's on you.

Yep, same schedule for us in March and I'm not a fan either. I have a similar complaint with the standard western... the ship usually leaves Costa Maya at 2pm. There's an AI beach club there we really liked many years ago but if all aboard is 1:30pm, which means I have to catch a taxi around noon-12:30 or so to play it safe, I can't see going back for just the morning.

Ronn Lucas, a ventriloquist? When we saw him last week he said it was his last of 3 weeks on the ship. Glad you liked yours. For the first time in a while we thought both comics were terrible last week. I checked the app for this week and there's a comic onboard we've seen twice recently that we really liked. Missed him by a week. 🙁

For whatever reason, I didn't check out the snacks as often as usual but I did have those last week and agree! Pretty much our feeling. It's geared towards families (my nieces liked it last June) but the special effects are cool. We saw it a 2nd time and then wondered why, lol. We're done with it. I'm no huge MDR fan but fwiw, unless you're not comfortable doing so, there are plenty of casually dressed people on formal night these days so don't let that stop you in the future. I throw on a casual polo every night no matter where we're eating and usually shorts. I still do bring casual pants for the 2 formal nights but it's more to look better next to my wife's casual dress than anything. I'd have no problem wearing shorts on formal night, TBH.

This leads me back to my overall go to phrase for all things cruising... "personal preference." That's obviously related to subjectivity but slightly different when it comes to food for me. I feel like most of the food critiques I read in the forums are about the MDR... followed by WJ and specialty... and more about dinner than other meals (at least the complaints). I clearly skew strongly towards continuing to enjoy the food, A LOT. Part of the reason is that, unless we have a specialty meal planned (which we don't do a ton of), my enjoyment comes from eating small meals/snacks from the early AM until my last snack before bed. My typical day if no specialty booked is something small with my cappuccinos very early (pastry, bagel, etc.), actual breakfast with my wife in WJ/Solarium Bistro, lunch and afternoon snacks from any number of venues (WJ, Park Cafe, always ELF, I even had a Dog House brat for the first time in years last week, etc.). By the time it gets to dinner in MDR/WJ, I'm not too concerned with my meal. We had 4 MDR dinners last week... I enjoyed 2 entrees and thought 2 were pretty bad (one inedible). Long story short, I still enjoy the food so much b/c I've noticed no difference in breakfast and I'm happily stuffing myself with casual basic/comfort food from all the included food venues after that (tacos, sandwiches, random WJ items, CL snacks, even Sorrento's over the past year b/c it's been incredibly crispy on my cruises). This is a personal preference thing to me b/c I don't think many posters would be happy eating what I do and then not caring if the MDR is poor that night. For numerous reasons, I would never try to convince someone that the food is "good" if they feel otherwise. We all like what we like and, yes, it is also still subjective.

I say it because it's true and to point out that just b/c I liked something doesn't mean others will, not to dismiss anyone's opinion.

Congrats! We liked our CP view interior on Allure and I already mentioned I wouldn’t want to be on deck 3 but that part’s personal preference.

Just off Wonder yesterday. With the caveat that we don't pay much attention to our CD, we had no problem with him. He didn't stand out for anything in particular but was friendly, had energy, etc. He's Australian.

And you should spend your money how you see fit. The judging of this (and most things) will never cease to amaze me.

Craziness. Just off Wonder yesterday. We even told our waiter in advance I would be eating my wife's lobster and he took it upon himself to put two tails on my plate and brought her actual entree.

Just off Wonder this morning. Looking forward to catching up on your review!

Got off Wonder this morning... enjoyed the food very much and stuffed myself like I do every cruise. Were some items bad? Definitely! Were some excellent? Definitely! Were some mediocore... you get the idea. *Food is subjective.

Hope you like it as much as we do! I'll be having brunch there on Wonder on Tuesday, can't wait! 😋

White night is night 2 (Italian night). Caribbean is night 5 (both food and dress).

Not silly to me. We did it once in 2022 & plan to do it a few times on Utopia. We love CocoCay & mostly sail for the ship. It also means completely free internet as D+ (we share one account), zero $ spent on excursions, and more OBC from my TA than I’d get from our usual 7N cruise. I totally understand why others would find it unappealing but everyone has their own preferences.

You're welcome, apologies for using the wrong pronoun, no idea why I did that. Lack of sleep and too much forum reading maybe.

There is a program called "Hyperlink" that has specific events for 18-25 year olds. The app will show those events. With the fairly safe assumption he is 18+ and not Young Sheldon, he is welcome anywhere on the ship. FYI, bars are used for family-friendly events like trivia and even young children are welcome there... they're not like bars on land.

Exactly what we did on the 4N cruise I mentioned earlier in the thread to get to Diamond a long time ago. Hour drive to PC to go on Enchantment in an interior after never being on anything smaller than Voyager and always having a balcony. Besides getting us to Diamond, that cruise wound up saving us thousands of dollars over time. My wife always said she needed a balcony (b/c she always had one when she cruised a kid; my first cruise was our honeymoon so I didn't have any opinion other than liking to save money in general). She agreed to try the interior since it was only 4N and the goal was to hit Diamond... and she wound up liking it. She realized we barely used our balcony, spent little time in our cabin, and she enjoyed how dark and cold the interior got for sleeping/napping. We've booked almost nothing but interiors ever since. Who knew that cheapo 4-nighter would wind up being so beneficial?

Great post. This should be helpful to others not familiar with it.

Shows generally all open at the same time. That said, yes you can always cancel and re-book but shows will eventually “sell out” so you may not be able to switch to what you’d prefer (you can also book once onboard as a certain % of seats are held back). Superseding all of this is that you can easily get into pretty much any show via the standby line so it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have reservations for the day/time you want.