Toofarfromthesea

Am I reading you right that you can't find out the price for drinks, internet, and dining packages until after you book? How do folks compare total prices with other cruise lines? Not new to cruising but new to looking into Royal Carribbean and I'm used to being able to compare total cost configured with the specific packages I want long before actually booking. Not possible with Royal?

Same here, and it turned out to be a blessing. We were in the Yacht Club and there was a family that seemed very nice, albeit ineffectual, except for their 10 year girl that terrorized the family and staff. I mean screaming in the grandma's face in the Yacht Club lounge. At dinner we almost got seated near them - she was no better in the YC dining room - and when we asked for a different table they looked at us knowingly and accommodated us. The blessing part came when they departed 2 days into our cruise. Turns out that by the time we boarded she had already been terrorizing everyone for 5 days. I've never had anything happen that came close to "ruining" a cruise, but 7 days with that toxic little girl and her do nothing about it parents might have done the trick. She was the worst fellow passenger I ever experienced.

Mine was the Western Med in the MSC Yacht Club. What made it the best was that our 2 daughters and my son-in-law came with us. Family has always been the most important thing to me so getting to gift and share their first cruise, and in the Yacht Club no less was, as the credit card commercial says, Priceless.

Among my basic tenets of life that I try to live by is that one of the surest paths to an unhappy life is to compare what you get/have to what other people get/have. Update: now that read a little further I see your issue is with so-called influencers all I can say is don't read reviews on Amazon - they will trigger you.

But is a local TA likely to have the level of expertise in cruising?

It happens pretty routinely on MSC Med cruises.

Have you thought about a river cruise, or a Great Lakes cruise?

I'm sorry that you and your wife are both getting so much unwarranted judgement from all these people who apparently do everything perfectly and seem to think they know more about your personal life than you do.

Tangentionally, if you do a Google search on "breaking ships" you'll find several clips of varying lengths on the process of scrapping ships.

I'm with you here. The only time I've really noticed a cruise director was on an America Queen river cruise and his complete phoniness was insufferable.

I guess that's a mistake you won't make again. And a good cautionary tale for the rest of us. I hope you can come to a resolution that fits both of you.

I have to ask the question, didn't you know about the cruise/Easter conflict before you booked? Because I'm pretty sure the date of Easter didn't change.😉

I wouldn't attend or pay for something like that on land so I don't think I would at sea.

Unless you set on using a cruise line excursion you can probably find what you want with greater variety through third-party excursion vendors.

Yes you do see it differently. It is astounding that you would defend such execrable behavior. And no, people would not voice their opinion directly because their idea of enjoying their vacation does not include getting into confrontations with inconsiderate and discourteous louts.

Humidity is probably quite a bit less, but we have a very wet monsoon season where we have significant humidity. But we also have 4 months with average highs of over 100, where the average highs in the hottest parts of the Caribbean are around 90. Overall I'm sure that the Caribbean is less comfortable because of the humidity. But I'm familiar with the discomforts of humidity, as I grew up in NYC and once spent 6 weeks in Beaumont TX in July. But I'm also familiar with the negative effects of ultralow humidity, like the 17% we get in June ("but it's a dry heat" is generally said sarcastically). So my point was that I'm familiar with the extremes of both temperature and humidity, so I wouldn't be daunted by August in the Caribbean.

Totally agree. But it is part and parcel with this whole "it's MY vacation and I will enjoy it however I want" with an unspoken, but acted out, complete disregard for the people around me, attitude that is at the heart of chair hogging at the pool and table hogging at the buffet.

I might. The Caribbean in August is downright balmy compared to here in AZ in August. Or July. Or June. As I post at 11 AM it is 103*, headed to a high of 111*. For the next 14 days, as far ahead as my app goes, the forecasted high is 108 or higher every day. Thank goodness for AC.

Upthread. The notices on tables in Celebrity buffets. But do we really need a rule about observing basic courtesy and consideration? Those big groups know: 1) those tables are provided for people to eat at, 2) that they see people wandering about with trays of food looking for a place to sit and eat at the tables provided for that purpose, 3) that there are OTHER places on the ship that are provided for the playing of games. They are just being inconsiderate and discourteous, and it has nothing to do with enjoying their vacation. At its core this is no different than chair-hogging by the pool. Heck, when my family and I are eating at a crowded restaurant we always vacate right after we finish because we can see that people are waiting to be seated. Now if the restaurant is half empty we might sit for a while, but not when people are waiting.

Not when they don't follow the rules and basic courtesy and thereby prevent someone else from enjoying their vacation.

So you think that when someone uses 'people' they mean every single person? OK, but that's a little weird. Or pedantic.

People will complain about anything.

There was a clear implication of unmet expectation.

Euros, so they can spend them ashore without having to worry about spending any time converting. The currency you used to pay for the cruise is irrelevant since there is a vast gulf between a multi-million dollar corporation and a, e.g., Philipino crew member in Barcelona. The US dollar no longer any special cachet in Europe.

Another example of spoiled. It is unreasonable, IMO, to expect cruise agents to do any bookings for things that do not pay them commissions. Why should they do work for free?