RobInMN

We' e never experienced anything personally, but I've read posts from people on pre-drydock cruises talking about getting a head start on things that don't actually require being completely passenger-less and in a dry dock. Things like ripping out carpet or closing venues that might be getting an overhaul and starting to remove stuff. Even closing parts of the pool deck and stripping off the surface.

She's doing a 12 night from Miami to Barcelona Feb10-22. Her next cruise listed is a 4 night out of Barcelona on April 11. 6.5 weeks later. From that point, she's doing the Western Med route until Oct 26 (Barcelona round trip Oct 19-26, but only 3 might from Rome to Barcelona on the 23rd). So likely TA back to Florida after that, just not posted yet.

This. WiFi included would be pretty much the only reason I would pay more for the Sky JS vs. the normal JS. Without that, I don't see any reason to pay extra.

Correction: Consumers of Corporations' products pay all the taxes. It's built into the prices of the goods & services.

The prices are all posted online. Just select a cruise and click the "Dates & Prices" tab

My parents love GCT. My wife and I are not fans. The twin fold down bunk things are a no-go for us. And the bathroom was barely acceptable. We much prefer AMA. Besides the rooms, probably the biggest difference between the 2 are the cruise managers/excursions. On the GCT we were on, there were 4 Cruise Managers and they led all the excursions. We were assigned to one as our primary, but there were a couple places where there were a couple options and we went with a different CM. On the AMA cruises we've done, there is one Cruise Manager and they/AMA arrange for local guides at all the stops. AMA typically has multiple excursion options.

Get a VPN, then select a location in the US. For streaming services with locals (like YoutubeTV): I have YTTV, when I try to use my phone or tablet, yes, the app requires me to enable the location services (GPS) in order to do anything, and then I am locked to that location. Typically, anything from any "cable" service is fine, as well as anything from the national network feeds. I'm from the Twin Cities area, and no VPN has a server here, so I use Chicago. I have had some issues attempting to watch local content claiming I'm out of area, but usually I don't. Haven't figured out the why on that yet. Anyway, I can't remember what it did when I tried to use it on my laptop browser. However, we always travel with my Firestick. It has no GPS or location services. We we travel, I use a VPN on it. As long as I turn on the VPN before launching YTTV, I have not had any issues. The only issues I have had is when I forgot to make sure the VPN was on first.

The Meyer Werft Pappenburg shipyard has built a number of large ocean cruise ships for Royal Caribbean, Disney, Norwegian, Carnival, etc. There are 2 things that amaze me every time: 1) These ships are built indoors! The building appears to be just over twice the width and about half again as long as these ships are! 2) The 20 mile conveyance down the narrow Ems. Here's a great video Royal Caribbean put together: And Odyssey's conveyance:

Not only this but: old GF links new BF, and he's D+, (loop as much as you want). Plus, when any of them have kids, and their kids cruise, their kids will be D+, and their kids, (loop again). Exactly!! RCI did NOT think this through. I totally understand wanting travelling partners and families to enjoy a common status when cruising, but this permanent and infinitely transferable is an incredibly poor design.

We were on a B2B where we reached 140 in the last couple days of the first cruise. This was after the restart, and they were shipping blocks. We had a card in our room when we checked in, so filled it out and gave it to the LA. On the first day of the 2nd cruise, there was another card, so we filled it out again (putting my wife's name this time), and turned that one in to the LA. Didn't fool him in the slightest. Months later... one block arrived.😁

BTW, there is a subforum for Florida departure ports: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/386-florida-departures/ If you search GOPORT, there's lots of threads My guess is a mod will move this there soon.

Quantum is also too tall. From a previous discussion, and it took forever to find, but the air draft of the Quantum class is 213'. BTW, Oasis 236' (stacks not retracted), and Voyager 207'. I imagine Freedom class is basically the same. Clearance under the Bridge of the Americas is 201' at high tide. Low tide adds ~23'?) The Norwegian Bliss is the largest cruise ship that has traversed the entire Panama Canal, and it's air draft is 197'. There was a reference somewhere that you have to clear the bridge by 10 (15?) feet. Bliss could only go under the bridge at low tide. It also has to do this for the 200' clearance Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver. You might technically be able to fit a Voyager class under the bridge at low tide, but they won't do that as I am pretty sure I ready somewhere that you have to clear the bridge by 15(?) feet. The other thig about the Panama canal is that even though an Oasis class ship could technically fit in the new locks, there might be some rule about protrusions beyond the vertical line of the hull below some specific height. I'm not up on the whole thing, but I recall someone posting something to that effect. You'll note that on the Oasis class, every deck from deck 5 & up all hang over the hull. On the Quantum class, there's some protrusion under each lifeboat, as well as the lifeboats themselves (also deck 5). In comparison, the Radiance class has no protrusions at all until you get to the bridge wings and then the pool deck. The lifeboats are fully contained within the vertical lines of the hull. We are actually booked on the Spring '24 Panama Canal on Radiance.

As discussed in this thread, chances of anything above a JS are slim, especially because of Royal Up.

While I haven't been on Wonder, I had no issues on Odyssey (second newest). The newer ships have a slightly different process since you need to disconnect the hardwired internet connection and reboot the TV (more info on that in the threads in the search results I linked to earlier). There have been reports that some cabins (like maybe some GS), the TV is mounted in such a way that makes it impossible to get to the HDMI ports without tools. But that is not a new vs. old question, it has more to do with the cabin itself. However, I think I recall at least one person asking a room steward about it and they had a maintenance person come to help get access the HDMI port (not positive about this).

Can you elaborate as to why? I don't have a Roku, but from my understanding, it's really no different than a Firestick. Firestick is no problem, so not sure why you would say probably not. Search results would suggest you can (but not seeing any hard confirmations) https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?&q=roku&type=forums_topic&quick=1&nodes=51&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

We were on Jewel summer of 2022. It was not using Starlink yet, but that doesn't really matter when talking about the ship's infrastructure. We were in a JS, near the back of the ship (under WJ). We actually had pretty decent wifi coverage. I was able to use my Firestick to watch stuff. The only issue we had were limited bandwidth when we were quite a bit above the arctic circle (totally understandable), and then a couple sea days on the Iceland/Ireland leg (did a B2B), when there were a lot more younger families and teens, so a much higher load on the system. I had issues everywhere on those days, not just the room. Actually, the room might have been a little better.

Not sacrilegious at all. Plenty of questions and discussion on this forum: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?&q=HDMI TV&type=forums_topic&quick=1&nodes=51&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy You'll find 6 posts of mine on this subject in these results specifically related to Firestick which should be more or less the same for Roku or Chromecast: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/search/?&q=hdmi firestick&type=forums_topic&quick=1&nodes=51&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

There is no way to "see all of the sites" in a day or two. We spent a week in Rome before a Western Mediterranean cruise, and there's still things we'd like to do "next time". I'm linking to a post I made in another thread back in '21. The thread in general has some good info, but I attached a detailed recommendations document. This is another thread specifically discussing hotels, Abnb.

I feel that more than extending suite perks to the whole group, the OP is more interested in transferring the perks from which ever teen was booked in the suite with him to his wife, who had to be booked in the non-suite with the other 3 teens. Once boarded, I am sure they will get extra cards so that he and his wife are both in the suite, while the 4 teens (or maybe its 3 & 3?) are in the non-suite. The 2 adults should get the suite perks, not one of the 4 teens. But as in the original post, RCI won't let them book it that way, there has to be an adult in each room. Kind of sucks. I have no idea if the hotel manager or suite concierge has any power to do any swapping like that. I feel for you, especially since you sound like you would have been fine paying for 2 suites, but only 1 was available. If that's the case, did you ask about wait listing for a second suite?

I agree with you. But had to highlight the Icon class, because when I told my wife that Icon 2 was named 'Star', she immediately replied that Icon 3 should then be 'Legend'.then

We also have done a few river cruises (3 with AmaWaterways, 2 with others), and plan on doing more. For those interested in river cruises, there is a reasonably active sub-forum on this site: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/115-river-cruising/ People are always happy to answer questions from people about ships, itineraries, ports, etc.

During the day, Safari Club (/LIbrary/CongoBar). Might be different in the Caribbean, but on the Arctic Circle, Iceland/Ireland, there was almost never anything going on in there during the day.

My initial interpretation of the potential to merge the programs would not be that benefits merge, but rather that there is a single, combined counter system. Sailing on any line increments your counter accordingly. Each line could still have their own benefit system with different benefits, even a different schedule.

I believe the app just makes it easier to go to the logon URL, but I am almost positive you can go to the url from any browser and get to the logon page. Might be logon.com, but I don't recall. I've needed to do that in the past when the app wasn't working, but not this last cruise. The Voom desk will be able to help you if no one confirms this and/or the URL before hand.

🤣Ouch🤣 It's a non-conference game against Louisiana Tech, so they've got a chance...😁 On the other hand, my Hawkeyes are at #7 Penn State. Being optimistic, Iowa usually plays them pretty well, with more than 1 upset win. Hopefully it's a good game and not a blow out.