RobInMN

This is exactly the conclusion I came to as well. If it was free, I can't even begin to imagine the absolute mess the theater would be after a show. But yeah, on the surface I thought the same thing the first show I went to that had popcorn available.

Since the DBP policy only applies to guests of legal drinking age, I would say no. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/does-everyone-need-to-buy-the-deluxe-beverage-package

I thought about that, but so far I've only heard about people doing that when one person doesn't drink alcohol at all, which I didn't think applied here. But worth a shot. would be good info for this board if it does work.

Depending on how many alcoholic drinks the both of you will cumulatively drink, it's possible that you might be better off having either just your cabin mate (or both of you) getting the non-alcoholic "Refreshment Package" (obviously depending on whether either of you have interest in non-alcoholic drinks), then sharing your vouchers for alcoholic drinks and making a deal to split the costs of any additional alcoholic drinks. BTW, you just say "beverage package". I am assuming that you mean the Deluxe Beverage Package (DBP - ie. with alcohol). Since you are D+, I'm pretty sure you already know that the "every adult in the cabin" rule only applies to the DBP and not the normal "Refreshment Package".

A tip I read years ago, and has worked for us: Put right on the questionnaire: "No Sales pitch". You can also mention that directly to the staff member before they start. If you're lucky, you'll get a few more minutes of whatever treatment you're getting.

Look at the other answers specific to Alaska, but in general, I believe that the answer is yes, RCL can require an excursion to leave the ship. Might be extremely rare, but it can happen. For instance, when we were on Symphony 2018 Western Mediterranean, the port for Florance & Pisa was actually La Spezia. I don't know if the normal cruise port was too small or too busy, but for whatever reason, I am almost positive that the port we used was strictly a commercial port, and as such, I believe that RCL RCL required you to be on an excursion in order to leave the ship. No other traffic was allowed into the port (ie. taxis, independent tours), and it was completely unsafe to have any passengers attempting to walk through it.

Oops! reversed that in my head as I was responding.

Congratulations! We did the same cruise in 2018, also Rome to Rome and also on Symphony (her inaugural season). Basically, you are doing days 5, 6, 7, 8 (nights 5, 6, 7) of 1 cruise, and days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (nights 1-4) of the next cruise. If they keep things the same, about 2/3 of the people port from Barcelona, and about 1/3 in Rome. This was pre-COVID, and so the muster drill would have been everyone in the theater, but I honestly don't remember if we (Rome passengers) had to do this on embarkation day, or if everyone did it on Barcelona embarkation day regardless of where you boarded. Didn't really seem to be a big deal to be a port day for most of the ship. I really don't remember things being real different or anything. Luggage worked the same, can't remember if they still had people stay out of the halls until like 1PM or anything (either port). The only thing odd was that the "Bon Voyage" party was day 4 for us. And the app was a little messy. at that time, you had to select the cruise you were on, it was all information, not interactive. So you had to select the Barcelona cruises, and change cruise part way through. Hopefully they have that working for the instructiveness the app has now. Are you spending any time in Rome before/after? We loved Rome. Spent a week before and still have a list of things to do if we get back there. This is the main reason we picked Rome over Barcelona for our embarkation port.

Passport control at CDG SUCKS! Just went through there last week. Should have missed my flight back to the US, but since there were so many of us, they actually held the flight as long as they could (~25m), and most of us made it. People divided into 3 lines. EU facial rec, US facial rec, and live agents. Only 6(?) facial rec machines total for both EU & US, and most people seemed to need to scan their passports twice to get it to work, and hardly any agents. Took forever. If you have any option, I would go through AMS. Unfortunately, I'm just realized I'm going through CDG again in March. We'll see if it's any better arriving international. Thankfully we go through AMS on the way home.

My post you responded to was not meant to be taken seriously, Hence the laughing emoji and the 5 people that "Haha"d it.

Technically, cruises are not by "days", they are by "nights". You don't take a 7 day cruise, you take a 7 night cruise. At least by RC terminology. Check the website wording. So if vouchers are "per day", embarkation and disembarkation can both be considered "days", even if they are not full days. And yes, I know beverage packages and wifi in the cruise planner are listed as "per day" and when they charge it, the multiply by the number of nights, not number of days.

Concierge Lounge for D+ Nightly turndown service (second room service) Poolside Lounge chairs "Classics" on the main dining room menu All-you-can-eat small lobster tails Diamond Lounge Happy Hour 😅 *runs for cover*

I don't know about anything off the dining room, but there are spaces on Deck 6 (second floor above 270). Conference Room, Library, and The Boardroom.

We'll be with you on the Radiance 2024!

We did this on Symphony in Summer 2018, and it was $119 pp. At that price, I think it's worth it to do once. Especially on an Oasis class ship or a newer ship (not just size-wise, but also technology). The only "swag" we got was the "All Access" pass, which doubles as a luggage tag and fairly nice All-Access lanyard. There was some food/drink in the dining room after the kitchen portion, but I don't recall the specifics. In December 2019, we did Symphony again, and it was again $119, and we sent my In-Laws on it. We did not so it again. With inflation, I could see $129, maybe $139 (pushing it) but at $159 or $200, I really can't say that it would be worth it at those prices.

Next cruise is actually a river cruise. Grand Danube on AmaMagna, end of March to beginning of April. Next RCI cruise is on Allure Sept 10-17.

We got off from 24 nights as you were boarding! One of our headliners was a guy that performed tricks on a BMX bike. That was a little fun and different at the beginning, but he sort of just devolved into plain juggling for the second half of his show. Trivia in the Schooner lounge. It was basically my home away from home.🤣 Between trivia and games, spent a lot of time with the entertainment staff. I believe all of them indicated that this was their first contract as entertainment staff, but honestly, they were some of the best we've had and really worked well together.

I don't know if anything is different in the Caribbean, but we did B2B on Jewel out of Amsterdam this summer, 2 @ 12 nights. They shuffled headliners on & off about every port or every other port. Even up on Honningsvag Norway, the previous night's headliner got off to catch a flight to their next gig. I believe we only had the same headline act once, for 2 consecutive nights (different show). It was a b2b sea day anyway, so they were available. The designated headliner cabin happened to be 2 doors down from us, which was right next door to our friends, and they chatted with some of them on the balconies. Chatted with one in Schooner bar once also. All of our rooms, including the headliner room was a JS, which I thought was nice that they did that for the headliners. One of the headliners said they were going to a Disney ship in the Mediterranean next. Apparently there is a booking company that books many cruise lines for the headliners and they can bounce all over the place, many times needing to fly from port to port. At least for the European ports anyway. I suppose it's harder for them to stay exclusive to one line and just switch ships in port.

One of the first sailings? or maybe late '00's maybe? Voyager entered service 21-NOV-1999, with the sister ships following in the fall of 2000-2003

I don't bring any, and I don't spend time specifically looking for them, but when I do run across one, I think it's a lot of fun to re-hide it. Never keep it. Don't do Facebook, so I never follow whatever the tag may say, just re-hide it.

We were scheduled to be on the Allure TA after her amplification. For Allure, the part that I don't quite understand is that when COVID hit, it was only about 4-5 weeks before her scheduled amplification. The main reason that the amplification was postponed/cancelled at that time was because COVID closed the dry dock facility. 4-5 weeks out, pretty much all of the necessary materials would have had to have already been ordered and much of it probably in a warehouse on site ready to go. I believe one of the things they were going to do was to replace all of the TVs and audio/video. We're talking about thousands of TVs. It's not like they could just return them. Did they liquidate them for pennies on the dollar? They Abyss slide and that giant fish head? Are they just sitting in a warehouse somewhere? Sure, there's a lot of labor involved in doing the actual work, but there's also storage costs, cancellation penalties, or just flat out loss to liquidate. Other ships that were further out from their amplification would be in much better shape. Just seems like for Allure, they were so close that it might have made more sense to just follow through with it as soon as it could be scheduled in the dry dock. That they may not have really saved that much by cancelling/postponing. When they do end up rescheduling the amplification, how many things will they need to start over on? Certainly re-purchasing a lot of stuff that if MUCH more expensive now.

The ship looks amazing, but having lived my entire life in Iowa and Minnesota within an hour (and currently a 10 minute walk) of the Mississippi River, I can not begin to fathom paying what Viking is charging for this cruise. It's much more (twice?) than what we paid to do a river cruise from Nuremberg to Luxembourg, including upgraded (but not DeltaOne) airfare both directions.

Multiple. There was one on Navigator earlier this month, and one on Odyssey in Feb. Saw them in elevators, but I think we saw one elsewhere. At this point, my guess is they may be on potentially all Oasis, & Quantum, and some to all Voyager & Freedom. All though, I don't actually recall seeing one on Freedom last fall. Did not have one on Jewel in the summer out of Amsterdam. Not sure if that's because of port or ship class, or even cruise length/itinerary. And they aren't all "he"s, on one of our cruises, it was a young woman.

Kind of along those same lines: "Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people [snaps fingers] just like that!“ — George Carlin What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)

Same. Loved it! We were on June 20-July 2, then stayed on for Iceland & Ireland. The weather was awesome the entire time. Don't know about any other cruise lines, but RC's Norway season appears to be last week of April to first week of September. The Radiance class ships go out of Amsterdam, the Quantum class ships out of Southampton. The Radiance class ships will do the "Arctic Circle", which means Tromso and Honningvag, north of the Arctic circle. The Quantum class ships stick with the lower, larger ports. In my opinion, the Arctic Circle is well worth it!