RobInMN

We had a nice young woman from China on one of our cruises maybe 2018ish that could not read English very well at all. She could speak it fine, but trying to read trivia questions written by others or looked up in some trivia questions site, with uncommon words she'd never seen before was almost painful. Took forever because she had to spell so many words. But then she did Bingo, and she had this long-game joke she nailed perfectly! (turns out the boyfriend she kept referring to didn't know he was her boyfriend 🤣)

Worth doing once? Absolutely. Don't know if I'd do it a second time, maybe a completely different VR world. But we (3 of us, 53, 53, 22) had a great time!

From today at Catalina Island

The Pens! They are amazing! They write in every language! (or so I've heard)

Recently, my local grocery store changed all the base tags to some sort of colored eInk (I don't think they are regular LED) labels. They don't even have to walk the aisles to swap the base tags or put sales tags over anything anymore. It's 100% digital! When I was in high school (mid 80's), I would sometimes do the weekly price changes. We'd have to pull everything off the shelves. Anything stamped with ink (cans & bottles), we'd have to dob them with some ink remover stuff, wipe them off, stamp new prices, and put everything back. Jell-O sucked!! 🤣 boxes used the pricing gun. We would actually do this during the day (usually Sunday, unless there was a special ad), not over night.

Radiance class ships might get refurbishments, but I seriously doubt any of them would ever get "amplified". Each ship can be different, but we were just on the sister ship Jewel, and she was in very good condition for her age. No unreasonable, unexpected wear. For the most part, didn't seem dated. I've read worse reports from newer ships.

Pretty sure you don't actually have to ask. If you have drink vouchers available, they will automatically use them. Which means that if you don't want to use one (say for a bottle of water), you specifically have to tell them not to use your voucher. Meaning that vouchers are opt-out, not opt-in.😉

Oh yeah, I should add that our itinerary is for Ensenada (and Catalina Island), not Cabo

I believe that general consensus on other threads is that on a typical sale, the deluxe beverage package requires at least 6 drinks a day to break even. Maybe a couple more if they are not all alcohol drinks. That means that as Diamond, you'd need to plan on 10+ drinks a day, or 11+ as D+ to "break even" with the DBP. For us, totally not worth it. Possibly a pop package on a super sale, but that's about it. For others, I'm sure it's still totally worth it.

If you're still in the market for one next week, I can post something. Boarding on the 3rd.

Is Jake...not from State Farm, from the Philippines! still part of the entertainment crew? Along with Joy (France), Jerry (Mexico City) and Kat (Isle of Man)? Spent many an activity with them over 24 days! They were all great!

On Jewel this last summer (out of Amsterdam), we never left the ship. We went to the theater where they handed us our new cards (and an "In Transit card), then we went to a security podium they brought up to the theater where they scanned us out of the first cruise on our old card and into the new cruise on the new card, and then they sent us on our way with both cards.

While I only really care about the phones I buy and use, and I have not extensively researched this. I really do not believe that this is true anymore. It may have in the past, but I'd say at least over 4 or so years ago. I know the last 3 or 4 models of Samsung Galaxy phones have been able to WiFi hotspot any connection the phone has, including a WiFi connection. I did this on my last couple cruises. In some quick Googling, it would appear that this may be built into stock Android, and should be available on Samsung and Pixel phones (which covers most Androids?) Maybe Apple is still in the dark ages here. I have no idea. Don't use them.

Maybe if it was on Icon, where the ports don't matter.....

Actually, no. According to cruise ship mapper, the capacity rankings of all Royal Caribbean ships are about the same, regardless of size. Yes, there are more passengers and more crew, but the ships themselves are just that much larger. 150,000/10000 is the same ratio as 75,000/5000. Everything from Radiance & Voyager classes up to Oasis and Quantum Ultra are all about 34-36, and the older smaller ships are actually worse (25-32). The site only shows max capacity (>100%) numbers, but using their formula, at minimum 100% capacity, Icon will actually have the highest rating (44) than any other RC class, Oasis (41), Voyager (38),

Used my phone's hotspot on the last couple cruises to share the wifi with multiple devices. I found it easier than logging in & out, plus I could stream podcasts on my phone while using the larger screen of my tablet.

Jewel does not have it.

Like I pointed out with Symphony, there can be cruises prior to the "inaugural" one. I believe that the "Inaugural" cruise and the "first revenue" cruise do not have to be the same thing. They can plan a specific date that they are close to 100% sure the ship will be ready by and do all the planning for the naming ceremony and all the press and vloggers and travel agents and the whole party. And if it's ready before then, there's no reason they can't add cruises prior to that and call them pre-revenue or test or whatever they want.

For Caribbean, I'm with you. Western Mediterranean, yeah, probably. For most of the rest of the world (for now), itinerary trumps ship. For Eastern Med or Baltic, Voyager class might be the largest some ports can take. Northern Norway or Panama Canal, it's Radiance class. A dream Trans-Pacific will continue to be limited to Radiance class unless the popular destinations back off their 2500 passenger max. etc. I'm sure that over time, some of the popular ports in the more "exotic" itineraries will build out for larger cruise ships just as the Caribbean has done over the years, but until then... At this point, we are sort of alternating. Caribbean for ship, then one for itinerary (some being river cruises).

We did Symphony in her "inaugural season" in 2018 in the Mediterranean after she was built, but before she TA'd to Miami. Pretty sure all the official launch, press and inaugural stuff, etc happened in November once she was in Miami. Pretty sure YT Vloggers were referring to those MIami sailings as the ship's "First" and "brand new" and other things references more or less indicating that they had no idea that Symphony had been sailing for 6/7 months already.

I am not sure about all ships, but on some (or at least Symphony), I believe they are billed as "Stowaway Piano Player", which explains the random locations and times, and why the piano is themed like an old steamer trunk, complete with destination stickers. All though I believe I recall seeing time windows in the CC.

We were on Odyssey at the very end of Feb early March. Showgirls was not running yet, so didn't see that. We found The Book to be technically impressive, but kind of lacking on story. I'd still see it again though. As for the Effectors, we found it very cheesy in about every way, all though the specially effects were good. I don't think we'd ever choose to watch it again. I would say that what they've shown in the MCU shows on Disney+ for the fake Rogers: The Musical has a better production value. For comparison, we've loved other productions on other ships, Hairspray, Hiro, 1977 on Symphony, not so much Flight. Chicago! (Allure pre-2015), etc.

There's a pier runner video on YT that contains a dock worker(admin/security?) acting like a pier runner and then stopping, and starting, and stopping, and starting, almost taunting the people are yelling to him like he's a real runner, and when he finally gets to the ramp, he just starts talking to the ship security. I think they shake hands, and I think he pulls out a radio from his back pocket that you can't see as he's approaching, and eventually wanders back. It was pretty funny.

Last fall on Freedom, I watched a football game on my phone with very little issues (YouTube TV) , other than when I went back to my room, then I had some stuttering. I did not change any settings. YTTV will change the streaming quality based on bandwidth. Surprisingly, on Jewel this last summer on B2B Arctic Circle and Iceland/Ireland, we were able to stream YTTV on the Firestick most of the time. Granted, the further north we got, the more the quality of the video degraded, even less than normal "SD". When we were well above the Arctic Circle, that's when YTTV more or less gave up. Not complaining, as it's completely understandable why. Just giving our experience.

My wife & I started the GE process in Feb, just weeks prior to the Pandy out break. It took 1 year before we finally got conditional approval and could schedule our interview, which we were able to do fairly quickly. We booked a couple cruises with our daughter and her boyfriend. Boyfriend had to renew his passport, so his was delayed for that, but my daughter was conditionally approved in a reasonable amount of time, but they wanted to wait to go to the airport for the interview together (makes sense - that's what my wife & I did). Boyfriend just got his approval a little over a week ago. But now try finding an interview appointment!!!!! Unless you want to go to a land boarder crossing with Canada, you can't schedule anything, anywhere that I checked. Not even just booked out 'x' months. It just flat out says "no appointment available". We're about 4.5 hours from International Falls. We might do that. not sure. The only other option appears to be that if you are returning from an international flight, you might be able to do the interview right then as you are going through CBP. What a mess.