HappyTexan44

We would be able to even collapse the wagon and send it through the scanner. I added a note to my cruise document to not have loose stuff in there. I can see stuff just getting tossed in as we leave the car.

My plan is to put my two or three bottles of wine (four adults in four rooms), one or two 12-packs of soda, and the carry-ons for four people in one of those collapsible fabric-sided wagons. Try really hard to get earliest boarding. Then finding an out of the way comfy chair and reading a book until the rooms open up.

Well, Americans are free to call any wine made with the champagne method as champagne. The restriction was based on a treaty that the French trotted around. America didn't sign it because we were already doing something even more stupid (prohibition). When we said we were signing because we were drinking (theoretically), the French accepted that. Really, the whole idea is stupid. Pilsner beer doesn't have to come from Pilsen.

That is a thought on the scrambled. I know for scrambled eggs in hotel breakfasts, the eggs are usually just poured from a carton and cooked. I would guess that the ship is the same. With poached you know that it has been in a shell until recently. I adore eggs, but I often don't eat them away from home because we have free-range hens. But then at some point away from home, I miss eggs enough that I order some and I like to get the best I can. Soup is something that does seem to need salt, or at least some salt. I wish Brita removed salt from the water. At home we have an RO unit, and that does remove salt, but it is the high-pressure membrane that does that. We have Brita water bottles that we like to use on vacation.

Not Oasis, but on Voyager I looked at the activities in the app for a current cruise that is the same as mine and I was impressed with the activities for the young teen crowd. Might have been just my perspective since I wasn't expecting much.

@new_cruiser Was this since the new menu? If so, that is awesome!

So, I was thinking between restaurant food being generally saltier, certainly more than at my home, and the water having salt in it left from the desalination, I will probably want to tell them I'm on a low-salt diet. At home, I'm not officially on a low-salt diet, but I really just don't like the taste. If I buy canned soup, I reach for the low-salt version. On popcorn I put butter and cheese powder, no salt. Even the butter is usually unsalted. With recipes I've figured out which ones really need to salt, e.g. bread and which don't and drop the salt from the ones that don't. When I used to travel a lot for work, and therefore lots of restaurant meals, within the US I'd start to notice all the salt in the food, and I'd feel off. When I spent a lot of time in Germany, at some point I'd crave Pringles which I figured out was a salt craving. So I wouldn't say I'm ultra-low salt, but lower than an American diet. I understand during pre-new menu, this wouldn't have been a problem. The waiter brings the next day's menu out, and you order the day before. But, with all these no-substitutions rules, I wonder. Will they tell me to just eat a naked chicken breast every night?

Yes, for us, two two-person interior cabins were cheaper than one four-person cabin. I had been genuinely confused. Although, KSF might have changed that.

Am I the only one that thought, "This is never a question."

That is good news. Particularly since the only reason for them to NOT allow that is if all food for that dining window were already plated before you ordered.

I get that many people don't like the giant ships. But, I think they are awesome for expanding the customer base. What are the reasons people don't want to try cruising? I think I'll be bored, and I'll be seasick.

That is bat-poo-crazy. If they are still doing this silliness by our cruise (Feb) I can see us pairing up. Like DH orders cake and I order ice cream. When they arrive, I dump my ice cream onto his plate, hand over the empty plate and say, "I'd like some more ice cream." Some things just need to come together.

Now this makes sense. If there is a bit of salt in the water, then people might drink more water than usual because of the sun/swimming/walking/heat. So maybe another help would be tell the dining you are on a low salt diet.

Well, the reason they are being built is that the economies of scale make them cheaper to operate per passenger. For example, a ship twice as big doesn't need twice as many shows, it just needs more seats.

I stay away from land-based casinos because of the smoke. I have sinus troubles and being around a lot of smoke for a couple of hours causes months of sinus misery. On our cruise, I plan to try to organize a poker tournament in the game room just to be able to play in a smoke-free environment. So, I would be one that would go to the casino only if it were smoke-free. They might lose people that wouldn't go unless they could smoke, but they would also gain people. The question is, which is more? I know in Disney World discussions when someone would complain about the masks and point out that more people would come without the masks, someone would always pipe up that there are those that wouldn't go without the masks, so it didn't matter. With mask etc. rules, it seems clear which way gets more people. (Just making an analogy here) I don't know what the answer is on smoking-gambling. I have observed that a gambler is MUCH more likely to smoke than the average person. So maybe the connection is strong enough for casinos to stay smoking. I can also see the casino thinking that when people cashed out to go smoke, a good number of them would wander off and do something else.

The first place I noticed it was The Mansion in Dallas. I saw it in a Michelin ** place in Paris, and another place in NYC. I remember the name of the first place because it is local. You might not have noticed if you had a similar appetite to others with you since you would have received around the same amount of food. Even then you'd have only noticed if you'd had courses.

I'd specified in extremely nice restaurants.

I honestly don't know. Some people say there is plenty of food. On the other hand that seems to be based on the number of courses, and then you add that desserts to be reported as mostly *Meh*. In an extremely nice restaurant, they will watch how much you are eating and adjust the size of the courses accordingly. Trying to look at this as nicely as possible, maybe since that would be impossible on a cruise they expect people to handle that themselves by ordering extras.

That Carne Asada looks soooo much better than other photos I've seen. Royal really needs to get smaller plates. The photos seem to have lots of empty plate showing.

This is going to sound like a crazy question. If we find ourselves in this situation will we be able to get cream and whole milk in Cozumel, our first port stop? DH will use cream or half-and-half and will get grumpy if one isn't available. DD only really drinks whole milk and water. We buy the glass bottle whole milk from a local farm so even run-of-mill whole milk is a downgrade. 2% and skim are really just white bad-tasting water. So, that would really stink if that was all they had. Note, I don't limit what she drinks, but I'm happy about it so I try to provide max. quality so she'll stay that way.

One thing I found helpful for planning for our 2024 cruise was that google document that helps you create a link to show what another cruise has for booking. So, I found an upcoming cruise this month that was the same as mine, and then looked at what they had. There is a thread here with that document. So, at least you can see what is likely to be offered and pick your favorites. Ours is in Feb and the excursions have been coming in in dribs and drabs.

Yes, that is why I mentioned what I was thinking of bringing onboard. That way people wouldn't just remind me that the food was unlimited. I'd also been reminded of the time I was randomly flagged for extra Customs search coming home on an international flight and the person at the front of the line had a couple of dozen eggs break in their luggage.

I wonder what is different about the bottled water? From what I've read they filter the water using the same methods as bottled water, then they add chlorine to it so that it is safe in the pipes. So maybe it is the chlorine?

Does Royal care about food you bring on board? For example, I was thinking about dinner mints, and the cruise not doing that anymore. My aunt has been gifting us these awesome mints from Canada that are even better than my memories of Fanny Farmer mints. So, I was thinking of bringing my own darn mints. We do often bring them along on vacations as a treat. That got me thinking. Maybe some chocolate covered strawberries for an embarkation snack. Maybe some candy for the teen girls. I wasn't thinking of food-food, more snacks and treats.

Is there a difference between linking the reservations (i.e. what I see when go to book add-ons for my cruise) and linking *dining* reservations?