HappyTexan44

Had that been pre or post lockdown? Somewhere I read that they got rid of them because you can't really get them clean.

Isn't getting an wine ice bucket an option? If the room merely has a cooler, then ask the room steward to keep the bucket with ice and then always have a can or two in the bucket. I love those freestyle machines. We've booked Voyager and it doesn't have one. We'll have two teenage girls and even though my daughter doesn't like soda (yeah) we'll buy the soda package for both. I don't want soda to be the forbidden fruit and the other girl occasionally drinks soda.

Thanks, but no. We will have the blankets and pillows in the car with us anyway. All we have to do is to shove them in a duffle. Although, ... considering what I've found between the supposedly clean sheets into hotel rooms I've just checked into maybe I should do that anyway. On the other hand, I've got this idea that on cruise ships the between-guests clean is more thorough mainly because they don't want the norovirus taint. Could be wrong.

I don't know about cruises, they might actually wash their blankets. But the ones in hotels are absolutely disgusting! They are never washed and think about what people have done on them! First things I do in a hotel room is to toss the blanket(s) on the bed into the corner. Wash my hands. Do bedbug inspection with black light. Don't accidentally reverse that order (shudders). If I drove I then add my pillow and blanket. If I flew and therefore needed a blanket, I'd call down to the desk tell them I needed a new blanket because I 'spilled a drink on it'. I am not a clean-freak, but those blankets/bedspreads in hotel rooms are gross! I used to travel for work spending 180-ish nights in hotels. There was one place close enough to drive and I'd love it because I'd sleep like I was home in my own bed since I could bring my own pillow and comforter. Now that travel is with the family, when we drive we like to have blankets and pillows in the car to help us get comfortable and sleep. We'll be driving to the cruise, so might as well bring them with us. Also, I can't use wool blankets. As for as why we bring Maple Syrup? Well, once you have the real thing that 'pancake syrup' is no longer edible. Real syrup is one of those creature comforts I enjoy when traveling.

Well, once you bring your pillows and comforter, the carry-on idea goes out the window :) We have a lot of duffles and packing cubes and the luggage that fits within each other for storage. Also, bins that fold flat and pop-up hampers. Our room will look cluttered, but that is OK.

We are people that would rather have lots of luggage than do without creature comforts that we can think of that is possible to get onboard. For example, a back scratcher and real maple syrup are both essentials. So, we'll be putting our luggage out the night before.

Well, as the OP, I can state that I am on the fence, leaning back toward auto-grat. if I can't think of a more fair way of handling the money. (This isn't new news. I previously said I was on the fence and the WJ tips might sway me back to auto-grat.) Even then, my original question wasn't Should I manually had out the tips in cash, but basically the logistics for those that have done that.

Adding this to the word file for my cruise notes. We were planning on parking at the port. But I could see us arriving back to a car almost on E that stunk from old food. We also learned the hard way to put the car keys in a special known place. One time at a convention after not using the car for 5 days, we had to search through our luggage to find the keys and we had no clue where it was. We just knew it wasn't in the room.

That is so common that while my husband does must of the driving, I usually do the morning driving on trips. Yes, it doesn't seem to be how I originally envisioned it. My idea was like how I used to do when my flight arrived home at a reasonable time of day. Home airport is DFW so lots of people have connecting flights. I'd wait until the mad rush was over then exit the plane. I'd leave when about 50% were still on the plane, so not delaying anyone or the plane. The past tense is because I swore off flying when it became cattle air. I know people generally have flights to get home from a cruise. Although after I started this I read somewhere that 80% of Galveston cruisers got there by car.

I can totally see this being the reason that it is free. You can't complain about something being lesser than promised, when you didn't pay for it. In addition to the bonus money since we were getting it anyway, since it is free everyone will have access. I can totally see us wanting to communicate with some new best friends. Everyone being on chat will be nice.

WJ is a bit of a sticking point and I am enough on the fence about this, that WJ might sway me to auto-grat. I am used to 15% of 15% of food bill going to the busboy, and 15% of 15% of the bar bill going to the bartender from my tips. 15% was the norm at the time. I can understand bartenders in a particular bar pooling their tips within the bar. My dismay was the idea of cash tips going into a giant ship-wide tip pool.

Oooh, that could totally work. DH's main jobs are homeschooling DD and building the house we are living in. So, he spends lots of time in Home Depot and Habitat's Restore. She hates both. I am so personally strict on truth that I don't think I could do that.

They wouldn't let me for the 'special pricing'

I bet that was miserable since you were stuck on the flight. I hope it was a short one. I remember once in a restaurant with friends a glass of iced tea was spilled on me from above. They were at least able to provide a cloth tablecloth to keep me warm. A plane wouldn't have had that.

Don't they x-ray checked luggage? They know what a wine bottle looks like.

It is really nothing in the grand scheme of things. Well, the nothing is past tense. Original problem is that daughter(12) lied to us about something that we'd have been merely grumpy about if she'd told the truth. Then while she's still in trouble in trouble for lying, a little over 24 hours later, she bald-faced lied about something else. I told her to write an essay about why she shouldn't lie. All she could think of was that when she lies and gets away with it, she starts to lie more (So apparently this has been happening for awhile) and when she is caught, Mommy is sad. So, apparently, a huge parenting parenting fail. Then yesterday I learned that my mother doesn't feel healthy enough to drive for Christmas. Which means she might never leave the house alive again.

I have been having a hard few days, and I needed a happy place to go to. I checked out the RC blog, and learned that the chat will be free. That is good news. That was $40 in our budget. Not a lot of money, but I'll take any movement in the right direction. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2022/12/09/royal-caribbean-ceo-chat-feature-app-will-be-free-starting-2023

Seems like it would easy for Royal to figure out whose bottle it was. Take all wine soaked luggage to luggage jail. As people request their luggage, open up the luggage and there will be a broken bottle. Charge that person's account for laundry services for the innocent people. Hand over the name and address of the guilty person to the innocents in case they want to small claims sue for new luggage, because you know that luggage is totally ruined.

It doesn't sound like they are comping much in this case. $100 OBC? That is an insult not a comp.

One of my bucket-list items was to eat at a Michelin starred restaurant in Paris. Those tables for two are wider with more spacing between then in Paris. At least since they are technically different tables you can politely ignore the strangers next to you.

So, when you give them cash, they still put it in a pool?

Will you get anything from Royal for changing your cruise?

To be fair to the OP, they did just reach for the wrong card, and realized their mistake right away.

I was trying to think of people that I'd interact with. Wouldn't they be one of the customer-facing employees included in the auto-grat. pool?

Well, that stinks.