foxgoodrich

It's your choice. You can prepay when you book your cruise and make final payment, or you can choose to add the gratuities aboard the cruise. (In that case they add the daily amount to your account each night.) While it's true that you may occasionally get caught by a rate change between your booking and account settlement, we prefer not to prepay our gratuities. We actually did get caught by the rate change recently and the difference for the cruise for the 2 of us was a total of $21 for our 7 nighter in January. We did not feel it was a significant enough amount to worry about. (The last rate change was in 2018, so there were 4 years between rate changes. This was the first time in 22 years of cruising Royal that we were caught by a change.) We have the grats added daily to our account, then pay up at the end when we settle the account. That way we can be sure all our OBC gets applied - we always start off with refundable OBC (travel agent, BorfA points, etc.) but sometimes we also receive non-refundable OBC while on the cruise due to something getting cancelled or changed, something going wrong with our cabin, dining, etc. Royal applies non-refundable OBC first, then refundable. We never waste any OBC, esp the non-refundable kind!

They usually keep the doors closed for late seating diners until the early seating people have cleared the dining room and tables are reset for late seating. You could go at 7:45, but whether you can actually go in to your table will depend on how quickly the early seating service is finished and tables reset. You'll probably need to do MTD and reserve your times to work on show nights.

With the devotion to drinking you've expressed, I'd have to advise you should buy the package in addition to all the free drinks you get. If you don't buy the package and charge extra drinks (non freebie drinks) to your Sea Pass account, after about 30 extra drinks beyond your freebies your bar bill for the cruise would be about $550. Since access to alcohol is your priority, rather than cost, you should buy the package.

NOW I know why I saw a crock pot on the naughty table! I figure you could smuggle the rest of the stuff out of the Windjammer.....

We were on Radiance last week, and we had the big lobster tail on whatever they are calling the old second formal night these days. It was very good. Our waiter asked if we wanted another one, and had a plate of the them to offer, but we both declined. I don't know if there would have been a charge had we accepted a second one, but my impression was maybe no charge for it.

We are D+ with 5 daily vouchers each. We are not big drinkers, and on our most recent cruise I couldn't drink at all due to medical issues......so we got a few bottles of water (on Radiance it was bottles) each day and had fun treating total strangers to drinks. We would approach a couple at a bar late in the evening and ask "Are you D or D+?" and "Did you buy the drinks package?" If the answer was NO, we would buy them a drink. We had a lot of fun and met some interesting people doing this!

We just attended the C&A Top Tier party on Radiance this week. It was hosted by the Captain, who spoke a bit about the ship and introduced senior officers. He announced the numbers of each C&A level aboard. They served champagne, mimosas and some kind of non-alcoholic punch. All Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Diamond Plus, and Pinnacle guests received invitations.

Ingredients used in Mediterranean cuisine include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, seafood, beans, legumes and nuts. Little or no red meat is used. You can use Google to find lots of examples of recipes and dishes for the "Mediterranean Diet," which is popular now.

We have cruised in interiors before, but we've always been able to walk around the sides of the bed. Neither the desk nor the little couch have ever touched the bed in our experience, and we've never had to crawl into bed from the bottom. What category of inside cabin did you book?

I believe that the "lobster night" you are talking about is the one in the Main Dining Room dinner menu and possibly also the Windjammer on the second formal night (usually day 6 of your 7 night cuise.) I do not think it's offered in the Solarium Bistro. The Bistro menu is Mediterranean food and does include fish. Possibly lobster is available for an uncharge, though. The Bistro and the MDR have different menus.

What is TBE?

Try booking the excursion for the two of you and see what happens.

To address the OP's question, I have attended a couple of the shopping seminars. In my opinion, the discounts in the coupon book are not worth losing an hour of my cruise! It was all promotion and enticement with the offer of freebies like cheap charms or other free cheap items if you visit the promoted stores. You can always ask for a discount and mention the name of your ship without the coupon book. Sometimes the shop people will ask the name of your ship, so they do keep track of where their customers come from. My experience has been that the best prices are the ones in shops farther away from the ship.

True - they do pay for the promotion. Also items tend to be more expensive in the promoted stores. For example, a few years ago DH and I wanted to buy each other shipwreck coins (pendants) as an anniversary gif to ourselves. The least expensive ones (silver Spanish reals) at Diamonds International were $400-450. We walked into town and found a little shop called Artifacts that sells shipwreck salvage items. We got our coins for $200 apiece, and each came with a certificate of provenance signed by the salvage diver. That little shop had lots of other fascinating salvage items as well. If we are shopping, we like to explore the local shops.

Years ago, D and above had a special designated breakfast area. On some ships it was a small dining room off the MDR, and on some it was a designated section of the MDR. I think we got a free specialty coffee with breakfast, but if I remember right, the menu was the same as the MDR breakfast menu.

No, it's never been a problem for us either, but we thought we might try using one of our freebies for a package this time. Looking forward to this cruise too!! We just love that trip down the Mississippi on a cruise ship - all the river traffic is fascinating. We have an aft balcony on deck 9, so we'll be out there waving to the folks out there in boats and ships.

Ahhh...good idea! Thanks.

Yeah, we usually only get Surf. We're just checking email and checking in with family, not streaming anything.

Great! This time we're sailing from NOLA on Jan 7, and it takes about 7 hours to sail down the Mississippi to the Gulf. Thus, on day 1 we can get phone hot spot internet. We'll do the usual freebie for days 2-3, then get the package for the remainder of the cruise with the other freebie. Thanks!

We are D+, so we each get the two 24 hours of internet. In the past, we've just stretched that out over the 7 days. We use one of our D+ internet freebies to cover days 2 and 3, then the second one to cover days 5 and 6. (We find free internet in port on day 4.) This time I'm thinking we'll do the usual and cover days 2 and 3 with one of our freebies, but then do it differently by applying the second D+ benefit to a reduced price package on day 4 that will take us through the end of the cruise. Will that work?

Whatever was wrong with online check-in seems to be fixed now. I just accessed and printed our boarding passes. Could also access eDocs.

It's not working for me either. Our cruise is Jan 7 and I wanted to print boarding passes today. Hope they will fix it soon!

I've seen them many times sailing out of Galveston. There seems to be a pod of dolphins that "escort" ships out to sea by jumping and playing in front of the bow of the ship as it leaves port. It's almost like a choreographed dance and really fun to watch. (DH says they are pilot dolphins and their "porpoise" is to help captains safely steer ships out of Galveston port.)

We use flashcards before the cruise to help our grandkids learn their cabin numbers...;-)

For DH and me, it's just about having a passport. If you have a valid passport, you have freedom to travel to more destinations, there are fewer restrictions on how you travel to get there, and you can travel on the spur of the moment. You can be spontaneous. When I was a teenager (many many years ago!) my top two aspirations were to get a drivers license and a passport as I thought they would open the world for me. I got both. I still have both and keep them current. I can use either or both whenever I want. They did open the world.