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Yes

We are already able to book classes for our March 2025 Grandeur cruise, 23 months prior to sailing! Since there's no outside contractors to deal with, I think that once the instructor and class content have been decided Regent releases them all in a block. So check often.

He also mentions that the Nav's captain left two passengers behind in St. Maarten because they were late getting back to the ship. I applaud that!

I see what you mean. The description of Grandeur's main pool is identical to that of Explorer's aft infinity pool. Instead of counting on the hopeless website for info I guess I'll just have to wait for actual photos. Those should be coming soon, right?

The first two Explorer class ships have an infinity pool on deck 5 aft. The pool itself was rarely used on the cruises we have been on, and I know that Grandeur replaces the pool with a hot tub or tubs. But it also appears that the main pool has been changed in some way/ The website describes it thusly: Go for a swim, stay for the views. Wherever you are in our Infinity-Edge Plunge Pool the views are dramatic, as the pool contours to the stern of the ship. I can't find any pictures so far. Anyone know what we should expect in the pool areas?

In my opinion this is the most valuable CR tip of them all. On Splendor earlier this month we were seated in a quiet section on the side the first night and had a perfectly paced meal served by Andreas. From then on we always asked to be seated in Andreas's section and every meal was a treat. Due to miscommunication we were seated in Rea's section one evening. We decided to roll with it but it wasn't the same.

Here's the current upcharge for the toppest shelf liquors on Splendor:

I'm currently on Splendor, and when we boarded I ask our room attendant for "Scotch, maybe MacAllan." She brought me a liter bottle of MacAllan Quest. I'm not familiar with that expression, but I see it's around $150 per bottle. I'm very happy!

I just can't understand why these shows can't make cruising seem appealing. In the US, the Smithsonian Channel had a show about Explorer that was as bad as your Channel 5. I was in my 20s when The Love Boat was a thing on TV. That show was far from an artistic success, but it actually piqued my interest in cruising, and the rest is history for me. Times have changed, I guess.

Do you know what time the shuttle made it to the terminal? We're boarding Splendor on March 1 and we can arrive any time we want. But we'd like to miss the Regent bus if we could. We're also the only ship in port that day which is nice.

We had a similar trip, but probably 20 years ago, so much of this is dated. But here goes... Our travel agent was a Fiji expert, and she recommended staying off the mainland, which was a good choice, we thought. There are dozens of single resort islands in the area, and she recommended Tokoriki. So after arriving at the main airport in Nadi we took a seaplane to Tokoriki and spent two nights there. We had a beautiful beach bungalow (called a bure in Fijian) and had a great time there. The bure even had a plunge pool. We were somewhat jet-lagged, but travelling west lessens the amount of jet lag. Plus we crossed 18 time zones I think, which meant we were only 6 hours from Fiji time. After we checked out, Tokoriki gave us a day room to stay in while we awaited the Blue Lagoon ship. Sometime after dark the resort motored us out to the ship and we boarded. The only downside was that we were the last couple to board. Everyone else had boarded in Nadi, and were in mid-party. We felt like outsiders, but before too long we'd made some friends. The upside was that they put us un the owner's suite for some reason, perhaps because we were the last to arrive. The cruise was a lot of fun. There were loads of jolly Australians and Kiwis, and you got to hear "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!, Oi! Oi! Oi!" deep into the night. We visited a Fijian village, which was a lifetime highlight. We spent one day on a deserted island with a pig roast at dusk. Very cool. There's one day unaccounted for (it WAS 20 years ago!), but it was all great fun. I'm sure a lot has changed in 20 years, especially in the last 3. But I'm sure Fijians still drink Kava, and you should try that. One other thing that sticks in my mind is how unbelievably friendly Fijians are. Lots of places say they are the friendliest on earth, but Fiji is the winner. Hope this helps.

Looks like it's working now.

Uh, the best I can come up with is to wait it .out. I posted about the "can't check in" problem, and the fix for that cascaded into worse problems.

It fixed my problem (temporarily), but you're right, it's worse now. My cruise isn't even showing up in my account.

OK, it's sent. Thank you!

I tried #1 and #2. Moving on to #3 now... 😁

I see that clicking on "Guest Registration, Health Attestation & Ticket Contract" , which I believe is where you go to check in, takes me out of my cruise and back to the My Account page. That's definitely shouldn't happen, so I guess it is a glitch at rssc,com. Mike Moore, can you help?

I'm getting close to my Splendor cruise, and one of my last things I've got to do on the website is the online check in. But it's no longer shows up as an option when I manage our cruise. I've gotten pretty good at using Regent's website, but this has me stumped. Is it just a website glitch? I've got ~ a week to go so it's not important yet.

I watched their recent show about Splendor's Christmas cruise, and again it leans heavily on how expensive the ship is. Plus manufactured drama, in this case "will the Christmas decorations be up in time?" You can find it on Youtube by searching for "Most Expensive Cruise Ship At Christmas 2022." I imagine the new show will be more of the same. But the production values are good and it's always nice to see Splendor.

I've got some Isle of Man coins from our British Isles cruise. A pretty cheap souvenir to be sure.

We board on a Wednesday, and it looks like Splendor is actually the only ship in port that day. So the shuttle should be direct to the terminal. But I imagine someone in our group will get antsy and we'll wind up on Ubers. Thanks for the info!

That sounds like what I'm looking for. Do they really have a shuttle to the port? We might take an Uber/taxi anyway, but it's an option if so. DW has been on a Cuban kick since she saw the movie "Chef", so having a restaurant that close works too.

We're arriving in Miami in the early evening the day before our cruise in March. We're waffling between taking a cab to a hotel near the port, or just taking a shuttle to a hotel near the airport. I'm thinking that after a 4+ hour flight just staying in the airport area might suit us better. We're mostly just looking for a place to get a night's sleep.

We were on Explorer in 2019, and a group called the Cavern Club Beatles joined the ship in Liverpool. I imagine there are a hundred Beatles tribute bands in Liverpool, but this group was also the house band at the Cavern Club, a place that the actual Beatles appeared at nearly 300 times. They were fantastic! And related, a visit to the Cavern Club is a must do for Beatles' fans. It was epic! And a fairly short walk from the ship.

I use a usb-c to HDMI cable on my Samsung phone to play downloaded videos from my phone and it works without any issues. Do the TVs on Splendor have a useable HDMI port? If so this should work for me.