Rogueperson

I think we talked about this before. I got 4 cruises under that as well, though only 2 were short solos. Mariner 2021 =12 points Brilliance 2021 = 16 points Enchantment 2022 = 24 points Adventure 2022 = 28 points. I got exactly enough to go from Diamond to Diamond plus!

Oooh, I've had issue with this and its tricky. A while back, a friend of mine and I were looking at 2 solo cabins specifically for double points. A gty popped on I think it was Brilliance and it was cheap. We were talking to one another when we were in front of a computer. He clicked the gty and it gave him a price like 300 for a 4 night on Brilliance. But when i went to the site, I did not see this price. Turns out, there are THREE studio cabins on Brilliance. one was available and in the gty pool. That's why he got 300 and I got the regular 600+ with the solo supplement. Funny thing, some time after that (this was when covid was on the decline), we ended up booking solos for December 2021. We had planned for the solo supplement and ended up sailing without them when they dropped them later that year...AND we got the double points promotion, so it was a win win for us.

Is it only 7-10 days? Or is that an additional 7-10 sea days? I kinda of feel that 7-10 days is a little short. My rough estimate is its almost 10K nautical miles to sail around the cape from Oman and make it to the mouth of the Med, vs. 2500K nautical miles from Oman to the Med through the Red Sea and the gulf. An additional 7500 nm is like 2 weeks of 18 knots average with no port stops. I'm not sure if its relatable, but our 14 night Greenland Cruise, Nuuk, the farthest port was about 1650 air nm from Bayonne. I mean, 13 since we actually overnighted in Manhattan and left the US coast straight to Nuuk. We needed 4 full sea days to cover that distance. 7500 would need at last 16 sea days by that math. That's not counting the day we left manhattan and coming in at 10am, later than our scheduled arrival of 7, i think?

This is such a lynchpin in the itinerary. If the Red Sea and Suez is closed off, then you either disembark early, and an entire segment is cancelled, or they have to go around the Cape of Good Hope adding significant time to that next leg to get you back to Miami.

Hmmm, these pictures looks so familiar.....😁 Did you know that where they are Serenade is about 150 miles from the Antarctic Circle? Nuuk is about..150 miles from the Arctic Circle. I'd say we got pretty decent weather since they're in the middle of summer and we were there around the equinox.

@little britain, You're already on another cruise? You stayed on after Greenland. I don't cruise again until April 😞

This maybe more work than you want to do, but if you're like me who needs a good cup of coffee and feel that Royal's coffee is not up to par, I bring my own. I go against my instinct by grinding my coffee before i board (because i don't want to chance losing my grinder). I bring my aeropress coffee maker and all you need is hot water, which most ships have available 24/7. The only issue is that its not THAT hot, which does affect the quality of the brew. Edit: Also, if you use an aeropress, take a couple coffee mugs from the MDR as the ones in the Windjammer are narrower don't fit the aeropress well.

I did a B2B two years ago on Adventure. So i said... The b2b consisted of a 5 night to Bermuda and then 9 nights to Canada. We did the UDP for 5 nights and then MDR for the remaining 9 nights. We also threw in Chef's Table because of the discount for the 1st 5 nights. Adventure has Izumi's, Giovanni's, Chops and Johnny Rockets, but since i don't like Johnny Rockets in general, that really wasn't in the running. I ended up eating at Izumi's once, Giovanni's twice and Chops, 3 times. Anytime lunch was offered, I took it. I also, at the time, was able to get chili cheese fries from Johnny Rockets, but i'm not sure you can do the same thing anymore with that silly one time credit they have now. Did i enjoy the UDP? Yes, but to be honest, after 5 nights of nothing but specialty restaurants, I was done. The menu is fairly limited and visiting twice, with someone, and you've tried everything on the menu already. After that, it starts to get dull. Second, i realized that with Giovanni's and Chops, I skew heavier on steaks there. When i came back to the MDR, I was like "no more steak!!!" I did not eat another steak until maybe day 4 of leg 2, i was that done with it. I do have to say, that Chops burger at lunch is amazing. For a while, best burger at sea was Guy's on Carnival. Then i went on Princess and Salty Dog Gastropub blew Guy's away. and then at the last lunch on Chops, I got a burger, and was like "wow, this is an amazing burger" and Royal took the prize. They never had the prize. However, the burger is absolutely not worth the price you pay for Chops at lunch and even less so if they offer for dinner, which i don't think they do. So, technically, yes, they have the best burger in my mind, but I will ONLY get it if i get the UDP, and given how expensive its been since i got it 2 years ago, its unlikely I will get it again. How did I fare going from all specialty to all MDR? Easily. MDR service will ALWAYS be better than the specialty restaurant. The MDR mixes it up a little better, though the new menu has a little less choices, they still mix it up more meaning they go longer. Also, the specialty restaurants are even more limiting if you have any dietary restrictions like my wife, who is gluten free. She was quite happy to go to the MDR where they tried a little harder to accommodate her. Bottom line. I will get a meal or two at a Specialty Restaurant, but that's it. I even stopped going to Chef's Table because they haven't change the menu since 2017. I used to go to it for every cruise, but until Royal changes up the menu, its getting kind of stale.

So is today a "turnaround day" where this leg of the cruise is over, and the next one begins? Do the world cruisers act like b2b2b (x274 days)? Or even segmented cruisers. Did i miss a post about that? We are on page 65.

When I was on Adventure for my B2B in 2022, our lunch was shared with the Key lunch. We had the same menus and were able to eat with friends coming aboard who had the Key.

I saw pictures elsewhere that noted this. I am not surprised unfortunately when you get such a big city, you're going to have a huge separation of wealth 😒

I decided to do a little digging. Fortaleza is HUGE. It dwarf's Miami's 56 square miles and 450K population, though this I think it just within the city limits. Fortaleza is 120 square miles and 2.7 MILLION people. If you include the surrounding counties of Miami, then you'd have a similar population base, but still, that's a MAJOR metropolitan area. Chicago has 2.6 million. for scale. Before this, I've never heard of the city before.

Hopefully, it stays consistent for you. I was on Jewel in September, and it was all over the place. When it worked, it was wonderful, but it was inconsistent and frustrating. I don't board Vision until January of 2025, but I'm following along.

The 4 drinks was after covid I think so that's a relatively new perk. Probably the best upgrade I've seen. It took me 10+ years to get from nothing to Diamond. I had only 2 cruises after hitting diamond before Covid hit. Not counting the covid year, It only took me a year and a half to hit Diamond plus. Why? That sweet sweet double point promotion. I did 2 short cruises alone, (a 3 and 4 night) that got me 28 points. They also had no solo supplement because in 2021, they were doing everything to entice people back on board. I had two long cruises (a 12 and 14 nighter) with the wife and accrued 52 points That 80 put me right over to 176 last year. I had a friend who went with me on the first 3 night in a separate room. She did NOT get double points promo because it was her first Royal cruise ever and her first "real" cruise. She did get the normal 2 per night for sailing solo in a double occupancy. She got addicted and well, she hit Diamond in a year thanks to the double points that she got after the first cruise.

1005 kiddos on Oasis isn't that bad. 1005 kiddos on Grandeur, different story. (about what we had in 2014 on my NYE cruise)

It takes a while sometimes. I had to email CAS AND visit the Loyalty Ambassador on my next cruise after that 7 months later. I think I got it maybe 3 months afterwards, so a total of 10 months. However, when i visited the Loyalty Ambassador, they said they had "no record of my request, even though I submitted my request when i got the notice onboard AND emailed CAS about 6 weeks after my milestone cruise.

Dude, I had an ex that hit the spa at least 20 times on a 10 night cruise!. Our (her) bill was $3,600.00 after our obc and refunds from a missed port (about $500.00). I say her bill because I broke even as I spent about 250, overall and my share of the obc covered my portion. Neither of us drank or bought anything onboard. It was all spa...

As I said, it was probably particular to our cruise on the Jewel as we had 8 days at sea and going to Greenland where it was cold. Breakfast and Lunch was basically on deck 4 of the MDR and 5 was open. They closed it at 2:30 to start preparing for dinner when they used both floors of the MDR. In fact, they actually had at least one gaming lesson in the MDR, I *think* it might have been for Bridge, or something like that. I found out about it late in the cruise, so I"m not sure how often they did it.

I did a live thread for it here. It may only be for Radiance class, because of the multiple entries available on this ship. I know on Vision classes and maybe the Voyager classes, there are only entrances on one side, so its easier for them to close off totally then for Radiance classes.

In the Windjammer, the food section was closed off, but the entry from the side was open. The back entry was also open to allow for movement through the seated areas of the Windjammer. Granted, our cruise had 8 sea days total due to going to Greenland. The combination of cold weather which excluded the outside deck area for most of the cruise may have had something to do with opening the MDR. I can say that this cruise was the first time I felt overstimulated indoors because it felt louder than usual and finding a quiet spot was *much* harder than other cruises i've been in.

When I was on Jewel in September to Greenland, they actually opened up the MDR for gaming specifically. I've never seen that before. I don't recommend this, but I also noted that the windjammer tables were open (at least on Jewel) for use in between hours, but i don't recommend this only because you would have to move (or should move) once the windjammer opens to serve food.

Of course. Technically I don't own any of these images once i post them here, I think. But thanks for asking. I got the cruise compasses images and will post them here once i figure a way to turn them into images, and not pdfs.

I got food poisoning from the beef Carpaccio. Took me down for a couple of days. when i came back up, maître de insisted i go to medical. They tagged me with Norovirus and quarantined me for an additional 24 hours. Imodium would have fixed me up quicker had I had it with me. Now i take it with me on every cruise. Total, I lost 4 days on the cruise and Curacao.

Not to besmirch that cruise, which was in no way bad, however, that's a low bar there. I would consider that the worst cruise I've been on.

Oh, one major thing I missed. MDR menu. This cruise, they added an Indian option on the menu every night. This is ALWAYS a good option. The dish regardless of the name, will look similar like this. The only difference is the type of meat they use and the sauce will change slightly. But its the same. But its ALWAYS good. This is the best upgrade on the menu despite the downgrade of choices.