Rogueperson

Yeah, it took me 10 years to get from zip to Diamond. However, thanks to the double points, it technically took me 4 years to get from diamond to diamond plus, but the last 80 points, i've earned (or will earn) between October 2021 and October 2022. I did 2 nine nights solo to get fast track to diamond. My wife appreciates it now 😛

My best cruise ever and it would rub some people here the wrong way, was my 2015 cruise on the Carnival Pride. It was so good, I have to remove it from consideration when comparing other cruises as no cruise would ever beat this. It is the cruise that I married my wife. For some reason, we were like minor celebrities on board and that whole week was just amazing. 2nd best cruise, which counts as the official best cruise was actually 9 month before the one I got married on. It was on Grandeur of the Seas over NYE 2014-2015. I can't even put my finger on why that cruise was so good. Everything just fit into place. The passengers were amazing. The service was top notch. The itinerary was an awesome 10 night from Baltimore which Royal does not do anymore. The ports were a blast. No cruise, other than my wedding cruise has come close to touching this particular one for some reason.

You doing a live thread for that? That would be AMAZING....

I will be the dissenting voice here. Looking at your cruising experience, you *might* find Allure the same way I did. What every one says is true. You can't compare Oasis class to anything out there. However, my favorite class of Royal Caribbean has been the Voyager class and Mariner is in the class. She's been recently upgraded and pretty impressive. If i had to choose based on ship alone, I would actually choose Mariner because she's got the best melding of small and large ship appeal. She's got just enough amenities on the ship to make it feel like a new ship, but not so big, it loses the feel that you're on the ship. I feel that Freedom class and above, it feels less like being on a ship, then being in a resort. To me, there's such thing as "too big", and Oasis class falls into that category for me. However, I love the ABC islands, and would choose that itinerary over the Mariner one. The ports are more fun in my opinion which is odd, because I normally find the Oasis class itineraries to be a little mundane in general due to the size of those ships. However, you asked for ship advice, not port. Allure was the last cruise I took prior to the pandemic. It wasn't a bad cruise, but sadly, there was nothing that made it stand out really in my opinion.

Wonder of the Seas is the new hotness. You'll pay a premium to sail on her so demand for her will be high. If you want a similar experience, any of the Oasis class will have many of the same features. It really depends on your grand kids, but my nieces (they were 15, 11 and 8 at the time) went on Grandeur in 2018 and they loved it even though that is the oldest ship in the fleet with limited amenities compared with the newer ships. You also shouldn't discount the Quantum class as they have a couple things the Oasis class does not have (like IFLY, Bumper cars and the North Star). Even the older Freedom and Voyager class has many things for kids like waterslides, ice rinks, and laser tag. I would not pigeonhole yourself to the newest and best because you think there will be nothing for kids on the older ships. There's plenty of activities on all the ships.

This is a great review. However, fair warning, this menu for Chef's Table has not changed much since 2017. I've been to Chef's table on every cruise since i've been on since i found out about a "Chef's Table" in 2012 on Carnival. Up to 2016, each Chef's table was different (well, 2017, as it was different from 2016). But after my cruise in 2017 on Grandeur, I've notice the only change in menu item was the dessert. (They had a chocolate bar of sorts, but that was replaced with the World). Wine pairing does vary a little, but not always. What does change is presentation and the chef puts a slight variation into menu to reflect their style. (For example, one chef put black olives in the slaw with the Branzino while others mostly didn't). Its still a good dinner, but one of the things I liked was you didn't really know what you were going to get until you got the menu. Now, after 7 Chef's table with the same menu, I'm kind of getting bored. I get it if its the same menu for a year, but we're in year 7, with the same menu. Its a good dinner, but the mystique is kind of gone.

You have 4 sea days on a 14 night cruise? That's a busy cruise with 9 ports. My recent 12 night had 6 sea days. On a 9 night cruise, i brought Mansions of Madness with me. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/mansions-of-madness-second-edition/ But it was before i packed it full of expansions. Now that that i have more expansions, it wouldn't work. I also brought Eldritch Horror https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/eldritch-horror/ As well. Again, I was able to fit all in one box, but not able to do so now with the expansions I have now. Yeah, i like my games.

Also, don't they have trays for room service? I'm positive they would not mind you giving you one for your use during the cruise. I mean, I absconded the thermos for personal use from room service during the cruise, because carrying hot water from the WJ back to our room was a bit tricky, especially with how rough our cruise was.

Uber/Lyft is easy as well. There's no real restriction on entering the port for taxis and ubers, but the pickup area after disembarking is a little small. I found this, or cabs will be cheaper than RC's transfers, or so i've seen.

I was on Allure in 2019. Last cruise before the pandemic. Maybe they changed it due to the complaints.

I would disagree here. I love Chef's Table and try to do it on every cruise. Best experience I've had is on Grandeur and Enchantment. They have their own venue for it and its great. The worst experience was Allure and Navigator. As someone said, it is on the landing in the MDR between deck 4 and 5. On a full cruise, it is LOUD. So loud, that we could not have a decent conversation until closer to dessert time when the crowds in the MDR started dying down. On Allure, we had the same problem. We were on the 2nd level of the Diamond Lounge which was closed off for Chef's Table. However, we had to deal with the loud Diamond Happy hour which started to die down after the 3rd or 4th course. I did it on Mariner, but we were at 50% capacity, so the noise was negligible, but since that's probably never going to happen again anytime soon, expect the noise level to be higher now that things are getting back to normal. I suspect on Freedom Class ships, Chef's Table will be held at the same venue as the Voyager Class.

Chef's Table takes your preferences into account. Not necessarily just allergies and intolerances. However, it is dependent upon the chef how they do it. Example. @death_star does not like scallops. One of the dishes was Scallops carpaccio. They gave him beef Carpaccio instead. The same one from Chops. My sister in Law has a whole hosts of allergies. They worked a menu from scratch because it was that difficult. I've seen them accommodate vegan dishes well and times when I had to scratch my head wondering if they even tried. My gut tells me that smaller ships have better Chef's Table than larger ones. My best experience was on Grandeur while my worst experience was split either Navigator or Allure.

https://www.elliott.org/cruises/royal-caribbean-new-what-if-royalup-cabin-downgrade/ This situation is probably the worse I've ever heard, but in this situation, it was pretty much Royal Up, being a third party not knowing what the booking situation was. I've only Royal Upped once, got a balcony from an interior on Enchantment this past March. We were very far forward and it was a bit of a rough ride and my wife actually got seasick, which she rarely does. I'm not sure if staying in our original midship interior would have been better, but it was the roughest ride I've had out of 25 cruises. I chalk it up to a learning experience and now know never to book so far forward again. Will I royal up again. Not sure. I won't for my b2b this coming September because we're in the same room and don't want to break it up.

I TOTALLY missed it. I hang my head in shame 😩

I would not totally discount Royal Caribbean off of just one cruise. First off, coming off of Covid, there's going to be a LOT of problems. Staffing, supplies etc. That's problematic with all cruises, not just Royal. 2nd, every cruise is different. My first Royal Caribbean cruise back in 2009 on the Jewel of the Seas still stands as the worst cruise i've ever taken. The service was lousy, the MDR food was uninspiring. I had racist attitudes toward me from both crew and passengers. The specialty restaurants were a total rip off as the quality was pretty much dressed up MDR food for an upcharge. Before this cruise, I was had taken a Carnival cruise a year before, and they just blew me away, and that Carnival cruise held the mantle for best cruise for many many years.... To this day, I have a slight aversion to booking a cruise on the Jewel of the Sea as it was that bad. I was not alone thinking Jewel had missed a step. Many of the passengers noted to me that they also felt the experience was off, even from the prior itinerary. In 2013, I decided to give them a second chance. It was night and day. I was absolutely floored that this was the same cruise line I had taken in 2009. The food had flavor. The crew was wonderful. I could not even tell you why there is such a gap between the two cruise experiences. Had i not given them the second chance, I would not have had a chance to experience the cruise that knocked Carnival as best cruise ever in 2015. To this day, that cruise in 2015 has not been surpassed. (Its Grandeur of the Seas that did it). So Royal Caribbean has the distinction for me of the worst cruise ever, and the best cruise.

They offered the UDP for the Enchantment of the Seas for my 12 night last March. If you are unaware, Enchantment has ONE. ONE specialty restaurant, Chops. (Okay, trying for the Sesame street Count thing) I actually joked to my wife if anyone wanted to eat steak for 12 nights, plus our 6 days at sea.

Didn't Australian cruises have their own double point promo that went beyond the one in the US?

Cruising in a Jr. Suite or higher gets you an additional point per day.

I've been on 26 cruises. The bulk of them were Royal Caribbean. I remember three CDs. First one with Royal Caribbean in 2013. Joff Eaton, because of his awesome "I'm Splendid" Video. Two. @djmike aka Mountie Mike because I can never remember how to spell your last name. You were memorable because of the way you did things that made the cruise unique in 2018 and easily the best CD I've ever had. And the third, I actually don't remember his name, but had to look him up, and that's Paul Rutter, who unfortunately falls under the worse CD i've ever had due to his ability to actually suck energy from an event instead of add to it. I know there's a lot of work behind the scenes. However, if i can say Be like Mike and put your personality and flavor into making your product unique and memorable, I'm going to say that.

Looking at the Lobster Shanty which is less than 1/2 mile away from the Salem Witch Museum.

My TA wasn’t able to get it. I trust her. She normally can get me most price drops. She got a price that was lower than i expected for the 2nd leg so its fine.

I’ll do a live thread. I enjoy those. I do not have excursions planned exactly yet but i have a plan to visit Salem while in Boston, check out the with museum as well as hit a DDD restaurant and in town. In Portland, i supposedly meeting up a friend but we haven’t finalized anything yet. Other ports are wide open.

I'm doing the same thing on Adventure in September. Bermuda first, then Canada/New England! Also my first B2B

There are also prices that they've tagged "for new bookings only" which invalidate the price adjustment. For my b2b in September, I noted both legs were lower, but I got an amazing price drop on 1, but the other was a no go, because it was for new bookings only :(. Doesn't matter, I got a way better one than expected for the longer leg, which actually covered what I was hoping to get with the shorter leg, so it still works out for me. 2nd price drop on this one this year and its down $700+ since i booked it.

Are you looking for just people to cruise with you, or trying to get someone to share the cost of the room with you? If its the former, you can do what I did with my best friend, who because of this, is now my wife. "If you want to go on this cruise, I'll get you on that ship, but you have to commit to me that that's what you want, because i'm out money if you bail on me". She chose to go. I went with her in another room. We ended up together. The latter is a LOT harder as you're asking someone to share a room with you who you may or may not know very well.