darthvadrouw

The music is live, you do not see the orchestra in the theater, they are backstage. If you look closely there are a couple of tv monitors in the theater between the ground level and balcony level in direct view of the performers on stage. During the show they display a live view of the conductor for the cast.

It's a crew deck 😉

It's a crew outdoor deck. To get to it you need to apply here https://careers.royalcaribbeangroup.com/ 🙂

It was the same on Odyssey a couple of weeks ago. Barely anyone dressed up. For some reason White Night was well observed.

Correct, I've been doing that for the last few years and have always had my request granted. Removes the stress of doing it on boarding day. If you don't want to be stuck next to another table, I've found that the tables by the railings to be private.

Greenock (Glasgow) will be near the Esplanade on Campbell Street

Harmony has got Dazzles in the same location that Oasis used to have (Oasis has now got Music Hall instead of Dazzles). It's on Deck 8/9 next to the aft elevators Wonderland is where the Diamond Club used to be on deck 12

On Odyssey last week, they did not remove the towels, it was a nightmare trying to get a sunbed. I also noticed that during port days some people would put out their towels early in the morning, then go out of the ship on a tour and only reappear late in the afternoon ....

Odyssey doing the Greek islands last week was more t-shirts, shorts and baseball caps for formal nights. On the other hand white night seemed to be vastly respected ...

I just got off the Odyssey, Chromecast was available. You select 'streaming services' on the Home screen of your cabin TV, it then gives you url and a code that you need to open up and encode on your device (phone, laptop, ...). Once done they give you the Id of the Chromecast associated to you and it opens up on the TV. I might be mistaken but it doesn't look like the chromecast is in your tv, it looks like it's somewhere on the network, when you open up that url it gets somehow associated to you and the tv, the network access gets opened, you are then able to see it on your device, and it pops up on the tv. (everytime you do the process you get a different chromecast id, if you do it in quick succession you end up seeing for a short period of time all the ids on your device)

That's not totally correct, the singular is always used in official EU legislation documents however the plural form is accepted per European commission style guide just as long as the "eur" root remains the same=> https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/euro/design_en Most English dictionaries list both styles.

That's not always true, if the merchant has a contract with a DCC provider and the customer allows the merchant to do the DCC then the conversion will be done by the merchant and his provider at a fee. (generally more than 3%). On top of that DCC fee the issuing bank can also add an extra fee for a foreign transaction (Think carefully before accepting DCC 🙂 )

I've lived in mainland Europe all my life and have never witnessed any shop accept dollars. (maybe the odd tourist shop and even then the conversion rate would be atrocious). I mustn't be going to the right places tip : if paying by card, some machines will ask you of you want to pay in the card's currency or the local currency, always chose the local currency and let your bank do the conversion, the machines usually take a > 3% rate to do the conversion. (Dynamic Currency Conversion) - same with royal for the onboard account, if you use a card that isn't in USD opt out of the DCC that royal proposes, they take 3%.

Oasis class ships usually dock starboardside. (they do sometimes dock portside if they need to use the starboard lifeboats for a drill, that shouldn't be the case here as they usually do the drill in La Spezia) In BCN that would mean : If you are in a portside cabin you would have a vue of cargo ships/infrastructure and Montjuic, if you are in a starboardside cabin you would have a vue of the dock + the sea beyond. Going out of Barcelona doesn't really matter as you are heading out to sea towards Majorca, the coast will be behind you. However going out of Marseille and heading towards La Spezia, you will have a beautiful view of the french coast/ callenques if you are in a portside cabin. Also worth noting if you are in a starboard balcony cabin , you will be woken up very early by the noise of the boarding bridges (they have a VERY loud alarm to warn people that they are moving) while docking in Civitavecchia and BCN on the way back

There is also ex-co@rccl.com