CntPAcruiser

The thermal suites on Oasis and Allure are completely interior, no windows to the outside, located within the spa on deck 5. There are small men's and women's locker rooms. Not sure how close the women's is to the actual thermal suite--the men's is down a hallway. The thermal suite itself has a small steam room, a small sauna, and an aromatherapy room, which is basically another steam room they squirt some scent into occasionally. There are also heated ceramic loungers and specialty showers (with rainfall, storm, mist effects, etc.) in the thermal suite. There's a relaxation room located near the thermal suite. I've read comments from others drawing comparisons with thermal suites on other cruise lines, and apparently Royal's falls below the mark. But for those of us who really like to sauna and steam every day, it's still worth it if that's the only option.

On our galley tour last fall on Vision, they were most definitely making all the breads, but with limited ingredients and equipment. The divider/rounder machine had failed, so they were having to cut and shape dinner rolls by hand. We saw batches of dough fermenting in the bakery, and had a nice talk from the bread baker.

We saw that, too. The house always wins--in this instance by having a gap on the sides of the tray where the coins that fall through go into the collection box, not the winners' tray. Boo!! We still had lots of fun watching those who were very serious about playing and also very unseriously attempting it ourselves with a few quarters (including a few rescued ones).

At one point during our cruise, it got a bit rough and they shut down the quarter pusher machines for that reason. But I do think the motion of the ship can help a little even under normal seas.

The succinct nature of your post was amusing.

Still a better return than most casino games!

Good for you!

LOL!

Hey, all. On our last cruise we were a tad bored at one point and wandered over toward the casino, which we usually avoid because of the smoke. Right at the entrance, and perhaps farthest from the smoking, were the coin pusher machines. I had always thought they were a complete scam, but we stood with someone who was a long-term player and watched as they dropped quarter after quarter and occasionally got rewarded with a few coins dropping. After a fairly long and patient wait, a ten-dollar bill eventually dropped into the collection slot. It was interesting to watch and chat with the player, who was very friendly and patient. We were even convinced to find a few quarters of our own and try to get a little bit of a return. This is obviously a long-term game, but the players we talked with generally came out ahead over time, albeit without a huge profit, but it was fun. Is anyone else out there interested in these games? Any tips or strategies? We are planning to bring a bag of quarters along for our next cruise. We had one day of fairly high seas, and I wondered if the extra rolling and pitching helped the player get a few extra coins.

You should be able to bring a sealed container back on board.

Don't feel bad--I don't think anyone else gets my humor either! Really enjoyed your review, as I have the others before them. Thanks for doing them!

I knew it wasn't fish--it was wordplay. Sole the fish versus the fact that it looked like the sole of a shoe! Or a flip-flop, maybe. That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the picture. Oddly enough, I would probably still have eaten it. I like eggplant.

Looks like a delicious dinner of grilled flip-flop with fried seaweed! Probably not what you were expecting when you ordered filet of sole.

Much easier to ask your cabin attendant for whatever luggage tags you want--they are the ones who distribute them, and they don't care who gets off the ship when. Bizarre that you were told you could get off whenever at Guest Services, considering they make announcements all morning long on departure day to NOT do exactly that.

The original recipe was from Swiss physician Bircher-Benner, a raw foods pioneer, ca. 1900: 1 tablespoon rolled oats 2 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 large apple, unpeeled and grated 6 raw hazelnuts, or almonds, chopped Soak the oats in water overnight, blend in the remaining ingredients and serve. Makes one small serving. Nowadays most substitute some other form of dairy for the sweetened condensed milk and add other sweetener, like honey, if desired. Additional fruits/berries may be added on top.

We've seen domestic butter on board (including from Wisconsin, my original home state--specifically Grassland brand), as well as Dutch and Irish butter, and probably a few miscellaneous types depending on where the ship had been. On one cruise, we were seated at a large table for dinner in the MDR, and the queen of our table was a fabulous lady named Marla, who held court every evening and was a joy to dine with. BUT, she was fond of chilled, hard butter to go with her bread/rolls, so when we arrived for second seating, she would request the butter dish be replaced with cold rather than the warmed-up butter that had been sitting out. Forever after we have referred to cold, hard butter pats as "Butter ala Marla." If you're reading this, we miss you, Marla!

As pointed out above, along with the recipe, this bread is actually Austrian Striezl or Striezel, not Stollen. Either way I suspect you would confuse the waitstaff asking for it by the German-language name.

We tend to visit the same bartenders/bars once we find the "best" ones on the ship, and they typically don't need to be told to use a voucher. If we're using an unfamiliar bar, we'll specify just to be on the safe side, and they will also often tell you how many vouchers you have left. You can also usually use your spouse's vouchers if you're in the same cabin/same folio. We have found that in the main dining room, they may not run the drink through immediately, so if you head out elsewhere in the ship afterwards, you may get incorrect information about the number of vouchers left. Happened to me, and guest services took care of it the next day when I had an unwarranted charge. Sometimes even when we specified whose card was to be dinged for the voucher in the MDR they would still not always get it right. You can check things on the app, too. Bar charges or voucher usage show up almost instantly.

Sauna and steam room on Adventure are fairly large. Steam room might fit 8 seated; sauna up to 12 maybe. The sauna has small windows to the outside with slats so people passing by on the outside cannot see in, so it's not a great view. There are two areas with showers, one right across from the steam room and sauna, and the other adjacent to the locker area (six showers in total). There's a restroom with a urinal and toilet in the locker area (men's, of course; the women's is probably different).

A few tips regarding wine by the glass. The MDR has a slightly different selection from some of the other venues on board, and I got tired of what they had on offer within the voucher price so I started getting my wine on the way in to dinner. Another issue was that they would either not charge the voucher to the right account between me and my husband, or they would not run the charge through until later and it would create discrepancy a between how many vouchers were actually used versus how many were available. More than once I had to go to guest services to get things fixed or remove a charge that shouldn't have been. Fair warning to be specific whose voucher you are using, and even then sometimes they would screw it up.

We enjoy the free coffee machine as well as having a place to meet others who cruise often. Usually it's very pleasant, either as a quiet space during the day or as a place to meet like-minded people in the evening. That was not the case on our last cruise, surprisingly, since a large group of pinnacles took over through the entire happy hour and commandeered most of the seating, with the concierge's blessing. That really ruined the lounge's vibe. But otherwise it's always been enjoyable. It's also a good place for a quick breakfast or snack, since they have one of my favorites, the smoked salmon, throughout the sailing, as well as cookies most other times throughout the day. My DH loves the dipped strawberries as well. I can't say as we've ever noticed many officers stopping in to chat on most of our cruises. That would be nice, actually. We dd have a few cruises in the pre-COVID days with the all-you-can-drink happy hours. The new system is more to our benefit, as my husband doesn't drink alcohol, but enjoys the virgin drinks he can get with his vouchers. And I like being able to spread out my drinks throughout the day. It's also nice to have access to the full range (almost) of spirits and wine, instead of the old short list of what was available in the lounge. Never got the impression that the liquor was watered down. Back in those days, they had a small bar setup right in the lounge with a dedicated bartender or two, and you could really customize your drinks, within the limitations of a very limited spirit menu. The vodka, scotch, whiskey, and gin weren't much to write home about, but they offered cognac and port, among other things. We rarely left the lounge for dinner without a drink or two for the road. Many times, when they took over part of the Viking Crown Lounge (back in the day) as more Diamond Lounge space, if you got to know the bartenders, they would make almost anything you wanted, and now you can pretty much get that with the vouchers.

In many ways it is a nice place to live. Close to a couple of large cities but also has beautiful nature all around. We can be in NYC by train in a couple of hours--we even went to NJ cruise port by train from home.

They did this to us on our Vision cruise out of Baltimore last November. The smell wasn't so bad because it was open-air, but with the weather in the Chesapeake, no one wanted to swim on the main pool deck, and now the solarium pool was made unusable for basically the last 3 days of the cruise. At least they heated the main pool, so as long as you stayed in the water, you didn't freeze. I did not have many fellow swimmers out there, however--just me and the lifeguard!

Adventure still has free sauna/steam facilities in the separate locker rooms, though. Much better than a thermal suite in my opinion, anyway.

This was similar to the "lobster mac & cheese" I was served on our last cruise on Vision, November 2023. It was like pasta with lobster bisque. I didn't eat it. Not good at all.