OSUZorba

Someone always has to be picked last?

EDIT: That one does have a great Balcony, you can see forward and aft from it. I generally prefer the aft side of the hump, especially on Oasis since she has a forward a hump, but I'd have no issue booking this room.

The food on a cruise is still great, IMHO. There a few things that have slipped like the lobster in MDR used to be good, on my last cruise not so much. But everything else I had was really good, and I've never been much a lobster guy.

Windjammer is basically Golden Corral quality and has been since my first cruise in 2006. Main dining has taken some of the higher end options off the menu, but the quality is just as good. Not sure where you get cookies on Serenade, but usually the Cafe Promenade has good cookies and decent Pizza. Park Cafe on Oasis (and some others) has great 'fast' food.

I'm just hoping that the food on the Serenade is *better* than Golden Corral. :o

 

I'm sure DW and I will enjoy our meals, and we plan on being somewhat adventurous. Just need to take some of these negative food reviews with a grain of salt....

I am normally a picky eater, no sauce, no butter, nothing fancy, give me meat and potatoes. But I become very adventurous on ships and really enjoy it, I order 2 entrees every night and never have to order off the everyday menu. The nice thing about being adventurous on a cruise is if you don't like it you can just get something else.

I do have an issue with deserts on RCL, they seem to think you can't have chocolate without coffee, so I usually just order ice cream each night. But this is just a personal preference, I know some people love coffee in their chocolate. But with desert in windjammer for lunch, deck ice cream, promenade cookies and ice cream in MDR, I really don't need any other deserts :eek:.

We cancelled a cruise a few weeks ago, got the refund within 72 hours.

How long does it typically take for to sit down, order and get food in the MDR for breakfast?

On my first cruise my wife and I went to MDR for lunch on day, got sat at a large table, waited for 15 minutes, never got waited on (I think they were waiting for the table to fill up) so we gave up and when to WJ. Never gone back to MDR for breakfast or lunch in 5 cruises.

Having a sports book on cruise ships would be a lot of fun. I've never understood why betting on sports seems to be the "evil" type of gambling, since AFAIK the only place in the US you can do it legally is Vegas.

In order of "badness" it seems to go Bingo -> Horses -> Bingo Based Slots -> Slot -> Card Games -> Roulette -> Dice Games -> -> -> -> Non horse racing sports.

To do a Vegas style book it would take up a decent amount of room, but if you offered limited options, just major sports, and people may have to suffer without watching (which considering my luck would be a good thing).

The 1st formal night is ALWAYS night 2.....always.

Until it isn't, of course ;)

Somebody's reading ability is lacking.

Read BOTH of my previous posts.

 

ex techie

Note the emoticon, obviously I was joking. Though, I do think it is a bit ridiculous you are analyzing the 4 hand written characters that can be seen. Not sure how you can equate hand writing of 4 characters to level or experience of employee. I work with a lot of engineers with 30+ years of experience that couldn't write that nice to save their lives. Especially considering if it did from on board the ship, it would likely have been written by someone who isn't a native English speaker.

Regardless, it is still a nice gesture from Disney whether the address was written by the captain or a minimum wage employee in Kansas. If they claimed it was signed by the Captain or Walt Disney, and it was clearly done by a HS kid, then I could see the complaint, but I doubt that is the case.

Bump, Any body?

Of course, you don't have to join CC to have used it for info so the number of CC members doesn't reflect those that read but never join.

That is true for the roll calls too, I never sign up for the roll calls.

On my Disney cruise, there have been over 100 cabins sign up on a different forum's roll call. So it is about 10% of the cabins on the ship. I am sure being in the fall helps, and considering that forum is for all things Disney, and people over plan all things Disney, so I am sure those numbers are skewed.

Thanks! I'll have to check int renting a car also.. $ 25.00 seems like a very good deal.

FYI, going from MIA to FLL, I picked up at the airport and dropped at the location near the port and took the shuttle. From FLL to MIA, it was much more expensive to pick up by the port, so I took a taxi to the airport ($15) and picked up the rental there.

Nice thing about renting the car on the way back is we could go hang out on South Beach and have somewhere to store all of our stuff.

I think these rooms took away space and views from the fitness center, so does anyone have pictures of the new fitness center?

I was upgraded to a JS when I booked a D1 guarantee on Oasis. But you can't count on that, and for me wouldn't be worth the $340 gamble. I pretty much always do guarantees, because they are usually quite a bit cheaper, and interline rates are almost always for guarantees. I have never gotten a bad room, but for less money I'd rather pick my own.

July 30th, 2006 Mariner of the Seas, D2 Balconey. I think we paid around $1500/pp, plus taxes and fees. Seems like the the whole thing was just under $3300 for 2 of us. Didn't go on another cruise until 2011, been on 4 since then with 2 more booked this year ;).

Used Budget for the 5th trip a couple weeks ago and the day of our departure was a fiasco at Budget - not just us but for many angry people inside and outside of their office.

For dropping off or picking up? I've never had an issue with them dropping off and shuttling to the ship. I know if you aren't early off the ship, you will have to wait for a car to be dropped off, because they don't have enough cars.

I just want to add that the style of writing that is only partially visible in your photo is consistent of a a younger person.

Someone that may be just out of high school and working minimum wage in somewhere near Celebration, or an agency that sent you the postcard.

 

If DCL sincerely meant it, they would use professionals with good handwriting, not agency staff to write the postcards with proper use of Capital Letters, and good hand writing as they do with the characters.

 

Sorry if it burst's your bubble, but from that photo, it's nothing more than a production line, minimum wage high schooler writing it.

Not someone competent or befitting the OLD Disney brand and service.

 

ex techie

Somebody is jealous :p

Unfortunately, I believe MTD was created because so many are afraid to dine with others. And most MTDers want to be all alone. They won't welcome anyone to their table. Yes...our first cruise, the "table mate" concept was worrisome..but we found it to be SO MUCH FUN! We now always request a large table. We've never, ever had table mates that we couldn't "get along" with. I don't know why so many seem to have so much trouble with others!

I don't really like sitting with people my age, but cruise lines always set you up that way. A couple cruises ago we were sat at a large table with people all around our age (28 at the time), we asked to be moved to smaller table and the only table was with two older (mid-50s) couples. The Maitre-D confirmed a couple times that we were really okay with it. We really enjoyed seating with them, but I don't know how to request "Could I get a 6 top with people in the their 50s?" I guess I could just ask ;)

Not sure how they felt about it, since they had kids about our age.

What makes you believe that you cannot request what you want food wise with the DD menus?

 

We have always been allowed to order non specific food that wasnt on the menu and even parts of a dish! along with choices minus the sauce the food comes with or with the sauce on the side.

 

Simple food is always available on request, plain vegetables baked potato or if not mashed potato and gravy,plain green salad with no dressing, french fries, full plate of scallops or shrimp without the trimmings.

 

Perhaps you have never tried to ask for this non menu itemised food in the past:confused:

I've been told, by waiters, it is very hard for them to get the entrees without the sauce, since a lot of it is already prepared. So I've just decided that a cruise is the one place I will force myself to eat a sauce than isn't BBQ sauce. I may try again on my next cruise.

Has anyone used the Metro Rail lately? We'd be going from Miami airport to FLL. The cost looks fantastic but not sure on the safety & ease of using it??

I've had coworkers use it a lot when flying standby to get between FLL, MIA and PBI. They all like it a lot. My last Oasis cruise I flew into MIA, was planning on taking the train, but then got a rental car for like $25 so went that way.

I've been on 4 RCL cruises, and eaten WJ for dinner 3 times. I eat WJ for breakfast and lunch most days, so by dinner time I am ready for something different. They do have some different food at dinner, but a lot of it is about the same as lunch.

The last time I did it was a year ago, and my wife were pretty grumpy on that cruise, we had been forced into MTD, which we didn't care for, but I really did not enjoy WJ for dinner either and finished out the cruise in MTD. (We were grumpy before the cruise, we were right in the middle of changing jobs, moving, selling house, etc).

I think one reason I don't care for the WJ for dinner is I eat plain food 100% of my time on land, so the MDR food is very different for me, where WJ is what I eat all the time, and 2 times everyday of the cruise. So I just enjoy the MDR experience. But in your situation, I think I could enjoy the WJ everyday, and have a good satisfying meal each night. I'd probably just try to find something else to do for breakfast and/or lunch, having the WJ 3 times a day would probably be a bit much for anybody ;).

Every time I looked at the menu, it seemed like everything was fried. I don't mind fried seafood, but there is a lot better food on oasis than a long john silver's knock off.

I curious, what used to be there? before the refurb?

The inline skate track and I think the mini-golf used to wrap around a little more.

We did a similar package at the Convention Center Marriott back in January. Dropped off the baggage, goofed around town a while, gave the car to the valets and walked across the street.

Is the $15 for valet per day or total?

The website issues almost cost me a booking last night. I had put a cruise on hold on Monday night. Last night about 30 minutes before the hold expired I logged in to pay the deposit. When I double checked that my rate was still the best, I saw the E2 GTY I was booking wasn't even being offered any more!

Any ways the website refused to take my credit card, tried several times with two different cards. So I tried calling, and every number I called I got a message saying they were closed (ARGH, I thought the phones were 24/7). Anyways, I finally just told the phone system I wanted to make a payment and I got through to real person. She was having issues with the system as well, in that the website still showed me modifying the reservation and was locking her out. Finally she had to just let the hold expire, and then she brought it back from the dead for me.

The E2 GTY was about $900 cheaper than the E3 GTY, so if I would've lost the spot I wouldn't have made the booking. Glad it worked out though.

'Annoying' your customers has never proven to be a successful business model.

 

You can 'bet your bippie' that RCI has done extensive market research on customer expectations and desires. It appears that RCI believes their customers want something other than the classic MDR experience. RCI is doing this to please, not to annoy, their customers.

 

RCI is trying to differentiate Royal from the other cruise lines and it appears RCI is willing to make a very big bet that the majority will prefer Dynamic Dining. Time will tell if Dynamic Dining is the "New Coke" of cruising.

Wal-Mart and every airline proves you can be a successful business and annoy your customers.

By annoy, I mean there will be a certain set of people that will not want to stand in line for 10 minutes or make reservations ahead of time, so they will do fee dining or WJ instead. But on the other hand, few people would stop cruising you because of a 10 minute line. Therefore, you annoy people enough to fill up the fee restaurants, without loosing customers.

Wal-Mart knows how long the average person will stand in line, before abandoning their cart, they then only hire just enough cashiers to keep the lines below that mark.