pcur

Yes. I get a large Chai Tea Latte with soymilk almost every day. I also give a $1 tip to the barista.

Yes, check all of you in as a family in the Suite/Pinnacle line. Say nothing about the second cabin, and use it as a spare closet and bathroom. Tell the cabin steward about the situation. You'd be surprised how handy a second cabin is.

Tell the spa staff their tip will be larger if they don't attempt to sell you anything else.

My problem is one is washing their hands before they touch the utensils that are used my everyone passing through the buffet line. THAT'S where contact bacteria/viruses/etc. are being passed. So, a cleansing of some kind, IMO, is needed after the mass tong and spoon handling.

Such an easy solution: WASH YOUR HANDS. DON'T TOUCH YOUR MOUTH OR NOSE UNTIL AFTER YOU WASH YOUR HANDS. Literally: RINSE AND REPEAT. I think they have the hand sanitizer thing backwards in the Windjammer: they should be on each table. I always sanitize my hands in the door and AFTER I get my food.

I'm back with a few clarifications: What I'm posting about is the NEW "normal", so special orders in the MDR are iffy, at best. This is what changed between my 12/9 and 1/14 cruises. I think the reason they are delivering my beloved fruit and cheese plate to my cabin is so it's not noticeable to other diners in the MDR. I feel like a sneak, and it doesn't sit well with me. Sauces are iffy, too. Coconut shrimp last night had a great orange/chili sauce, and plenty of it. Windjammer side gravy/sauces are not plentiful, and I looked for them. I found myself trying to scrape some sauce for my grilled fish out of the WJ huge pan with a slotted spoon. Like trying to sauce your fish with a sieve. The weirdest thing is something I noticed in the WJ and MDR: they seem to have a shortage of thickener for their fruit puddings and cobblers. I found this with two blueberry desserts. Delicious and runny. The blueberry cobbler last night in the MDR was like that, and I had to mix the topping thoroughly into the fruit so I wasn't eating dripping blueberries. Oh, and the topping wasn't a brown sugar crumble: it was oatmeal. Go figure. OK, the good news: Portions are improving. I'm sure LOTS of MDR passengers have been letting their waiters and head waiter know they, like me the first night, are going away hungry. So, as the cruise goes on, things are improving. Lunch in the Windjammer yesterday was very good: very tasty tilapia (but no sauce), grilled/chilled sliced eggplant with dressing, and I added some of the mixed olive salad to it. Cold cut meat were better: sliced beef was added. Wonderful cold rice salad. My advice to anyone cruising in the near future is to ask for a double portion of the entrée. I specify the protein I'm ordering, but double-up on the items you prefer. Ordering two entrées will slow down the service, BUT ordering "tiger shrimp with a double portion" works on a single plate. I think RCCL, or the food manager on the Enchantment, or both, are waiting for negative feedback before making changes to this new menu/food service policy.

I have found a significant change in food options since cruising in mid-December on the Liberty, and a month later on the Enchantment. My experience is below, and a caveat: I am NOT a complainer. Lemons=lemonade to me in my life. The first night on the Enchantment I found they had completely eliminated the fruit and cheese platter from the menu, and completely eliminated the vegan menu, too. The vegan menu is supposedly substituted by vegan offerings in the selections each evening. I used the vegan choices as appetizers, and side dishes to my main entrée. So, many of the offerings are completely gone by now Day 9 of this cruise. I asked to pre-order the fruit and cheese plate for my dinners, and could not. The head waiter showed up to discuss it with me, and I explained that it was something I order every night, and use it as either an appetizer or in between courses. It's an important part of my dinner, since it's high protein, and I don't each potatoes or rice with dinner. The solution was to have it delivered to my cabin each afternoon, and I CARRY it into the dining room myself. On that first night my fish entrée with rice, if de-constructed, would have been 3 pieces of sushi. NOT an exaggeration. I was asked how my entrée was, and I answered honestly: extremely small portion. Well, that started the whole assistant waiter-to-waiter-to head waiter discussion yet again. I think many other passengers also pointed out the miserly portions, because by Day 3 the protein portion was back to normal. After dinner on Day 1 I went to the CL and had THREE appetizer plates, because I was still that hungry. Literally 1/2 to 2/3 of my expected dinner was not available. Windjammer: very meh. I have always found something tasty to eat in the Windjammer, but now it's a struggle. It's dominated by stew-like dishes that end up quite mushy after an hour of being on the warmers. The fish is still good, but many of the sauces to go with the chicken, beef, and fish are no longer available on the side of the main dish. Cold cuts are DEFINITELY a lower quality. For instance, I went to get some sliced cheese and meat, and the "artistic" display they put out as a decorative touch, was the pressed ham block, cut in half, with garnishes. It was like they were advertising, "Yes, this IS chopped and pressed ham". I won't go hungry in the Windjammer, but it's not a very enjoyable eating experience. And, I'm saying this as an "I will eat pretty much anything" type of person. So, I'm on 4 other ships between now and mid-March. That way I can see if it's just this ship, or all ships.

Reminds me of our first or second time in Villefranche, and taking the train. There were a lot of passengers in the tiny train station. I was sitting, trying to figure out the train schedule using my high school French. I did realize there were TWO trains through Villefranche, and to remember it's the Villefranch SUR MER (by the sea) station. Coming back everyone piled on the train that said Villefranche. I told my husband, "that's the wrong train; we want Sur Mer." Oh, he says, but EVERYONE is gettiing on this one. Me: EVERYONE is wrong. He says: we have to get on this one. I figured it was an express train to the other station in Villefranche, and told myself that time will tell, and we will just have to take another back to the correct one. It was hilarious (to only me in my head) that we WHIZZED through our little station, everyone moaning and groaning, and my husband looking at me with this look on his face that said, "Please be nice to me". High school French ROCKS!!!

This is me, so I guess I'm a hybrid Pinn.

Eye of the beholder, etc. To me: a big lawn, a crooked tower, a church.

Fabulous!! Forget the entrees.

Me? I would love to have all my appetizers laid out like an "appy buffet" for me. It's like dinner before dinner.

Appears the cabin assignments don't use C&A status as part of the algorithm. Since it's a free loyalty program with huge perks at the Pinnacle level, t's not 100% "Pinns first" for everything.

I sometimes cruise solo, and I enjoy a slower paced dinner. It read ALL the time, ANYWHERE I go, so it's great to have a nice dinner while I read. One of the benefits is being nearsighted and having 360 books on my iphone.

Agree about Pisa. Not worth the effort.

Also, try 1-800-398-9819, Pre-Cruise Planning, and press 4 for dining.

O.M.G. I am so excited for you! Fabulous itinerary! Barcelona, Spain - walk Las Ramblas, take the hop on/off bus that picks up at the Statue of Columbus right at the entrance to the port. Suggest at least an extra day before or after the cruise for this. Al fresco meals along Las Ramblas. Valencia, Spain - if you look at Valencia on the map, you'll see that greenbelt snaking through the middle of the city. We took the roundtrip transportation from the port and wandered around there. Just the everyday architecture and buildings, plazas, etc. are great to see. Nice, France - St. Paul de Vence, Eze, Monaco Ajaccio, Corsica - (A-yah-ch-yo) Very picturesque. They have a hop on/off bus there, too. Santa Margherita, Italy - never been there Florence/Pisa, Italy - plan carefully. VERY busy during the summer, and crowded. So, don't try to see too much and allow for crowds and gelato stops. Absolutely, gelato stops. OK, back to the map. See the Arno river running through Florence? The tour buses park along there, usually near the Ponte Vecchio, across from the Ufizi (statue of David) museum. Just walking around in that part of Florence is a treat. Go find Michelangelo's Grafifti the at the corner of Palazzo Vecchio nearest the Uffizi Museums, among other sites. Rome - I've been several times. I don't know if your cruise ends in Civitavecchia, or goes back to Barcelona, but if Rome is a port, the best tour I took was the "Rome on Your Own by Express Train". No traffic in/out of Rome to slow you down. Walk to the vatican, take a bus or the metro (use Moovit free phone app to assist), but I don't recommend the hop on/off bus. You'll get bogged down in traffic.

Now, the assistant waiter also orders alcholic bevs, too. I give him/her a "just for getting it started" tip at the beginning of the cruise. I get my Prosecco when I sit down, and whomever brings it to me gets a tip, too. Funny, how it always seems to be the assistant waiter.....................

I am about to embark on my 13th RCCL cruise in 11 months. I'm thinking back and finding that the only real complaint I have is that the lines at Customer Service are always long the first 3 days of any cruise. Maybe it's my "get lemons, make lemonade" point of view about life in general. I think the food in the MDR is great, but I get creative with appetizers, the vegan menu, etc. Plus, I LOVE grilled salmon as a back-up. The entertainment I have seen was wonderful: a full performance of Mama Mia by performers from London. Other events couldn't come up to that one, though. It was special, for sure. Drinks have increased by $1, so depending on how much a person drinks, it could be an issue. To overcome that, I would book cruises on board a ship to get the obc to use toward drinks. Just me, and YMMV. I find, however, if I think "around" the problem, instead of trying to force the round peg into the now, newly square-off opening, I am just as happy. Life.....lemonade. Love me my RCCL cruises!! But, full disclosure, THIS is still me inside my head:

Ah, but I don't. I would prefer to inform myself and others that I do not have COVID. I'm kinda fussy about making other people sick.

I agree. It should be DIGITALLY DATED unsupervised tests.

I think we all should be prepared to make vaccination and/or testing part of our cruise research before we go. It's an ebb-and-flow (pardon the "sea" pun) situation. It will change according to the health requirements of where the ship is embarking passengers, and what ports are on the itineraries. My travel agent said the whole reason he and his wife got vaccinated was they didn't want to mess with all the changing requirements, and went with the highest standard to save themselves the trouble every cruise.

No, I actually got an A in math logic in college. It's just one has to know which factor has a higher priority. I was taught whichever was stated first had the higher priority.

Maybe incorrectly, but in my mind the "Suite" then takes priority over the "D+".

These changes going on with the menus: anywhere in life I get lemons, I make lemonade.