wreckem2013

It’s a way to control capacity from unlimited dining as seating in most of the Hibachis is very limited.

People are used to discounted pricing the closer set sail comes. That’s no longer the case because Royal doesn’t have any problems filling their ships.

And that cruise is already likely beyond 100% double occupancy and only has a very small number of rooms left. This is dynamic pricing based off of room supply. If you want a good rate on a spring break cruise out of Galveston you book it as far out as possible. I booked a 7 day Thanksgiving cruise on Independence of the seas in a Jr Suite for $2500ish total.

Amtrak is cheaper, about $40 a person and you aren’t far from Victoria Place cruise terminal when you arrive. That said timing could be an issues as the train is usually around 7:40am and arrives at 11:50am. So it depends on when you fly in. Another benefit of the train is you don’t have to get off at the border and wait for everyone to clear customs.

Utopia is the last of the Oasis class ships atleast for now. No homeport has been announced. The ship has not been officially unveiled but if it stays on track it should have an inaugural summer season in Europe next summer before making its way to the US. I’d say most likely will be homeported somewhere in Florida like usual. They will just move on the older Oasis classes out to somewhere else.

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like it’s going to be our room. Dropped the bid for a spacious oceanview balcony. Left bids for jr and grande suites but the only suite still available is the owner suite. So I’ll probably go 1 for 5 with RoyalUp, only time I’ve won was when I had a gty on Odyssey found out we were assigned an obstructed view balcony. I’d be okay with this room on Serenade.

Yeah they are sold out of 2Ds but have plenty of spacious ocean view balconies. Should I cancel my spacious ocean view balcony bid? I also have bids in for a jr suite and grand suite.

Today was check-in day for my Sprint Break Bahamas cruise in Serenade. We had a balcony gty and it’s showing we have been out into an accessible D2 balcony on the 7th deck. The deck plans make the room and balcony looks bigger. How much bigger are they? How modified are accessible rooms? Why would they assign us an accessible room?

Dec 23 was a historic event for Galveston not a regular occurrence. I was on that Xmas cruise. I woke up in Galveston that morning with below zero wind chills and actual temps in the low to mid teens. Had it been in the upper 20s the plants would have probably been mostly okay with wrappings. They wrapped the plants be wrapping doesn’t work that well in extreme cold temps.

I feel like my Thanksgiving on Indy I got a decent deal on. $2600 total for 2 in a junior cabin. Oneway Alaska cruises for 2023 are cheap until you start pricing out excursion.

I believe that’s the 2nd formal night menu, night two IE the first formal night I believe is the American Menu. Wouldn’t they have 7 menus for 7 nights?

They are all employed by the port and can work at any of the terminals. They all get paid pretty decent wages as well. Generally port workers get paid pretty fair wages for what they do.

It used to be 8 pieces per roll. It has since been changed to 4 pieces. It was 4 for prebooked on my Christmas Cruise on Allure.

They have been pushing back Allure boarding times by a hour because the last group disembarks at 10:30. They are still working on port side disembarkation with getting luggage out quicker. They have been making progress. That said, they said to arrive a hour later and I still arrive during my original 30 minute window(11:00-11:30) and was able to quickly walk through everything and on to the shop in less than 10 minutes.

Allure bars weren’t using their guns on the Christmas cruise when you asked for soda. They were using 2 liters. In addition to Coke and Diet Coke 2 liters they also had Dr Pepper, Diet Dr Pepper, and Sprite. When using my soda package in speciality restaurants I almost always got a can.

That was an updated version of the Monopoly Ice. How bad was it before?

We booked an Icon Balcony while on Allure for Xmas for $4500. When we moved it over to a travel agent we saved $800 but switched to an oceanview balcony guarantee vs an assigned balcony.

4 out of my six weeks of vacations are during the highest peak travel weeks. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Spring Break(2nd week go March) so I am used to expensive cruises. The other two weeks are still close to peak as well(first to weeks of July). I will almost Icon is ridiculous but I still booked a balcony for I think the 8th cruise on it. Also doing Wonder B2B for Xmas and New Years next year in a balcony. It is what it is right now I guess. Maybe when the American version of MSC Europa debuts in 2025 we will try MSC or maybe we will try Europa instead of Utopia in 2024 For our B2B European cruises.

We did an 8 day on Odyssey for Thanksgiving and Allure for Xmas. We liked Odyssey better. But that’s vs Oasis Classic(not amplified) in Allure. We will see how we like Wonder vs Odyssey. But we loved Odyssey’s solarium so I’m sure we will love Wonders. I think the biggest thing to remember is Wonder was originally meant for the Asian market and while they converted it for the US some design decisions couldn’t be undone.

Just off Allure. I won’t be eating Italian on a Royal ship unless it’s Giovanni’s Kitchen and Wine Bar. We were on Odyessy for Thanksgiving and ate there three times(lunch on embarkation and two dinner). Giovanni’s Table on allure this past week was the worst food we ever had in speciality dining. First I thought it was embarkation day lunch that was the problem but then we had it for dinner on day six. Maybe it’s just an allure problem as I’ve heard a lot of complaints about dining on allure although there weren’t any problems and 150, Chops, Izumi Hibachi and Izumi Sushi were all as great as always. Not taking into account any of the issues out of Royal control but I was less than impressed with Allure. Booked on Wonder B2B for Xmas and New years next year. Hopefully Wonder hits its groove by then. As for entertainment Royal needs to go back doing off Broadway productions of major shows. I find their track record on their original shows to be less than stellar.

A large portion of the plants are going to have to be replaced. Most of the plants cannot tolerate less than 40 for to long and the ship was in Galveston for 12 hours with windchills in the negatives to single digits. They salvaged and trimmed back what they could but Central Park definitely took a major hit. Be thankful you were only had to deal with the cold front leaving the ship, the Christmas cruise had a lot of weather(first day all outdoor activities were closed, first two sea days outdoor activities were limited due to wind and rain) and entertainment issues(all but one the original Aqua shows got canceled and rescheduled for later in the week, and it appears all showings of Momma Mia have been canceled).

The one solo cruise I have been on I was stopped and detained by CBP for no reason. It was a hour and 45 minute process. I was taken to a back room where I sat for awhile. They came in and searched me and then went through everything in my luggage. Then they asked a bunch of questions and apparently were trying to confirm my identity before letting me go. Between that and always being selected for additional screening by TSA I ponied up for Global Entry and have never been hassled by CBP or TSA again.

CoCo Cay is way better than it was in 2013 and the the best of any cruise line private islands. I was on Odyssey a few weeks ago and didn’t notice it being any rockier than other classes of ships. Entertainment on the newer ships is better than the older ships. I cannot comment on MDR food or servers but specialty dining is on par with precovid. Royals IT is bad but it’s a toss up if it’s worse than Disneys.

If I had to guess Johnny Rockets is for pay to cover any associates royalty costs associated with operating it.