S.A.M.J.R.

While I agree it's the better option is to have a Passport, I disagree with the above. The size doesn't make it easy to slip into a pocket. If you put it in a bag, you have a chance of that bag being stolen. Those who argue/debate everyone should have a passport don't just "provide the facts". The ODDS (by far) are that a passport will NOT be needed. People will stress the "if you get hurt" or "have to leave the cruise early" as prime reasons to have the passport. While granted, that's what it's for, that's a small percentage of people. Having a passport on a closed loop cruise (out of the US, citizen, etc etc) is nothing more than insurance. But you don't see the same strong feelings/arguments about people buying travel insurance. That's usually "you'll want it if you need it" and "you should have it". But if someone says "no", it's "ok". All a passport is is insurance. Some are comfortable without it.

When we were on Mariner last year, they had set times for pickleball (open play). It was set up on the basketball court, they just brought out a net, paddles, and balls. There was no dedicated pickleball court. The same court was used for pickleball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer.

No, you're better off with cruises starting/ending on Saturday. Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath.

My thoughts (why not)... I also don't understand why you'd give up on Royal after a single bad cruise after multiple good cruises (you said you're close to diamond, right?) I see the Royal failings as: * Saying you could have a 12 top and then not allowing it. * Not keeping the bathrooms cleaned EVERYTHING else, the things Royal COULD have done something about it (food quality, chair saving), you could also run into on other cruise lines. The things Royal DIDN'T have control over (rude guests, lots of kids), they didn't have control over. I know people say "they could tell us when they do a partial charter". Well, when do you notify the other passengers? When there's 30 members of the "charter"? 50? 100? 500? I remember DW and my first cruise (on Oasis). While waiting to board, saw a LOT of families obviously there for quinceañera (ages and gowns galore). I was worried about how they'd impact the cruise. Never saw them again until we were walking off the ship.

Didn't mean to give the suggestion that one had to wear formal attire. I know it's been a "suggestion" for many years. I was just commenting on the invoice you posted followed by the comment that you won't follow it. Anyway, carry on!

The best thing to know is WHERE YOUR MUSTER STATION IS. That's for the passengers. Old or new muster, that's taken care of. I understand the point the crew needs to have experience on "herding cats", which the current emuster doesn't provide.

"Oh, we'll ship it to you!" A simple, "I'm not interested." Rinse & repeat as needed.

Well, actually what you said is that you don't plan to obey it... And the invoice that you posted doesn't say formal night is a "suggestion". We all know RCI hasn't enforced a dress code for a long time. And some people didn't like that. Again, it's RCI's responsibility to enforce their rules. Not a bunch of keyboard warriors.

BTW, I edited my post because I think you do get a free checked bag for an international flight.

"Basic Economy" (not Economy) is the "no seat selection"/board last version.

I don't get the Lithium-Ion argument. Don't cell phones, tablets, and laptops (among other things) also use them? Some battery failures in those and you think RCI will say "no more cell phones allowed"?

Please find one post of mine where I "advocated" for vaping. I'll wait... Yup, that's what I thought. All I'm doing is calling out the hypocrites who are getting on their high horses about others not following the rules, when they have no problem admitting not following the rules they disagree with. The bottom line is it's up to Royal to enforce (or not) any rule that's in place.

All those who say "throw off the people who don't attend muster" or "they can't purchase anything until after muster", you're ignoring a huge issue... Royal IT. Someone posted a similar story earlier in the thread, but here's ours... on our second cruise, we were travelling with our kids, a total of five of us. This was the "old style" muster, but that's not important. We got to our muster station, scanned all of our sea passes, listened to the spiel, then went on our way when dismissed. Later that night we (I) had a letter in our cabin... "Since you didn't attend muster, please report at x time to y location." I went to GS and explained I was at muster and yes, my seapass had gotten scanned. "OK, we'll mark you off." The next morning I woke up to a message light on our cabin phone. Hit button for messages and heard a recording... "Since you didn't attend muster, please report at x time to y location." Back to GS. I would have been EXTREMELY pissed if I couldn't purchase anything or if they attempted to throw me off simply because of THEIR mistake. Not once, but twice.

1. No, my "argument" is simply that a rule is a rule. Why is it OK to choose to follow some rules and not others? A. So you're ok with people ignoring the "don't save pool loungers rule" since your potential for having that violation affect your health is nonexistent? B. I didn't bring up anything about health studies. 2. EXACTLY what actions of MINE am I justifying? And be careful before you assume anything. My point is simply everyone has no problem justifying breaking rules they don't agree with (whether that be vaping in cabins, ignoring dress codes, saving seats, or speeding), but when someone else "breaks" a rule they DO agree with, "off with their heads!". If Royal is not going to hold people accountable for breaking the rules (again, whether it be dress code, saving seats, or vaping/smoking), then the complaints should go to Royal.

So it's "OK" to disobey "rules" because you don't agree with them? And if you use the argument about Royal not enforcing the dress code, if they don't enforce "no vaping in cabins", what's the difference?

There is really nothing to do on the ship after breakfast. Bars are closed, pools are closed, everything is shut down. Contact your hotel and see if you can store the bags there and go to the beach or something.

I think you do it in three rooms of three... Room1: Parents + 6 year old Room2: 18, 18, 12 Room3: 20, 20, 16 I know @Ourusualbeach really knows what they're talking about, but I would first work with whoever is doing the booking to try to get the people assigned to the rooms you want them to be in. I know you can get extra keys made for any rooms in your party, but that seems like an extra hassle to keep up with.

You can wind up with major problems if things go wrong if you don't book directly with the airlines. Whether you book A2S, Kayak, Priceline, Travelocity, whatever. It's like booking a cruise through a TA... that 3rd party "owns" your reservation and the airline won't talk to you. It's great as long as everything works out, but if it doesn't, you could be in a world of hurt. Most of the legacy airlines (Delta, United, American, etc) allow you to select your seat when booking (provided you pay the fare to do so... similar to a "select your cabin" vs "Guarantee" cabin with RCI). The ULCC (Spirit, Frontier, etc) break down every little bit with additional fees. Want to select your seat? Pay a fee. Checked luggage? Pay a fee. Carry on luggage? Pay a fee. I know Delta has announced they are no longer charging change fees. Of course, you'd need to pay the difference in ticket cost. As far as Christmas flights, wasn't there a major storm system that went through affecting multiple airlines? When those kinds of things happen, it's not unheard of (or unthinkable) for extremely long waits to rebook.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I have no practical advice, aside from working with your TA and possibly sending an email to the mbayley address (if you search this board, I know it's been mentioned a couple times). One thing that jumps out to me (if you end up copying/pasting what you wrote)... you mention your June 2019 cruise was cancelled by RCI because of Covid. Covid didn't hit the US until January 2020. You might want to double check your dates.

Did the water have a yellow tint to it? 🤔

Before you could do online transfer for everything, obviously we wrote a bunch of checks each month. One time we put our outgoing checks in our mail box. Someone came through and stole the outgoing mail before the postman came through, used the account & routing numbers on our checks to get fakes printed and started going crazy. The bank noticed there were checks written in a different state. I think it took 4 months to get everything back to normal. After that, any outgoing bills got dropped in the mail either at work or at official, locked mail boxes.

On our first cruise (Oasis from FLL), we actually flew in/out of Orlando. We flew in the day before, rented a car, drove to FLL, returned the car to the FLL airport the next day and shuttled to the cruise port. After the cruise, shuttled to the airport, picked up rental, drove to Cape Canaveral, toured NASA, then next day drove to Orlando, returned the rental, and got on the plane. Not difficult, actually saved a little bit of money. Would I do it again? Maybe, depends on how much money we'd save.

I'm going to assume OP doesn't have a credit card. I would suggest using a debit card (don't you automatically get one with a checking account). If for some reason you can't (or don't want to) do that, yes, send a check immediately. Use Fed Ex or UPS for next day and you get better tracking.

Contact your TA. It's been brought up multiple times in the thread to do so. And, as mentioned, part of the "fees" to change the cruise might be from the TA. As far as everyone "reading you wrong", whether you intended it or not, your OP, along with subsequent posts, came off as you should be entitled to the rules being changed for you. It basically sounded EXACTLY like someone barging through a line saying "I'm Diamond, make way." When everyone else sees things one way and you see it a different way, you may want to reconsider how YOU see it.

Never got an invoice from the cruise line. Here's the fine print in the invoice from our TA (redacted TA's name): And maybe they do.