drb116

If you get lucky, you will make it, but best case scenario, it will still be stressful. We live 30 minutes from the port and can usually just get our kids to school on time at 8 am (in our own car). The airport is another 15 minutes farther, so best case would only get to MCO at 8:15. That is plenty of time if you are not checking baggage and have Clear + TSA Precheck. Without those, you need to hope for some short lines. If you are willing to be stressed out and have an option to cancel your flight at the last minute without penalty, then it could be an option. Just remember, the ships can get delayed for many reasons.

8 workers - The two found alive are not part of the six missing.

While that may have been the case on your excursion, it was not the case on mine. When we did the Labadee Jet Ski excursion in December, it was 2 locals that where our escorts.

Sure! I use a TP-Link AC750 Wireless Portable Nano Travel Router, which is about $40 on Amazon. It works well and is pretty simple to set, but the range will only be your cabin. It is hard to find great instructions, but basically you connect to the router's wifi, then go to the routers guided setup page which will have you select the ship's wifi. After connecting to the ship's wifi with the router, you can go to the Zoom login page (logon.com I believe) from any computer or phone connected to the router. The first device connected will be prompted to log in, but once one device has logged in, all the other devices will have the internet without having to go through the log in screen. If you leave the cabin and want to use the wifi, you can switch devices to your phone. Once back in the cabin, you just need to go to logon.com again to reconnect.

We do exactly this! We use a travel router in our room and log in each day with one of our accounts and then we all share the internet via the travel router. You need to switch accounts each day since the account set up is tied to a person, but we just use our last name followed by a number, for example smith1, smith2, etc. When we are out and about on the ship, we can only use one log in, but all being able to connect in the room is all we need for the week.

As others said, no more Dreamworks, but they still have similar parades on at least some boats.

Royal use to have a 12-14 and 15-17 groups, but since Covid, they have been combined into one on every cruise that we have done (which is a decent number). It has been absolutely terrible for my two boys that are on the younger end of the range. They use to enjoy the kids club, but for the last year and a half they have hardly used it and complain anytime we ask them to give it a try. Maybe some cruises still split it up, but we have not found one that has.

We often do suite guarantee and we get Royal Up offers now that we switched away from CC as our travel agent. I am sure it has nothing to do with the GTY and everything to do with your travel agent.

This is different than the previous policy that everyone is quoting and I have seen this in other post recently. I think Royal Caribbean is changing their policy. If a parent has 100 points and a child has 70 points when they turn 18, previously they would be Diamond with 70 points, but according to this they revert back to Emerald when they turn 18.

Yes, I agree. While not my first priority, I would be very upset if my kids didn't get credit for all the cruises they do. One of the things our family loves about Royal Caribbean are the nightly receptions in the Diamond lounge and it would be very disappointing if our family could no longer do that once the kids hit 18, even though both would have been on enough cruises to earn D+.

Set the TP Link switch on the side to shared hotspot, then turn it on. Once it is on, you will connect to the TP Link directly (not the ship's wifi). You can do it with either a phone or a computer, but the key is to connect to the TP Link's wifi. Once connected, you go to tplinkwifi.net in your browser and log in. (The address in on the back of the router). I believe the user id is admin and the initial password is admin. Once inside, go through the quick set up. This will ask you to pick a wifi to connect to. This is when you select the ship's wifi. Don't worry about any kind of password or anything. I believe that is all there is to the set up. Once that is complete it may reboot, but now anytime you connect to your TP router's wifi, your device will act as if it was connected to the ship's wifi. The first device that connects will bring up the ship's Zoom log in screen, but once one device logs in, the router will remained logged in. The next device you connect to the TP Link will not open the ship's Zoom window because the router is now logged in for all devices. It is pretty easy. I struggled the first time, but it turns out my stateroom just had a really bad wifi connection. Since then, it connects seamlessly. I have sailed the same boat the last few times and it is nice because it remembers the connection. I just have to plug it an and I am all set!

We ran into this on one of our cruises because my family was split into two rooms and my wife wanted to purchase a picture of my son that was in my room. We even gave the photographer my wife's room number, but the picture did not post to her room. We were told that one of the room guests needs to be in the picture, however the staff can combine multiple rooms into one account if the other cabin contains a minor for a parent in a different room. In other words, since our kids were less than 18 and we were in two rooms, we could combine the pictures from both rooms and once combined, either of us could use the promo for any picture. It was explained to us that this only worked for minors.

Sorry, but I am going to have to disagree with PhillyFan. I live close to Port Canaveral and I have almost never seen traffic backing up the Beachline like that. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but it is rare that it will take you even an hour to get from the port to the airport. Also, security lines can be long and you should get there 3 hours ahead if you can, but the security line itself is not going to be 3 hours. If it took 3 hours, nearly everyone in line would miss their plane. The one thing I would add is that boats heading home to Port Canaveral often have a long way to go on the last night. Many times they are coming from Coco Cay or Nassau and need to go near top speed all night to make it home. I have had situations were the boat leaves Nassau late or the weather is rough and they need to go slow, and as a result, the boat doesn't get back to the port until 8 or 8:30. It's not common, but does happen.

We used a travel router (TP-Link AC750) and it worked well. We just set it up with the same network and password as we use at home and all of our devices connected automatically and were able to use the internet. The first time, you just need to connect the router to the ship's wifi, and once you do that, the first time you log in from a device, it will go through the ship's log in process. Once you do that on one device, the remaining devices connect without having to go through the splash screen.

We recently got off the Independence of the Seas and stayed in a JS and were shocked to find that the sofa bed was not a fulls size bed (it was roughly 60 inches by 60 inches). We have stayed in GS and balcony rooms before and found the beds there were roughly full size, so this was a little shocking. It was essentially only big enough for a 9 year old, but we were hoping to use the rooms for more space as my kids get bigger. We ended up putting the chair and ottoman at the end of the bed to extend it, but it is not ideal. Is this common for JS, or is it maybe just unique to the Independence? Does anyone have any other experiences with the sofa bed in JS that you can share? Thanks!

Yes, I think this is why the language is different for internet access versus drinks. Based on the language, kids would need to earn their own pinnacle to get the 6 drinks, but they could still get internet for the entire cruise if their parents are pinnacle and they are only D+.

So many complaints. Seriously, they are still giving D+ 5 drinks a day for free. Yes, maybe they got rid of the extra beer, but we can all use some extra water on those beach days. Look at Norwegian and Carnival. They are buried in debt and literally struggling to stay afloat. I am sure they have been cutting and more cuts will probably be coming. Streamlining in a few places is minor. I fully expected to see much bigger cuts to the program and can live with a few changes if it helps keep Royal in business and the prices from skyrocketing like they have in every other area around the world.

In the lounge, we have found that the wait staff does not always charge for a can of soda or a bottle of water. They are suppose to, but we typically go every night and tip for all of our drinks and have found that they sometimes bring some without charging.

Prices vary by cruise. If your cruise is currently $140, I would not expect it to go down too much. We also got the $49 Black Friday deal, but the regular price for that cruise was $79. We have some cruises that we are scheduled for where the price is currently $160, and others at $80. So you may get better deals, but some cruises are just more expensive than others.

The concierge can help get reservations to specialty resturants, (probably also excursions), and handle some of the tasks you may need guest services for. For example, my son was billed for a drink on Coco Cay when we specifically told them Diamond credits (which they got right for the rest of us), and the concierge was able to reverse the charge for us while we enjoyed drinks and evening snacks.

This is a very old post. The last tour they did was pre-covid. The stages are very tight and between covid and increases in Diamond members, they stopped doing tours. As Rogueperson mentioned, the entertainment "tour" is now a q&a in the theater.

Just to clarify, is it free for ALL D+ members, or only adult D+ members?

In my opinion, the Windjammer on Oasis class boats is inferior to other classes, and this was definitely the case when I was on Harmony this past year. The Windjammer feels like it is about the same size as the smaller class boats, but the boat has many more people. As a result, the options are relatively basic compared to other ships. This is not to say that the food is bad, but it is just much more limited. That said, there are so many other great options for meals on the Oasis class ships. My guess is that the Windjammer is relatively small because of this.

Honestly, after spending 15 months with zero revenue, I am just glad that Royal Caribbean is still in business. Yes there have been some cuts to save a little money, but they racked up a lot of debt during Covid. So if they are trying to save a little here and there, I find it hard to blame them.

You get one device for 24 hours, but it can be shared. You just can only have one device logged in at any point in time. Just log off one device and someone else can log in on their device. Doing this, you can spread it out a little more if you are sailing with other family that also have Diamond. Just cash it in on different days.