POA1

This is important. Remember it. It's OS agnostic. When you connect to an access point, your device is going to try to keep that established connection up - even if you move into range of another AP. So, when you move around the ship, and you see your connection getting worse, just turn Wi-Fi off and then back on after a couple of seconds. If you already know how to do this from the Wi-Fi connectoid/applet, do it that way. (Of course, if you know how to do it, you probably don't need this advice.) I highly recommend Ubiquiti's WiFiman. It's lightweight, fast and free. It's from the hardware maker Ubiquiti and is ad free. Available for ios, Android and even Windows and MacOS, it's an excellent tool.

Thanks, Nancy! Hopefully we'll be able euse the phone on Surf. We just want to be reachable in case of emergency. Also, it's an election year, and I'd hate to miss out surveys about issues that are important to the country. (Just kidding. It's calls vinyl siding that I don't want to miss.)

Start looking for specialty dining 6 months prior to the sailing date. It's almost always there 4 months out. If join the roll call for your cruise, you'll probably see someone post about it there as soon as it's available.

Wow, you're good! I missed that post. So, for a mere $5.56 a day on my upcoming cruise, I can be assured of learning about the latest deals in hurricane glass windows, and never have to worry about my car's warranty running out? Sign me up! (I still plan to see if Wi-Fi calling works on surf. I suppose they could be blocking the SIP port, but it's a pretty low bandwidth service. I doubt they'd block the TCP or UDP ports. It would break things for regular web surfing.

As a counter-point: We're usually late, fixed seating people. (Known as Main seating in HAL's booking system.) We've always - and I mean always - had excellent service in the MDR. We've done Club Orange once, on the Nieuw Statendam in December 2023. We had great service on the first night from our waiter, Tre. We told the CO supervisor that Tre did an excellent job and requested to sit at one of his tables going forward. Tre was "our guy" for most every meal in the CO dining room for the entire trip. In essence, we recreated the fixed dining experience in Club Orange. We even wound up with the same table 4 out of 5 nights. We do like the extra entrée choices that come with Club Orange, but we'd be just as happy with late, fixed dining in the MDR. (I've heard reports that the MDR is noisy on the Pinnacle Class ships. Not having experienced the MDR on the Nieuw Statendam, I can't really comment on that.

Because they get paid that way! 😉 There's not a good reason from the customer's perspective.

Thanks for the chart! Now we need an upgrade pricing column or two. 😄 I'll report on the 9 day once I board.

Yes. The paid upgrade keeps everything on the original booking. However, there are more SCs sold than exist in inventory. You stand a pretty good chance of being assigned an SA without needing to do anything.

It makes perfect sense. I will summon the power to button these slacks.

Follow @kazu's advice. See the Shorex desk for your rebooks.

It's the new Fort Lauderdale Convention Center Hotel. I assume you're talking about the rounded hotel with the blue glass on the lower floors. If not, let me know. - POA1, Man on the Street Reporter

The balcony on the bump out rooms had quite a bit more room, percentage-wise. Your verandah does face into the wind though. I don't think that will be much of an issue, but I wanted to note if.

@Hobar Can you give us a specific example? That might help us to give you a better answer. However, if you are looking for Seabourn at the HAL price point, I doubt it will happen.

HIA can't be added to sailings of 5 or fewer days. It says so in the fine print.

Thanks. I was referring to the paper ones. I scanned all of ours for future reference. There was nothing referring to the cake event. I even reread them on my tablet in case I couldn't see it on my phone. In fairness, I think we were in the Lido once during the whole week. And that was just cutting through. We were so fascinated by the concept of being on a ship that we forgot to look for cake. A mistake we don't intend to repeat.

If it helps, you can expect 2025-2026 Caribbean next week. I've been getting announcement emails each time a new "market" launches. A market corresponds to those little gold buttons on the "Find a Cruise" page. I think the only exception is Alaska, which has both cruises and the land and sea cruise tours. All the others launch as a market. In other words, all the South America & Antarctica cruises will launch together.

I just reread the daily programs for our NS cruise in December. No mention in the events. Is it hidden in the Lido lunch menu? Or, on our sailing, were they just fakin' with no cake 'n' stuff?

We plan to check out the cake event. The fact that we missed it goes a long way toward explaining why people don't trust the science as much.

The cake event is offered on all sailings 7 days or longer. (At least according to the press release last fall.) We missed it in December, because we did a terrible job of reading the daily program. We were so happy to be back on a ship that we didn't really read the events list. We plan to correct that in two weeks. On this voyage, we plan to know what we're missing ahead of time. 😄

Storage, ice machines, interior emergency stairs. (You would see the stairs during drills.) I wouldn't worry about it.

Have a great trip! Please take good care of the ship. We're boarding the day you disembark.😁

Pre-Cruise, you can see the actual MDR and Lido menus for the current day on your ship. For those of us with serious, Type-A, planning personalities, this is great. For instance: We booked Marimoto for the day we're in Bonaire. The Opera Cake is on the dessert menu on the regular dinner. People say it's delicious. That means we have to split a piece in the Lido around 5 PM. Without the amazing technology of the Navigator app, we would totally miss out on an extra half a dessert. Needless to say, our vacation would have been ruined.

There are a few rates - very few - that don't combine with HIA. Almost all of the casino ones do and all the standard rates combine as well. I think that. @oakridger might be on to something

Mine updated last week. (Android, current, Pixel Pro) and it was a pig. I did a force stop and cleared both the cache and data storage. The database rebuild took a when, but it is running smoothly now.

I know! I have an old tote bag I'm taking for excursions. Carrying the CO bag would be like wearing a gold Rolex, a shirt bedazzled in diamonds, and having hundred dollar bills sticking out of my pockets. It would be a beacon to desperados, highwaymen and blackguards.