D4

I'm confused. Are you booking 3 people in the 3 bed cabin OR are you booking 2 people in a 3 bed cabin now and thinking you might add a 3rd person later? If you think you might add a 3rd person later, be aware that sometimes the total capacity of the ship is reached and you won't be able add a 3rd person even though there is an empty bed in your cabin. Cruise ships can be at full capacity even when there are empty cabins. That happens when there are a lot of cabins booked with 3-4 people in them.

We got off Wonder on Sunday. We had 5:00 early dining and were seated at a able for 6 people. The other couples came the first night but skipped lots of nights. The second evening when we were alone at our table at about 5:20, the head waiter asked if we'd like company. I asked if it would be MTD people and he said yes. We said sure because we'd love other people to talk to. We told him to feel free to seat others with us any night the table wasn't full.

There are some exceptions, such as: Drinks at the Starbucks stand in the middle of the atrium are not free for Diamonds. I was on Wonder last week. On sea days, they had a stand by the pool selling pineapples that had the middle cut out with alcohol for $14 or non-alcohol for $10. I thought it would be cute for some pictures, but they were not free for Diamond members.

I am celiac and cruise a couple weeks each year. I bring a lot of prepackaged snacks with me for my travel days to and from the ship (2 flights each way), to eat on the ship, and at ports. You're not supposed to bring ship food off the ship. They have dogs sniffing everyone's bags at some ports looking for food, but prepackaged food is ok. I bring an unopened jar of cashew butter in my checked luggage. I bring several bags of tiny milk chocolate chips (from the baking aisle), Rice Krispie treats, protein bars, etc. in my carryon luggage. The Windjammer has yogurt in big bowls that people scoop out of. I ask the worker for individual yogurts (they keep them in a fridge behind the counter.) I put them in our cabin fridge to eat later as snacks with my cashew butter and chocolate chips. I eat lunch every day at El Loco Fresh. The first day of each cruise I talk to the head person there to make sure I know what is gluten free. I don't take anything from their condiment bar because of the possibility of cross contamination. I always get early dining and preorder my food for the next day. i trust the desserts at the Cafe Promenade because they are behind glass and you have to request them. I'm very careful in the Windjammer buffet. Have fun!

Since you said you're not very tech savvy, make sure you find out how to change the settings on your phone while you're on your cruise so that you don't get a huge bill from your cell provider.

You might not find out about an upgrade until after you've boarded. We've eaten dinner with people on the first night that haven't unpacked because they were still hoping to be notified of an upgrade.

Since your kids aren't in school yet, unless you must travel during spring break (like if you're a teacher), I'd avoid the whole spring break season.

We try to have the same cabin on B2Bs, but sometimes we've had to change and I also prefer to move everything myself. Unfortunately, I think each time we've had to switch cabins, we've also hit the timing where the cabin stewards are shuffled to different locations of the ship. So although I've tried to meet the new cabin steward ahead of time, they've always said they'll be assigned a different location. I think they switch locations near the beginning of each month.

It doesn't hurt to ask if there is an accessible cabin available. The ship can reach maximum capacity without selling every cabin, especially on a holiday sailing. That's because many families will have 4 in a cabin. Once they hit their maximum lifeboat capacity, no more cabins will be sold. The ship may sail with some empty cabins.

A lot of families with kids in school take their family vacation during Spring Break (high school and younger)

I agree with this. @bayou cruiser If you're trying to avoid kids, you can take a long cruise during this same time frame (such as 9-11 nights.) We've done that several times and had very few kids on the ship.

I’m so happy for all of you!!!

If it is at CoCoCay, they don’t use paper tickets. It is tied to your key card.

True. Even if you weren't actively using your phone, just having it off airplane mode means all your apps were getting data. Since cruise lines are pushing people to use their apps while onboard, I think the cruise lines should do more education to help people avoid big bills.

Unfortunately, the vouchers are not valid for Starbucks.

I agree that the friends can fill in all their details later, but I assume @hazeleyes46 would need their friends sign-on information to get into their booking to be able to choose a check in time for them.

I'm so sorry. It's good that you have travel insurance. Did you actually cancel the cruise or were you a no show? Many trip insurance policies require you to actually cancel the cruise in order to for a cancellation claim to be paid.

On my 2022 Oasis cruise, the up charge to go from 100 pictures to unlimited was $70. A year later, the cost was $100. They looked up my account each time so they could see what I paid. Royal didn’t list the unlimited option in the cruise planner or on the onboard signage, so I have no idea how they determined the up charge. I wouldn’t have even known unlimited was available if a photo worker hadn’t mentioned it to me when she kept seeing me at their kiosks trying to pick my pictures. You cannot mix physical prints and digital. On the Oasis, you view and select your pictures from their kiosks which are available 24x7. Once you click “buy” on a picture, you can’t undo that choice. The screen always displays how many pictures you have left to select for your package.

I was also going to suggest an Apple AirTag. The air tag doesn't have it's own internet connection. It is detected by nearby iphones. I use them in my luggage and can always see them on the cruise ship. Every once in a while, one of them doesn't update its location (for whatever unknown reason), so it could send a person into a panic unnecessarily. So I wouldn't count on the air tag, but it might be a useful tool.

I bought the 100 picture package on the Oasis in 2022 and again in 2023. In each case, I was able to upgrade to an unlimited package onboard for an additional fee. (They didn't list the unlimited package online or on the signage in the ship photo department. I had to ask in the photo dept if unlimited was available. Each of my pictures were great quality ... between 2 and 4 MB. I never went to the specialty restaurants. I had to choose to either get all 8x10 printed photos or to get an email with a link to the digital files. There was not an option to get a flash drive. I get the digital files. I could have other people in my pictures as long as me or my husband was in the picture. We made new friends onboard and included them in our pictures. I then emailed those friends the digital pictures they were in.

I like this idea! I imagine that not everyone in the extended family would want to pay extra for a specialty restaurant.

Keep in mind that Royal is frequently inconsistent on how they do things. For example, we've never had a B2B cruiser meeting and we've always had to get off the ship and go through customs with the other B2B people and then get right back on the ship. It would be very convenient to have a customs officer come on board because DH is a very slow walker and it's hard for us to keep up with the group.

Do you happen to have a refundable deposit? The price you see online now is the price for non-refundable deposits. I don't think you can see the price for refundable deposits without going through the whole booking process.

Correct. And just to clarify, only one person in the picture needs to be from cabin A if cabin A bought the photo package. The people in cabin A can invite other people to be in their pictures. Also, if the couples in cabins B or C wanted a picture of just themselves, a person from cabin A could stand with a gap between themselves and the couple and then crop the pictures later to just include the couple. You have to choose to get all printed 8x10s or all digital pictures.

Oasis of the Seas also has it