Hypo

RE: The guy in his boxers. It would seem that he had a really bad streak in the casino, not only did he lose his shirt at the tables, but also his pants and dignity.

A word of warning about scooters and the boarding ramp. When riding a scooter up the boarding ramp, be extremely careful of that last little ramp that connects the pier ramp to the ship. The slope of the ramp is often very steep and it is easy to tip the scooter over backwards. This happened to my wife, fortunately she was not hurt. Now I position myself behind her to "push" if need be, to prevent her falling backward. She also knows to shift her weight forward on the scooter so that the center of gravity is further forward from the back wheels.

We felt exactly the same way, but reminded ourself that Royal probably designed whole process with all precautions.

\Precautions? Just like RCL did with the whole website IT rollout issues!

The week prior they had crab claws as well (could have sworn they were stone crab claws), I was shocked.

Stone Crab claws are very expensive. I will bet that they were Jonah crab claws. Not nearly as good.

Great review, Andrew! We will see you in about 7 weeks when we all board the Harmony of the Seas.

Mark

⬆️Is that guy sleeping over there? [emoji23]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Guy??? I thought it was a topless woman!

Things to finish tonight before leaving tomorrow:

 

 

- Obsessively check that our passports and documents are inside of my purse

- Repeat "Obsessively check that our passports and documents are inside of my purse"

.

It doesn't do much good to check that your passports and cruise docs are in your purse when you get around 90 miles from your house and your wife says "Where is my purse?" Why, my dear, it is still sitting on the kitchen table where you left it. 180 more miles to go before I sleep.

I have read that if you are paying the room service fee that they are now adding 18% gratuity on top of that.

If you are staying in a GS or above, where room service is complementary (no Room service fee), then you should tip a few dollars in cash, depending on the size of the order.

Call the new TA and let them handle it. You must effect the transfer within 60 days of booking with RCCL.

They enforce arrival time pretty much like they enforce the no chair hogs rule on the pool decks!

What I posted assumes you are landing at Miami airport (MIA). If you are instead arriving at Fort Lauderdale airport (FLL) you will be much closer to the port. You can literally see the port from the airport. It is less than two miles. Please do not try to walk from FLL airport to the cruise port. It is across several freeways and high traffic streets. It is not conducive to walking.

It is about 30 miles from MIA to Port Everglades Terminal 18. By the time you get off the plane and claim your luggage it should be around 0730 (maybe even closer to 0800). Getting a cab and driving to Port Everglades would be around an hour (depending on traffic). I would guess you will arrive at the pier around 0900 at the earliest. You will probably be able to drop your luggage with the porters at that time or shortly thereafter. We have been there around 1000 and they were accepting our luggage then. We normally arrive at 1030 and the checkin process is in full swing by then.

You might delay your departure from MIA by about thirty minutes, grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast at the airport. The pier is in an industrial port setting and there is not really anywhere to walk and see anything besides cars, trucks, and sea van containers. I don't know of any coffee shops within walking distance of the pier.

EDIT: I reread your post and see you are posting from Israel. MIA is notoriously slow for clearing Immigration and Customs. I would surmise that by the time you get out of the airport and to Port Everglades they will be doing checkin.

I laminate both sides of the paper printed luggage tags with clear plastic shipping tape. When we arrive at the hotel the night before I attach the laminated tags to the luggage with small tie-wraps. They are pretty sturdy and I have never had one come off. When we get our luggage I use a nail clipper to cut the tie-wraps and then throw the old tags away. Don't forget to punch a small hole in the prepared tags to use for the installation of the tie-wraps.

I am looking at cashing in some Royal Caribbean Visa Rewards and the description says can be used for onboard spa packages, wine packages, gift shops, coffee shops and bars, excursions and specialty restaurants. Can the credit be applied toward gratuities? We have a drink package, excursions are paid for and I doubt we will go to a specialty restaurant.

Yes, it can be used for gratuities.

We usually cruise at the end of October, towards the end of the "hurricane season". The only time that I can see for a significant impact of a hurricane, is if one is hitting your port of embarkation on the day that you should be boarding the ship.

In the past, we have had some success calling Guest Services to request Maintenance to adjust the air flow dampers in our cabin. I was told by a Maintenance man that the previous cruisers had complained that their cabin was too cold and they had requested Maintenance to close the air dampers down to where the room got little AC. He readjusted the linkages and got the damper to open further. Presto, had plenty of AC from that point on.

I had the same problem with getting the website to accept my credit card/ cruise contract agreement. I just selected the print option for the contract, then when the print window opened , select "Print Preview". Do not need to print the contract, just opening the window for print will get the website to accept the checkbox for agreement. Close the print window and then continue on with your checkin.

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........5 states currently issue those- Washington state, NY, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont.

Arkansas also issues REALID/Enhanced licenses

Any 7 day cruise. We don't care too much about ports or excursions, prefer three sea days per cruise.

Another vote for deck 8.

We have all of them, except for one cruise on Adventure OTS. When we debarked that morning, their computer system was down, so they collected and kept our Seapass cards when we left the ship. We weren't too happy about it, but nothing we could do.

Regarding the call to setup your Captain's Club number, I don't think it is necessary anymore after the recent updating of the Celebrity and Royal online accounts. The other day, I went to create a Celebrity account for the first time. After filling in the appropriate fields with the same info used for my Royal account, my Celebrity account was created, my number was assigned, and my level was automatically made Select (equivalent to my Emerald status). On my Royal Caribbean account, my Captain's Club number was automatically being shown at the bottom of my Settings page.

Good info to know, it wasn't that way when I did the signup a few years ago. It is hard to believe that RCCL was able to correctly do something in the field of IT.

Another vote for Park Cafe.

We have on several occasions taken our food from Park Cafe into Dazzles to eat. It was never a problem.