BamaGuy44

Seriously? It's $19 pp in my cruise planner!

Yeah, $8. This was last May though. It must be pretty popular for them to double the price. :o $19 is pretty steep but still less than you'd pay on land. $8 was a no brainer, $19, still probably worth it if you like that kind of thing.

1. Because they can

2. Because people are willing to pay for it

That pretty much says it all. It was like $8/pp on Harmony and well worth it.

There is a huge difference between a man wearing nicely pressed khaki shorts, a collared shirt, and loafers...and a man wearing basketball shorts, a sweaty tank top, and Nike slides.

If you are clean, and dressed in clean clothing—aren’t wearing athletic wear or beach wear...I’m fine with it. I grew up in an upscale resort town—khaki shorts-sometimes with a blue blazer(bow tie optional!) - are the norm and welcomed in most upscale restaurants.(upscale- but not 4-5 Star-which RCI MDR is not) However...Athletic wear and tanks tops is not.

 

Just make an effort.

Obviously a sweaty shirt is just gross, but there's nothing inherently "better" about khaki shorts vs basketball shorts, or loafers vs sneakers, or jeans vs slacks, other than tradition and you just like the way they look better. So you actually do in fact care what other people wear. (Obviously people should be clean and practice proper hygiene, that's a health issue, I'm talking about fashion choices)

My point is people say "I don't care what anyone else wears", but what they mean is "I don't care what anyone else wears as long as it doesn't cross whatever personal arbitrary fashion standards I've come up with".

If someone doesn't care if I wear a polo and khaki shorts, there's no logical reason they should care if I wear a t shirt and basketball shorts. None.

Personally dress shorts are perfectly fine with a collared shirt (golf shirt) . NO cut offs or basketball shorts but dress shorts are perfect for the dining room. Specialty dining I could see enforcing the pants rule.

Why though? Why a golf shirt but not a T shirt? Why dress shorts but no basketball shorts or cutoffs? The argument is always "Couldn't care less, what someone wears doesn't affect the taste of my food, can't see their legs when they're sitting down", etc

It's fascinating to me where people draw the line in these threads. What is it about a T shirt that makes it detract from your dining experience, but a golf shirt doesn't? If you don't care whether someone wears a suit on formal night, why would you care if someone wears an old faded T shirt?

Veteran cruisers always think the product is going into the toilet and long for days gone by when it was "so much better"

When premium restaurants started showing up with added fees people thought it was the end of cruising as we know it, the drama and threats to never cruise again were off the charts. Same thing with the Oasis class and "mega ships".

"OMG no way anyone will ever sail on those giant floating malls!! Royal will be out of business soon you just watch!"

Anyone know if they're having any trouble filling those ships? :rolleyes:

Cruise ships offer so much more to eat and do than they ever did "back in the day", and they're much more affordable now than back then to boot. So I'm fine having a base fare, then picking and choosing the extras I want to pay for. Call it nickel and diming if you want, but the ships offer so much more now, it's not reasonable to expect all inclusive pricing on a mass market line.

JMO

You may not have realized it, but that's kind of like saying "Why are you using the pool on the ship when you could go to the local park district pool at home" or "why drink in a bar on the cruise when you can just go to a bar at home." Some people enjoy watching TV in their cabins--my husband and I like to watch the in room TV on cruises when we are winding down for the night. Different strokes for different folks! There is no need to criticize what other cruisers like to do on their vacations.

Exactly. There's a reason every single cruise cabin has a TV in it. Nobody is spending their whole day in the cabin watching TV but it's nice to have it for a little while in the evening while I'm winding down.

But nowadays my "TV" onboard is my tablet computer. Much easier to watch my own content than try to get the actual TV in the room to show what I want. I'm technically savvy and know how to do it, just more trouble than it's worth to me.

I always consider the first comment of a person to be their true feeling

So we can assume your other post where you hope the OP gets a serious illness, and lament the fact that it's illegal to kill them is your "true feeling"?

Yeah you're really taking the moral high ground on this one.

I have a question since there's a lot of dressy clothes expertise in this thread. Why is "jacket" considered more formal and appropriate than a dress shirt and tie? I have seen people suggestion a jacket over a polo opposed to a tie with a long sleeve dress shirt. I question the functionality of a jacket on Caribbean cruises as well. I have worked in professional settings where a tie is required but never a jacket.

Who knows? Why is a dark suit considered more "dressy" than a light suit? Why is a full length gown more dressy than a cocktail dress? Why is a skirt more dressy than pants? Why are heels more dressy than flats? I could go on.

These rules are arbitrary, just traditions, based on what I have no idea.

Why even go? Because I can!

Well you've already decided you're going to be disappointed, so most likely you will be. In my experience when people go into something looking for negatives, they will definitely find some. Self fulfilling prophecy, it's human nature.

I can almost guarantee you won't be amazed and "blown away" by RC compared to Carnival and NCL. You may like one or the other better, but they are all pretty similar at the end of the day.

It's strange RCL is the only cruise line with this problem:confused:

They're not. Other lines choose to eat the cost of the lost towels (for now)

Was just pointing out the composition of people which I found interesting. No judgment intended-

 

Calling people silly sheeple for choosing to have Johnny Rockets, and calling peoples' tattoos "unfortunate" are most definitely judge-y things to say, even if you don't realize it.

Makes it sound like your fellow passengers weren't up to your standards or something. Maybe not how you intended, just saying comments like that can come off badly.

Doesn't matter to me as don't go on cruises to watch TV.

Have to have this in every single thread that mentions a TV. Like clockwork. :rolleyes: Of course you don't go on a cruise to watch TV. Neither does anyone else.

It's certainly not a deal breaker but a good selection would definitely be nice.

As I explained in my original post, I believe it a shame, but if cruise lines have bowed to the pressure of their customers I will also make sure I dress scruffily as well - that way I will feel less self conscious in an enclosed environment

Sounds like problem solved. People dress how they like, and you don't feel self-conscious. Everybody wins, right?

If you were truly surprised by the decline in formal wear (which I doubt, since it's common knowledge even if you haven't cruised in a while), then now at least your eyes are wide open. If you choose to cruise RC again and don't like the way your fellow passengers are dressed, that's on you.

From what I understand (and the Chief will correct me I hope), the ship gets water from 3 sources:

 

Shoreside, some ports sell them potable water

Reverse osmosis, using some sort of membrane to separate the salt from seawater

Desalination, using power (and fuel) to make fresh water from seawater. This is probably close to distilling.

Desalination is generic term for removing the salt from water, can be by various methods. Distillation is specifically boiling the water and condensing the steam back into liquid water. They may use distillation in addition to the filtering, not sure. I know they provide distilled water for some guests but they may bring it on board. I also thought it was interesting that some ships gather the condensation from the AC and use it as non-potable water for laundry, etc.

Some don't like the taste of the ship's tap water.

Exactly. Plus I'm pretty sure it's filtered, not distilled.

That's your cost-risk calculation to do.

 

The more I think about it, the more I realize I would probably NOT insure for medjet. If it was $50,000 and I didn't have it in my bank account, I'd sell my vacation condo or at least finance it to cover it.

 

First, 50K is pretty much the minimum you would pay for an evac from a foreign country.

Second, Your time and aggravation must have little value to you if you'd rather go to the trouble of liquidating real estate holdings to pay for an emergency vs.spending a tiny amount on travel medical insurance. Not to mention the transaction costs involved.

Third, why in the world would anyone risk just eating a 50K to 100K expense when the evac insurance would cost (relatively) pennies? I don't care how rich you are, that's silly.

BTW insurance isn't supposed to pay for itself. It's a cost you pay for risk mitigation.

10 drink card for $79 on Oasis for the trip on 7/2/17

 

 

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Same on Harmony, end of May

Meh. Very low on the list of things I would care about onboard. It's a pretty cool addition, and if it makes the traffic flow near one of the 30 bars on board less than optimal I can live with that. Any changes to ship design and features will cause some trade offs.

The boardwalk is pretty noisy in general, so we didn't really notice the sounds from the slide in particular when we ate at Sabor and JR. The view off the back of the ship would definitely be better without it but again, trade offs.

Well now, here's the thing. This information from this official source reads like it was written by a corporate entity.

 

If you take chunks of that release verbatim and run a Google search, guess what. In all of the information on all of the Internet Google points you to only one place. This CC thread.

 

I ran it three times using three separate unique phrases. Only here.

 

Nice try. I'll wait to get concerned about this until I hear it from an identifiable official source.

 

 

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What makes you think every corporate memo is searchable by Google? Not every memo is a press release.

If you would choose drinks over $1800 cold hard cash, you may have a drinking problem.

Oh please. :rolleyes: Plenty of people would say $1800 on the cruise itself is a horrific waste of money. I mean think of how much cold hard cash you could have in 20 years if you stuck that 1800 in a nice mutual fund instead, right?

Not sure why, on a message board for people who spend pretty good chunks of money on vacations, posters are so judge-y about what others spend on alcohol.

Did you book this through the ship or on your own?

 

If on your own what was your means of transportation?

Sorry didn't see this earlier. Nothing to book, you basically just walk in. We didn't use any transportation, it's about a 10 minute walk from the dock.

On the map/shopping guide for St Maarten they give you, it is one of the places listed

Here's the view from 12729:

Here's my review from last month:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2503554

There are some good options if I go a lower class ship, or switch cruise lines. I simply wanted the biggest/newest RCCL to sail from FL, lol.

Huh? This wasn't true when you said it in the OP, and it still isn't. Literally the "biggest/newest" ship RC has is in FL right now. And the next one being released will be in FL, too.

So what is the issue again?

I don't have the Compasses, but I was on this Itinerary just a few weeks ago. I talked about the shows and some other stuff.

If I get time I may try to scan the compasses if it would be helpful

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2503554

Thank you for posting your comments! Our family (8 of us) will be on the HOS this October for our anniversary and the OP's negative comments had me wondering if I made the right decision!:rolleyes: Your comments relieved some of my worries!!:* Looking forward to a new experience on the Harmony!:hearteyes:

Yeah you have to take the reviews with a grain of salt. Plenty of people are having great positive experiences on Harmony. My family had a great time in May. I agree with some of OP's complaints, like the drink prices and the noise in Schooner bar.

But while the crew wasn't the friendliest I've ever seen, I'd say they were average for the cruises we've been on. Obviously that can vary between sailings.

Our disembarkation was very smooth, but again it varies. I highly recommend you taking advantage of the mobile passport option if you're a US citizen. The lines for mobile passport were MUCH shorter then the regular lines, we breezed through in under 5 minutes. :cool: