mechcc

We were on the same cruise and had a great time. We did notice the decking on our balcony was cracked and coming up but didn't notice any other problems with maintenance or cleaning.

We thought the staff we ran into was always friendly. We ate in Giovanni's one night and it was excellent. Our server saw us several times after that and greeted us by name.

Loved all the soups at dinner and had great service. Pizza is pretty lame but glad it was there for a quick snack. Used room service once for breakfast and it came on time.

Room steward was not the best and we only had one bath towel in cabin when we got back from shore excursion in Jamaica. Called the desk and had more towels in five minutes.

Not surprised that the OP didn't have hot water because that's all we had. The coldest water was on the hot end of lukewarm.

Great cruise and love the convenience of going out of Galveston.

No, 60. Do not ever want tank tops for men in MDR (unless they shave their pits). But shorts on non formal nights is okay with me.

Our Oasis cruise in Oct was booked in May and we got a great deal. But the fake sale is a turn off. We will make diamond in Jul and after that, we will be looking closer at trying out Celebrity and Princess or building up our status on HAL and Carnival.

Seems the limited time only buy one get one half off sale has been going on for 9 months now. And it was a good sale for only those that got it during the first week of May. Am I the only one who wants to see honest prices per person up front and to have RCL stop this fake sale?

I loved it and thought it invoked the peace that comes with cruising. Makes me look forward to our next cruise.

The JFK speech is great and can be used as a teachable moment to a younger generation of what a great speaker he was and how he connected to his audience through his words, cadence, and tone; regardless of individual political views. Also, says something about how old some of us are that we recognized that it is a JFK speech. :D

As an experienced cruiser, I love any and all cruise commercials as they are a reminder of the open ocean. Of course the target of a cruise commercial is the new cruiser, not those who are already addicted.

 

All this work/discussion and I bet only 2 people cares…

 

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Sorry Harry, you were off by at least 50% as I am the 3rd person who found this interesting.

And loved the aft pictures of the Allure next to the Navigator in Cozumal. Our next cruise is on the Navigator followed by the Oasis. So really don't care whose butt is bigger but loved the perspective and appreciate the pictures.

Shared the big win of the Coco Loco with several people - all thought your storytelling was wonderful.

Could be just the flu with it being so widespread this year. People can board that have it but haven't developed the symptoms yet.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

But what happens if you are retired and have no income? Zero divided by any number isn’t much and I would think once I retire, my time is more valuable than ever as I will soon kick the bucket so every cruise counts even more than when I was 40 when I was making more money.

 

Yes, the key to having a great time on the cruise is NOT to sleep at all. If somehow we can all be awake for the entire 165 hours, can you imagine how much more fun we all can have on the cruise? Think about it, 2 AM “Move it move it pajama party parade”. 3 AM RCI sale of t shirts at the RP and 4 AM group photos taken with the captain. 5 AM Zumba dance. It never ends. 24/7.

 

If none of us ever sleeps the entire cruise, RCI can make many times more money on us by selling us more alcohol/clothes/photos. They need to invent some sort of non-sleep pills while on cruises and you just sleep after the cruise on way home.

But if we are your evil twin, we will resist spending money during the full 165 hours & will take advantage of the no additional cost activities.

[quote name=harryfat1;454116

But I have also seen other cruisers’ daily compass and they have people I never heard of. If they are truly Headliner' date=' that must be really really small town they are playing in as I don’t know them. The thing about musical taste is that it is as subjective/personal as is food. All of us like whatever music we like and it’s all individualized. On a 7 day vacation, we have 24 hours X 7 days = 168 max awake/sleep hours. Probably minus 3 hours if you board around 12 noon and get off at 9 AM on day 8 - that leaves you 165 hours the entire cruise. [/quote]

I think you just found another way to validate the reasonableness of the cost of a cruise. Just take the hours on a ship & divide it into the amount paid to get your cost per hour.

You can even go further by doing a comparison to your weekly salary with further calculations. And if you are taking paid leave, you can calculate how much you are being paid to cruise.

I'm a price analyst & thus addicted to Excel. Is there a 12 step program for Excel addicts?

Love your review & your sense of humor.

Funny, I am an early millennial, and I and all of my cruising friends hate the idea of DD. On cruise critic it seems like mostly D+ people who seem very in favor of DD, because they are sick of MDR after doing it 150+ times (nights).

 

I just don't remember that many people complaining about the old system, until DD was announced. DD seems to be getting at most a 50/50 review at the moment, so it appears to be producing worse results that MDR/MTD. Also most of the positive reviews I've seen of DD seem to be from people that ate at specially restaurants multiple times.

 

Any ways, I won't give DD a negative review, but I also have no interest in going on a cruise with it.

Okay if Diamond Plus members are getting advantages for booking reservations then they would naturally be in favor of Dynamic Dining. Add to their reservations not being messed up that the menus are all new for the frequent cruisers & their opinions can be biased.

The other concern is while there may be more free venues the real point is are their the same or more settings available? Early reports indicate that service is slow because there is no assistant dining steward & that is a fairly was fix. However, that costs more money.

No I have not cruised with Dynamic Dining, but with so many bad reviews, we will wait to try Dynamic Dining when the kinks are worked out & it flows smoothly.

I've done the Voyager & the Magic & will be on Navigator in Jul. The balcony staterooms on Magic overlooked a deck below & we got a lot of noise from that deck when out on our balcony. Sailed with grandkids & several times they couldn't use pool or water area because of drunk & foul mouth other passengers. Well they could of used it but their parents didn't want them exposed to the language.

As for the food, it really is about the same on both lines to me.

From what you said about what you want - Navigator might fit you better.

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Loving your review.

Pray the child recovers. Right now there are conflicting reports as to what happened. So we don't know actually what happened & where. It could of been a total accident where the child slipped on a wet deck & landed wrong & ended up with a serious injury. This can happen in full view of attentive parents. And it could of been something other than a child near drowning.

We were on this ship last week (the Christmas Cruise) and had quite a disappointing experience. Not only was it Christmas, but it was out honeymoon. Totally a bummer as we'd heard great things and couldn't wait to be loyal RCI cruisers. They gave us a nice 'try us again' refund toward our next cruise with them (no money back, unfortunately), but we had such a bad experience that we don't know that we will ever use it. :(

Glad someone else is having a better experience!

What was so bad?

We have booked the Oasis for Oct 15 & really not excited about Dynamic Dining but figured the bugs would be worked out by the time we sailed & we should try it before we totally rejected cruising with Dynamic Dining. We have done MTD & did not like it. Add that I don't do fish & the menus are so heavy fish that we have considered cancelling this cruise.

On the other hand we got a fab price by booking in early May & got the perfect cabin. This will also be our first diamond cruise & looking forward to the new amenities. But if we are going to be on one of the first cruises to try Dynamic Dining, we will save the airfare & cancel our cruise. Not willing to form a personal opinion based on something that is in experiment stage & spend hard earned money on it. JMHO.

Won't be able to drink onboard.

Have to say that the 18 to 21 year age group is the most ignored on the major lines. Suggest that you place a meeting card at guest services and ask that it be published in the daily bulletin.

$720 per person on Halloween cruise on 31 Oct 15 in a D8 handicap balcony. BOGOHO early May.

Great video!

So are you going back to Carnival or booking another cruise on Allure?

Always get the brass ornament from the ship's and love the memories of all our cruises. This year's newest ornament was from a Carnival cruise with grandsons. Next year we will have 2 Royal Caribbean ornaments to add.:)

Since they are sending out e-mails asking for staggered boarding, there will be cabins with the sea pass card available to anyone for 2 to 3 hours prior to that passenger boarding. Doesn't give me a warm fuzzy at all.

Much prefer Royal Caribbean over Carnival but for the price difference & an extra day, I would choose the Breeze. One thing for sure, your children will enjoy whatever you decide.

Why would you fly from Tampa to FFL?

 

Isn't it like a 2 hour drive?

 

When you include arriving early, waiting, boarding, flying, deboarding, etc.

 

You could have already been there....

Apparently it is a repo cruise where the home port changes from FLL to Tampa. So if they drive frame Tampa to FLL they would then have to fly back to FLL after the cruise to pick up their car. Then drive back home to Tampa.

We were on deck 6 on the Allure & loved the location so much we booked deck 6 for the Oasis. Loved having the Schnoor bar & Johnny Rockets (for breakfast) on the same deck, one deck down to the Promenade & 2 decks up to Central Park. And getting elevators to go to the upper decks never seemed to be a problem as they were never full going up. You might just love the location.

Take ginger ale, ginger snaps, & ginger candies to counteract your seasickness. DDIL says they work in ocean views so if they don't work in CLs you can go to guest services & get stronger meds.

[quote=RocketMan275;44493911

This isn't the "lowest common denominator". It is the preference of the majority of cruisers who just do not see the value of formal nights.

The value of formal nights is mostly the value to the photographers on board & ultimately to the bottom line of the cruise line.

Just don't want the food quality to erode further by the elimination of formal nights. Otherwise formal night is useless.