BND

Correct.

We've received two offers so far on our April 8 cruise. We didn't bid, but here's the rub. It's on EN over Easter and has been sold out for a while. We have only bid one time just for the heck of it last summer. Most of our cruises now are b2b in the same cabin so no way we'll bid for those. We always pick the cabin we want also. We have been back to cruising after restart since Nov 2021 and have received RoyalUp's for every cruise since they started offering. Also, a lot of people don't seem to understand that you need to have that you want to receive emails turned on in your profile or you'll never get anything.

Everyone? Nope.

Having been to many Captain's Corners, the senior staff isn't involved in the day to day operations or pay issues. That's what their staffs are for. As for how gratuities are distributed, they don't have anything to do with it as it's uniform across the fleet. Those are corporate decisions and while they have a payroll group onboard, they're just responsible to see that everyone is paid on time and correctly. They do not have each ship making their own decisions regarding pay/gratuities.

I was going to post that. The way it's handled is a corporate decision.

We loved the Dynamic Dining menus our first time on Anthem. We rotated with our waitstaff and had no issues with that.

Most of the food on the midnight buffet was just for looks. It wasn't all that good. We don't eat after dinner (late seating). It's really tough on digestion to eat and then go to sleep. We also just went to walk by it. As for chocolate buffets, some of it was good, but a lot was for show also. Even the chocolate breakfast they did for a couple of years wasn't all that great. I loved (not) the "milkshake" they had on the menu lol. It was just chocolate milk, no ice cream in sight.

We learned something interesting on our cruise on Jewel last Nov from a fellow guest who is a chef in FL at a resort. The food supply company that Royal used went out of business during the pandemic because the bulk of their business was cruise ships. They had to find a new one for restart and there have been food quality and supply issues. There are different tiers of quality with food suppliers which means different costs. You'd be paying a lot more for your cruise if they went with the highest tier that top restaurants use. For example, we have a really good local restaurant group (3 locations) that the food has been consistent since day 1 (20+ years) and that's because they buy the highest quality they can. But, the prices reflect that and portion sizes have shrunk some. It's just the nature of the economy right now.

Problem is by the time strawberries get to us, they're not in great shape and don't last more than a day or two. Our strawberry season is really May/June in the Mid-Atlantic. It's when we get the best ones.

The cost of everything is going up yet people still want a cheap cruise. You get what you pay for. As for no honey dew melon, meh. I don't like it, but it and cantaloupe are cheap so it must be a supply issue. As for strawberries, this is not a good time of year for them so they're also prob harder to get and expensive. And, lol, you can keep the bleu cheese, yuck! We've cruised 7 times since restart and have 3 more this year (one in April and one b2b in Oct/Nov). With the exception of last Apr on EN when they were very understaffed with full cruises, every ship has been very clean and entertainment was good.

More than Uber or Lyft? Taxis are regulated, unlike them.

Why exactly are you asking here? Either you're going to do it or you're not.

Honestly, people need to let this topic go. Tip, don't tip, but quit bragging one way or another. Either you're cheap and try to justify or you're virtue signaling by talking about how much you tip. Who talks about how much they tip at restaurants, hair dressers, etc? No one I know.

I love the people who toss around numbers such as "we always give our steward $25/day or something similar. Really? I doubt it with all the complaining about other costs. I've seen FB posts about tipping where people brag about handing out a certain amount and then someone else comes on to say they give more than that.

On EN? How much has pretty much nothing to do with on a ship that has about 20 total GS and above and only 10 are GS. Ship always sails sold out and I have yet to meet anyone onboard (or on any of our roll calls) who has won a bid on EN to a suite. By healthy, you mean pay what it would have cost in the first place to book a higher category? If I wanted to do that I would have booked it to begin with. It is a lot more likely to win on a larger ship.

The JS we have is the same one we had last July and we picked it because it has a larger balcony than other JS. I guess due to it's location. A GS, OS or RS on EN are in locations we don't like. They're all at the front of the ship. For us, there is no added benefit of a GS or higher, except size. EN doesn't have all the bells and whistles for suites that larger ships do and we've been in the CL on EN and we prefer the DL. The rest of our booked cruises for this year and into '24 are b2b's and I am not risking our cabins for that. For all of them we have the same cabin on each leg.

We just got another RoyalUp email for our 8 April EN cruise. It's been sold out for a bit. Not sure how long because I hadn't checked, but like all cruises out of Baltimore, it's sold out now. People are questioning why bother bidding and I agree. Besides always picking the cabin and location we want, the odds of getting an upgrade are pretty small. We're in a JS and there's not many cabins above that on EN.

We're D+ and get 6 bottles and cookies. When we had canned mineral on Jewel last fall, we got 4 I think but we didn't drink those as we don't like mineral water. Jewel had just returned from Europe and were using up their stock of canned.

I made that point on one of the other previous posts on this same topic. It's done, so people need to decide how important it is to them and then either stay or move on, but I wish they would quit complaining before even experiencing it.

I also wear ankle compression socks that look just like regular ankle socks so no one notices them when I wear athletic shoes. It does just push the swelling up above my ankles a little bit but helps keep my feet from swelling and getting sore.

That is blasphemy 🙂

LOL. OP is not referring to ankles. Vacations tend to do that to some people. Unfamiliar or rich food can be the culprit as can the different schedule people tend to keep while on vacation.

Before I broke my fibula and dislocated my ankle (and knee), my feet and ankles would swell a tiny bit on cruises. But, since the injury and surgery they both swell, but my left foot and ankle does a lot more. I know I had soft tissue damage from the dislocation. The heat and humidity, not only on a cruise, but at the beach affect me more than just a summer day at home. I know it's eating restaurant type food that is the main culprit. I don't normally drink a lot of water so I have to force myself. I also try to eat a banana everyday as well as have some pineapple. I need to pick up some magnesium tablets and try that on our 12 night Caribbean cruise in April. I will say, when we cruised to NE/Canada I had zero swelling. I also have no issues in cooler weather, even at the beach and eating out a lot.

Our cruises that were booked for the timeframe Covid cancelled cruises showed up in our list for a long time, but no points lol. They're gone now.

Everyone? We always book and pay for a specialty on boarding day to avoid the crazy crowds in the WJ. We reserve 1230 and by the time we're done with lunch and a nice glass of wine, rooms are open.