The Fun Researcher

Fair enough, no arguments there, but it's far from the scenery I personally want to look at while embarking or sailing away.

What??? How did we completely miss this on our Alaskan cruise on Quantum in July! Love noodles. Looks like it's on deck 14. I pride myself on researching the ships and never saw this. Shame on me! 🙂 ETA: Looks like they change the cuisine in this venue quite often. I'm not sure if ours was noodles, or if it was the other offerings that Splash Away Cafe offers. Either way, we missed it.

We've only done the popular US based embarkation ports: Ft. Lauderdale, FL Miami, FL Port Canaveral, FL Galveston, TX Bayonne, NJ Seattle, WA I like the sailaways best in Miami and Bayonne Ft. Lauderdale feels like a shipping container yard more than a cruise port. Galveston, Port Canaveral, Seattle are o.k. but a much bigger hassle to get to and back.

I don’t disagree. I just look at it as discussion. Nothing more. I try not to judge one way or the other regarding gratuities.

Exactly how I feel. I’m sure we are not alone. Hopefully the room steward is making it up with the auto gratuities due to more rooms per steward. With one a day service the stewards are doing more rooms per person now right? I guess I’m not sure about that. Royal has really put a lot on the shoulders of the room stewards.

Well, I personally wouldn't argue with that! I'd be o.k. grabbing regular 'ol coffee in the cafe promenade if I could use the coffee voucher for an alcoholic drink. 😉

Just doing the math for our family of 5 the base gratuities will now be $630 per cruise. (7 night cruise), up from the current $560. That's can easily be a persons base cruise fare in a number of cases. The $2 per person per day is "only" another $70, however when taken as a whole, $630 in tips is a big number. Like others, we always prepay. We typically tip the waiter and assistant around $50 each on top of that and the room steward another $50-$100. So currently that's around $740 per cruise in tips total and going up to $810. (I'm ignoring the additional ~$1 cash per drink as well) It's been a while since I've calculated the real impact of gratuities, but it's really feeling excessive. The problem is calling them gratuities when in reality it's really just a part of their total compensation package depending on their position on the ship. Is the staff really going so far and above that they need that much additional as a thank you? This is really all the cruise lines fault by not wanting the base fares to appear to increase. For the bazzillionth time I wish they were in the base cruise fare.

Yeah, the whole "voucher' term throws me off. Makes me think of something in hand, like a ticket. (kind of like the old 10 drink card for $80-$90 that they are starting to roll out again). I'm now used to the 4 drinks per day on our card. It's interesting that they can load another credit, specific to coffee drinks, onto our Seapass cards. I'll be interested to see if we ever run into this in the future or not. It certainly wasn't needed on our latest two cruises. (Anthem and Quantum) Diamond lounge was almost always empty which made it nice to grab and go with the coffee.

I have a family of 5. Do the math wiseguy

I really miss this as well. There was another scallop appetizer that had a couple scallops (that were a little larger) on a small plate. That was good too. I REALLY miss the lamb chops the most.

You got it. On the 19th. Can't wait! Our family are fans of the Escargot, and my my inlaws will be with us as well. They love the French Onion soup on Royal, but this is their first sailing on X. I'm sure they'll still order the soup each evening.

Instead of dedicated classics, they were spattering the classics into the main menu. Doing it that way replaced many of the other items that would have been there with the old menus. Providing a dedicated classics section opens things up for more apps, entrees and desserts to add variety to each menu. ...at least that's my understanding.

OP, was just thinking about that yesterday. We always prepay gratuities and add cash on top of that unless we have bad service (which is yet to happen). With the increased gratuities and the downgrade to once a day room service I’m sad to say I may not tip additional cash to the room steward like we used to.

Thank you for this OP. We'll be on the X Equinox the week before Christmas next month and will welcome a broader menu with good default options.

Your bitterness regarding the suite lounge is duly noted 🤣 but there is no need to take it out on Diamonds.

I think it was close. I seem to remember $80 plus gratuity. Either way it's nice to see these coming back. Always nice to save a few dollars if you were going to purchase 10+ drinks at or above the $14 level anyway.

The early bird gets the worm in this case. Will be another benefit of booking early... first dibs of desired specialty dining times.

Good point. When we used the coffee machine in the crown lounge we probably had 2-3 each, daily.

Thank you. Do they give you physical coupons to use, or rather vouchers loaded onto your Seapass card in some way? Sounds like some ships are maybe doing it one way and others differently?

Thank you for this. So the daily coffee added to your card, are there restrictions on what type of coffee? Is it a dollar amount, or certain types of coffees allowed?

Especially with family sized groups of 5+

Agreed! We were Diamond for the first time in July and loved the coffee machine. (on Quantum) We had no other reason that we wanted to be in that lounge. At least don't close the coffee part off. Otherwise let us order specialty coffee around the ship.

Kind of depends on what you’re looking for. If you want the quiet, slower paced, served meal then the MDR for lunch is great. If you want broad variety, quickly, the buffet is great for that.

Our June Liberty increased $300. I do like to keep an eye on price and I'd guess 75% of the time we've repriced one or more time for each cruise.

I'm happy it works for you, I really am. However for us it's been a noticeable and significant negative change. We've sailed 22 days with the new system and the very early, early traditionally dinner time is just too early... and like I mentioned with the Quantum all the lunch venues didn't open until 12pm so by the time you got done with lunch within a few hours you are getting ready to go to dinner. 1) It severely cramps afternoon activities 2) We weren't hungry for dinner yet. 3) It cramps port days too, having to make it back to the ship for early dinner. We used to do MTD and prebook the same time each night like 6pm or so. Worked great, no wait. If we liked the table and servers the first night, we just requested them for the rest of the cruise. Always had the same table. Now you get the luck of the draw, and get to stand in a HUGE line. We are typically a table of 7-10 so having a reservation or fixed table is pretty important unless we want to WAIT. We have never eaten snacks in the afternoon, just lunch and dinner. We prefer the late shows since we are still plenty able to stay up until midnight or beyond. The late show doesn't cramp our style. I get why folks would like the early show though. It frees up the rest of the evening which is nice too.