robmtx

I thought I was the only one! I am in the same boat as the rest of you with these guys! ugh

Guilty as charged... If the crime is being on Odyssey in Feb lol. Not guilty for actual crime I claimed to have committed to seem cool.

Do you still get the 1:1 redemption offer for "cash"? 20,000 pts for me now is a lot less than $200 on most things, unless I get a Darden gift card. And we both for the offer today here which is nice because I just had the offer back in Dec too

56% actually 🙂 And if you look around the main theater 15 min before showtime, you see about 56% of the people with a phone in their face...and the other 44% are trying to flag down a waiter for a drink. Purely not a Scientific figure! 40%, 50%, 56%, non-revenue connections, extra connections. no matter... Money is on the move!

I give them someone else's stateroom number, and let it be their problem to go to Guest Services!

I'm not sure what you mean? A package isn't a connection. There are 2, 3, 4 device connections. Anyhoo, there are 92,508 berths in Royal's fleet. There are 112,993 when accounting for 3rd/4th berths. My estimate therefore equals 56%. I believe my assumption is within the margin of error. People love their interwebz! But I also know lots who prefer not to have it, which keeps the % from going even higher! When dealing with macro numbers, I can't get more granular -- ships aren't always full, some people (like myself) will purchase two device connections (for themself). Some may buy connections for their 3rd/4th passengers in their cabin. Some cabins are solo cruises, messing up my numbers. Oh and don't get me started on Sky/Star class - they are non-revenue for their first internet connection anyway!

Hmm I think this might have to do with the App not showing El Loco Fresh as a restaurant on several sailings, starting late May and up thru August (all that are available to look at) I just looked at the Aug 13th sailing in the App, and no Loco Fresh. It appears on May 14 but not May 21. In fact, this goes beyond El Loco Fresh: May 14th cruise has 15 "Dining Venues" listed. May 21st cruise has 10.. So this is more likely an App issue at this point. They aren't closing 5 venues ALL summer.

Where did you see this information? Helps to fact check if we have sources. Oh and yea, the place can be a bit of a bottleneck during rush hour, so in all seriousness, they may be trying to optimize the entrance area or something. Who knows..

Probably my fault. I'm taking 4 very hungry high school grads on the June 9th sailing. They already said they plan to "destroy some tacos" while onboard.. Royal is probably going to need to renovate El Loco Fresh after those boys are done with it 🙂

If your ship is first to arrive, and you get off early and go find your spot for the day, it's doubtful you'd notice that two ships are there. If your ship is SECOND to arrive, you're already far down on the list to get your preferred spot...especially if that first ship is Oasis when school's out, pumping about 6,200 pax! Now, even if you're the second ship to arrive, there are still plenty of spots available but like many have alluded, things like the front row on the beach may be occupied. We started considering the scheduled arrival times. If we're going to be second ship in, we'll rent a beach bed or something. Go...Enjoy! It's fine.

In the meantime, I can only suggest the following... Pay you gratuities up front as you get them at a cheaper rate and if a employee excels and you want to reward just him, then slip him an envelope at the end of the cruise with some cash in it). Maybe your wife pre-paid the gratuities before they were increased. In this case, your statement would be true. If you prepay, and the rate goes up, you're locked in on the lower rate.

I'm sure all the participating cruise lines have negotiated contracts with Starlink for services rendered. This brochure is mainly for consumer use, so if you want Starlink on your yacht, this is for you. Caps/Throttles would have less to do with managing total consumption, and be more about current bandwidth. But like anything, buy in bulk + save. One 'dish' may be $5k/month, but how many of these are on a ship? I've seen several of them on ships. So the cost is definitely more than $5k a month, but probably negotiated down on a per/receiver basis Great information sheet. thank you for sharing! If I were Starlink, though, I'd probably be charging one ship $300,000 per month, or about $10,000 per day. Let's say a ship has 2,000 'devices' at $15 per device per day, that's $30,000 in revenue, so I think Royal can afford this $10,000 per day bill.. Which makes me think Starlink charges even more lol

Thought this might be our next question?

the bot was a little reluctant to discuss it.

Odyssey Feb 2023 Oasis Sep 2022

Sounds like your DD wanted to throw you to the wolves here 😉

As others said, the only possible concern is for day-nappers. the thump thump thump from the music on the pool desk tends to echo down into the park area during the day. But at night, it's very peaceful!

Yeah a bit crowded for a TA! I always enjoy reading about TA's from CC regulars who talk about the crossings being like ghost towns.

That's a lot of people on a TA! I want to do a TA someday, but always have the idea of them being 25-50% empty but sounds like you guys are well into your 3rd/4th berths!

Unfortunately this is parenting in 2023. It's not to say all parents are raising their children this way, but I feel like it's flipped to that of the majority of parents are more hands-off than ever before. This has resulted in a lack of discipline and social etiquette amongst teens. It's not just on cruise ships, but at the malls, parks, movie theaters, restaurants.. There's no real consequences for their actions, and they learn behavioral conditioning from Tik Tok and YouTube. At a rec league hoops game for our 14 year old last weekend a parent in front of us gives their 5 year old child the Ipad to watch some cartoon at loud volume, because the mom doesn't want to parent their child? I watched the child get rewarded for misbehaving. This child is in training for an Odyssey cruise 10 years from now! The excuse is always the same, "Well, would you rather have my child kicking and screaming because they don't want to be there?" -- sigh, no accountability

I don't know how many times I've had to do an example like this.

You pay grats on the bev package portion. I just did a mock order from my cruise planner, so you should be able to do so as well, and it will show you the amt of grats before you complete order. Then delete it from cart. The total gratuities for my mock order was about 15% of the price.

Mexican Riviera and Riviera Maya are two different geographic regions in Mexico. When someone mentions tours to ruins from a riviera cruise, I assume they mean the Riviera Maya side of things, but then again, I can't figure people out any more. Anyway, these destinations have their problems. If you're easily triggered by warnings issued about travel, you may not want to travel. Otherwise GO, enjoy!

How did you hang that hammock? Why could you only use it through Panama? I'm assuming Panama, meaning the canal...You had a 15 day itinerary through the canal? What is hooked on the railing of your balcony?

Yeah this happened to me... Came back from trivia while wife napping with balcony door open, and SLAMMMM, she's awake!