trivimp

At the very least, order the lobster upgrade one night at dinner.

In my experience, 5:30 is a pretty easy reservation to get at any of the dining venues. 7:00-ish tends to book up fast, and those are the hard slots to get if you wait too long. (We also like to eat early to free up the evening for shows & stuff.)

It's very doable, I've travelled with a sister + adult daughter in a club balcony. Everyone had a healthy dose of cooperation & understanding, which made it nice. Not sure I'd want to try it with someone who had diva tendencies, if you follow my drift.

We experienced this on the Encore last May. the Guy argued a bit with the hostess & they finally allowed it, but I just hate that. So last month on the Encore, we said something like "he's using the dining credit, I am just ordering a la carte" & they seated us without any fuss. Then I "forgot" to order anything.

Dover sole at Le Bistro, if you're not committed to the beef (I don't eat much red meat)

Treated as separate in terms of reservation numbers, & so forth. If you have any non-refundable OBC (for stockholders shares or whatever) you must use it during the cruise for which it was assigned, or it will be lost. However, they will carry your final folio balance forward to the second cruise, and will hit your credit card only once at the end of the second cruise.

Once you're on board, go to Guest Services with your whole party & get duplicate keys made for everyone that you want to switch. The crew doesn't care who sleeps in what cabin, you can move everyone around as you wish.

I've seen people bring one of those plunger-type coffee presses to use with their own coffee, and get hot water from the buffet to brew it. Might be a reasonable alternative. But you can't bring anything with a heating element. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YVL8SF3/ref=emc_b_5_i

We did that cruise last year, we are in the same-ish demographic as you are & we found it to be very sedate. Don't worry about the noise.

I'm recently off the Encore, not the Getaway, but we saw lots of ducks... at least a dozen over the course of two weeks. I despise the ducks, so, I wasn't thrilled with all that trash in public spaces. But some folks certainly seemed to be enthusiastic about them.

We've done it many times -- it's almost a home port because I have family in Los Angeles. Bonus, lots of good whale watching during the migration season if you're into that. The ports are pleasant & walkable if you don't want to fuss with excursions. In late spring/early summer, you can hit foggy & cool weather on sea days between Los Angeles & Mexico, the locals call this "June gloom" (which is sometimes "May grey".) But it's light-sweater cool, not heavy-jacket cool.

At lunch, we love the Monte Cristo sandwich, but they don't serve it every day... probably a good thing, because it's so rich; I'd hurt myself eating it every day.

We often get the smoked mozzarella ravioli app, yum. I also like the flounder a lot, guess I've been lucky on the hit-or-miss part.

Bird has it right, as usual. Each of the servers seems to have a different relationship with his/her tablet. Some of them get quite, uh, creative with how they input orders. Everybody knew it was going to be zeroed out at the end, so, no harm no foul.

We modify our food orders all the time, sauce on the side, omit that thing, and so forth. The Guy is a bit nitpicky... Yes, they prep hundreds of servings per meal, but plate them one at a time just before service, like any restaurant. So order it the way you like it 🙂 Our fave thing to order: eggs Benedict at breakfast, but substitute a slice of smoked salmon for the Canadian bacon. In our household, "salmon Benedict" has become shorthand for "decadent cruise cuisine" or, more generally, "I want to go on a cruise soon, when is the next one booked, honey"

Interesting; I have always avoided those kind of shows because I think they are ridiculously heteronormative. Do they play the same-sex couple for giggles, or is it relatively the same content as the straight couples? (I mean, everything about those type of shows is for giggles anyway, based on the shocking idea that sometimes couples in a committed relationship like to have sex. It's a dumb & dated schtick, but, there you go)

If you're sailing solo, you might want to check out the solo meetup as well. They are not het meat markets, but just a chill place to possibly find some hangout pals. On many ships, the solo & the lgbtq meetups follow one right after the other, so you can double your chances of meeting some cool folks.

One of your devices probably has something in cache that the other one doesn't. Try clearing your cache on both of them.

Yes, they have started confiscating fans. My bag was sent to the naughty room on my last cruise, they explained it was because of the fan. It's a new rule that may be sporadically enforced, but don't count on getting your fan thru

This is a good strategy for the roving servers on the pool deck, too.

If you need to warm up a gel pack type of compress, it works well to put in in a ziplock & immerse it in a sinkful of hot water. I do that for my sinus pack thingy sometimes

Last time, we went down to Calle Ocho & picked a random restaurant in Little Havana. Ate dinner & then strolled. Took a few pictures of the street murals & whatnot. We were approximately as jetlagged as @Sydneyberlin so didn't have the energy for much more, but it helped get us on local time.

what are "the two"?? I thought there was only one type of credit card. I've been pretty happy with it so far. Charge the cruise, pay it off, get the points, use points for some credit against the next cruise, repeat until infinity

It's luck of the draw depending on who is on your cruise. Sometimes it's a fun group; sometimes it's pretty blah. same with the singles/solos groups, TBH. In both cases, though, the general vibe is more "hey let's meet some fun people to possibly hang out with" rather than "shopping the meat market" -- no need to be scared.

I guess we've been squirrels for years. We always seem to have a few ziploc bags of cookies from the afternoon buffet for late night snacking, for long excursions, for the plane ride home... The white chocolate macadamia ones are the best 🙂