Jcol5786

Here is an example from a test booking for early 2019. Standard Ocean View Balcony category 8D, cabin # 8522 - room size 198 sq. ft. balcony size 55 sq. ft. price = $1122 cad .

Ocean View with Large Balcony category 4C, cabin # 8290 - room size 177 sq. ft. balcony size 65 sq. ft. price = $1152 cad.

My point is that if the room dimensions on the RC site are accurate opting for the slightly larger balcony will result in you losing 22 sq. ft. of cabin space which in the end may be not be worth gaining a slightly large balcony. Especially considering that during the winter departures the balconies are really not something you are going to use for the first couple of days out and the last day or two coming back. In the end I'm sure I would be happy in either room however this is all part of the planning process that helps pass the time till the next cruise. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks.

We are planning to book on Anthem next year and after looking at the ocean view balcony descriptions on the RC website. The standard balcony is (8D) is described as being 198 sq ft with a 55 sq ft balcony. For a small additional amount there is a ocean view large balcony (4C). These rooms are there the ship widens and it appears that the balconies are deeper and the railing is on an angle. The interesting part is that the cabin size is listed as 177 sq ft and the balcony size is 65 sq ft. So if you go with the larger balcony according to the RC description you gain 10 sq ft on the balcony but lose 20 sq ft in the room. If these dimensions are accurate I'm not sure I want to give up space in the cabin to get a marginally larger balcony but would be interested in hearing any comments. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies. This is very helpful.

Looking for a hotel/motel in the PC area that supplies parking and a shuttle to the cruise terminal. I have noticed that when using a hotel search engine such as Expedia this option is not usually listed and for those that do mention having a cruise port shuttle parking for the cruise is not mentioned. I also wonder if for a hotel that does offer this service if the prices shown on Expedia are for a standard room and do not include this extra service? Is simply calling the hotel the best option? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Thanks for all of the replies. Good to hear that the race traffic will not impact our drive from Melbourne to PC. I was a little concerned because several years ago we got caught in traffic from the race while travelling south on 95. We arrived at the Daytona Beach area on the Saturday afternoon prior to the race on our way to Orlando. Traffic was a mess, especially at the intersection of I95 and I4. Took us about 5 hours to get to Orlando from just north of Daytona.

We are sailing on Oasis leaving on Feb. 18'th. We will be driving down from Ontario and will arrive in the area on or about Feb 16'th. We are staying in Melborne to give us a beach day prior to the cruise. We will be about 20 miles from the cruise terminal and would be travelling north on I95 on embarkation day. I just realized that this is the same day as the Daytona 500. I expect that traffic on I95 will be heavier than usual on Sunday morning due to people travelling to the race however as we will be some distance from Daytona Beach I am hoping it will not be an issue getting from Melbourne to PC on Sunday morning. Any comments as to what traffic might be like that morning would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies. Will probably go with Park N Cruise.

We are on Oasis this February and will be driving to the cruise terminal. We have cruised out of Fort Lauderdale for the last two years and used Park'n Go which we were very pleased with. It doesn't appear that there is a Park'n Go in Port Canaveral however I assume there is a similar parking facility near the Port. Could I get some recommendations for parking at PC? Would also consider parking at the terminal however I suspect it would be more expensive than the typical offsite rate of around $7.99 per day. Thanks

Going to be on Oasis in February and will be stopping in Cozumel. We are thinking we would like to do a snorkeling excursion. We have it narrowed down to the Star Fish Sanctuary & Palancar Reef Snorkel or the Fury Catamaran Snorkel and Beach break. Both are 1/2 day excursions, both offer a boat ride, reef snorkeling and are similarly priced. The differences is that the Star tour seems to offer snorkeling and the opportunity to swim in a second area which is a swallow sand bar with the opportunity to observe numerous star fish. The Fury tour offers reef snorkeling along with private beach stop with various beach activities. It also appears that the Fury tour offers complementary beverages during the beach stop. Hard to decide. If anyone has done either of these excursions or perhaps both any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Going to be on Oasis in February and will be stopping in Cozumel. We are thinking we would like to do a snorkeling excursion. We have it narrowed down to the Star Fish Sanctuary & Palancar Reef Snorkel or the Fury Catamaran Snorkel and Beach break. Both are 1/2 day excursions, both offer a boat ride, reef snorkeling and are similarly priced. The differences is that the Star tour seems to offer snorkeling and the opportunity to swim in a second area which is a swallow sand bar with the opportunity to observe numerous star fish. The Fury tour offers reef snorkeling along with private beach stop with various beach activities. It also appears that the Fury tour offers complementary beverages during the beach stop. Hard to decide. If anyone has done either of these excursions or perhaps both any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for the replies. We did notice that there seems to be less of a range in price between interior and balcony on Anthem then with other ships. In addition this cruise is already much less then what we are paying for a balcony for our two Oasis class cruises so we will probably go ahead and get a balcony room.

Thinking about a Feb 2019 cruise on Anthem. Up to now we have cruised out of Florida and have always had and enjoyed a balcony room. We are much closer to NY then Florida so sailing on Anthem definitely is a good option for us. I am wondering however if it makes sense to get a balcony room for this sailing since there will be 3 or 4 days during the cruise when it probably will not be warm enough to enjoy the balcony? The front facing OV rooms look nice and I'd even consider a VB interior as I think the multi-view option might be interesting. Just wondering if other balcony cruisers change their room preference during these winter cruises leaving from NY or do you just stick with the balcony and enjoy it when you can?

Thanks for the info

My wife and I both travel with cpaps. On our first two cruises we arranged to have an extension cord brought to our standard balcony rooms. Last February we had a boardwalk balcony room on Allure. When we asked out room steward for an extension cord he told us that there was an addition AC outlet under the bed. I had never seen any mention of an under the bed outlet before but there was and he then proceeded to plug in our cpaps and arrange the cords. This was very nice since it meant we could leave the cpaps plugged in all the time and didn't have an extension cord running across the room. We have a standard balcony booked on Oasis for next February and I'm wondering if there will be an under the bed outlet in that cabin as well. I realize the it's a different room category and a slightly older ship but it would be nice. If anyone could confirm we would appreciate it. Thanks.

Thanks for the update. It's still strange. When we first looked at out cruise planner MTD was not available for booking then last week it started showing up as available however only two slots were open. It's like they only did a partial upload of slots. Guess we will need to keep checking and as we get closer to the 90 day mark see if the remainder open up.

Hello,

We did My Time Dining on Allure last Feburary. Our time was 6:45 and it worked out well. We booked the same cruise on Oasis for February 18, 2018. My wife was checking out our cruise planner and noticed the dining bookings were already open for this cruise however the only available dining times are 6 and 7:30? It's hard to believe that all the other times are filled up for a cruise that is 9 months away. I'm thinking it's a glitch which will get fixed as we get nearer the cruise date. She did reserve a 6 pm time assuming we can change it if the site opens up more times. I guess we could also call in as we get closer. Just wondering if anyone has noticed this and if the other times showed up closer to cruise date? Thanks.

Thanks for the help. Found the countdown clock and have updated.

Hello,

Sorry for the basic question but I can't seem to find how to edit my signature to add the next cruise count down widget. I did it for our Allure cruise which was last month and I wanted to add a new one for our upcoming cruise on Oasis next year. I don't recall how I did it last year and I have searched through the signature edit options and I can't find any info on that widget. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks

We had the beverage package so the soda package wasn't needed however there were 4 Royal Caribbean plastic beverage cups in our room when we arrived. One set came with our beverage package and the second was for the soda package which came as part of the room perk. As for Johnny Rockets our meal was covered at no charge however we were told that milk shakes would be an additional charge. We did not try the rock climbing wall. It was more fun to watch from our balcony.

Hello,

I'll scan and post a couple of the Cruise Compass's this weekend. I assume I can scan and attach to this thread.

We had a wonderful cruise with great weather and calm seas. Allure is an amazing ship. This was our 3rd cruise and have enjoyed everyone so far. Our cabin was a boardwalk balcony on deck 11 second from the end. The room was very nice but the walk down the hall was very long - got lots of steps. The view from the balcony was very good. I was initially concerned that I would miss the views we had on our previous cruises as we have always had ocean view balcony however we really enjoyed our views of the Aqua Theater and we still had great views of the ocean behind us. We did MyTime dining on deck 3 each night at 6:45. We got the same table and servers each night. Really enjoyed that time as it was late enough for a before dinner drink in the Schooner and we were usually out early enough to catch any shows starting at 8. We have all of the Cruise Compass so feel free to ask any questions. BTW I'm told our cruise was a little different in that the route was the reverse order in that our first port was Cozumel followed by Jamaica and Labadee.

Hi Canadian Cruiser Mom

We are going to be on the same cruise. The route for this cruise is shown as being in the reverse order from the normal route. Most of the time this cruise goes to Labadee first then Falmouth and finally Cozomel however ours does the reverse. I assume they do this to spread out the number of ships at the various ports. The route shown is Day 2 Cruising, Day 3 Cozumel, Day 4 cruising, Day 5 Falmouth, Day 6 Labadee, Day 7 Cruising. It appears that with the normal route the formal nights are on the sea days which is 2 and 6. Assuming they follow the same pattern and have the formal nights on the sea days it will mean that the formal nights will be on days 2 and 4 for us so |I don't think you need to worry about a formal night on day 6 which for us is Labadee. Not sure about the other activities you asked about. Either way we are really looking forward to this cruise. Have a good cruise.

We used Park N Go on for our cruise last February and will be using them again. Great operation - they park your car and help with the luggage. Pickup was fast and they dropped us off right at our car. They even supplied bottled water at the check out. The entire process was probably much faster then had I parked at the terminal and I believe the price is somewhat lower. Have a great cruise.

We did a 5 day cruise on Indy last February. Had an ocean view balcony room on deck 7 or 8 on the hump. Room was very nice and close to the elevators which was very convenient. We got on Indy early we walked directly into the promenade which was so beautiful I asked my wife if we can afford it!! This was only our second cruise and our first on a large ship and we certainly experienced the WOW factor with that first walk through. After we settled in we explored the pool deck, solarium and the cantilevered hot tubs. These areas were all very inviting. We spent out first afternoon relaxing on the pool deck. We did MyTime dining and it worked out very well for us. I recall that we showed up each night around 6:30 and we were always seated upon arrival. We always had the same table, waiter and wine guy. We also usually had the same neighbors whom we got to know. Over all the MDR was great. On lobster tail night I ordered an app and a tail. When my LT came our server brought me order of prime rib as well which I had not even asked for! He said that the lobster is not enough of a meal and he remembered that I had ordered the prime rib before. It's like he knew what I was thinking as I had considered ordering two meals at the start but was hesitant to do so. There were lots of examples of RC staff doing the extra little things that made the cruise so enjoyable for us. Without going on much more I noticed someone else mentioned Lorenzo from the Schooner bar. He quickly became our favorite bar server. He is funny as heck and is one of the best bar servers I have ever had. We ended up making a before dinner drink stop at the Schooner a regular event. Lots more I could add but I'll stop now or else this will become a lengthy post. Let me know if you have any questions. Have a good cruise - Indy is a great ship with excellent service.

Have to ask. What is a Silent Disco?