Lakelife4me

We are staying at Townplace suites, about 5 minutes from terminal 1. We plan on heading over to Fish Lips Saturday to eat, have a few drinks and watch the ships leave.

I assumed he had moved on and that makes me sad. Hope his replacement on Wonder is as soulful as he sounds.

I am watching video's from a year ago and he was the star. Is he still contracted to play or is it another artist? Andy C sounded great! If he isn't still the guy, just curious who is. I have a feeling I'm going to spend a lot of time there in the evenings.

Ohhhhh boy....you said "foodie". 😇 That seems to be a trigger word for some here.🫢 I will say it again and you are correct. Food is VERY subjective. Some will like it while some will think it was below their expectations. It's like cilantro...some love it while others describe the taste as eating a bar of soap. We are all different. Not sure why a food discussion gets so intense but for some reason, it seems to. If I can't find a "good" meal on Wonder next month, that's on me.

Quick update...check in opened up on my phone at 12:04. I was able to get the 10:30 check in time and I went ahead and finished the rest of the process, except of course the health questionnaire. I believe that gets completed the day before boarding. Whole thing took less than 10 minutes for my wife and myself. VERY simple...now I know what I didn't know! 😁🥂 As a side note, my wife belongs to a facebook group for our cruise and some were saying the earliest check in time they could get was 12. They were using the app at 12:15 so those early slots go fast!

TY again Mike!

TY Mike! I though you said you were on this one as well. So great point on the rest of the party. I was going to check both my wife and me on my app rather than her trying to check in separately on her phone. Sounds like that is the way to go. Not that she would but could she have checked in separately from her phone?

OK, pardon the newbie question but my check in opens tonight at midnight and my OCD is kicking in. I watched several videos on this and it looks to be very simple and straightforward. I want to select the earliest time possible and then go to bed and finish up in the morning. Once I choose my time and hit submit, is that it? Nothing else to save at that point? I have nightmares about staying up late, grabbing the time I wanted and then waking up to see it's not saved because I missed a step. 🙃 I haven't cruised since 2018 so I might just be a little excited about this trip! 🍸

Thank you for properly translating my post!!!🤣

OK, so you just grab a few cookies from the WJ, drop them in the bag and keep them in your cabin? That is a PRO TIP and TY! When my wife and I cruised Celebrity, we did the concierge class room. Didn't really get you much of anything however they did bring a tray of different snacks each day around 5. The canapés were not our cup of tea so we just asked them to bring a small charcutier plate. One of our favorite things to do was to go the cabin at 5, have a couple of glasses of wine and nosh sitting on the balcony watching the ocean. Going to bring an extra baggie or two for cheese and meats in March. 🥂😁

And lastly...as for "foodie" being a made up thing? Every word in our language was "made up" at some point and time. 🥂 Hope you have a very happy new year and you find some good food! 😇

I'm on Wonder in March. I cruised Celebrity twice before Covid - 2017 and 2018. Top notch in every aspect. Specialty restaurants were fantastic and the MDR was very good as well. It will be interesting for me to gauge food on Wonder but quite frankly, my bar isn't set very high with the MDR to start. We did the 3 night dining package, will eat at CK one night and playmakers one night. That leaves 2 nights for MDR, maybe one depending on what we do the first night. Back to why my bar for MDR isn't set high. I work for a large corporation that has a couple of company events per year. Trying to feed 5000 to 7000 people at once is ridiculously difficult. We always referred to it as our "rubber chicken dinner" so I avoid it if I can. Even spreading it out over 3 or 4 hours, good luck. A couple of other things to note. "Foodie" is a thing. If you don't know what it is, it's someone who is used to fine dining experiences and or cooking fine food themselves. It really makes you appreciate when you have a fine dining experience. Also, while I agree that crappy food is crappy food, it is also very subjective as previously mentioned. I have friends in NYC that absolutely laugh at the pizza I like where I live. Does that make my pizza suck? It doesn't to me. To them? Yes, it sucks. Tomato, tomahhto... At any rate, I look forward to reporting all of my dining experiences post cruise in March.

First of all...MERRY CHRSTMAS TO EVERYONE! Yes, I meant to shout that. 😁 My wife and I have not cruised since 2018 and we are super excited about our upcoming trip on the Wonder. We are staying 5 minutes from the port, planning on boarding as soon as they open it up. I admit...it's the kid still in me.

Mic drop! 🤣

I'm not sure I want to interact with the ass waiter. 😁🙃😁😇🍻

OK, I took a look at #583. Those breakdowns are vague at best. I assume (never want to do that) that the "dining room" portion includes all the "free" dining areas on the ship or is it just MDR? I'm guessing I would have a better chance of getting Twitter's and Facebook's algorithms than getting granular details on the breakdown from RC!

TY! I didn't want to wade through 36 pages to see if someone had posted that so much appreciated!

OK, still a somewhat newbie to cruising. I have been on two somewhat recent cruises with Celebrity and have one booked for RC in March. Is there any real information on the breakdown of the daily gratuities as to how they are actually disbursed? Example - 10% to MDR personnel, 10% to cabin stewards, 10% to those preparing meals behind the scenes, etc? I would be extremely curios to see how that works. With about 2400 crew on WOS, that's going to be a lot of people I never see face to face but who are busting their tails to ensure I have a great cruise. Not saying every crew member should be tipped - I don't tip the dry cleaner when they hand me my shirts or tip the bagger at the grocery store as a few examples. I am not a big fan of pre tipping either but if you withdraw the automatic daily tip and only tip those you interact with, seems a whole lot of folks are going to short changed. I'm not sure there is an easy answer to this other than break it down in the original price of the cruise, which is already a bit out of control. I do get the passion everyone has on both sides of this topic. 😇

With all due respect, almost every single post you make is a slam on RCL. Why on earth do you sail with them? Personally, if I had soured on a cruise line like you seem to have done with RCL, I wouldn't give them the pleasure of handing my money over to them. But that is just me. 🤷‍♂️ And to try and answer the question on Berth locations? Sounds pretty darned complicated to me. " Berth allocation is a long-term planning issue for ports, with vital social implications. The practice refers to the planning of which cruise vessels will visit the given port on a specific day for a particular time span. Ports need to arrange the slot to be reserved for a particular vessel call two years in advance. The reason is that the cruise line needs to define its cruise itineraries and then inform travel agents who will need to sell the cruise to potential customers. For several reasons, such planning does not always happen. Given the limitations imposed by the geographical distances between ports included in an itinerary and the lengths of cruises, having several operators berthing for the same hours is not rare. The problem of berth allocation is even more critical in smaller, secondary cruise ports. In small, picturesque destinations, cruise calls might mean relatively unpleasant situations of a crowded location for certain days or hours, or even distortion of other tourist activities. In bigger ports, this might take the form of congestion at the arrival of bigger ships on which thousands of people are cruising. The arrival of two average-size cruise vessels at a given port means more than 6,000 passengers disembarking at the same time. Yet, in some cases, congestion in small and medium destinations is produced simply because of a small additional number of calls. Without effective planning, these destinations may be subject to the pressure and the negative effect of too many passengers who can barely be accommodated which does not allow for a positive experience. In several cases, the presence of cruises is marked by seasonality, reducing the problem that smaller tourist destinations face. However, while the debate on how best to apply berth allocation is at the top of the agenda between key stakeholders, this debate remains in many respects inconclusive. Technical issues related to its application (time scale, details of the berthing allocation) and also the need of all ports included in an itinerary to synchronize with the system, the diverging needs of each cruise line, the treatment of double bookings and cancellations of booked cruise berths, are all vital. With the number of players involved, this discussion is complex to resolve." Chapter 8.1 – Cruise Ports | Port Economics, Management and Policy (porteconomicsmanagement.org)

This will be my first visit to Coco Cay March 18th next year. Looks like Wonder will be the only ship there that day so hoping it's not going to be super crowded. At this point, I don't know what I don't know 🙃 BUT...the wife and I love the beach so I expect we will have a great time. We also purchased the adults area pass as well since it was so cheap. If it turns out it's more of a Vegas pool party, we will find another spot on the Island to have a good time. Yeah, we are pretty laid back.

Fair enough. I disagree but still, fair enough. Can you give me a specific dollar amount of what a living wage should be? Specifically, what $ per hour constitutes a living wage?

Needs and standards according to who? And I will be tipping 5 bucks a bag. Final answer on that.

Define "living wage"

I am admittedly very over my ski tips on the union discussion. 🙃

If I'm not mistaken, the baggage handling for Royal at Port Canaveral is contracted to Ambassador Services. If so, I don't believe they are union. Disclaimer...I could be and frequently am wrong so there is that. 😁 I don't know that there is a wrong answer on this though. I will tip 5 a bag but at the end of the day, you do you and have a great time. No judging on my part either way. 🍻