twangster

I'm just going to say I'm highly offended (not really) that as a Pinnacle I only get 6 drinks per day versus D+ that get 5 drinks per day. D+ is 175 pts and P is 700 pts. So basically D+ is 0.25P or P is 4D+. If it takes 4 times the points to go from 175 for D+, to 700 for P, then clearly P should get 4 times the D+ drinks. Instead of the 20 drinks that P have earned, we get one lousy stinkin' drink compared to D+. Way to recognize those "most loyal top cruisers" as they like to say at top tier. D are getting the most bang for the point registering 0.05 drinks per point, while D+ are nearly half that at 0.0285 drinks per point. Meanwhile P are getting screwed at 0.00857 drinks per point! Based on the D 0.05 drinks per point, D+ should get 8 drinks per day and P should get 35 drinks per day! Oh the injustice! On a serious note, I'm afraid to tell my doctor I consume 6 drinks per day or 42 drinks per week on a 7 night cruise. My doctor would go overboard if only he knew. So I'm not overly concerned about this tragedy of inequity within the CAS. As an old guy my consumption has gone down and it's not uncommon to get drink fatigue in mere days now so this "rip off" isn't nearly as dramatic as my words make it out to sound. But come on man! Throw the more loyal cruisers a specialty coffee or an extra drink or two so I can get some extra bottles of waters to make up for the fewer bottles of water that get delivered to my cabin upon boarding now. 🙃 Or maybe take some of those 29 drinks they are "stealing" from Pinnacle combined with the 3 drinks they are "stealing" from D+ and give Emerald one drink per day. That'll give them a taste of the D life. Seems like that would be a pretty big carrot to dangle in front of the donkey to keep them motivated and a reason to climb the ladder faster and it would give Plats something to drive for that is attainable for less frequent cruisers. Plus it would make the tween Emerald tier something other than just awkward.

It's not uncommon for a common carrier, i.e. an airline or cruise line, to set policy that exceeds government immigration regulations or laws. It's challenging for an airline for example, to train tens of thousands low paid front line counter employees on all the nuances of passport and/or visa requirements for all of the possible scenarios. The person checking you in is not an immigration expert. It's a lot easier to create policy that covers the airline for nearly all scenarios even if that policy goes further than required by law or government regulations for a particular travelers actual requirements. Knowing the law and exactly what applies to your individual actual requirements may not be enough if you happen upon a check in person who is new or recently got their tail kicked when they allowed someone to sail who should not have. Some of the terminal workers, who are all contractors employed by a 3rd party, not RCI, will be sticklers for policy and some may let some stuff slide. It all depends. If policy is a 6 month rule, then the terminal contractor is justified to apply that rule even if it exceeds US immigration regulations for your circumstances. A previous cruiser may have slid through and been fine. That doesn't mean the next one will. At the end of the day we are all responsible to have proper documentation to board the ship. I hope you sail without issue, just be prepared for encountering a check in person who tries to enforce policy.

On Wonder it is climate controlled with A/C. However when in port there is often a desire to limit the amount of energy being consumed on the ship and the large solarium space is an obvious target to limit A/C. While some folks may stay on the ship, most cruisers leave the ship while in port so by reducing the A/C in the solarium they can reduce electrical demand and therefore they can operate in port with lower engine emissions knowing that most cruisers won't be using the solarium. In general terms while at sea they can also save money by turning up the solarium thermostat so the broader implication may be to operate the solarium at warmer temps to save fuel and money. They may not be completely turning off the HVAC entirely, it may still be operating just at a higher set point. So opening windows isn't necessarily a viable alternative. All part of the cutbacks I imagine, to lower operating costs.

Tampa Bay can be deceiving because it looks like a large bay that one might think ships could sail anywhere when in reality there are very narrow channels through the bay. In many places the channel is wide enough for one ship going in one direction with only a couple of spots where ships can pass if going the opposite direction. From C-MAP: Cruise ships start near the upper right heading to the bridge near the lower left. Once you zoom in you can see the narrow channels through the bay. There are cargo, tanker and container ships that use several smaller terminals. This can impact a cruise ship departure if an incoming ship has already begun it's transit, depending on the area it is heading to. It's not a straight shot either. There are a number of course adjustments during the transit. As a result ships move at slow speeds. Enough to be maneuverable but not so fast as to run the risk of leaving the channel when adjusting heading. In the winter months it's common to leave in bright sunshine and reach the bridge in darkness which has its own appeal due to the bridge lighting system. It can be cool at times of the year, as in chilly. Often a Captain will estimate the bridge time during their pre-departure announcement. Either a very early time or a later dining time are safe bets but there is no guarantee either will end before the bridge is reached.

Plenty of shootings in US home ports. Disappointing to see some of the mainland violence occur on Cozumel without a doubt, but they appear to be targeted.

By working some days and taking some days off I can make my limited PTO go a lot further. Sea days are great for working remotely. Port days are typically PTO days or if I'm back on the ship in the afternoon I can work for a bit. Otherwise I would only be able to cruise twice a year. This way I can cruise a lot more than that. If that isn't your cup of tea that's fine. It works for me and I am fortunate it worked for the company too.

It all depends. I have remotely worked quite successfully for many years on Royal ships long before Starlink. I cruised all my way to Pinnacle often working many of those 700 nights. However... my work activity allowed me to time shift. Over the course of a week if I performed and met expectations for that week I was fine. I have worked remotely for decades so I was disciplined and actually worked, just not a straight 9-5. Some of my work was accomplished outside of 9-5 hours. The company was fine with that so long as work was completed as required. All of my performance reviews were great. I got the job done and everyone was happy. If your job needs you to be on daily meetings using Team or Webex or Zoom at very specific times then Murphy's law means that is exactly when Voom will not work. I used to schedule important calls to coincide with ports of call where I could use cellular as backup in case Voom was down or degraded. That happened enough so I always planned important meetings accordingly. If that is beyond your control then it might not work for you. I should also mention I cruise mostly solo. If something came up at work I could adapt without ruining family plans. Having an entire family waiting to see a port of call, waiting for someone doing a Zoom call for work, would suck for everyone involved. YMMV.

Ships of this vintage provide a classic cruise experience. There has been updates over the years but that does not include a top down refresh of everything. Cruising older ships is about setting expectations accordingly. If you were shopping for a used car and bought a car from 1998 would you expect it to have Android Auto and Carplay? That tech didn't exist back then. That's not a perfect analogy but if you are expecting everything you have seen on a TV commercial for the newest ship in the fleet you may be disappointed when Rhapsody has none of that. These are the smallest and oldest ships in the fleet. If you are expecting zip lines and ice skating shows and central park you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a classic cruise experience then you can have a great cruise on Rhapsody with the right expectations.

To be fair to the IT team at Royal this is just as likely to be a marketing team issue forgetting to tag all the plans during a sales promotion. The best IT in the world can't fix another department providing bad input.

Looks to be about 300 miles off the coast of Nigeria. However there is also the concept of personal accountability. If it is as dangerous as you suggest, in choosing to self explore in such a place, one would think they would take that into account in making choices for such a port of call. The Captain has to consider all factors and every passenger on board their vessel. The next port of call may have tidal restrictions. There could be incoming weather or other factors. If the area is not safe as you suggest, delaying at anchor also has security implication for thousands on board. Delaying and subsequently altering an itinerary due to some errant guests could have implications beyond ruining the vacation plans of thousands. On the surface I don't see how these guests had their lives put at risk. If that was the case I am confident they would have played that card when hyping this to the media. It was their choice. After all they are experienced cruisers.

As far as tendering operations it's not as simple as "I can see the ship" therefore the ship must ready to perform tending operations. Tendering and moving guests between the ship and a tender is inherently risky. That risk can be reduced when a ship is using its own dual purpose lifeboat/tenders and/or an approved 3rd party tendering company such as the tender boats used in places like Grand Cayman or Cabo. During normal tendering operations the crew of the tender and the crew of the ship are highly trained in tendering operations. They've done this countless times and they have procedures in place that reduce the risk to the level that tendering can be safely performed. Tendering operations with any other private boat or in this case the local coast guard boat could simply be a violation of company policies. Attempting to transfer guests with unknown and unproven private boats is very risky. It may require rope ladders or other apparatus to account for differences in vessel height. The local coast guard vessels are probably not designed to be dual purpose coast guard / tender boats. Attempting to transfer guests between any vessel other than approved and known tender boats has tremendous risk associated with it. The local coast guard personnel may be excellent mariners but that doesn't mean they have a lot of experience attempting to transfer guests between their craft and a passenger vessel. In this case it sounds like the ship was ready to sail. It's own tenders had most likely been brought back on board and stowed. Tendering apparatus had probably been stowed and the deck crew associated with tendering operations had returned to their normal duties. It's not so simple as just open a door and allow the errant guests to walk on board. "I can see the ship" doesn't mean the ship is ready for safe tendering operations.

It is always interesting to me when a story starts out with people explaining how they are "experienced cruisers" then we find out they do something everyone who is an experienced cruiser knows you should not do.

I always check in for the other cruises just in case a crane falls on the ship, family emergency occurs or something else impacts one cruise. I never trust the ship or Royal to figure out my account or anything else for cruise #2+. It takes less than 60 seconds to check in for each cruise. This way there is less chance that something will go wrong. I once had my account for cruise #2 converted into a cash account with no spending authority. By the time I figured that out on day one of cruise#2 the line at guest services was long with newbies doing newbie things at guest services. There was no credit card on file they said. Just don't pick early time slots for the other cruises.

Thoughts and prayers for the family and friends impacted. Tragic.

Symphony no longer publishes the smoking areas in the cruise compass only noting "designated areas on outer decks" but if you look at a cruise compass from last year it says deck 15 port side and in the casino while actively playing.

Windy.com has projections. Predicting weather at sea is highly inaccurate, more so than on land.

There are some who live on nearby islands, not Nassau. Coco Cay is at the top of the Berry Islands. There is a ferry that runs them over.

On these old ships they usually provide the original manufacturer's remote.

The remove your CAS number and re-apply it trick from the linked post fixes a few ailments. It's like rebooting a PC when it's acting up. Always a good thing to try when something isn't working right. I once had a cruise appear in the past cruise section with the correct number of points but my total never went up. Remove and reapply CAS number. Fixed.

A lesson many of us have learned... once.

Also for future reference, when you visit NextCruise or use the app to purchase a Book Later $200 future cruise by default that new booking goes to the travel agency on record for your current cruise. If you don't want that to occur you must go to NextCruise and tell them not to assign it to any travel agency. Many (but not all) NextCruise agents will identify the agency on record while sitting with you going through the process. When you use the app that doesn't happen and it defaults to the agency on record for the current cruise.

A Book Later or Future Cruise Certificate from Next Cruise is an actual booking with its own booking number. The ship is "Nextcruise" in a year like 2039. It's a placeholder but real in all manners. The system is coded to allow Royal or a TA to move the ship and sail date one-time to the ship and sail date you pick. When they do so it retains the same booking number. As such it can't be combined or merged into another booking. That would be like asking a for 2024 cruise on Symphony to be merged into a 2025 cruise on Icon. The system just doesn't allow merging two bookings into one.

Royal tends to be very slow to update the cruise planner in situations like this. It's same in hurricane season when ports change unexpectedly. All you can do is check back often.

There is no standard rate for a cruise. Pricing is dynamic and constantly changing as inventory (available cabins) go up or down. What you see today is a moment in time snapshot of the two cruises. For a 2026 cruise they may be keeping rates elevated hoping to sell out the ship at those elevated rates while protecting themselves in case of inflation. As the sail moves closer they begin to see how that strategy has worked and they will adjust prices to stimulate bookings or capitalize on demand. If one ship and sail date has already sold more GS cabins then dynamic pricing may increase those rates as this is perceived as demand. Conversely if the other sail date has booked less GS cabins they may lower the GS rate to stimulate bookings. By keeping 2026 rates elevated they hope to influence the market to accept higher rates as the new normal. If bookings continue on the same volume they know guests are willing to pay more. If bookings trend down they learn the market is not ready to accept higher rates. They will always test the market to see what it will bear. It may not change daily but if you come back month after month you will see this dynamic pricing in effect.

Talk to your cabin attendant. I also make a point of visiting the new cabin area when that cabin attendant is working and introducing myself. Most of my B2B have required packing everything but hanging clothes. Once in a while you may hear a story of having to move everything yourself. On one cruise the cabin attendants moved my stuff while another consecutive cruiser reported that he had to move all his own stuff so it's not entirely a ship thing, but can come down to the cabin attendants. One time the cabin I was moving into was empty during the first cruise so I made arrangements to move my own stuff early on turn around day. I'm an early riser so I was unpacked in my new cabin before breakfast.