twangster

I feel like this is one of those YMMV scenarios. Ask 50 people who gone through this and you'll likely get 51 different answers.

Congratulations and welcome to the club!

If you are booking full suites there is typically no refundable option except for a few exceptions such as the VP category sometimes. For non-suite cabins as noted above you have to go all the way through the booking process to the second last step to find it. Even then there are times when they don't make it available on the website but a travel agent can quote it.

I've sailed MSC from Florida and have a handful booked on them. I've never sailed them outside of the Caribbean. Right now they offer some very attractive pricing from Florida. I can sail on MSC with their Easy Plus drink package and basic WiFi 2 devices for between one half and one third of what Royal is charging. The overnight stop at their private island without going to Nassau is a pretty great itinerary too. Seashore is a bargain over Thanksgiving relative to Royal so that's one of my bookings with them. I'm also eyeing their World Europa for a Med cruise just to try their mega ship. Some time ago I did a status match in their loyalty program that gives me a 5% discount on new cruises. So while I would prefer to sail Royal and Royal ships will always "feel like home" I have no problem sailing MSC when Royal's pricing is out of this world or the situation such as itinerary or ship makes MSC a better fit.

I've often had local wifi issues on Q class. I keep an empty water bottle on hand to prop open my cabin door a crack when I want to get work done. Just opening the door a crack seems to let in enough signal to make a big difference. WiFi signal don't go through metal doors very well. Only once has anyone noticed. A guest once knocked on my door to let me know my door was open a crack. "Do you know your door is open?" Me: "Yes". 🙂

If she has made any cruise planner purchases (except deluxe beverage package) they will refund faster if she goes into the cruise planner and cancels those now. Since the deluxe beverage package requires all adults in the cabin to purchase it that could impact cabin mates so this one item is best to consider leaving for now and let it cancel after no show.

At this point so close to the sail date there is little reason to call in and notify. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/booking-cancellation-refund-policy Since there is no refund to be had under 30 days she won't get any cruise fare back. Port fees and taxes will be refunded for her. Any cruise planner purchases for her will be refunded. These are usually automatic but it might not occur until after the cruise completes. In some cases if the cabin requires X number of guests and one calls in to cancel then it could cause the cabin to be re-assigned. If there are still 3 or more guests sailings that is less likely but the general wisdom since there is no benefit to calling it in is to be a no show.

Yes but Pit Stop Bar is very smokey from the casino. It's more open to the casino compared to the Pub on other Radiance class ships. After a few hours watching a game I wreaked of cigarette smoke.

Someone slipped an iron past security.

I once created a spreadsheet with four of the loyalty programs using balcony/verandah cabins since these are the most common types of cabins that most cruisers will occupy. Suites are always in their own league so I didn't include suites. I then normalized the data to reflect the highest tier level and charted it. Notice the shape of the curve for each is very similar. The only outlier is the weird Emerald level in CAS as we all know. They all have a long haul from the 2nd highest level to the highest level. Slightly less so with Carnival VIFP. This doesn't account for actual benefits, simply the points math to reach each level. I think NCL updated their program since. I haven't updated the chart for Latitudes to reflect that. The point is that each program's tier levels are pretty similar in terms of nights in a balcony cabin based on double occupancy without any brand specific ways to earn more points per night since not all lines do that. Carnival for example doesn't offer solo extra points.

Oasis is off and out of PoM on her next cruise. She was using the same exhaust stacks we used for most of our cruise so it seems all is well.

Perhaps this is a preview of one change that the new CAS director has eluded will be announced in January. If so, a single Pinnacle member may be in high demand to share a cabin with. 🤣🤣😇 Adds a new level of wife-swapping opportunity if traveling with another non-Diamond couple. Book each with a Diamond member in different cabins. Everyone gets drinks!

RCI installs multiple Starlink antennas on their ships and load balances sessions across them. On the smaller ships like Jewel of the Seas they have installed 8 Starlink antennas. On Oasis of the Seas they installed 16 Starlink antennas, at least that I could find. There were a couple of mounting brackets ready but with no antenna mounted. On Oasis if I repeated a linux curl command to reveal my public address the results displayed 15 different public IP address in the course of 5 - 10 seconds. Each new session from my laptop went through a different Starlink antenna. All the public IP address were based in Atlanta, GA. They install multiple antennas so they can aggregate bandwidth and achieve diversity. The standard "consumer" Starlink maritime system is currently limited to 350Mbps. It's unknown if that limitation applies to the business grade service in use on cruise ships. They tend to place the antennas in two different groupings based on the class of the ship, some forward, some midship or aft. On Oasis 12 Starlink antennas are in a semicircle along the edge of the Suite Lounge/Coastal Kitchen roof line. The other 4 Starlink antennas are forward on the roof above the Suite Sun Deck, 2 on each side of the ship. My assumption is that X isn't going with a single Starlink antenna per ship either. As I've researched and tested various Starlink related items I've learned not to rely on conventional wisdom with Starlink maritime service. It is emerging technology with few details published for this application. Not everything they do with the consumer residential, RV or maritime Starlink service applies to this type of deployment.

I overlaid the map from the Oasis with the Starlink Maritime coverage map. https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.pdf Light blue is Starlink maritime coverage today. Our route according to Royal. Overlaying the two and painting in the Royal map onto the Starlink coverage map yields this: Normally we would sail down the coast of Florida and turn east to run along the north shore of Cuba to reach Labadee. Collectively we have sailed this route thousands of times. It seems they were trying to keep the ship within Starlink coverage but I suspect the Starlink coverage map isn't absolute nor an indication of 100% solid coverage. I think it's more like "Towards the edges of the light blue you will get some internet but not the full Starlink experience". If that is true then the edges of the Starlink coverage zone is fringe coverage where you can expect some internet at times which is certainly what I experienced especially coming back where we took a route slightly more to the east. Had we taken the southern route through the Florida Straits we would have gone solidly into the no coverage area along the north shore of Cuba.

Something caused the generators to trip. Once they reset the system and brought the engines back online we were resumed our return to Miami. We had been producing exhaust from the two outer stacks for the majority of the trip. After the reset they were using the starboard outermost stack and the two of inner sets of stacks. Nothing was coming from the outer port side stack. I smelled a very faint smell of something I couldn't place. Not electrical but not exhaust either. When I ventured outside it appeared to me without any forward motion our exhaust was hanging in the air and settling slightly which is what I think led to the faint smell. Once we started moving again the exhaust stream was up and away from the ship due to the forward motion. In my cabin emergency lighting came on immediately. Normal lighting returned about 30 second later. The pool deck didn't appear to be completely dark so there must be emergency lighting there as well and around the ship. We had been going at 22 kn for most of the day so we may have been drawing a lot of power. We seemed to settle around 17 kt once we resumed motion. We are back in Miami with plenty of time to spare. Enjoyable cruise minus some Starlink internet woes through the Sargasso Sea of foul sea monsters and terrible internet. I'm beginning to think those sea monsters were wearing Starlink blocker devices as it was bad in the same place on our way to Labadee. "Ye shall have no Starlink internet here".

Where is the ship? The limitation may be due to location.

You don't have one of those VPN "Protect" services on do you? AT&T bundles one, Apple has one now, other companies. Google has one so they can track your every packet. They protect by trying to run a VPN which can cause issues on ships and airplane wifi. You connect then the VPN kicks to protect you. Except it blocks the ship DNS servers.

Sailing elsewhere.

Still there.

Here is the January 21, 2011 introduction of points and two new levels... Emerald and Pinnacle. https://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/646/royal-caribbean-upgrades-crown-anchor-society-/ The program's first enhancement is the transition from 'cruise credits' to 'Cruise Points.' The new system to earn tier status when sailing with Royal Caribbean International is based on one cruise point for every night spent aboard one of the cruise line's ships. The more nights members spend onboard, the more points they can earn. Additionally, Crown & Anchor Society members can earn double points when they pay for suite accommodation. Furthermore, two new status levels are being introduced as part of the enhancements to the program: Emerald tier, between the current Platinum and Diamond status levels, and Pinnacle Club, the new top tier. The new progression of Crown & Anchor Society member status is Gold, Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle Club. Guests who have a minimum of 100 cruise credits before January 21, 2011, will be the first to be invited to join the new top Crown & Anchor Society member tier. Moving forward, Pinnacle Club status can be achieved with 700 Cruise Points, equivalent to 100 seven-night cruises - or less cruises if members choose to sail in suite category staterooms or on longer itineraries.

The role model is... Super Mario.

Schooner on Anthem once told me: 2 oz rum 1/4 shot lavender syrup Sprinkle of lavender flakes

SpaceX used to have a conventional VSAT service on it's small fleet of ships they use to capture SpaceX stuff after rocket launches. Once Starlink had critical mass SpaceX terminated the VSAT contracts and claims to have realized a 70% reduction in satellite internet expenses. The hardware cost isn't that significant for a business that spends millions a year on legacy internet expenses. They can recover the capital costs pretty quickly so the business case is pretty solid. The legacy satellite providers also charged significant usage fees... $$$$ per GB of transfer. I suspect that is where the real savings come from. It was enticing enough to get Royal to jump before the maritime service was ready for prime time. On the other hand after Harmony caused a SpaceX rocket launch to scrub maybe a deal was negotiated in lieu of going after Royal for that mistake.

She may have some new wayfinder digital TVs around the ship that may not have been present in 2010. LED lighting around the ship. Still has the PitStop bar. Not sure a whole lot has changed since 2010. She has Starlink internet now and from what a friend experienced last week it's one of the fastest internet ships in the fleet. I was on her in October. Great cruise, great crew. No complaints.

O3b and it's beam forming technology that followed a ship was emerging technology in 2014. Starlink's used of phase array antennas and the shear number of satellites in different shells, inclinations and altitudes is also emerging technology. The company's stated purpose is to serve regions that are underserved. If you are in rural anywhere it's a game changer even if it isn't all that for metropolitan and larger populations centers where fiber is becoming more common. When your choice in the middle of nowhere is really weak cellular, nothing or Starlink the solution is fantastic even if it has some challenges at times. As long as Elon doesn't pull a Telsa Home Solar abrupt change of heart it has a lot of potential.