OCSC Mike

My current personal conclusion is that there is no set time fleet wide (or if there is, it's in the process of changing). I read many accounts of the "1st of the prior month" like you experienced but also many other experiences. May 1st came and went with no reservations available for my June 4th Wonder sailing and for this cruise they did happen to open exactly 30 days out.

Thanks, appreciate the details. So it's similar to other venues that have a smaller breakfast buffet, nothing actually Mexican about it, got it. Other Oasis class ships have the same basic thing, just in a different venue. As for trying it, food is a huge part of cruising for me, you can be sure I will try every complimentary venue at least once, lol. My wife and I get up very early and when cruising with extended family (which we will be on this cruise, 3 generations like you, just skewed a bit older and we're in the middle) I have "pre-breakfast" at 6:30-7am before the family meets for an actual breakfast a bit later. My usual go-to is grabbing a "McMuffin" or bagel at Park Cafe before having the standard eggs/pancakes/sides at main breakfast but always nice to have a new option.

Thanks for sharing the review, I'll be boarding Wonder for the first time in 18 days. Also my first time on a ship with El Loco Fresh. I haven't read much about the breakfast there other than that they have breakfast burritos. How was it?

There's no guarantee or rule of thumb, but from experience on full/nearly full Oasis class ships, for shows in big venues, especially the main theater, not very early at all. 15-20 minutes maybe? Honestly, you can likely walk right in 5-10 mins before showtime in many cases. If you're worried and don't mind waiting (maybe with a drink in hand), you can go sooner but it's really not hard to get into shows without reservations. Plenty of people will always change their minds for one reason or another and not show up. One exception... if you want to go to adult comedy, that venue is very small, so if it's important, you may want to get in line there pretty early. That's the one venue where it's possible that not many people from the standby line get in. Finally, a tip... they hold back some % of show reservations for booking once onboard, so I'd try the app once connected to the ship wi-fi or head for wherever they have a makeshift box office set up (it varies by ship). Hope that helps and lessens your annoyance a bit. 🙂 Someone else will have to answer your MTD question; I've never used it, sorry.

At least you seem to be handling it as well as possible. Hope you have a great cruise, however this works out!

OP said they have connecting cabins so no issue there going by your post.

No, just normal prices from the RC site.

Not bad at all. Any interest @livingonthebeach?

I have done exactly this for other issues. For experienced RC cruisers and/or CC readers, sometimes, unfortunately, you’ll know when you are being given the wrong information. This seems to be the best solution. Phone rep #1 - ”Sir, you receive your crystal block on the next sailing after you earn it.” Uhhhh…. wut? Bye. Phone rep #2 - “I’m sorry there was no letter in your cabin. Please give me your info & we’ll have it shipped to you when available.” TYVM, have a great day!

I was going to say that but then he won't be able to use his DBP.

That's like my standard answer for "what deck should I book?" One that you consider in a good spot compared to where you spend the most time.

That popped into my head after I posted; makes sense.

I use my wife's sea pass card to use her vouchers (either while getting a drink for her or for me, she usually only uses 2-3 per day). Why the need to transfer? Just hand your wife your sea pass if she's out of vouchers and she can order her own drinks with your sea pass.

We see the same thing on every trip there.

I'm answering in terms of actually liking that type of cabin. If you just meant are they logistically fine for 2 people... absolutely. Some people like interiors, others refuse to sail in them. Common reasons for disliking them include feeling claustrophobic, enjoying time on a balcony too much, and/or wanting to see natural light from a window. My wife and I like them. The cabin to us is just a place to sleep, shower, and change clothes. My wife thought she "needed" a balcony b/c she had one when she cruised a kid but once she tried an interior, she ended up liking them and realizing we barely used our balcony so we'd rather save the money for other things... like dining, excursions, and more cruises. We also like how dark and cold they get when sleeping, especially when she want to take a quick afternoon nap. I'd suggest watching a YouTube video of an interior (and if other cabin types are an option, videos of those).

There's a sale going on right now and the DBP is $70.99 for my Wonder cruise in 19 days. I don't buy the DBP but that seems to be a pretty good price for the current newest ship on a June cruise. Moral of the story is just keep checking. We know about Black Friday and other major holidays but there are random sales too.

I'd make the same assumption. While recently booking an interior on Wonder, I learned there at least 3 different layouts for 4V's on that ship (from videos), one of which has no chair or couch/loveseat at all. We were choosing our cabin (not GTY) so we avoided the aft interiors where those cabins seemed to be. There appeared to be two more common layouts. My wife preferred one and I preferred the other but neither of us really care, we just like having the small couch, which both have. That said, we went for the one she likes (naturally) based on our best guess. In just 10 months we'll find out if we were right. 🤣

I see what you mean. It's a funky layout. EDIT: I was typing before I saw the explanation for why the room is a bit unusual. That makes sense. I just checked for the heck of it and your cruise isn't sold out but the only interiors showing up on the RC site are central park view and promenade view. No harm in checking for a 4V later on like I mentioned above. I'd live but I'd also try to switch to a more typical layout with the small couch/loveseat if possible.

I know you said the ship was sold out, but if any interiors of the exact same category (i.e 4V or whatever she has) do become available AFTER your daughter is officially assigned that cabin (meaning it actually appears on her set sail pass and you don't have to use the bar code trick anymore) she can switch cabins by calling. This is assuming you booked from the US. And if you used a TA they have to call. Hope that made sense.

Thanks for the lengthy response, appreciate it, just didn't want to quote the whole thing. We're not actually looking for a Solarium cruise but good to know. That's kind of what we did in July and October on Indy, just chilled on the ship for 11 nights total and went to Cococay 3 times because we love it there. Our plan for not enjoying smaller ships is actually to do longer excursions in at least 3 of the 4 ports we'd be at (2 are places we've wanted to go, 1 of which we had booked but missed b/c high winds prevented us from docking in Roatan in 2019, and the other is somewhere we'd probably go back to b/c we had a good time there before). That said, there will always be time spent on the ship obviously and I do like to eat while cruising. 🙂 Even on Indy, I missed having an additional free venue like Park Cafe, that's why I asked about it.

We're Solarium people too. Since you spent so much time there, did you eat from or check out the food at their version of Park Cafe? I'm mostly interested in what they had for lunch and late night snacks there. I don't even like smaller ships but if certain things line up, we may squeeze in one on Enchantment when she moves to Tampa just b/c it's close by and cheap.

Ironically, the only time I was on Enchantment was back in 2014 when she was at PC and we needed exactly 4 pts for Diamond so we took the cheapest 4-nighter we could find. I had never been on anything smaller than Voyager before nor had I ever been on a short cruise... boy did I miss having a promenade, lol. That said, we still had a good time and it served its purpose. If some "life stuff" works out between now and the fall, we've said we'd consider it, but we'd be booking closer to the sailing so who knows what the price will be then? On the bigger ships, we've spent an awful lot of time just enjoying the ship and Cococay since restart so our justification for dealing with the ship would be to take 3 long excursions (possibly 4 but I've never even looked at Belize, let alone been there). This increases the total cost of the trip of course but the ones we have in mind aren't particularly expensive and we'd likely skip an excursion or two next time we do Western on a bigger ship (likely Wonder). There's also something poetic about achieving both D and D+ on the same ship but I'm not sure that's a good reason to go. 🤣

As I mentioned above, Enchantment out of Tampa has some 7-nighters that are cheap (under $600pp for an interior, a few under $500pp). Of course, Enchantment is old and small but the price is right if you're OK with the ship and skipping Cococay That's the only thing I would consider a "bargain" and I'm not sure that's the right word. If you do Western Caribbean and trade Wonder+Cococay for Enchantment+Belize I would hope the price would be cheaper, lol. I haven't seen anything good from PC and I don't really look at South Florida unless I'm bored and curious. Hope this helps. Would love to tell you I found this awesome deal on Wonder... but that ain't happening.

Yeah, they're pretty bad. Wonder was always going to be a bit overpriced but it doesn't seem to matter what ship these days. If you don't mind smaller ships, Tampa has some decent prices for certain times. PC is an hour drive for me and that convenience holds too much value for me personally to go anywhere else. I only took a look at Tampa b/c it's only slightly farther. I don't even like ships below Voyager class but I'd consider a cheap cruise on Enchantment if it allows us to fit an extra one in (which would also get us to D+ as we'll be 7 points away after our next cruise in a few weeks so there's that). I did manage to get a reasonable deal (by current standards) for Wonder next March via a TA deal at least so I was happy with that.

I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one. I do want to see what the flier looks like once we get past the summer though.