lovesthebeach2

yes! Now that’s in my head too 🤪

Same…..I never eat anything after supper at home.

A week ago in one of the fitness classes that I attend, the instructor played that song! I hadn’t heard it in years! Everyone in the class sang the na, na na, na parts.

Wow, you're brave. lol. We did 27 nights on Odyssey last year and the only things of mine that was in the bag was undies, socks, shorts, my pj shirt and exercise clothes. I brought nice shirts and skirts and two lightweight dresses all that can be washed in the sink and hung in the cabin to dry. I wouldn’t trust those things in the laundry on the ship. Glad you had good results.

I’m way past my 40s and have been cruising Royal for 25 years, and unfortunately their new focus is definitely making us move and have already jumped to other lines. Royal IS ALREADY starting to lose their long time, frequent cruisers, those that may be retired so they have more time and money to cruise, as in not just a “weekend” a year which is what their current tv ads are focusing on. We’ve loved Royal, still do, but not the jam packed floating amusement parks. I guess I just miss what the focus of cruising originally was meant to be. A relaxing calming way to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday frantic lives. And thankfully there ARE other cruise lines that are still that way. And that’s where we’re headed.

So funny, we often end the night at Sorrentos too 🍕

You use the word “we”, so not sure if your DW helps, but in my case I do it all and it’s a lot of planning and making decisions, not on the local cruises from Florida, but the majority of our trips are international which requires more planning. So although it would be preferable for me if we both were involved, my TA has been a godsend! Which mostly leaves me to plan the excursions and in the new places we travel.

Sounds fabulous! We never thought of Cunard! We do have the Silver Nova booked next year to Alaska for 14 nights, so we’re excited about that. I’m curious, do you do all your own booking?

IMO house bands are less expensive because they have a long contract, compared to Tribute bands that are more like other entertainers, coming and going. Maybe I’m incorrect but that’s my take on it.

i get what you’re saying, but in our case cruising out of a Florida to us is mostly about just enjoying the ocean. Yes, we get off for an hour or two at CC, but only to put my toes in the sand. So we have some Florida cruises still booked, but they’re on large ships which will be full of younger people, who I’m hoping get off at the ports so we have a quieter ship. We prefer cruises to interesting / new places which is usually in Europe, then it’s not just about only the ocean

That’s where we get on, do you know what changes they’ll have then?

Early dining says it starts at 5:30, but in our experience there’s been a sign out front of the dining room asking everyone to come at 5pm. Reason has been, again in our experience, that if they didn’t show up by 5:30, the table has been given to a MTD guest. Last couple of cruises this has been the case in our experience. But as others have said here, go to the podium in the MDR as soon as you board to see if they can modify your reservation. Enjoy your cruise!

It started to go downhill after Fain left ☹️ And now nit only is the bloom gone but the petals are beginning to fall off.

I wouldn’t leave Celebrity…..we’re moving FROM Royal TO Celebrity. Royal’s focus under the new top guy has changed dramatically to entice families with children to amusement park “Weekend” 3 or 4 day cruises. Lots of children! Theres nothing wrong with that, but that’s not what we want. Plus the short cruises are usually booze cruises. Again, nothing wrong with that, we manage to use our 5 vouchers each day. Were just not roundly and LOUD. But for the reasons we cruise, 3 or 4 day cruises are definitely not our thing. Maybe if Royal notices that many loyal fans have left, they will think harder on the Discovery class they have been whispering about, which are smaller ships that we assume can go to the smaller ports that we are interested in rather than only beach clubs, which were not. So for now it’s Celebrity and other upscale lines such as Viking and Silversea for us. And please don’t go on the ship with the thought that you’ll hate the infinite balcony. We’ll be taking our first (of a few more booked) to Norway next year on Apex, and look forward to the infinite balcony so we can see the beautiful scenery and still be warm inside.

Possibly the time I tried after restart, there was just a problem in the planner for me….

If you’ll be at Cape Liberty port (I don’t know where you'll dock), I would try to change airlines and stay at Newark. Is that possible? No matter what time of day, theres always so much traffic to get in or out of NY.

I’ll let you know! It looks beautiful and is brand new, so we’re VERY excited! We’ll be on for a 14 nighter to Alaska!

I didn’t know that, or possibly after the shutdown it wasn’t there in the planner but is now…we’re used to early dining now 😁

We still have some a royal cruises, at least one we will most likely cancel on Icon, but we’ve booked on Celebrity and Silversea now…..I guess it’s still in the same circle of RCCL, but hope it’s different and if not we’ll move on too and try Viking Ocean cruises

Back when we were able to make MTD reservations thru the cruise planner, I would book nightly reservations for us and our friends for the same time for every night. So after the first night, after that we had the same table and servers, and just walked in every night past the guards at the desk. So it was very much like main dining and not at all like MTD. I think that was changed post Covid. That’s when we went back to early dining. It was kind of a pain booking it online each night at a time. It would have been much better if instead of first choosing a day, we chose a time, and then just chose the days for that time. But of course, Royals programmers don’t think like a passenger.

That’s been what we’ve seen too. Although we see many coming in at 5:15 and even some coming in at 5:30, but who knows, those may be the MTD folks that were waiting and got the table when the others didn’t show up in time.

Thanks, I’ll remember that!r

THATS EXACTLY WHAT I KEEP SAYING TO MY DH! sorry for all the caps, but I’ve been saying this for months, once all the “loyal” guests cruised right after they resumed sailing and helped them get back on their feet, Fain left and brought in the new guy who wants us gone, I know they’re in the business to make money, but if things go south on his new agenda, many of us that cruise WAY more then for “weekends” once a year, as they’re advertising all the time on TV, we’ll have moved on.

He booked us on a Silversea Silver Nova next year, which is a Royal owned line, and although I haven’t seen all of Ken’s pics or posts yet, I think it’s equivalent (or better) and since it’s still in the a Royal umbrella we can still get Royal stock OBC. We’ll see.

We were a bit concerned about the Dress Code for our Alaskan cruise on Silversea Silver Nova next year, because we’re not fancy dressers….but that ship doesn’t require jackets and ties for men (thank goodness). But, like you he is planning to bring a dress shirt or two.