RobInMN

As @Host Jazzbeau mentions, Disney uses Ama. It's a full charter with their own CM's, but sitll. Anyway, we did Ama's Rivers and Castles with 3 generations, our 3 kids were 10, 13, & 19. There we a number of families, including 2 groups larger than ours, and even a few kids younger than my 10 year old niece. I don't know how common or unusual that was, but the crew never let on that it was anything out of the ordinary, and they were great. Without attempting to compare, I would definitely recommend Ama. (Others mentioned may be great also, I just have no experience them)

Early Welcome to the Big Ten! The championship game will be Big Ten vs. Big Ten in waiting. 😁 Sorry, but until next year, I have to root for Michigan by default.

I would agree with the OP, but for other reasons. Having watched it a number of times in the evening, we watched it once when it was in the afternoon, and it was much more tame/reserved, and quite frankly kind of meh. The CD was obviously holding back because there were a lot more and younger kids in the audience, and that really affected the way the contestants answered also. That said, they need a larger rotation of questions. I swear it's the same questions every time, it's no longer a "must see" for us, and I doubt we'd ever go in the afternoon again. The other thing is that the prizes for the winner used to be much better. I think last time we watched it, they all 3 got the same bottle of sparkling wine, and on a Jewel B2B Arctic Circle then Iceland/Ireland (2021), I swear they didn't even have it on one of them, and on the other, no one got any prizes at all! They used to have a gift basket with a number of items, including things like 2 watch gifts sets in addition to the sparkling wine.

In 2019 my family did the AmaWaterways Rivers and Castles (Nuremburg to Luxembourg) with 3 generations. At that time, my daughter was 19, my nephew 13, and niece 10. There were a number of families on this cruise, with a few kids younger than my niece. I know the kids in our family had a great time, and as far as I could tell, that was true for the other families as well. No one seemed bored at all. Many times we just hung out on our own sometimes playing cards. Saw the same from other families. And there's internet, so that's always self-entertaining. I would totally recommend As mentioned previously, Ama has a number of stops where there are active hiking and/or biking options. My sister's family did bikes at least once. In Trier, We left the ship early and walked over to the Roman Baths and Amphitheater on our own before meeting up with the walking tour near where they were starting. BTW, Ama is who Disney uses if you book a river cruise through their Adventures by Disney, but they charter the whole cruise and have their own Cruise Managers. In December of 2022, we did another 3 generation cruise, this time Christmas Markets with Grand Circle (my parents love GC - my wife & I, not so much) from Nuremburg to Vienna. This time my daughter did not go (graduated, new job, boyfriend). Sister's kids now 13 & 16. Again, other than not really liking GC myself, I think we all had a good time. My sister's kids enjoyed the Christmas markets, and usually did their own thing in the evenings, but sometimes watched the entertainment. (my wife & I didn't always watch either). On this one, there also some other families, but not as many as the Rivers and Castles one. My wife & I did the 2 week Grand Danube on Ama, that skewed older. I don't know if there were any 20-somethings. We recently booked Basel to Amsterdam on Ama for Spring of 25 with my daughter and her BF, and she has no concerns about them being bored or anything. Of the ones we've done, I would highly recommend the Rivers and Castles one for someone's first time, followed by the upper Danube (Nuremburg to Budapest), and probably the lower Danube last (cities visited are more depressed and the most recently recovering from communism).

I never said they were on duty 24/7 or even actively preforming the task 24/7, but out in public, where non-service dogs are not allowed, the only reason they should be there is if they are, in fact, working or ready to work, at that time. Service dogs have down time, and their owners/handlers will have a command that they give to tell the dog they are "off duty". Even if they are not actively performing a task at that exact moment, they are still "on duty" until told otherwise. And many tasks a service dog can perform are passive. Seizers, diabetic alert (which btw, a stranger petting could really mess up the ability to detect the owner's blood suger), etc. Google "Can I pet a service dog" and the vast majority of responses are "no". The rest of the answers are "only if you ask first", but if the owners "never objected" as @George C indicated, then that would have been extremely distracting to the dog, if it were a true service dog. The owner would be constantly telling the dog that it was On/Off duty.

Don't get me started on that. I am a huge supporter of legit service dogs, but this whole "emotional support" BS is just that.

I would love to see them do this again, maybe in like 5 years, however, it does not appear that they got the response they anticipated, so I fear the likelihood is rather slim. 😞

Then it wasn't a true service dog, and just some emotional support BS. A true service dog is a "working dog" and the owner would never allow anyone to pet it while it is working.

Allure is getting her Amplification End of February through mid April 2025. I originally thought that Playmakers was going to go where Sabor is, like they did with Oasis, but looking back at the original Amplification press release, I think it might actually be Portside BBQ. I also was assuming that Wonderland would go where the Diamond lounge is today, but the PR doesn't list Wonderland, so maybe it is Playmakers. Original Press-release: https://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1403/new-amplified-adventures-on-royal-caribbeans-allure-of-the-seas-to-make-a-summer-splash-in-europe/

?????????? 2014 ????? Wonder's first cruise was in 2022. In 2014, the only 2 Oasis class ships were Oasis and Allure. I was on Allure in September. It's not the same entertainment as in 2014, but it's good. Chicago was replaced with Mama Mia. The ship is still a good ship.

When we did this in 2018, I think they said that about 2/3 of the people embarked/disembarked in Barcelona, and about 1/3 in Rome (Civitavecchia). As noted by previous responses, the ship is always full. If you look at the very end of the season, just before the Transatlantic back to the Caribbean, you will see a 7 night from Barcelona, and then a 4 (3?) night one-way from Rome (both ending in Barcelona, where everyone gets off (short any B2B's) and the TA starts. Barcelona is the "home" port. The sail away party and the cruise days are all in reference to Barcelona. When you embark/disembark in Rome, you will have a different colored Seapass Card (I think ours was orange), and you will be doing the second half of one cruise and the first half of the next. Your "sail away" party will be on night 4/5. In 2018, the phone app did not really work for the Rome passengers, hopefully they have that figured out now. When deciding which port to use, I think it really comes down to 2 questions: Which port would you like to spend extra days in Which port would you not mind seeing "...in a day" For some, that's extra days in Barcelona, and Rome in a day is fine, but for us, it was a no-brainer. As I noted in your other thread, we spent a week in Rome before hand and there's still things we'll do "next time". We felt sorry for anyone trying to do "Rome in a day", for us, that seems completely impossible. Keep in mind, when doing it "in a day", Rome is actually 1-1.5 hours from the port, so that takes 2-3 hours out of your time. On the other-hand, Barcelona in a day was plenty for us. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably do an independent tour and go into La Sagrada Familia, but otherwise, we were good. Some people put a lot of weight on the proximity to the embarkation port. If you are not spending any extra time in that port before or after, then yes, that can be a big factor, and in that case, Barcelona wins hands down. But in my opinion, if you are going to spend extra time in that city, then this should not be part of your consideration. Here's some previous discussions:

Like I posted in my response. No issue on Allure in Sept

We travel everywhere with a Firestick and a universal remote (and a 10ft HDMI cable, just in case). We had no issues using my Firestick on Allure in September, but I always use my phone to hotspot it's WiFi connection. We use Samsung Galaxy phones. You can not hotspot a WiFi connection on iPhones. This way, I don't have to try to get to the sign in page on any ship or hotel on the Firestick as it is not very user friendly to "type" addresses, and navigate web pages. So much easier on my phone. When not watching TV, Airplane mode and WiFi are on, Hotspot off, Firestick unplugged. When we want to watch TV, Airplane mode off, WiFi on, Mobile Data Off (just in case), Hotspot on. Plug in Firestick - Auto connects to the phone's hotspot. Anyway, as previously noted, just get a Universal remote. You will need this in order to change the input source. I also recommend a VPN. Not only is this handy if the internet gets routed through a foreign country, but some things like YoutubeTV are GPS locked. Most cable channels (including "recorded" stuff) are not available outside your home country via your home service provider and the local stations are not available outside your home area. without a VPN, if you try to watch a local network in another city, it will force you to that city's affiliate. Luckily, Firesticks don't have GPS's, and so as long as I have the VPN turned on, I have had no issues watching the local station (even though my home is the Twin Cities and the closes VPN city is Chicago). The other trick on the newer ships is that you may have to disconnect the wired internet connection and reboot the TV. When plugged in to the hardwired internet, it launches custom RCI software, which does not allow for the source to be changed. Unplugging and rebooting prevents that software from launching.

Personally, we much prefer Rome. Since this interports, our preference would be to port out of Rome and spend at least a week in Rome before or after. But that's us. That's what we did in 2018, and even with a week in Rome before hand, we still did not see everything we wanted to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point you are getting at with regard to the davits is that one of the requirements is that you can't have anything hanging over the vertical line of the hull or something? At least up to a certain height above the waterline. I'm sure you can give the technical specifications. If you'll not that on the Radiance class, which is a Panamax, the lifeboats and davits are completely within the hull and nothing is hanging over (below the bridge wings). So it might not even be just the davit and lifeboats, but doesn't Deck 5 and 6 (and any other higher deck that is below the requirement) break the rule just from the way they stick out over the hull? Voyager class doesn't have decks sticking out, and possibly not the davits, but the lifeboats themselves partially stick out. On Quantum class, while the lifeboats and davits are well within the confines of the deck, the deck itself (deck 5) sticks out far beyond that vertical hull line. So none of these ships could ever go through the Panama Canal? Norwegian Bliss is the current largest cruise ship to go through the Panama Canal. The lifeboats and davits appear to be fully contained within the hull lines and it does not appear that anything sticks out beyond them (at least not below the bridge wings). And apparently it just fits under the Bridge of the Americas at low tide. I think I finally found a reference saying that Bliss is 60m above the waterline and BoA is billed as having a clearance of 61.3m.

When you leave out of Port Everglades, there is a house on the north side that has one in their side yard! https://www.google.com/maps/place/Miami,+FL/@26.0951683,-80.1139615,54m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x88d9b0a20ec8c111:0xff96f271ddad4f65!8m2!3d25.7616798!4d-80.1917902!16zL20vMGYydjA?entry=ttu

Every time I see pictures of Meyer Werft's Papenburg building it amazes me. The fact that a ship the size of Odyssey (and CCL's Excellence class, NCL's Breakaway Plus class ships) is actually built indoors is unreal. The pictures in that link are apparently the smaller hall 5. The larger building hall is 504m long (482m of interior dock), 125m wide and 75m tall, with an 800 ton crane. Odyssey is 347m long and 49m wide. So the building is well over twice the width, and half again as long as Odyssey. Amazing. Not to mention the videos of the 22mile (36km) conveyance that ships built here have to do down the Ems to get to open sea. the Ems is not that wide in many places, nor is it really all that deep in spots either.

In Minnesota, we have a Montevideo, but it is pronounced MON-ta-VIH-dee-o (as in audio/video). A few years back, something happened there that made the national news, and it was funny hearing them pronounce it MON-ti-vi-DAY-o, as in the capital of Uruguay.😅

As a single individual, it appears the answer is yes. At least for the Royal Caribbean brand. I did not look up Celebrity. After 9/11, Adventure had 4 Godparents, a man and a woman from each FDNY and NYPD. Symphony was billed as the first "God Family", Alexa, Carlos, and their son Ocean (17mo at the time) PenaVega. Alexa and Carlos are actors. They shot the 2018 Hallmark movie Love at Sea on Harmony. And if you're still saying "who?", Alexa was in the Spy Kids movies. Spectrum had Godparents Angelababy and Huang Xiaoming (since it was designated for the Chinese market). Sources: https://cruiseaddicts.com/royal-caribbean-ships-by-age-newest-to-oldest/ (this has Navigator wrong, as it's the same list as Adventure) and this old CC Thread (has Navigator correct, but ends in 2009 with Liberty):

It's been pretty well established that you won't get the offers on a branded card. So no Delta, Hilton, Marriott, etc..

She's doing a 12 night from Miami to Barcelona Feb10-22. Her next cruise listed is a 4 night out of Barcelona on April 11. 6.5 weeks later. Then there was the 5 night one the OP talked about After that, I swear the next 7 nights was originally missing, but appears to be listed now.

I would argue that Icon doesn't really. It does not have anything equivalent of a 2BR GS. As far as I can tell, there are only 2 suites that have 2 true bedrooms, The Ultimate Family Treehouse (yes still only has 2) and the 1 Royal Loft Suite. The (Surfside) Family Suite has a sitting area with a couch/bed that they bill as suitable for 2 kids that can be closed off, and the Family Infinite Ocean View Balcony has a bedroom and a separate 2 person bunk room. Everything else just "couch sleeps 2"

Yes, people seems to focus on what happens in US ports, but truth is, it seems to vary by ship/port/country. Our experience in Amsterdam on Jewel was like yours. Pretty sure there was no "consecutive cruiser meeting" the day before. No "meet in a lounge and wait". No escorted off & on in a group. We just reported to the Theater where we receive our new SeaPass cards and an "In Transit" card, we then went to a security podium they brought up from the gangway room and security personnel scanned us out of the previous cruise on our old SeaPass, then into the next cruise on the new SeaPass, and we were immediately sent on our way. They did ask us to be cognizant of the crew trying to clean the public areas, and like you said, if we were in the same cabin, we could go to our cabin if we wanted to. I'm trying to recall if there was a B2B lunch. I think there was, but not 100% sure.

When we did the Western Med (Symphony's inaugural season), we specifically chose to do it out of Rome (Civitavecchia) so that we could spend a week in Rome before hand. And that still wasn't enough time. You will either need to pick a single thing to do in depth (like the Vatican), or do a "Rome in a day" quick drive-by of Rome's most popular attractions. Keep in mind that there is a a 1+ hour drive each way, so you have to account for that. Because there is so much and your time is limited, I would second what @Norwich Cruiser recommends. If anything, you will not be limited by slow or late people. Oh, and pre-book "skip the line" tickets for everything you can.

I enjoyed The Book as far as how they were able to show off the technology involved. As for the story? What story? I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what the story is supposed to be about. 🤷‍♂️ More interesting than fun.