RobInMN

I don't know if anything is different in the Caribbean, but we did B2B on Jewel out of Amsterdam this summer, 2 @ 12 nights. They shuffled headliners on & off about every port or every other port. Even up on Honningsvag Norway, the previous night's headliner got off to catch a flight to their next gig. I believe we only had the same headline act once, for 2 consecutive nights (different show). It was a b2b sea day anyway, so they were available. The designated headliner cabin happened to be 2 doors down from us, which was right next door to our friends, and they chatted with some of them on the balconies. Chatted with one in Schooner bar once also. All of our rooms, including the headliner room was a JS, which I thought was nice that they did that for the headliners. One of the headliners said they were going to a Disney ship in the Mediterranean next. Apparently there is a booking company that books many cruise lines for the headliners and they can bounce all over the place, many times needing to fly from port to port. At least for the European ports anyway. I suppose it's harder for them to stay exclusive to one line and just switch ships in port.

One of the first sailings? or maybe late '00's maybe? Voyager entered service 21-NOV-1999, with the sister ships following in the fall of 2000-2003

I don't bring any, and I don't spend time specifically looking for them, but when I do run across one, I think it's a lot of fun to re-hide it. Never keep it. Don't do Facebook, so I never follow whatever the tag may say, just re-hide it.

We were scheduled to be on the Allure TA after her amplification. For Allure, the part that I don't quite understand is that when COVID hit, it was only about 4-5 weeks before her scheduled amplification. The main reason that the amplification was postponed/cancelled at that time was because COVID closed the dry dock facility. 4-5 weeks out, pretty much all of the necessary materials would have had to have already been ordered and much of it probably in a warehouse on site ready to go. I believe one of the things they were going to do was to replace all of the TVs and audio/video. We're talking about thousands of TVs. It's not like they could just return them. Did they liquidate them for pennies on the dollar? They Abyss slide and that giant fish head? Are they just sitting in a warehouse somewhere? Sure, there's a lot of labor involved in doing the actual work, but there's also storage costs, cancellation penalties, or just flat out loss to liquidate. Other ships that were further out from their amplification would be in much better shape. Just seems like for Allure, they were so close that it might have made more sense to just follow through with it as soon as it could be scheduled in the dry dock. That they may not have really saved that much by cancelling/postponing. When they do end up rescheduling the amplification, how many things will they need to start over on? Certainly re-purchasing a lot of stuff that if MUCH more expensive now.

The ship looks amazing, but having lived my entire life in Iowa and Minnesota within an hour (and currently a 10 minute walk) of the Mississippi River, I can not begin to fathom paying what Viking is charging for this cruise. It's much more (twice?) than what we paid to do a river cruise from Nuremberg to Luxembourg, including upgraded (but not DeltaOne) airfare both directions.

Multiple. There was one on Navigator earlier this month, and one on Odyssey in Feb. Saw them in elevators, but I think we saw one elsewhere. At this point, my guess is they may be on potentially all Oasis, & Quantum, and some to all Voyager & Freedom. All though, I don't actually recall seeing one on Freedom last fall. Did not have one on Jewel in the summer out of Amsterdam. Not sure if that's because of port or ship class, or even cruise length/itinerary. And they aren't all "he"s, on one of our cruises, it was a young woman.

Kind of along those same lines: "Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people [snaps fingers] just like that!“ — George Carlin What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)

Same. Loved it! We were on June 20-July 2, then stayed on for Iceland & Ireland. The weather was awesome the entire time. Don't know about any other cruise lines, but RC's Norway season appears to be last week of April to first week of September. The Radiance class ships go out of Amsterdam, the Quantum class ships out of Southampton. The Radiance class ships will do the "Arctic Circle", which means Tromso and Honningvag, north of the Arctic circle. The Quantum class ships stick with the lower, larger ports. In my opinion, the Arctic Circle is well worth it!

We visited Paris for a few days after a river cruise with our daughter (19 at the time) and did a half day skip the line (joke!) Versailles tour. I would not do it again, and would not recommend it. Could have been the heat, could have been a poor tour guide, but honestly, it was nothing more than a packed sea of people and I'm convinced I'd get more out of random YouTube videos. Or maybe some History channel show episode highlighting it.

Sounds like the exact same list for September 2023 so far. I'm sure more will pop up as we get closer, but since you're May, I may be waiting a long time...

Any reason you want to do EB TA? Personally, I'd rather do the long flight on the front end, and the short flight at the end of my vacation. Had WB Allure TA booked for after her amplification, of course we all know what happened to that....

I second that!

I agree with @Steeler Nation At Sea. When we did the Western Mediterranean Summer 2018 on Symphony's inaugural season, we specially chose Rome over Barcelona and spent a week in Rome first. We loved it, and could have easily spent many more days in Rome. For what we care about, "Barcelona in a day" was plenty for us, but we felt sorry for anyone that boarded in Barcelona and was trying to do "Rome in a day". Can't even imagine. However, if you are just flying in & out with no plans to spend time in the city, Barcelona is arguably the easier port, and also the "primary" home port, from which all scheduling is done. If you board in Rome, then you will be on day 4-7 of one cruise, and 1-4 of the next cruise (or something like that). Here is a thread dedicated to just your exact question.

That's what I would have thought, but I wasn't sure and so when I sent an email for the OBC for our last cruise, I sent in both reservation numbers clearly indicating that they were for the same cruise, and surprisingly got a $50 OBC for both (only a 4 night).

There was a long thread on this last summer or older. This is what, at least anecdotal evidence suggests. Once granted a specific level through inheritance or linking, you never loose it and can then pass that status on to whoever you link with. I agree, it's a huge hole and makes no logical sense. As-is, it's infinitely transferrable. If a person/couple earns diamond plus, their minor children get Diamond plus, even if they've only sailed once. Ok, that's fine. Once they become adults, they are still D+, but have to use their own, actual, points to become Pinnacle. That makes sense. But here's where they loose me. Apparently, when those kids get married, their spouses also get D+ status, even if they've never sailed before. And further, if they have kids, those kids also get D+ status. Even if the initial offspring still only has 14 points, and the spouse 0-7. And so on and so on. Also in that thread, while the official terms & conditions state that Pinnacle must be earned and not inherited, but a spouse will be granted Pinnacle status (this part I totally agree with). There was more than one reply that seemed to indicate that a spouse of a Pinnacle never seems to loose that status. Not if they sail alone, not if the original Pinnacle passes away, and not if they get divorced. And pretty sure it was stated (again, anecdotally), that if they got re-married, that their new spouse was then also granted Pinnacle. Makes no sense. They really need to re-think this.

Thanks! We've been waiting for this one! Booked! Now seeing if there's a couple other family members that want to join us.

We had a nice young woman from China on one of our cruises maybe 2018ish that could not read English very well at all. She could speak it fine, but trying to read trivia questions written by others or looked up in some trivia questions site, with uncommon words she'd never seen before was almost painful. Took forever because she had to spell so many words. But then she did Bingo, and she had this long-game joke she nailed perfectly! (turns out the boyfriend she kept referring to didn't know he was her boyfriend 🤣)

Worth doing once? Absolutely. Don't know if I'd do it a second time, maybe a completely different VR world. But we (3 of us, 53, 53, 22) had a great time!

From today at Catalina Island

The Pens! They are amazing! They write in every language! (or so I've heard)

Recently, my local grocery store changed all the base tags to some sort of colored eInk (I don't think they are regular LED) labels. They don't even have to walk the aisles to swap the base tags or put sales tags over anything anymore. It's 100% digital! When I was in high school (mid 80's), I would sometimes do the weekly price changes. We'd have to pull everything off the shelves. Anything stamped with ink (cans & bottles), we'd have to dob them with some ink remover stuff, wipe them off, stamp new prices, and put everything back. Jell-O sucked!! 🤣 boxes used the pricing gun. We would actually do this during the day (usually Sunday, unless there was a special ad), not over night.

Radiance class ships might get refurbishments, but I seriously doubt any of them would ever get "amplified". Each ship can be different, but we were just on the sister ship Jewel, and she was in very good condition for her age. No unreasonable, unexpected wear. For the most part, didn't seem dated. I've read worse reports from newer ships.

Pretty sure you don't actually have to ask. If you have drink vouchers available, they will automatically use them. Which means that if you don't want to use one (say for a bottle of water), you specifically have to tell them not to use your voucher. Meaning that vouchers are opt-out, not opt-in.😉

Oh yeah, I should add that our itinerary is for Ensenada (and Catalina Island), not Cabo

I believe that general consensus on other threads is that on a typical sale, the deluxe beverage package requires at least 6 drinks a day to break even. Maybe a couple more if they are not all alcohol drinks. That means that as Diamond, you'd need to plan on 10+ drinks a day, or 11+ as D+ to "break even" with the DBP. For us, totally not worth it. Possibly a pop package on a super sale, but that's about it. For others, I'm sure it's still totally worth it.