RobInMN

Sine we're posting pictures. Jewel in Flam: "Midnight" (actually 1:00 AM because DST) Sun: Jewel in Honningsvag. Northern most port. Here you can see that the dock is about 1/4-1/3 the length of Jewel 🤣: Nordkapp (Northernmost point in Norway/Europe): Random picture:

Have you been on an Oasis class? Sure, there's 6000 people (plus 2200 crew), but there's also just that much more space for people to be. I have found the Oasis class to be no more "crowded" than our recent cruise on Jewel. I've felt our Oasis class cruises have been comparable crowd wise to basically every other cruise we've taken (except during COVID). If there is something super popular, it will be crowded regardless of the size of the ship. According to the stat sheet on Symphony, there's 1.6m square feet of "air conditioned" space. This obviously does not include any deck space, of which there is a lot on an Oasis class. Divide that out by 8800 people (passengers plus crew) and that is about 183 square feet per person. That's about the size of a standard cabin (per person). Now, I don't have any total square footage facts for any other ship, but I can't image that this is any less, and is likely more.

FAQ Topics: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/topics/royal-suite-class Direct links to specific FAQ answers: Ship List: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/is-royal-suite-class-available-fleet-wide Room List: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-rooms-are-included-in-the-royal-suite-class Published Benefits list: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-are-the-benefits-of-royal-suite-class Published Royal Genie description: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-is-the-royal-genie

Since I have an Android, I bought some Tile Pros for our Jewel B2B out of Amsterdam. I chose Tile over the Samsung ones as they work with both Apple and Android in case I needed to "find" a suitcase. They claim a range of 400 ft, but as I think they're supposed to work via Bluetooth, but that seems pretty far for Bluetooth. Anyway, on my fight out, I successfully detected all 4 suitcases from my seat on the plane, so I knew they were on board (or at least made it to the tarmac). On the return flight, I could not detect them from my seat, but after getting up and going to the restroom after take off, my phone did end up detecting them. So again, I knew they were on board. At both airports, they basically didn't give me more than about a 30 second heads up that they would be popping out. On the ship, I didn't really attempt to use it. Our luggage had appeared between cabin visits. I imagine the best we would have gotten was that it was on our floor/hall.

Just because there is a tip option does not mean that the job's wage structure is designed in a way that tips are an expected part of their compensation. Certain jobs, like restaurant servers, are specifically paid (much) less than normal minimum wage because tips are expected to make up the difference. Some times many, many times the difference. There is a societal expected amount, and you tip more for exceptional and less for poor service. If service is poor enough that you are inclined to stiff them, you really should talk to management. There are plenty of jobs where one could argue that the person preforming the service is paid enough on base charge, but again societal expectations peer pressure people into a somewhat standard rate. This rate is less than that of jobs where tips subsidize their wages. Things like barbers, stylists, etc. Then there jobs where the tip is truly a bonus for exceptional service. Are the auto-gratuity-options on modern POS systems always appropriate for the place of business? No. Remember these 2 rules: Never piss off anyone that handles your food Always make your bartender happy I just saw a recent story where someone was upset at a restaurant when no one would come to her table. Finally the manager came over and said that no server wanted to serve her since she never tips anything. Not "depending" on tips and earning a "living wage" may be true, but is a false equivalency. The wages that the jobs that the tips go to are based on tips making up a portion of their total compensation. If gratuities were built into the base cruise fare, their wages would be adjusted accordingly. Maybe it's true that if everyone removed their tips, they would still make a "living wage", but that's not what they signed up for. People can argue all they want about whether tipping should be built in or not, or whether the entire concept of tipping or tip based jobs are morally just, but the fact is, when we take a cruise on Royal Caribbean, we are expected to pay gratuities to certain people, either automatically or "manually". To not pay any gratuities at all is not going to convince Royal Caribbean to change their compensation model, it only hurts the hard working staff. If you want it to change, take it up with the corporate office. I would love to have gratuities built in, but honestly, to me it's an expected cost, and I have no problem paying it. I have not ever felt it necessary to tip extra, and I don't pre-pay. I have the daily charges on my room and pay at the end. I'm just glad we don't have to shove cash in envelopes on the last night anymore.

Similar to some previous posts. Sometimes you cruise for the ship, and sometimes you cruise for the itinerary. Our favorite class would have to be the Oasis class. We have no issues with the Voyager class, and about a year ago did our first Freedom class, which for all intents and purposes is basically the same as the Voyager class. Recently did Odyssey (Quantum Plus), and while I liked it, my wife wasn't impressed. She much preferred the Oasis class. Many many years ago, we did a 3 night quickie on Majesty and I don't think we would want to be on a Sovereign class for an extended period of time. A few years after that we did a multi-family 7 night on Disney's Magic. After about 4/5 days I was kind of bored of the ship itself. Having said all that, our most recent cruise was a 24 night total B2B on Jewel. Arctic Circle followed by Iceland & Ireland. Anything larger than a Radiance class is simply not going to do some of these ports. Our biggest concern going into it was that we would become bored of the ship after not too long. That never happened. If we had more vacation time, we would have been more than happy to have stayed on for the next 12 night cruise (British Isles). We never felt bored of the ship at all. Some of that could have been the CD staff, they were excellent. The CD herself was great. And even in such remote places, they were constantly shuttling headliners off & on at almost every port. For us, if we are talking about a large part of the Caribbean where you're hitting a lot of the same ports over & over or the Western Mediterranean loop where Oasis class is an option, Oasis would be our first choice hands down. Maybe at some point, we'll feel like we want to visit some of the smaller Caribbean ports, in which case we will need to consider a Radiance class ship, or Quantum class again if that's an option. We want to do a Panama Canal cruise. That will be a Radiance class. For a while, I think Radiance was the largest ship that would do Alaska, then it was Voyager class (which is what we did it on), now they've got 2 Quantum classes up there, but I think there's still certain ports/itineraries that are still limited to Radiance class, so if we did that again, we might want to look at that instead. Not sure we'd ever consider the Vision class, but others seem to love Grandeur. As for condition, there was this thread recently. Seems hit or miss. I thought Jewel was in great shape and only showing minor/expected wear. Any reference in this thread to Jewel had similar reports. Other ships did not have as great of reports, with some people reporting some disappointing reviews.

3 prong. TV is plugged in somewhere behind the "refrigerator", so they are really hidden. 😉

That is correct.

We did a B2B on Jewel this summer in a JS under the double points promo. At the end of the first leg, we would be at 142 points. I was expecting the form to appear on the last night of our cruise as that was when we went over 140. However, at the beginning of the cruise, along with all the rest of the expected materials, there was a form on our bed from the LA to fill out for the block, so I filled it out in my name to be mailed, and turned it into the LA. Then on turn around day, when we got back into our cabin (same cabin), to my surprise, with all the other material, there was another form. So, knowing that we are only supposed to get 1, we filled it out with my wife's name, to be mailed, and turned that in to the LA. I have no idea if they will recognize that we filled out 2 cards on 2 different cruises or not, but what the heck, figured I might as well try. No indication as to how long it might take, but based on this thread, if it (or they) show up in the next year, I should be happy.

We did not have Geiranger either. But in my limited research before going, it appeared to me that Geiranger and Flam had a friendly rivalry as to who had the best fjord, and just to make just you hit at least one of them. Our itinerary had Flam, and I thought it was stunning (I use that word a lot with Norway). I am not disappointed in any way that we did not have Geiranger instead/also, as we got to go to Honningsvag, which I think is well worth going on the smaller Radiance class ship to get to. Our itinerary: Amsterdam, Cruising, Molde, Arctic Circle (Cruising), Tromso, Honningsvag, Cruising, Alesund, Flam, Haugesund, Kristiansand, Cruising, Amsterdam.

I have not done Greece (yet), but I just did Norway, and it would get my vote. Absolutely stunning! But I would suggest Jewel out of Amsterdam and doing Arctic Circle vs. just the lower fjords. See discussion here:

I don't remember 100%, but it goes something like this: You enter the last name and cabin number to start. It will then ask you if you want to use your pre-purchased VOOM plan or pay for a different plan. It will then ask you if you are the first login or not. If you are the first, it will have you establish a username and a password/PIN. Every time after that, and for every extra user/device if you have a multi-device plan, you select the option that you have already enabled your plan. At that point, you will enter the username and password/PIN that you established on the first login.

On some (newer?) ships, all upgrades are being handled by Royal Up. Had pending Royal Up bids in on an Odyssey cruise last Feb, and attempted to check on on-board upgrades immediately upon boarding. If you said you were there for possible upgrades, the "line screener" would say that all upgrades are handled by Royal Up and would give you a business card with the Royal Up website and instructions and would basically stop you from even going to the counter. Other people have reported this on other ships as well.

Whenever anyone talks about Cats!, all I can think of is:

At what people are reporting RC is charging for this post-COVID, I would not take the kids. Spend that on something you know they will enjoy more.

That may used to be true, and maybe it depends on your phone and/or carrier, but you definitely can create a WiFi Hotspot on your phone even when using WiFi, at least you can with a Samsung Galaxy phone with T-Mobile as your carrier. I did this many times on my phone and my wife's phone on our last cruise. We paid for a 2 Device Voom S&S. My wife had 1 connection on her phone, and I had 1 connection on my phone. I would use my phone's WiFi hotspot to randomly connect my tablet or my laptop. I found this much easier than logging off 1 device and logging on the other. Plus, I could still stream music or podcast on my phone while still being able to use my table to play a game. Similarly, it was easier to connect the Firestick we brought to my wife's phone's hotspot rather than logging out & logging in on the Firestick everytime. After connecting the first time, if we wanted to use the Firestick, we'd just turn on my wife's phone's hot spot, and plug the Firestick in. So, to the OP's question. You definitely don't need to buy per device you will use. You only need to purchase the number of connections you will use at the same time. For us, that's per-person. That way my wife & I can use WiFi to keep in touch on the ship. Whether you logoff/login from device to device, or you use a Hot Spot. For some people, this may be 1 total. BTW, even though it's technically possible, and we did it, I think it might actually violate the Voom T&S. All though, I have not hear of anyone being penalized in anyway for doing it.

I thought Jewel seemed to be in very good shape considering her age. She's still a beautiful ship. She's not perfect, and there's expected wear, but nothing that is overtly obvious and certainly not things that are unexpected. Can't really say I was anywhere and thought "can't believe that's in that bad of shape, they really need to replace that". I am not sure of Jewel's upgrade/refresh history. I don't believe there has been any major changes, but I'd have to believe that typical cosmetic things have been updated, probably more than once, like the carpets and thigs like that. I'm sure that when she was built, she probably had CRT TVs, those are all LCDs now. I know that walking down the hall while room service was being done, that not all the curtains are the same in every room, so those have been changed out as needed. There's some mentions of Jewel in this thread. I think all references to Jewel were positive.

This one?

Pretty sure when we did it on Symphony Summer 2018 it was $109 or $119.

See my post in this thread. It references 2 other threads with information about connecting devices to TVs. But I was able to use my Firestick in Norway, even above the Arctic Circle, the resolution/quality kept degrading, but it was usable.

Adding to answer. B2B this summer was 24 nights. I think City of Dreams was once per cruise. Not a huge production show, but it had back drops, a couple large props, and singing/dancing. Tango Buenos Aires maybe twice per cruise? It's a very talented couple that does the tango. We didn't actually go to as it's not our thing, but did see them when they did short promo samples at a couple other events/shows. Seems to be a long-term residency.

We we did the B2B this summer, performers were getting on & off practically every port, at least every other. The headliners actually had the JS 2 doors down from us. Appeared to be the designated stateroom for whoever it was. Primarily, they were acts that travelled very lightly. If the TA has many consecutive sea days, not sure how they'd handle that. But if you're hitting ports every couple days, I'd imagine they keep the same thing going.

While not dedicated to trading, many trades have been posted in this existing thread:

Even before you can get to your room to get your card, you can use your beverage package. The bartender just has to look it up manually by the room number.