Engineroom Snipe

One could interpret the language that after 18, the children's account starts at zero as it does not specifically state that any cruise points are accumulated as children. They just enjoy the status of their parents up to the Diamond Plus level until they turn 18.

Until age 18. Item 45 under "Youth Memberships" in C&A" PDF Brochure. They only get credit for the actual days they cruised between 0 and 18 after the age of 18.

Great question! Why would RCI offer such a high discount? Possibilities: 1. Assuming that drinks costs about $14 (plus automatic gratuities), at 25% and 30%, the standard breakeven point is five drinks per day. Even at that level, one could charge those five drinks to the room and still have the same overall costs. At 35%, it appears the break even costs is four drinks a day. RCI maybe gets a few extra sales from cabins that might otherwise not buy a package. 2. Some people have medical issues or are taking prescriptions by the time they are 65+. A cabin might have one person who can drink alcohol and one that cannot. They might just pay again for the alcohol drinks for one and non-alcohol drinks for the other and still be cheaper than two drink packages at the current pricing. 3. Cabin prices in general have gone up. Some cruisers might be foregoing alcohol packages or buying less drinks on-board in order to free up money for the higher fares. RCI obviously must believe that this is a profitable offer so RCI must assume that 65+ cruisers drink less on the average than younger cruisers. I know there are exceptions but the bean counters are like the casinos: as long as the bottom line is more profitable, they will keep experimenting with these numbers. I believe this offer is a moot point for most C&A cruisers who are 65+ since they most probably have obtained Diamond or higher status which included happy hours in the past and vouchers presently. In those cases, a person would have to drink more than nine drinks (if a current Diamond) in order to break even. I know some easily can do this when soda, coffee, juices, etc, are combined with their drink numbers. Maybe they are trying to entice older C&A cruisers into full unlimited drink packages and testing the water (I should say 'alcohol' 😆) with the extra 5% discount added to the normal maximum 30% discount during special sales.

I know. But I was channeling my inner dog. Good to be home! Thank you for sharing ALL of your vacation with us. 😇

I have dismembered this room in the memory of meeting you again. It will take at least three days for you to be in my good graces. You may pet me now. 🤣

Please show us a happy reunion with your fabulous dog! 😁

Formally known as "Jumping Ship". 🤣

I know I have stopped booking more RCI cruises since last October, 2022. I am finishing my third of 2023 cruises with another one booked for November 2024. I normally would do at least one spring (2024) but I am on hold until after my Jewel cruise this November. I will have a good time but it will the added to my opinions of how much I cruise RCI in the future.

Such a shame, on our cruise in April of 2022, the braised lamb was one of the best I tasted, a 9.5/10, when all the other dishes were a 5/10 at best in the MDR.

Your opinion sounds logical. That is why it should make RCI Crown and Anchor members think long and hard about why they cruise. Would they cruise without the C&A perks if they were taken away tomorrow? Is the cruise itinerary, service, food quality, and experience satisfactory for the investment of your time and money? How do you feel when the cruise is done? There has not been a cruise that my wife and I regretted taking for the money that we paid for the experience, with or without C&A perks. Currently, we are not booking future cruises with RCI beyond our existing cruises because in general, the prices have doubled and the experience has been degraded by previous "adjustments" to RCI service and food. I have not found the things changing in a positive manner in meaningful ways to justify a doubling of the cruise fare. "Adjusting" the C&A policies is just one more consideration to throw into the decision matrix.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to do live postings this cruise. I will be on the Jewel for a 9 day in November. I plan to do the MDR every-night and take pictures of the food with my opinions which I will post when the cruise is complete. I try to disconnect from technology on my cruises which I work with everyday. I would be irritable too about the internet connection problems considering the prices paid for the service on onboard. I feel it is worse to have intermittent connections than no connection at all. Again, I thank everyone for sharing.

I have found it the same. If the lines are short for screening, they want to move as many passengers as possible to the check-in counters. The only consideration after that is if you need to use the elevators versus taking a longer walking route through escalators. The walking route is about eight minutes versus the elevators which can handle about ten to fifteen people depending upon carry on luggage taking space in the elevator. The elevator waiting times upon my best guess from watching the flow is about 20 minutes. Almost seems to be pre-pandemic and makes purchasing The Key a waste of money if you want priority boarding. Maybe a 30 minute difference at best.

So the crew members sign-up knowing that they do not know what they are doing and suffer the abuse in order to get internet access. Somehow this seems very much like the American worker experience. I understand so much more about why the Voom experience seems more like the Sloth experience. This is why I like to disconnect from the technical experience while on vacation. Trying to make the Internet connection work seems like going back to the office! 🤣 🥶

It is only double my original booking price, just like yesterday, Still, the price has doubled in less than 12 months, good for me now, not good for me in the future.

Sorry, correction, for some reason my search today was not in USD. My apologies, I knew something had to be wrong.

My latest example of sticker shock: I booked a spacious hump balcony on the Jewel of the Seas in September, 2022, in Next Cruise on the Oasis on September 11. Today, on RCI's website during a mock booking, it is more than 4x my total booking price. This is an almost double from YESTERDAY when I did a mock booking price. It seems like a price fishing expedition as I cannot justify or understand a doubling of price in a 24 hour period. 😬

As of now, I can sign in through my Android phone app and the website.

As long as the captain sees it too, everything will be OK. 😁

The more years we get under our belt, the more we enjoy watching the world go by and appreciate the moment as we leave all of our technology behind.

With a little imagination, it is Ahsoka from the Star Wars Series. 😉

In your first picture about the sunshine, I see a ray of hope for better weather. 😁

Yes, on the Anthem, the passage way is narrower and one crew staff could block the area and control the flow of about 6 sinks. On the Oasis, the outgoing past the sinks is about 15 feet wide so it would take about three or even four staff to try and do something as you describes. If they focused their attention trying to stop one person, there would be a gap and two could get by. Kind of like playing zone defense and getting one zone overloaded. I thought the Anthem's setup was much better for flow control.

Looks delicious! Great Pictures, thanks for posting. I saw the twenty miles per hour winds on the ship information screen and then add the ship speed if you are heading against them. Whitecaps in the background of the sea picture. Your pictures tell the whole story very quickly.

My Oasis cruise, this month, 7 days out of Bayonne, I ate almost all of my meals at the Windjammer. The washing of the hands is optional as far as I could tell. Especially for the opening bell at 7am. Some mornings, there were about 100 people waiting in line. When the server removed the fabric divider to allow passengers into the wash area of about 8 sinks, more people just walked through than washed their hands. I spent about 15 seconds waiting for an open sink and another 45 seconds washing my hands and getting the paper towels (some times they pack them in so tightly it is very difficult to pull them out, they just start to tear). I had a good viewpoint and did a quick count to how many people passed by in that 45 seconds (maybe off by three people, they were moving fast). About 25 people went through and I tried to not count those that seemed to make an attempt at the hand sanitizer dispenser. Everyone was worried about claiming a spot near a window that nothing else seemed to matter. Maybe some of them came back to wash their hands after they claimed their tables. There were so many years before the pandemic that I was happy just to see people use the sanitizer. Our biggest fear was noro-virus but that can ruin your trip if you get it.

This is not something that is happening only on RCI. I call this a possible downside of the Unlimited Drink Package meets "Oh, there are lifeguards on duty" combined with "I want to get my money's worth out of the drink package (which normally means at least 6 drinks in general per person or more)." You were onboard a ship that can easily handle 6,000 passengers and it has been sailing with more for almost all of this year. Even if a small percentage, say 5% or 300 tend to drink more than they can handle, those 300 can seem like 3,000. I have seen this happen on many vacations to include non-cruise vacations. I wish I knew the answer. Different ships have different vibes at different times of the year. Maybe talk to your travel agent about a "quieter" ship at a different time period.