Volk9048

2 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

It's one and done for me. I opened the card for the introductory offer of $300 OBC on the first $1000 spent. Now I will just use my cash back credit cards. I did the same with the Princess card.

You need to go online with Bank of American get your card acct info entered and login .  After that you go to rewards and you will see how many points you have and can take that in cabin credit which is what we do or out toward a new cruise.  

I think all Royal ships have Star link now.  At the same time band width in cabins is probably better on new ships because the signal equipment is Designed into the ship instead fitted after the fact. 

Short cruises get $50 credit 3-5 days I think, 1 week,cruises 6-10

days get $100 lond cruises over 11 days I think get $250. 

We went in Feb and the heated pool was nice. I think it really depends on time of years and other ships in port. If there is 2 Oasis size ships and you are second to arrive it might be worth it. 

We are going to Costa Maya in Nov. Royal is offering a 5 hour beach day with chairs and drinks. The price is good and it seems like a beach club. Food is extra. Has anyone taken this excursion?  Trying to decide between this and the Krazy Lobster whic we enjoyed other that the beach was not great.  

Princess has a TA from FLl to South Hampton. April 4

What are the transportation options and how long does it take if we walk off? 

I think the stock dropped because early Thursday the media reported Royals earnings were less than expectations. Then 2 hours later it was corrected to say Royals Revenue, and earning were higher tha n expected but by then shares were sold, the price dropped and then those computer sellers sold more.  No reason for the stock to drop with today’s report.  

1 minute ago, Volk9048 said:

This thread has gotten long and we have beaten it up pretty good. We know for sure a new smaller class is coming  the question is how small. RCCl has a lot of smaller ships to replace so they need to get moving.  
I believe the new class will be built to fit under the key bridges in Tampa 180 ft, Vancouver, and to get to Baltimore. Tampa is the lowest so that might be the target.  In addition getting through the Panama Canal is required so the ships can do Alaska in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter easily. 
 

The Bliss size might be a great starting point.one way to make up the space you lose in height is to make the ship a bit longer. In addition you can save height by not putting tall stuff on top.  You don’t need the sky lift type thing.  Royal can still include big money items in the build. I also thing while Royal targets families with the monster ships the smaller ships just like now have a older demographic of Royal Cruisers that want to see new ports in Alaska, Europe, New England and even a world cruise.  

My guess is still 3000 passengers range.  

This thread has gotten long and we have beaten it up pretty good. We know for sure a new smaller class is coming  the question is how small. RCCl has a lot of smaller ships to replace so they need to get moving.  
I believe the new class will be built to fit under the key bridges in Tampa 180 ft, Vancouver, and to get to Baltimore. Tampa is the lowest so that might be the target.  In addition getting through the Panama Canal is required so the ships can do Alaska in the summer and the Caribbean in the winter easily. 
 

The Bliss size might be a great starting point.one way to make up the space you lose in height is to make the ship a bit longer. In addition you can save height by not putting tall stuff on top.  You don’t need the sky lift type thing.  Royal can still include big money items in the build. I also thing while Royal targets families with the monster ships the smaller ships just like now have a older demographic of Royal Cruisers that want to see new ports in Alaska, Europe, New England and even a world cruise.  

In this thread we have a lot of ideas on what they will do with the next ship. 
Right now Celebrity when the Xcel is added has 5 E class ships that carry 3200 passengers, 5 S class that carry 2800 passengers and 4 M class ships that carry 2200 passengers.  I don’t see X getting much bigger than the E class. Royal, Carnival, MSC and NCL are all building the giant catch all family ships.  I am 65 and see the Celebrity base demographic as 45-70 empty nesters into retirement.  In my opinion the next ship will be somewhere in between the M class and S class. Let’s call it 2400-2500 passengers and will replace the M class.  There is a lot of ports that the E class is too large for and many popular smaller ports are adding passenger restrictions now.  There is a good market for a 2500 passenger ship. I also believe they will try to keep the height under the Tampa bridge height not to lose that market. One concept might be to take the base S class and remove a level to keep the height down.  It has so much wasted space on top with grass you could do a lot with it.  It is also possible they build another  E class as well.  Finally at this point RCCL as a corporation needs to stop counting there money ( love by $160 share stock price) and restart the major refurbishment and upgrades that ended with Covid. The S class, Connie and Infinity need serious work to keep them nice.  

I think the next ship might be smaller and a X version of the new smaller Royal ships soon to be announced.  The M class are popular but aging out.  I a, guess just a little bigger than the M class.   We will see.  

Royal has found the Radiance class pretty useful. Seems like the new smaller ship is coming and 90,000-105,000 ton range it will need to fit under theTampa and  rebuilt  Baltimore Bridge that will likely be higher than the old bridge.  At ship can be heavier without being taller I would think.  I would also suggest that you could create a sister version for Celebrity using the same hull to replace the M class.   

With 8 smaller ships aging out and more and more ports putting in daily passenger limits and new ship in the 2500 passenger range is needed quickly.  You could built 2 of these for the price of 1 icon. 
 

We were able to walk off our ship 2 weeks ago by 730am. If you did the same in theory that gives you 2 hours to make it to LGA. If it is weekend with lighter traffic you could make it but the ride took us 3 hours on a Friday to Our Newark Hotel and it would be 3 1/2 hours to the port. If there is an accident or heavy traffic you could be in trouble.  

I would really research this. We just went through this nightmare 2 weeks ago. We flew in to LGA because we had a non stop paid by Sky Miles and United to Newark was expensive.. Our flight arrived around 2:30.  We had decided to take a Lyft or Uber and stay in Newark.  I had heard fare would be around $120 and the trip 60-90 min.  On arrival When we looked at Uber and Lyft the fares were $135-$180.  We had 4 bags so we pick a Lyft comfort quoted at $160.  Driver was nice and had a Tesla Y.   It was comfortable and he got the bags in. The issue was the Friday traffic. To get to Newark you had to go through Manhattan. The ride took 2 hours 55 min but we got a very slow tour of SOHO.  Once we arrived at our hotel the charge was $238.  We were charged for 2 tunnel tolls $28, extra time fee and something called a black car fee.
 

that said it looks like you arrive on Sat so traffic and the trip should take much less time.  On our trip home we took Amtrak from Newark Penn Station to The Baltimore airport. And flew SW non stop home. The train trip was great and took 2 hour 45 min and the tickets wereless than the Lyft from LGA p,U.S. the SW ticket was much less than out of New York. 

Very easy to do but you need to walk off or tell the ship you need an earlier luggage group. Ride to airport is less than 20 min. 

We just took Amtrak post cruise from Newark Penn Station to Baltimore.  We had a Red Cap help us in Newark just because we were unfamiliar with trains.  There was luggage area near the door of the car for large bags and a very large area overhead for smaller bags.  When we arrived in Baltimore we got our bags and got off the train. Pretty easy. Our train actually stopped in Philly on the way.  It was an enjoyable experience I would do again. 

Drinks above the limit you pay the difference. Some drinks at the pool it was only $1 while at the Martini bar it was $7 I think.  For us it was much less to pay the up charges as needed than to buy the package upgrade.  

We were on the Eclipse 2 weeks ago. I enjoyed the ship and Bermuda.  The elevators were crowded but no more than similar ships until the morning leaving the ship. Being in a suite you will have no issues but in the daily planner there is a bar code you can scan if you have comments. I scanned the code with a 2 comments and the next day I had ships crew fixing the peeling paint on the balcony and the head of the dinning room insisted on a room service breakfast with the food we had asked about.  I was shocked and impressed.  

Thanks for the responses. Might be worth the upgrade. My only thinking was the classic is fine for me but it requires both of us to upgrade. 

Trying to decide rather to upgrade our drink package

Something is not right here. As already posted the Cellar at Sea does not go on until 12 miles out of US ports.  I always leave my cell on until we are down to a bar sailing away.  Also I think Cellular at sea show up different than International charges but I could be wrong.  
 

You have not said who charged you. If it is ATT you need to asked for a complete bill showing times and dates of charges.  If you were charged while in US ports you need to dispute it.  
 

finally if you have ATT I suggest signing up for the ATT International Plan. It is automatic so no major mistakes in foreign ports. You get charged $10 a day for unlimited data, text and calls.  You are only charged if you use it. This does not cover Cellular at Sea when the ship is between ports. 
 

I thought I had read that this is just the required 5 year dry dock and will not be the long 6 week Major upgrade the Summit & M had.  Has anybody seen a list of what they are doing?  I assume it will get the blue painted hull and some upgraded Carpet where needed.  

I love the Summit and h Ave sailed on it 3 times. Sorry for the issues on your cruise and especially the the missed stops.  Just wondering if they gave you any extra cabin credit or future credits.  
 

Lot of power discussion on here.  Most cruise ships today including the Summit are all electric. The propulsion is by electric motors as well. Newer bigger ships usually have 4 main power units but in normal operations use just 2-3 but the Summit is smaller and older and might just have 2 plus a  back up generator.

We had planned on taking the Brighline train but did not make early reservations.  The week of our flight the fare went to $45 pp. We decided to take an Uber.  Cost us $65 for the 45 min ride right to our hotel.