14 hours ago, dahirsh said:

 

you say this like Sysco products are all prepared and/or frozen.  As someone who has authorized payment on Sysco invoices for years, I can assure you they sell fresh beef and poultry and seafood and eggs and pasta and rice and spices and...

I understand that but some of the selections do seem like frozen food reheated.

8 minutes ago, Jasukkie said:

 Make sure you see $0.00 as the purchase price. Each day counts down 24 hours. You can easily separate your days as one day purchases.

This will help you avoid making any mistakes.

3 hours ago, poocher said:

I thought we’d have issues with customs.  Our bags containers 2 1L bottles of vodka, a bottle of Hennessy White 700 ml, 1L of Baileys and a couple smaller bottles of tequila.  Additionally my daughter took 6 bottles of champagne that we were comped.  Nobody said nuthin!

Like most things, ymmv. Back when liquor was really cheap onboard, we used to bring home 6-8 bottles between the two of us if we had driven to the port. We did this multiple times, always declared and were only asked to pay duty for the extra bottles one time. It was a few dollars. 

This time we decided not to purchase any alcohol because the onboard prices were only a few dollars cheaper than Total Wine for what we wanted.

7 hours ago, firefly333 said:

I really think rcl posters must argue and complain more than others.

The problem is that RC does things so many different ways that each person experiences something completely different depending on ship and sail date. So no one is really wrong. You can be on the same sailing and have completely different experiences. This is being exacerbated by lots of new crewmembers who are still all not on the same page in terms of service and customer expectations.

If you like Sysco and gelatin you'll like the MDR.

2L as long as one is locally produced. You can buy more, but you may have to pay duty upon return to US. ymmv

Ship security will ask you to bring your alcohol to the desk when they see it on the scanner. They will tag and return it to your stateroom on the last night.

If you want the earliest time, check in after midnight. I got up about 4am and got the next to earliest time, 11am.

But it didn't matter anyway. I checked in before 10:30am.

On 5/27/2023 at 10:42 AM, HicksRA said:

This probably came about because of people trying to grab 5 unopened beers to carry off the ship. 

Are bars even open on departure morning?

I would never guess that D vouchers would be available on debarkation day. I'm going to try that on my next cruise and see what happens.

Just now, topnole said:

It’s available the last day in my experience.  

I'm wondering if it varies by ship. The Liberty flyer listed MDR, WJ, and Promenade cafe as having breakfast. All were closed between 8 and 9am. D concierge never mentioned to us on the last night that we could have breakfast there. 

My final answer would be that, barring surprise inspections or unexpected equipment malfunctions, Cape Liberty boarding times are not actively enforced. 

23 hours ago, topnole said:

 That last thing I’m worried about is a free bottled water or coffee.  Just walk to the DL if you want a specialty coffee. 

I'm pretty sure the coffee machine/DL is unavailable the last morning.

I am also recently off Liberty. We only went to MDR 2 nights. It was fine, food was correct temperature, but of course less choices. I got the wedge salad one night and it was pretty lame, as was the Caesar salad. Bread, soup,meat and vegetables were otherwise fine but nothing special.Our table neighbors were complaining about the lack of the 'every day' choices.

We did the rest of our dinners, lunches, and breakfasts in WJ. I though it was just ok. Meat quality was poor, but vegetables were good. Pastries all seemed to be day-old. Desserts were gelatinized and meh. Daily Indian and Asian choices seemed popular with guests. The biggest problem was the overcrowding. Unless we went at off times, we could never find a seat, even for just 2 people. It was very aggravating.

Bartenders made good drinks. Be sure to specify your alcohol brand. We used our D+ vouchers. Wine selection was often out of stock. On our first night they had 1 or 2 white wine choices. I kept choosing and finally said, 'tell me what you do have...'. They gave me moscato as my amenity although there were two other choices on file. I traded it later. They were re-provisioned by the next night but were still running out of some things during the cruise. I thought the liquor store prices onboard were high. Nothing worth carrying back in a suitcase. Not too crowded in there either. Seemed like most people were buying cigarettes.

I did fill out the survey, and I was honest and specific in my complaints.

We cruised last week and got to the port by 10am. We parked, went through security and checked in. They seated us in rows in order of arrival. By this time there had to be several hundred people sitting already. Our check-in time was 11am but they didn't even ask. They waved everyone in, saying, 'don't worry about your check-in times, just go on in!'

Getting off the ship was easy, too. Around 7am they were announcing '45 minutes to an hour' before they could let us off. By 7:30am they told us we could leave. There was a minimal line and most people seemed to still be at breakfast.

Use a credit card without a foreign transaction fee. The exchange is automatically done by your bank.

I've been watching the price of the 3 night dining package on my cruise. Today it is showing at $78.99 per guest!  Of course it is -Sold out-

16 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

Well pooh, Amazon doesn't have your whiskey/tequila glass as far as I can tell.  The search goes on.....

Whiskey Decanter Set with 6 Matching Glasses. Glasses are angular in design, with a square bottom. Decanter (30 OZ, 850mL). Glasses (7 OZ, 200mL)

18 hours ago, moposh said:

Why are you being rude?  Maybe I didn't explain it, but yes, I know.  I said I know.  No need to go on at me.

I think you meant to say that he will 'revert' to whatever points he had on his own. His 'level' stays the same but he needs to accrue the balance of points needed for the next level.

13 hours ago, mkcurran said:

But I have no idea where to even start with Aruba & Curacao. Pretty sure I can skip the distillery, as I am allergic to oranges. 

Sub tours? Enough stuff to see on land? I've only got almost a year to plan. 

What are the don't misses for those two stops?  

Last October, I did this free walking tour in Curacao with Rayay. It was really good!  Took about 2 1/2 hours, saw a lot. It was very hot. He had two stops to buy water bottles, at the start and midway.

 https://www.freewalkingtourscuracao.com/  Also see the reviews on TripAdvisor.  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147278-d17340447-Reviews-Free_Walking_Tours_Curacao-Willemstad_Curacao.html

Free Walking Tours Curacao

1 hour ago, sharktums said:

There seems to be 'selective enforcement' with the "you must be in the photo" rule.  Sometimes we've been told you can't and sometimes it isn't even questioned. 

I don't think the computer will let you buy a photo without someone in  your cabin being recognized in that photo.

1 minute ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

Here is the way I understand it and what I was told on the ship a few years ago. The free picture is for the Diamond member. The Diamond member must be in the picture. You are not allowed to get just any random picture (your son's family) with the perk. The Diamond member must be in the picture in order for it to qualify.

Yes. When my family traveled and we were in various pictures, we had to use the coupon(s) corresponding to who was in each picture. It was a pain.

That being said, they could possibly make an allowance, but don't count on it.

Go to Ports of Call boards, Europe, Mediterranean Eastern-Western, Greece ports

27 minutes ago, DragonOfTheSeas said:

My one disappointment at breakfast was the raisin bread--or as I thought of it, the no raisin bread.  The sweet bread was tasty, but it is nothing like the raisin and cranberry bread they used to serve.  

 

 

We tried about half the items between us in 10 days.  If breakfast is a hit, lunch is a bit of a miss.

wow, I can't believe they took out the cranberries and raisins. No almonds, either. 😔 Things are looking grim.

I agree, check everywhere. Inside jacket pockets, manila filing folders, mail pile sitting on your counter, even if you just looked there. Take your time. Recently I couldn't find a prescription and it was sitting in front of my keyboard the whole time. It was on top of the pile of receipts, too. My husband didn't see it, either.

1 hour ago, sid_9169 said:

I've written and re written the opening line to my lastest review about seven times now, so who knows what it'll end up being.

Maybe you should have a contest for your review title.