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Pax is on ship ex Southampton. Drinking age in UK is 18

You can prebuy the Evian 12/24 litre bottles in the planner from around £20 in your cruise planner, though the iced ships water is fine. They'll be waiting in your room when you board. Also there's a coffee card for £28 (15 specialist coffees) to prepurchase. On UK sailings there's a kettle in your room. My next cruise, BCN to Southampton my drink package is £54.50 pppd so the price is dynamic and changes pre cruise depending how many they've sold. I think in the UK the price includes the 18% gratuities , in the USA its added on at the end of the purchase process. You can bring a limited amount of soda on with you as well as your bottle of wine. It's a strict no-no to share a package. Also both adults in a room must purchase a package There is a small fridge in your room. Your room steward will bring you daily bucket of ice and wine glasses if you ask him

We find on the European cruises they have a lot of ports and not many sea days, so we are off the ship most of the day. We usually get a couple of beers on land with lunch. Otherwise I'm happy with their free water, flavoured water, teas and coffees during the day and just get a couple of glasses of wine during the evening. Like @firefly333I get a few free drinks because of my diamond level so I recommend you join their loyalty scheme. You can bring one bottle of wine per adult on board with you and also pre-buy bottles of wine and some spirts through their gifts and gear catalogue. If you have a specialised dinning package, I think you can also get 40% off bottles of wine under $100

We did a cruise last September from Tampa to Boston. I think she is a great ship. Love the Viking Crown lounge on this class. Yes she is a bit faded and tired looking in places but still a lovely ship. Food was OK, waiters and service amongst the best ever

Great photo. Would love to do that. Do you know if it was really strenuous Laura? The couple on the far left look like a couple who are doing a RTW blog . Nice to see John looking so well. I would be interested in how this very long voyage is affecting people health (or not). Everyone in the photos looks really well, congratulations to everyone. Sue

Thank you. Like most of our celebrations it comes from the Christian Calendar and is the fourth Sunday of Lent , Mothering Sunday , a day in centuries gone by for those to go home to visit the 'Mother church' and their mothers. My work colleagues who had families living abroad always had to remember to buy a card now to send to their mums in May as they weren't available to buy here in May

To all mums out there, Happy Mothers Day. VID-20240310-WA0007.mp4

Dementia is such an awful disease and so difficult for family to deal with. My older brother very rarely visited mum. I was lucky that Gary was very supportive, once he retired he use to take Molly and visit every day. Our blessing was that she still knew Gary and I till the end.

Graham @grapau27 , my sincere condolences to Sarah, Pauline and you for the loss of Sarah's dad. Loss within the family is so final and hard to deal with even when you are estranged from each other.

Bon Voyage and Happy Cruising Andrew, Lisa and Owen. Your blogs are always such good fun. So happy you're doing another

Last May we were off the ship shortly after 6.30 (self carried bags). Was at the airline counter around 7am. They asked us if we wanted an earlier flight (to LHR) and put us on the 7.45 am flight. We were home by 1030. I wouldn't book a flight this early but shows it can be done

Last May we had a flight after 9am to LHR from Barcelona. We self carried our bags and got off ASAP. Big queue of taxis waiting, no wait for us. We were at the airport so early the airline asked us if we wanted an earlier flight at 0745. We arrived at our home by 1030 UK time (11.30 Spanish time).

Ah-ha, that may be a reason. There's just a tiny handful of 15 and over. Thought about the Singapore to Dubai Serenade in April but can't face the thought of a long flight to Singapore again. Its a good price though. We will never get to Pinnacle. Too old now and we only cruise 2 or 3 times a year, and I want to start trying other lines.

Loved those middle East cruises in our winter, wish they would still have them

Home safe and sound. Bit of a mission getting home. We both got on the flights we tried for but flights were very full so we ended up seating separately in middle seats for both sin-dxb and dxb-lon sectors. Went to see Dr about the fainting episode and upshot is he's scheduled me for further tests and in the meantime I've had to legally notify DVLA (car licensing authority) and can't drive until they tell me I can. Probably until after results of tests are in. Big change as I'm so use to the freedom of driving 🚗

I'll just be 15 points away from D+ after my summer cruise on Serenade. Looking to see if I can get it in one cruise but most seem to be around 09-14 nights

Happy Holidays Debbie, wishing you an amazing cruise and good weather

Happy Birthday Mark 🎂 🥳

So sorry to hear about the continuing medical issues for Charlie. Don't forget to take time out to look after yourself if you can, I know easier said than done 😕

Wishing you happy memories of a much loved father

No, but as stated in post 31 and 35 you can get a 40% discount (on bottles up to $100) by using ONE voucher

You don't have to have their Internet package to use the app on board. And you can 'chat' to others in your party using the app. Make sure everyone downloads the app. Only problem is you can't just pack away the phone in the safe but need to keep it on you. The daily cruise compass is on the app too

Make sure you have the Royal Caribbean app. So much info on there. You can access it on board even if you don't have an Internet package. Paper copies of the daily cruise compass are only available if you specifically ask your room steward for one, otherwise all the information is on the app.

It can be a bit of a process. We got help at the customer services desk, though the Internet desk can also talk you through the sign up process

I thought of you when I took the pictures. They had a whole area of them