cruiselvr04

Everyone should move every 10 years just to rid of stuff! I’m kidding of course. We moved 11 years ago. We also used ABF and it went well. We boxed everything ourselves. We hired someone to load and unload at each end. The grand piano was the worst. That required an extra hire to load it on a piano board and secure in the truck. ABF would not insure the piano so we just kept out lingers crossed. We used an entire trailer plus a quarter of another one. I’m trying to do a move clean throughout this year. By that I mean going through every closet and drawer and getting rid of stuff. How do we accumulate so much stuff!

We don’t care for it. I would prefer our waiter serve us our dessert and let the conversation keep flowing. However some servers really seem to enjoy this part of the job by getting to sing and dance. If they like doing it, I don’t want to take that away from them. So we don’t complain on our surveys but for us it gets old and would like it to go away.

By now you’ve probably bought your airfare. But for the benefit of others who might read this thread we highly suggest you spend time in Sydney. We spent 3 nights before and 4 after our round Australia cruise. We stayed on the quay ( many hotels in this area) and found it so easy to get around by foot, train, tram and ferries. Unless you have time constraints see this beautiful city with so much to do!

We have watched Royal actually retrieve them and handed them off to the port agent. I feel comfortable leaving them in the safe. Especially in the Caribbean where we do not take long excursions or get too far from the port unless it’s through the ship. But do what makes you feel comfortable. I would be more concerned leaving them in a bag on the beach. We like to snorkel and swim and take all valuables into the water with us. If passports get wet they will not be accepted.

We are booked for 2026. Beautiful pictures. Our trip is in March but I’m hoping we see a few flowers out. I expect it to still be cold. The world cruise received a warm welcome from Japan in some of the videos I’ve seen.

Passports stay in the safe unless required. They are not required anywhere in the Caribbean. We take our passport cards with us in port for ID and a credit card in case something unexpected happens. Other countries are different and have different rules. In the Caribbean all you need is photo ID in ports of call. And a watch set to ship time!

We have cruised over Halloween and it was fun. Every ship is sailing pretty much to capacity right now. Definitely look at school holidays if having a ton of kids around bothers you. We have noticed a large uptick of kids on every cruise except maybe the really long ones over 10 days. Either parents are taking them out of school or home schooling. We thought there wouldn’t be a lot of kids on our southbound Alaska cruise last year due to the cost of 2 one way flights. There were 600kids/1800 adults on that ship. It was crazy.

This would be true for us. We booked several with Celebrity that got cancelled due to covid. We are trying again but will miss the free perks on Royal. It’s too bad the offers aren’t the same as they are a sister line. I know we’d book more with Celebrity if the perks were the same.

You need to book fairly early or you’ll need to move to different cabins. While this is not a deal breaker, it’s a hassle and time consuming to pack and unpack again. Booking early when fares first come out increases your chances of getting the same cabin. We do a lot of them and it’s definitely more enjoyable when you don’t move cabins.

Yes, booked for April of 2025.

Dani - I hope you are getting some rest today. Please know there are many people all over the world who are praying for the protection and peace for the people of Israel including the DH and I.

I complain on every survey. Last cruise we left wet pool towels in the cabin because we were late to dinner and didn’t have 15 min to wait for elevators to take them back up to the pool deck. Our steward took them and I had to work to get them off our bill. The stewards should at least have a stack to replace them if they remove them. He said he checked it in for us but it did not happen. It can be such a pain.

We will be doing the opposite in April. I will need to figure out how to get from Southampton to downtown London. We’ll have too many bags I think to take a train. We actually will get off in Portsmouth, then I want to spend a couple of nights there or Southampton, taking the train to bath and maybe Cotswold? Then we’ll spend a week in London before flying home. We’ll skip Stonehenge but will do a day trip out to Windsor.

Super cute. Our last cruise we didn’t get a single towel animal and I missed it!

The standard meal in Izumi is one small plate, order 2 from the large plate list and one dessert for the pre set price. Or you can order ala carte and pay for each item. Or order the pre fixe and add something else for an additional charge. We’ve even ordered one pre fixe meal and shared it when we weren’t very hungry. We added something to it and it was plenty especially for lunch.

We had this discussion with Australians at dinner one night. It’s the same issues everywhere. Few charging stations, would never make it on a road trip in the heart of Australia. Batteries are very costly to replace. There have been some fires from cars plugged into garages which burned the house down. Some places in Australia now say you have to have the charging so many feet from your home in case of fire.

Our girl turned 3 yesterday.

It never hurts to check onboard. They may put you on a waiting list in case someone cancels. Good luck.

My password isn’t working either. Guess I’ll have to come up with a new one….

I don’t want to lose any perks. It really does keep us coming back when we compare having to buy drinks/internet on other lines. What will make us leave Royal are the repetitive itineraries. The new cruisers don’t care as it’s all new to them but some of us want to see other parts of the world then just the Caribbean. Royals 25-26 leaves a lot to be desired, nothing longer than 7 days at a time in Europe. They used to do 12 night. While you can string some together, the meals and entertainment gets repetitive. Flights are expensive, I’m not flying overseas for a week cruise. I skimmed the blog rebranding article. I’d be thrilled if Celebrity and Royal merged for C and A. It would certainly get us on more Celebrity ships! Elite on Celebrity isn’t much.

That’s great. But if the ship was ever a couple of hours late getting in…It does happen once in a while. I’d prefer to eat breakfast and take it a little slower. But I do agree the port and airport are really close so it may be possible.

We put each dress item in its own dry cleaning bag. I’ve saved them for years for this purpose but I think if you went to a dry cleaners they’d sell you some. We use a “cruiser suitcase” where the clothes stay on the hangers and fold in the middle. We don’t have to send anything out. Steam in the shower helps if needed. Otherwise we go wrinkled.

You are brave. It can be done but we won’t book anything before 11 and then do our own luggage. It’s just too stressful to end a vacation that way.

We have booked her for 2026 so we’d like to know what you think of her too! Since Royal doesn’t circle Japan we had to use Celebrity.

Brilliance beds were hard as a rock too. On our 46 night we spent the first 3 port days searching for a foam topper. Found one in the little town of Napier NZ of all places. They were discounted to $40/king so we bought 2 and slept great the rest of the trip.