NutsAboutGolf

The chief benefit is sun protection in the areas they cover so you save a fifth of a bottle of sunscreen and the couple of minutes you'd spend applying it. Many will keep them on in the pool for that reason

Teach someone to fish or something like that

Playing devil's advocate, one wouldn't need customer service if you could do everything including changing your booking online

"Welcome aboard! No free drinks for you on embarkation day"

I'd guess I've eaten in the MDR or Blu for a total of 100 nights. In my direct experience, whether or not you like it, there are dress code violations every dinner. If you don't see them, you're not looking hard enough. When they do enforce the dress code it's usually when another passenger complains and the enforcement is simply the M'D saying: "Next time please follow the dress code rules". For context, 99% of the time I wear a long-sleeved button-down and either Jeans or Khakis. I wore shorts to dinner exactly one time; while I knowingly broke the rules and knew it was wrong, my laundry unexpectedly was not ready and I decided to wear shorts vs dirty pants (lol). No one said a peep including the roaming M'D whom we had a two-minute conversation with who clearly saw I was in shorts

I understand your airfare is not refundable but have you confirmed you cannot change flights or receive a credit? Most Canada-based airlines do NOT allow changes or provide credits

You're welcome to bring food from the buffet (usually the same deck of 14). Always found it very windy and note the "roof" is a grate exposing you to the rain or the sun. I don't find the seating very comfortable as many of the seats have very deep seating meaning your back isn't touching the back of the chair. The busiest times I see it are embarkation and when pulling into port many will be on against the glass on the Magic Carpet taking photos. If you have a tender port you won't even realize how much easier it makes things until your next cruise with a tender port without the magic carpet

Yes, although people rarely cancel within a few weeks of the sail date and MoveUp closes before embarkation day. On the other hand, guest services told us there's ALWAYS a handful of people who do not make it to the embarkation ports all board usually related to a missed flight and/or emergency. However, by then MoveUp closes and it becomes first come first serve to those no show staterooms

No. I've personally seen minimum amounts increase and others have reported they've seen minimum amounts decrease. All we can do is speculate and what makes the most logical sense is it changes based on room type occupancy but that's just my WAG ("Wild A$$ Guess") Bid with what you feel comfortable bidding and double the price you paid plus the bidding amount against a new booking to ensure you're not overpaying. We've won at least 3 times but always non-suites, if you want to bid around the minimum make it at least a few ticks higher than the minimum. That's what worked for us

I don't doubt you or even the officer however I doubt the officer's source and perhaps there's some missing context. X still has aluminum soda cans, why not change those to plastic? Aluminum is one of the easiest materials to recycle and therefore not difficult to locate recycling facilities. They got rid of the cans at the same time they implemented other cost-cutting measures which was why they probably changed...From wiki

You receive drinks at most bars (World Bar and craft social have been excluded) except for embarkation day There are ADDITIONAL happy hour events which will be listed in your stateroom @cruisestitch, this is the first time I've seen the Martini bar excluded

Give it a try, the food and service should be above the MDR

Standard practice, refresh some public spaces and fix what's broken like the hot tubs. Not a revolution

This. It's been a while since I've used a slot machine but the last three times they greatly reduced the amount you can room charge on the tables until your play qualifies for it. Used to be $5000/day, no questions asked. Now it seems to be $1000 and 2 out of 3 asked how much I expected my average bet to be. Used to be a great way to earn credit card points but also, if you have an airline's highest annual fee credit card, they usually give you some credit toward your airline status if you spend enough

If it happens, guessing it'll be an inside room for 2, 6 nights or less, all sailing dates mid-week

At least most news outlets aren't claiming a "shark attack" because it wasn't one. Many are saying it was a PROVOKED open-mouth glancing blow which is still very damaging/dangerous but the shark didn't even intentionally bite after it was straddled to whip its head around with its mouth open. All shark bites are incredibly rare yet it's even more rare that sharks attack submerged humans. However, a Tiger Shark did kill a scuba diver this past November, coincidently, in the Bahamas

Generally, if you're at a port shop and they want to see your seapass card it's because the shop is paying X (or any other cruise line) a kickback that you are paying for

Does NOT earn tier points: Free play including promo chips Earns tier points: Room charges performed at the machines (no fee) and the table games but the tables charge you a fee if you don't have status

RCG's CEO (X's parent company and it should be noted there is no X CEO, Laura is only the President) says on their quarterly earning calls that they're increasing fares because they want to close the pricing gap with land resorts (nice excuse, why not give everyone free wifi like land resorts?) and as they increase the fares, they are surprised bookings don't drop. If they want to raise fares, at least improve the passenger experience, but they don't beyond reversing some cutbacks, they instead apparently spend their revenue on TV commercials

Hard to NOT blame corporate greed, popular Vbloggers state if booked on the Icon of Seas, it's $240/per person

Generally speaking, it's per room. Yet there could be MINOR room rate differences between a room with one bed for a couple and a room with two beds for a couple plus their children. Also, some countries hotels may charge a per-person tax but again this is a MINOR difference, not double the price

Portal-accessed open wifi networks are pretty standard in the travel industry which allows them to see what you're doing including if you're performing any illegal activities. There are free VPNs you can download, the only way to utilize them is to ensure the VPN is off, log into the ship's wifi network then turn on VPN. I would guess 99% of cruising internet users which includes the crew don't use a VPN Other than a new hacker practicing, it makes little financial sense to hack someone's streaming service login info and if that happens you can simply reset your password as the link would be sent to your email. One tip for those who are concerned, dedicate one credit card to pay for things when on open wifi networks and use another credit card for everything else

You MAY have both refundable and non-refundable options. On Hotels by X, you enter your trip details, it will show hotels, once you click on the hotel you want you select the room you want and it will tell you if it's refundable or not. Be sure that X Hotels can be cheaper but be sure you know if the hotel charges a resort fee and if that's included with X Hotels and which non-X Hotel booking site Hotels by X CAN be cheaper so it's important to shop around; if one is okay with non-refundable Hotwire is often the cheapest. With Hotwire, you pick the neighborhood and hotel star level then it will display pricing yet you can USUALLY match up the reviews to see what hotel you get before purchasing. In this example, all you have to do is match up the number of reviews which is 1,425

1) If you have or plan on getting travel insurance, contact them to let them know you're utilizing a luggage handling service that is not run by the cruise line or airline but is run by a THIRD PARTY to see if you have the option to buy coverage for it 2) Buy tracker devices like AirTags 3) Ensure you do not put anything irreplaceable in the luggage that's sent to the valet service, my mistake was keeping the souvenirs in there Several threads on here that their luggage didn't appear at their home airport's luggage carousel after using valet. I used luggage valet in Seattle in 2019 and it was initially lost but found a week later after I contacted the Exec Office (they refused to share why it was lost). X's lost luggage process leaves a lot to be desired as you essentially file a claim with them and won't hear a peep again unless they find it. When I contacted the valet service, bags Inc., they told me to call X and ask them if they scanned the luggage tag so when I called X, they wouldn't answer any questions My travel insurance wouldn't cover anything as it was handled by a 3rd party and had I had a tracking device, everything could have been resolved. Air tags recently helped us on another flight (didn't have the option to use valet) where our luggage didn't appear at the home airport