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On older ships like Voyager class, it's not worth having the door opened. Here is a picture of the door open on Navigator (they were cleaning this day, which is why it was open). They once opened the door for us when our teenage kids were in the next non-connecting room. Since these doors were designed for ship utility purposes rather than guest convenience, the door ends up blocking the door into the stateroom, so it is a pain to have to navigate around the door and the table and chairs to get into the stateroom. And because there is no securing mechanism, it swings around and bangs when the ship is in motion. Doesn't make for a pleasant night of sleep in rough seas. On newer ships they re-designed them to take into account the passenger convenience piece, and that's why they are smaller so they can be opened where the door seats and is secured against the dividing wall (sorry, I don't have a picture).

Cleaning. Easier to open the doors and hose down a bunch of balconies in one pass, rather than having to go into each stateroom individually and worry about passing the hose to each balcony.

When they first introduced the Key, they did a private hour on the Flowrider every morning for Key holders. Most people who got the Key were interested in the other perks like special meals, reserved seats for the shows and not having to lug bags around on embarkation, not the Flowrider benefit. So my son and I ended up with 6 hours of having the Flowrider all to ourselves on a 7 day cruise. We were planning to get internet anyway and the Key was only a few dollars more a day, so instead of $349 an hour for the private hour on the Flowrider, it worked out to just a few bucks a day. To top it off, they also did not make my wife buy the Key even though she was in the room with us. They have since cut back the Flowrider Key hours to one day per cruise, they make my non-Flowriding wife buy the Key now, and the only perks she would use it for she gets already via being D+ and buying the unlimited dining package. So the Key no longer makes sense to us, but it sure was fun while it lasted!

Here's my improvised three monitor setup on Allure. A Mac, a tablet, and the stateroom TV.

I prefer Navigator for remote working. It's 3 hours behind US eastern time, so I work eastern hours and by mid-afternoon I can (usually) revert to cruising mode.

We're also in Juneau on the 12th (Ovation OTS). We're using Alaska Tales https://alaska-whalewatching.com/. We used them last September about a week earlier and we saw lots of whales and it was the highlight of our cruise. The boat was a bit larger than 20, but we didn't mind since it poured the whole time and we were able to stay inside and keep warm while we were on the move between sightings. We did the Mendenhall Glacier/Whale watching combo last year but this year we are just doing whale watching since the Mendenhall part last year was a washout and we spent most of the time waiting in the pouring rain for the bus to return.

You know you are on a Texas cruise just by the number of people boarding carrying 12 packs of Dr Pepper. From what I have seen of how Freestyle machines work, Dr Pepper/Diet Dr. Pepper have smaller cartridges, since it isn't the primary soda choice anywhere but Texas. That's why it regularly runs out.

I remember Mr. Pibb in the early Freestyle days, which is made by Coke. It has now been Dr Pepper for years though. And expect the Galveston ships to have regular Dr. Pepper outages as the cartridges run dry. On Allure it seemed like every other time I went for a refill, the Dr. Pepper options were greyed out.

Every cruise I have done in a regular stateroom (including Navigator) the "sofa bed" is a futon as described. The only time I have ever seen a true sofa bed where an actual bed folds out of the sofa is in suites. A sofa bed has to extend out much farther than a futon, so it would make the stateroom even tighter when opened. I didn't think the futon was very comfortable since you have a dip in the middle where the two pieces meet, and it doesn't have much cushioning, but I never slept on one and my kids never complained. I have also heard of triple occupancy rooms with a chair that converts to a bed, but I've never sailed in one of those rooms.

I have had luck in the past as well. Once watched the World Series in the pub while the singer was actually playing. Half the pub was watching the game and half was there for the singer. He was very patient as people were cheering for the game in the middle of his songs. Currently though the Allure is awful for sports viewing. Needs a Playmakers badly.

We were on Allure last month and they wouldn't change the TV in the pub to a college bball game for us. They told us they were not allowed to switch the TV off of the channel which was showing the 70's parade for the 500th time. It was even the singer's night off and the place was empty. We tried to watch on a laptop, but the Allure wifi was so bad that it was unwatchable. Also, if you want to see a near mutiny, go to On-Air when they cut off karaoke to put on a sporting event. I'm not sure they even do sports in On Air anymore unless it is a really big game due to the popularity of karaoke. So you end up watching the TVs by the bar with no sound while karaoke is going on, or worse yet, watch one of the TVs through the glass outside On Air.

Juneau gone from Ovation Sept 8.

Depending on your timing requirements, I second the luggage valet idea. We put the bags outside the stateroom door on the ship the last night and the next time we saw them was on the baggage claim in Tucson. And to top it off, the service is free. Since our flight was later in the day we took an Uber downtown, explored the sights, had lunch, then took the light rail to the airport. All with no worries about our luggage.

On the Allure at the beginning of the month they had pickle ball sessions. The courts were full and there always was a queue about 6-10 deep of people waiting for their turn. Lots of them even brought their own paddles.

I went on Ovation at the end of August last summer, and got lots of time on the wave. They had the heat cranked on it, to the point that steam was coming off, as shown below. Wetsuit is a must, especially for this non-Canadian desert dweller. On the first day I was the only one there and had it to myself for 4 hours straight. I was so exhausted that I had to take breaks and sit and look at an empty Flowrider until I got my strength back up. A couple of mornings it was below 50, so I always went up to see if they were running it before I went to the effort of putting on a still-damp wetsuit. There was never more than 3-4 people using it, and it was mixed wave (boogie boarding and stand-up) for almost all of the sessions. Going again this year, but 2 weeks later in mid-September.

Yes. Right to the bag drop.

Heading to London in a month to see my beloved CFC ⚽. I'll be on the lookout for it.

I have never felt unsafe there (other than some of the 90mph taxi rides 😛). Been going there for over 15 years, since well before they even had the pool.

It's a bit closer than those. Falls into the $15 cab fare bucket vs. $17 for Nachi Cocum. Was B2B the past 2 weeks on Allure and did PB and NC on the 2 Cozumel stops. Had been going to PB for many years but decided to give NC a try. PB is now all-inclusive, but will do pay-as-you-go if they are not full. Still a $15 cover for PAYG, so if you get food and drinks you end up paying about the same anyway. I found the food to be better at PB and more for kids to do. Since we didn't have kids I liked NC better for the laid back ambiance and the lack of a crowd. Biggest disappointment for me is PB has transitioned into more of a frat-party with plastic cups and canned beer, where NC is still bottles and glasses. Putting a lime wedge in a can of beer just isn't the same for me.

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm starting to turn my attention from worrying about my favorite crew staying on the Royal ships to me still going on Royal ships. My wife is starting to talk about trying other lines after this cruise, and the kicker was riding on the parking shuttle when we got back with a couple who were returning from a Regent cruise who talked about how wonderful everything was.

Are there any extras of these? I know someone who would love one. 😛

Banger sausages. Spent a bunch of my youth in England and this was my favorite food. You can't really find them in AZ, much less the ones that actually taste like English bangers. I pair them up with the mashed potatoes and I'm good to go. Now if they would just put out some mushy peas I'd be in heaven.

This past week was the first cruise where I stopped giving everyone 10s by default. The food has gone downhill drastically in the past few months. We had 1st time Royal cruisers with us and their feedback from the cruise was that they loved everything except the food, which was atrocious. Their last cruise was 15 years ago on Carnival and all they did was talk about how great Carnival's food is. Nevermind that we're in a race to the bottom everywhere in the mass-market cruise industry, but I don't see them on another Royal cruise. My feeling is that we have gotten into this cycle where you are made to feel that the crew is going to be punished for things out of their control if they don't get 10s, so we feel bad and just give 10s regardless. The problem is Miami takes this feedback to mean that everything is great, and keeps making the cuts. If the staff was great but the food was awful, I just put something like "Tommy the waiter was great, but the prime rib was like cutting into an old shoe".

Here's the same spot 2 weeks ago. I think you guys got a better deal!

Just got off a B2B on Allure. The Deck 14 noise issue all comes down to whether or not there are deck chairs above the stateroom. On this cruise the first week we were right under the Solarium and the noise from the deck chairs was awful. The worst happens about 6am with what I figured was cleaning time since there would be lots of very loud movement for a few minutes and then stop. Either that, or it was chair hogs setting up their little utopias. Then after that you hear every movement of a chair for the rest of the day. We were fortunate enough that someone was a no-show for the 2nd week, so we were able to move to a balcony on Deck 10. From the pictures above it looks like there may not be chairs directly above this stateroom, but there are some a few rooms down. So you may get some slight noise from those, but probably not the jarring sound of them being right above you. Enjoy your balcony!