mil76

Doing a B2B on the same itinerary can be beneficial if one of the ports is Costa Maya (or Costa Maybe as they crew calls it). Just got off B2B on Allure and the 2nd week was the first time in a few weeks they actually could stop there due to weather/rough seas. The best part of the B2B for me is the day 7 vibe when you are not getting off the next day. You see everyone else trying to cram everything they didn't get done into that last day, while you feel completely relaxed since it is just another mid-cruise day. As for changing cabins, I was never so happy to change cabins as I was this time. We were under the Solarium the first week and the chair-dragging noise was horrible, especially at 6am.

We did Lyft yesterday. It was $52 for regular Lyft. After we booked it asked if we wanted something a bit larger for $6, so we went with it and got a Rav4. You probably won't get surge pricing on the way to Galveston since the pool of Lyft drivers in Houston vs. Galveston is much bigger. To Galveston and from Galveston are two completely different scenarios.

The embarkation issues yesterday were outside the terminal. I heard they were putting new power lines across I-45 so they closed the road for a period. After they reopened the road I think that caused the crush of people. I had no complaints once we got to the terminal. It was definitely crowded when we got there around 11:30, but I was impressed with how quickly they got us through.

We boarded today and just booked RCI transfers for the first time ever for our flight from IAH in 2 Sundays. Lyft/Uber has always been a crap-shoot from Galveston on disembarkation day. You end up with surge pricing unless you are one of the very first off the boat. We found out RCI transfers get baggage #1, so we figure it's less risk/stress to just do the transfers rather than deal with lugging our baggage off the ship and then having to worry about not being able to get a rideshare.

We always do UDP and leave the tips on. My understanding is you are tipping everyone on the Food service side. So if you have UDP and remove tips but pop into the WJ every day for breakfast, you are still stiffing people for services provided. I don't know of any other way to ensure that guy getting my hot water for tea in the Windjammer gets his tip, and I definitely will not be walking around the WJ handing out dollar bills to everyone. Also, if you remove tips your stateroom attendant will know this and might assume you are stiffing them for tips, and I wouldn't want my toothbrush being used as a toilet scrubber. With that said, I'm definitely not happy that they raised gratuities and now it sounds like they are cutting back stateroom service to once a day. In addition to tipping for food service I don't use, I'm now getting 50% less on the stateroom service side.

That's misleading. If you go up to ride they will ask if you ever did it before. If you flat out say no and seem clueless they may tell you to take a lesson. If you say you have an idea of what you need to do, or tell them you tried it before, they should give you 2 attempts, and if you do not pass their grade they may then tell you to take a lesson. Sometimes they cut people off for the day, sometimes they cut people off for the entire cruise. Those comments are from a cruise last April, and the rules were much stricter back then. I did Navigator last March and there were people who could stay up for 15-30 seconds but couldn't carve, and they would not give them a stand-up wristband. In December on Nav they were giving people bands who could start themselves and stay up for just a few seconds. Those people were nowhere near advanced, or even intermediate. Lessons are not really $552. That is a quote for the 1 hour private session where they will have 2 instructors teach you how to ride. You can also take normal group lessons which are usually around $80-90 for an hour, in which time you should learn enough to be able to get the band and ride. I tell people who have never rode before that they may want to do a lesson early in the cruise, then they should be able to get the band and be set for the whole cruise (and subsequent cruises). If you are serious about doing the Flowrider, it's probably worth doing the lesson to save time trying to figure it out on your own. Last March there were 2 kids who could not do it day 1, so they did a group lesson day 2 in the morning and were able to ride the rest of the cruise.

My youngest son was also short for his age at one time. He competed on a national sport-karate circuit where they combine karate and gymnastics, so he also had great balance/coordination as well as having that gymnast body. In addition, he already knew how to do stand-up since we also did it at a land-based Flowrider where the height requirement wasn't as stringent as RCCL. With that said, they wouldn't let him do stand-up until he was 58". It's all about the insurance and the ambulance chasers. So instead, he had to continue to do the neutered boogie board, where all the cool tricks have been outlawed by RCCL for years. Some ships did/do a Boogie 360 competition so he focused on that and set the ship record. Now he usually wins Best of the Best doing standup.

I still have my Covid-doomed Voyager Baltic cruise from last summer in my past cruises, and where the 24 points would be it has the reservation number. I think it is there just to torture me. On the other hand, when I originally signed up for C&A, it put 3 cruises in my past cruises from up to 8 years before I started cruising. I have a very common name so thanks to Royal's wonderful IT I ended up with 21 points as a sign-on bonus. Just don't ask me how my 2 Empress and 1 Enchantment cruises were back in the 90's.

On the cruises I have done lately they didn't do Chops lunch on day 1 for UDP, so we had to go to Giovanni's/Jamie's. The Key gets Chops for lunch the first day, and they do it in the MDR. Last cruise my wife was making our UDP dining reservations in Chops during Day 1 lunchtime (only the desk was open, not the restaurant) and there was a steady flow of Key customers coming into Chops expecting lunch, only to be told to go the the MDR. If Chops does do lunch for non-Keys I'd hate to be the person having to tell all those "VIPs" to go to the MDR for their "Chops lunch" while they are serving other customers in Chops. We have never had a problem getting seated immediately in Giovanni's/Jamie's for Day 1 lunch, so I don't think there is a need to go through the hassle of making separate reservations and then trying to get a refund.

We did Ovation out of Seattle last August as our first Alaskan cruise. I always resisted going to Alaska for fear of boredom on the ship, but the newer ship was enough to get me on-board. It rained every day, and I don't think we saw the sun for more than an hour the entire week. The captain also turned around before Dawes glacier due to too much ice. That said, this was one of our favorite cruises ever. Ovation had incredible entertainment, and considering the weather the enclosed ship was perfect. I can't imagine how great it is when the weather isn't horrible, but we plan to go back and find out.

They are strict about it as well. For the Flowrider, my son who was short for his age at the time could do 360s and other tricks but they wouldn't let him do stand-up on the ship because he was 1/2" too short.

Depends on the disembarkation day. I wouldn't risk it on a weekday, which is usually the disembarkation day on Navigator. LAX itself can be a traffic nightmare much less trying to get there on the 405. For early flights I try to use Long Beach.

I wouldn't do it. We get multiple device packages for our family, but the problem is not everyone logs off properly, so we end of kicking each other off constantly. There's no way to make your device immune to this, so it could get pretty annoying if you are the one paying and someone who isn't even sailing with you is kicking you off your internet package.

So did we ever find out if RCCL will allow Australians with a prescription to vape in their stateroom? I sure wouldn't want a ship to come Back in Black like that poor Princess ship.

I thought I was aging myself by knowing early Motley Crue songs! 😛

Tell those smokers Don't Come Around Here No More.

I see this thread is starting to get Petty.

Cigarettes aren't the only thing you'll smell on the balconies on those cruises once Dr Feelgood shows up. Personally, if someone next door is smoking I just lean over the rail and Shout at the Devil.

I remember booking my first cruise for my young family back in the early 2000's. The reason we booked Royal Caribbean was because we felt that their newest ships, the Voyager class, were geared towards...young families.

My wife got us a casino comp cruise to Alaska on Ovation the last week of this past August. She got the offer sheet on Navigator in March. The sheet had dates for the beginning and end of the season, nothing for the peak months. I think the week we went was the first week available on the tail end of the season.

I wonder if RCCL would make an exception to allow vaping on the lifeboats, especially if someone has a prescription... (Sorry, couldn't resist)

In the past they would always have the single serving pods of sugar free syrup right next to the other toppings. On Navigator in December it was nowhere to be found. Maybe it was just a supply issue but I assume it was just another cost cutting exercise. Hopefully someone who was on another ship recently will prove me wrong.

As a bonus if you are from the US, some of the big US banks have branches in the Alaska port towns so you can go and deposit your winnings so you don't have to drag all that cash around. Best shore excursion ever!

Thanks for the speed tests. That is much higher than I was expecting.

@Ozark_KidAny chance you could post Starlink speeds today and tomorrow? From the Starlink coverage maps it shows better coverage near the shore, but I'm wondering how speed is in the middle of the Gulf and on the way to Roatan. I am doing a B2B next month and plan to work the first week.