CntPAcruiser

I guess maybe it pays to still ask. We haven't gotten them since before Covid. Always enjoyed them as a way to have just a little bread and not have too many carbs.

Definitely agree with this. The menus are usually limited, so you don't get every option you would at dinner, but it is a nice way to have a change for lunch from the buffet.

The newer ships since Oasis have thermal suites in the spa area that are mixed-sex. These are of course paid, not free. But you would be together, for future bookings reference.

These should be in the separate men's and women's locker rooms. Radiance may be one of the ships that also has a for-pay thermal suite, but you don't need to pay if you don't want to. Just use the locker room steam/sauna facilities.

This is a "your mileage may vary" situation. We've been on sailings when there has been more policing and control of who is using the spa locker rooms. They are intended for the paying customers, so sometimes they enforce that.

As far as I have seen on CC, they have not added thermal suites to these ships that had the complimentary facilities removed. Supposedly Navigator has a tiny steam room in the spa (but not free).

Sorry to say, no "if"--these are gone on Freedom, Voyager, and Navigator (the nice fitness center locker rooms with complimentary steam and sauna facilities).

I hope you enjoy it, regardless of how anyone else chooses to dress. We always get lots of comments and compliments on formal nights for our tuxes and bowties. We don't do matchy-matchy, though. My husband and I each have different sets of bowties/cummerbunds.

Freedom was one of our favorite ships before it was destroyed with the so-called amplification. All they did was amplify the number of passengers, while removing wonderful complimentary amenities. Such a shame.

This exactly. Some of the earlier ships actually used to have thalassotherapy pools right in the middle of the fitness center, but these were removed long ago, and sadly after that a few of the ships were "amplified," which removed the complimentary sauna/steam facilities from the locker rooms (Voyager, Navigator, and Freedom).

Royal's carrot cake tends to be very spice heavy, specifically nutmeg, in my opinion. Nothing really wrong with that, but that's probably why it read more as spice cake than carrot cake. In my opinion, the best carrot cake recipe is from King Arthur Flour, on their website, but increase the amount of spice and you'll get something closer to the version on Royal.

This would be incredibly annoying, and I would immediately complain to security. We were once on a cruise out of San Juan, however, where there was a group that had drums and other percussion instruments, and they would go through the ship making noise throughout the cruise, and security wouldn't do a thing about it. So rude.

New cruisers are often suggested to "try it out" with a short cruise. I always warn against this, since shorter cruises tend to have a different feel from a seven-night cruise or longer. I always recommend a seven-night cruise to start.

We went to a Wisconsin supper club (look it up 🙂) back in the day that had a large block of cheese on the salad/appetizer buffet. You walked up and shaved off slices with a cheese plane. Nowadays I suppose that wouldn't meet health and sanitation standards, but it was a lot of fun at the time, and it was just sitting at room temperature.

I've had them in the past for breakfast when Royal offered them on the buffet, but I'm not sure they do any longer. They cut of lot of the peripheral, less popular food items as a cost savings measure. They used to have poached figs as well--they were delicious!

Good to hear Explorer still features these amenities--thanks for the update. I seem to recall from our cruise on Explorer some years ago that there were issues with the steam room even back then. We'll be on board in January 2025, fingers crossed everything is still operable and available.

This sounds very good, but is not the cake I'm talking about. I'd love to taste it, though.

We still wear ours and enjoy it. Most cruises we have late seating tradition dining at a large table, and typically those around the table have made an effort to dress up, at least, and if not exactly formal, usually in the spirit. We hit the jackpot a number of cruises ago with a dinner table of eight, and on both formal nights, all the men wore tuxes or dinner jackets, and all the women wore formal gowns. I'm not sure I ever expect to have that happen again, but it was delightful. We took a group picture for the occasion.

It's funny how many things have slipped away. I hadn't realized that they no longer had tuxedo rentals (we have our own), but I tried to remember the last time I saw anything about it pre-sailing or in the cruise compass, and it's been some time. No more fresh flowers on board either. We've only been cruising for 15 years, and I have nostalgia nonetheless!

Does your recipe have the coconut-pecan filling/icing? For me, that is what really makes the cake. Flaked coconut was not readily available until the end of the 1800s, so any recipe using coconut prior to that would have involved starting with a whole coconut. Most recipes for the filling call for evaporated milk, which contributes to the caramelized flavor. Evaporated milk was invented around 1850 and became widely available as a commercially sold product in the 1920s and 30s.

Interesting--the cake I'm referring to was reportedly first a published recipe in Texas in the mid-1950s, and the name has to do with a brand of chocolate called German's. It has nothing to do with German settlers.

This spreadsheet has a great deal of information across several cruise lines: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ROCmeNSYj_VwCYs3IUjWbrcEomFeqOrvIDUnXG6GLTg/edit?usp=sharing Usually the ones you do pay for, like Royal's thermal suites, are only coed. Not sure if some cruise lines have paid facilities that are separate.

When we visited Antigua for the first time, on the van ride through the countryside to our excursion location, we saw many cows in the fields and often an accompanying white crane going after the bugs and other critters that were disturbed by the grazing or buzzing around the cows. We always thought The Cow & Crane would be a great pub name. It just rolls off the tongue.

They were probably using the rice cooker to melt wax for hand dipping. Saves on spa charges!

AKA German sweet chocolate cake (named after the brand of sweet baking chocolate and having nothing really to do with Germany), with coconut-pecan frosting. I don't recall seeing this on Royal Caribbean sailings, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe it's because of nut allergies (and the fact that pecans are expensive) or because many people don't like coconut. It's probably my favorite for a birthday cake, since childhood. Have those who sail other lines seen it on board?