Pellaz

For groups of two or more, it might be cheaper -- possibly MUCH cheaper -- to invoke the Comfort Suites Paradise Island "hack."

At least it's not a US Public Health inspection. The Oasis (or it might have been Allure) failed its first USPH inspection right after US deployment. 😮

In society that should definitely be true...but Carnival has traditionally color-coded each deck separately. Tag color HAS made a difference in the past: the unknown luggage that got dumped at our cabin door on one cruise had the same cabin number-ending, but was one deck directly below ours. And sure enough, the other cruisers had printed theirs in grayscale. After seeing THAT mis-delivery, we've printed ours in color ever since. As for the current changing of the colors, that's a mystery. Delivering 3,000+ pieces of luggage is a herculean task. I can only assume they're switching their methodology...which is great, IF it works. (See the Royal board and the MTD discussion there for an example of a change that hasn't.)

Only eleven? Feh. That's amateur-level. 😄 Way back in c. 2012, the chef de cuisine aboard Imagination (may she r.i.p.) told us that the record for lobster tails in one sitting on that ship was EIGHTEEN. --And the fleetwide record was.... TWENTY-TWO. 😮 [This is not a call for action. Please exercise safe mastication, and only with a responsible adult present. California mileage probably lower. Please do not attempt to move a boarding train.]

Judging from the vitriol over on the Royal board, you'd be a solid minority there. A lot of comments...and most of them negative. For me, I have no problem with the MDR, but my cruise-friends and I only average one Carnival cruise per year so we don't really get tired of it. I suspect that anyone who cruises frequently on one particular line would get tired of the offerings...no matter which cruise line it was.

No lie detected here, either. 🙂

With many people wanting to attend the later-evening "adult" comedy shows on Carnival -- which are generally regarded as being one of the line's strengths -- I think a LOT of people on Carnival prefer early dining (whether early traditional or early YTD) so they can get out and see the shows. I know our group has opted for c. 6 pm YTD for that exact reason, although our preference is 6:45 - 7 pm. Due to the way Carnival handles YTD, the "middle hours" tend to be busiest for YTD on average: after all, if you wanted to eat early or late EVERY evening, you'd simply choose early or late traditional seating. We like having the flexibility of being able to choose each night, and Carnival handles it well. Of course, on the Excel-class ships, choosing YTD is a no-brainer, since it automagically gives you access to the Italian and Asian-Mexican fusion specialty restaurants onboard as part of your standard complimentary dining choices, beginning with 5:45 pm bookings. Traditional diners have to wait until 7 or 7:30 pm to reserve tables at those restaurants on the app. That ^^^ was my thinking in a nutshell. NCL does things wholly differently with "Freestyle." Some folks love it, some folks (hi, Mom!) HATED it. --But Royal and CCL have been closer together regarding dining operations for years...and it's a shame that Royal is having such a hard time implementing (or re-implementing?) MTD compared to their closest competitor.

Heck, I might help. 😄 "Nassau: it ain't much...but at least it's slightly better than Freeport!" (tm)

Wow. Just...wow. No, they're trying to compete with Carnival (and some others) more than Norwegian, since Carnival has had traditional and YTD in place for many years now. NCL is ALL "freestyle," and it's safe to say that RCI will not be going THAT route. (I AM curious as to how Norwegian schedules their tables, assuming that they do so dynamically.) We had the same arrangement on the Freedom back in February, and I laughed when I saw it. "Hey, this reminds me of some of the 2-tops we've had on Carnival! I thought Royal was better than that, at least!" It wasn't all bad. This was a music charter with 60 performing bands, and we were sandwiched between members of two of them...with two more catty-corner from us. That was kinda cool.

Yep, I thought it was 20 whole seconds, and it's actually less. As I said earlier, folks... Get your ice dispensed BEFORE you go for a soda. The ice dispenser works regardless of the card being scanned, but of course all of the drink stations in the Lido Marketplace have complimentary ice.

It's been a long time since I've cruised RCCL with ANY dining times. The music charter I go on is open seating each night, with only the lowest level of three open in the MDR, and there's never a wait. Are you saying that traditional set-time dining only opens at 6:45? I'm used to a 6:00 pm start on Carnival, and I think their YTD opens at 5:30? 5:45?

So, if the shore-side X-ray machines detect an unauthorized item in your checked luggage....what then?

That IS a good rate. If it's allowed here, what hotel offers that?

I've been reading this topic with unfeigned surprise. I'm a little startled about how poorly Royal handles MTD as compared to YTD ("Your time dining") on Carnival. After checking in on the Carnival app, which allocates tables in realtime dynamically, we've only had to wait longer than ten minutes once, on "cruise elegant" night, for our party of 7...extending back through 3 cruises (Horizon, Mardi Gras, Magic). The longest wait was around 25 minutes. It's especially surprising considering many people select their MTD timeslots on Royal pre-cruise. That should let the dining staff know exactly what sort of volume to expect in advance.

Yep, THIS. I was there on a charter cruise a few years pre-COVID and saw ships' security officers keeping an eye on the Gauntlet. We had already been warned about the over-aggressive vendors at Labadee and the presence of those officers pretty much confirmed it. I managed to avoid the Gauntlet, but I DID tip the native drummers who were performing near Columbus Cove since I play African and Middle-Eastern percussion myself and they were quite good.

I really and truly HATE driving in Miami -- last October I was rear-ended HARD just ten minutes short of our pre-cruise hotel, plus I've gotten lost once (on my 3rd cruise waybackwhen) and spent an hour trying to get to our hotel. The port itself isn't too bad, especially with the "new" tunnel in place, but I much prefer driving in Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood/Dania Beach. I'd prefer to stay up in Lauderdale or Dania Beach, but it's a loong way from PortMiami and the hotels don't have free/discount shuttles to the pier. Gonna have to make that decision soon for two upcoming cruises, too.

Correct, so far. For the soda dispensers, a couple of tips: 1. It's a timed system (20 seconds max) if you are using Bottomless Bubbles or Cheers, and it's charged by the ounce otherwise. Get your ice BEFORE scanning your card. 2. When you tap your card at the reader, tap it once and quickly move it away. The system can interpret a second inadvertent tap as an attempt to get a second serving before the 15-minute "waiting period," and hey. "No Pepsi for you, fifteen minutes!" Happened to me once.

In January they confiscated a pair of scissors and a power-strip that were in my checked luggage at PortMiami (it was a Royal cruise). Like yours, the power-strip had an on-off switch but was not surge-protected. They were retained at the pier until after debark, but I didn't want to walk over to the arrivals-side to pick them up, so someone got a free pair of scissors and an old, tired-looking power-strip. C'est la vie; that power strip had been in faithful service for 15+ years. 😢 . But, see above. My confiscated items were in my checked luggage. . Those sly dogs! 🙂 I had a pair of nail clippers attached to my key-ring for a decade. Travelled internationally, domestically, visited Six Flags, etc. Never ever got a second glance. On one fateful visit to Six Flags, however, they were confiscated at the gate. I almost wanted to cry. And sure enough, they are listed in Six Flags' official list of banned items, although I'm not sure what heinous crime I'd be committing with them: "Okay, you, Ride Operator! Take this roller-coaster to Cuba or I'll give you a manicure, so help me!" 😄

If you're trying to go to other ports to avoid the "Teamsters" or (more accurately) the ILA or ILWU longshoremen, you are totally S.O.L. Every cargo and cruise port in the U.S. is controlled by either ILA (East) or ILWU (West). Having said that, there are ports where they might be more or less aggressive in "soliciting" tips than at others...and PortMiami may well fall under the former category. 🤷‍♂️

Bingo! I think the concern now is whether they still do the ol "cruise passenger shuffle" whereby you can show up at 9 am, check in, check out, get your pink Atlantis access cards and walk up the hill to Atlantis. I didn't make my usual 3-day trip to Atlantis last fall, so I can't say I witnessed it that recently. The year before, yes.

The problem won't be with the voltage so much as the fact that it might not work at all. 😮 Cruise ships' electrical systems are different from conventional landside power; they are -- of necessity -- grounded differently, and some hair-dryers and similar devices that use more sophisticated electronics, ceramic heating elements, etc., have either not heated well, or not worked at all. Others have reported shipboard issues with Dyson products on different threads. Seems like the safest bet has been an unsophisticated device -- minimal or no electronics -- and a good ol' fashioned filament or heating-element heater. Resident expert and retired Chief Engineer @chengkp75can likely offer more knowledgeable guidance. Looking at the price of those Dyson Airwraps, I'd be concerned about bringing one myself, and then discovering it didn't work well.

I have a similar tale with a happier ending. Friend and I went to an Outback Steakhouse in Chattanooga, TN. The hostess greeted us and sat us down at a table. "Your server will be right with you." Five minutes pass. Wait-staff are going back and forth past our table. Some look at us incuriously but no-one stops. We decide to allot an additional five minutes. Five more minutes pass. We get up and head for the exit. The hostess sees us. "Is anything wrong?" "Well, no-one came to our table to take our order, so" -- and here's a calculated burrrn -- "we're just gonna go up the hill to that Krystal* restaurant for better service." She literally grabbed my arm. "Oh, no, sir! That's not right! I'll get the manager." And she did. He apologized profusely, led us back inside, seated us and said our meals would now be complimentary. So, for the first and probably last time in my life, I enjoyed a BIG porterhouse steak. 😄 ---- * known as White Castle west of the Chattahoochee

Dive fins, masks, snorkels, GoPro cameras, extra swim jammers, extra rash-guards, coral-safe sunblock.... The fins alone won't fit into most backpacks, but I've found that the drop-bottom in my rolling duffle accommodates all of the above...barely. That duffle is a bit like a magical Bag of Holding; I've not yet managed to cram it beyond capacity. 🙂 I actually encountered this problem on a Certain Other Cruise Line last February. 😄 On the last night of the cruise on my way up to my stateroom (solo), passing through the casino, I put $10 in the Cash Crane machine -- no luck, as expected -- and then $10 in the Cash Vault machine...and won! $2,500, in the form of a big "cube" o' cash. All $1 bills. 😮 So...ummm...do I just...stroll off with it, and head back to the stateroom? No-one EVER wins from those Cash Vault games. What do you do? Then I remembered, to my horror: this was around 12:30 am on the last night. My big rolling duffle was already down on Deck 0 awaiting debark. My backpack didn't have ANY extra room for this cube of cash. Maybe stick it in a (big) plastic bag or something? --Nahh. I decided to go to the casino "cage" and ask for smaller bills. When they saw the "cube," their jaws dropped. "Did you really win that?" "Yep." This was a wise decision, because as it turns out, there's only $1,000 in singles in the "cash cube." Wait, this is robbery! No, not really: they showed me the tag inside saying "take this to the cashier to get the rest of your money." 2,500 singles in a cube wouldn't fit in the machine. 45 minutes later, after they presumably reviewed the security footage and after filing out the required tax forms, I had 25 Franklins and tiredly went up to my stateroom. Now, If I HAD strolled upstairs with The Cube, then I'd have been stopped when trying to leave the ship. "Uh, sir, there are some tax forms we're gonna need you to fill out..." 😄

No, you book it for the night after your arrival, and when you arrive, you are basically a very early arrival. I said "in advance" because according to several reports, they no longer offer the Atlantis passes for bookings made the same day as arrival. Since there are persistent rumors that the "Comfort Suites hack" (for cruisers to book) might have been dropped, I'd suggest calling the hotel directly and checking with them before committing. On the bright side, you would still be able to cancel a hotel booking there with no penalty, per the property's normal "advance warning" policy, if you did have to cancel.

I'm pretty sure that's what I said; the previous poster said that the longshoremen brought the luggage into the marshaling area onboard ("Deck 0" or "I-95"), which was incorrect. Gosh, I'm so sorry. Ten years keeping businesses honest with the money they withhold from employees' paychecks, about fifteen years in Customer Service (individual taxes), and the remainder in Identity Theft Victims' Assistance as a technical lead. Is that sufficient for ya? But, hey, thanks for your service. Yep. It's a principle called "voluntary compliance." Of course. oh, lol. If only that were truly the case. It's not. What we really need is a central computing mainframe made sometime during THIS century, instead of the early 70s.....but I digress. Yep. "Gross income includes all income, from whatever source derived..." Title 26, S. 61, U.S. Code.