gumshoe958

If you want a full meal, Solarium Bistro has a bigger choice of hot & cold buffet items. It’s like a scaled down WJ. Park Cafe is a much more limited menu - think soup, sandwiches (including hot roast beef), salads, cookies, fruit.

Makes sense as otherwise you’d have unscrupulous travel agents booking and paying on behalf of their clients and pocketing the points for themselves.

It is usually around the 1st of the month before sailing but sometimes slips by a few days, particularly if the 1st is a weekend or holiday (which it was).

I suspect you’ll find that contract allows them to do exactly what they’re doing. Sure, they could give you a goodwill gesture but why would they? Ships are full, the money’s rolling in and the harsh reality is they don’t need to.

Why should they compensate you?

There’ll be enough headliners to provide variety for the duration of the cruise. The crossing itself is typically only around 8 days and all the entertainers they need to cover that will be on board throughout. The other 5-6 days will be European port days so some entertainers will join & leave the ship there and won’t do the crossing.

That’s entirely subjective and obviously depends how much they’re charging for it!

One-way transatlantic fares are notoriously high, as they book into the most flexible fare bucket. Try pricing a round trip ticket - even if you have no intention of using the return. It may be cheaper. Or use miles if you have any - they can be very useful for one-ways.

If all the stars align, it’s just about doable. But if anything goes wrong - delay in disembarking, driver late, queues at check-in or - most likely - traffic delays, you risk missing your flight. I’m notorious for cutting things fine but even I wouldn’t risk this. YMMV but what’s your back-up plan?

With specialty dining you are paying for (hopefully) better quality, larger portions and a nicer ambience. Yes, with slower service - but many would consider that a plus if they want to celebrate something with a relaxed meal rather than rush in and out in an hour. The specialty dining menus don’t change whereas the MDR menus are different each night so if choice is important, stick with the MDR. IMHO the specialty restaurants can get very samey if you eat at them every night, but for a one-off treat they’re worth considering. Or, if you just want a steak, there’s always a Chops filet available in the MDR for an upcharge.

An arrival time of 5am does not mean you’ll be off the ship at 5am. If you can take your own luggage off I would expect to disembark sometime around 6.30/7am. You’ll then be heading towards Rome during the morning peak so I would expect to arrive at FCO between 8 and 9am. Therefore the earliest flight I would even consider would be 11am, and ideally noon. 9.40am? No way!

You are mistaken. Royal has more than 7 menus.

Don’t expect a good seat in a bar overlooking the Royal Promenade for the balloon drop without pre-booking and paying $$$$.

Maybe Palma de Mallorca, Marseille, La Spezia or Naples?

It’s against CC rules to recommend travel agents, or even mention them so you might want to edit your post to remove the names.

Families who want to cruise the Med on a mega-ship and North Americans who want to visit Rome and Athens, essentially.

I’m afraid you’ll have to come to terms with the harsh reality that if you want long cruises or interesting itineraries, Royal is no longer the line for you. You are not their target market and they’ve made it crystal clear that Northern Europe is no longer important to them.

Rarely on Royal but there certainly are charters in Europe, yes - Atlantis chartered Virgin’s Resilient Lady for three weeks for an Athens-Barcelona-Portsmouth itinerary earlier this summer.

Fair enough. Charter then?

Dry dock? Normally it would be at the start or end of the Med summer season but if she’s being redeployed in July, it may have to be squeezed in mid-season.

That would mean a trebling of capacity from Rome, and not far off a doubling of capacity from Barcelona. Is the demand there?

Gibraltar presumably, as there’d have to be a non-Spanish port of call. Question is, is there enough demand to consistently fill both an Icon AND an Oasis class ship? I’m not convinced, particularly if one of them doesn’t serve Civitavecchia when Rome is easily the biggest draw on the western Med itineraries.

No Piraeus, no deal. There’s no way Royal can consistently fill an O-class ship that doesn’t serve Athens.

It will normally be Poole or Bournemouth. Coaches will always display the route number, 205.

Yes. One of the original names must stay the same but the other can be changed.