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They will be interviewed on the Today Show this morning so maybe we'll find out where they are and what the plan is.

We were just there on Friday and there is in fact an infinity pool. We never made it there but they pointed it out to us when delivering our drinks. We were in an ocean villa and it seemed to be all the way over on the far end of the lagoon villas. We had a great day there - enjoy!

That's exactly what I was going to say. We just got off a forward cabin on the Pearl and would have that whistle anytime the ship was in motion and we didn't have the outside door looked. We would often keep both door open when in motion without any noise/issue but once closed the inside door was closed, we had to have the outside door fully locked for silence.

I probably should have added if/when that ever happens! (with my own smiley face). I heard that also when we were there in 2010 🙂

When we were there the other day, they told us they plan to build a pier.

We were on the Pearl that stopped at GSC the other day along with the Escape. It was a beautiful day there!!

Yes!! For about 3 weeks now I can't log in on Chrome - just multiple log in prompts. I cleared my cookies and I was able to log in finally once again - but the second I tried to pull up an excursion I was bumped out and prompted to log in again - and I'm right back where I've been with the repeated looping requests. So frustrating. I can log in without any problems with Edge - it's just a nuisance since I'm typically on Chrome and need to jump over anytime I need to get into my reservations.

While you don't need MDR reservations, I'm in the club that always makes them. I find it saves us time during busy hours - we'll get seated right away and often we end up with a great table near the windows. Some ships will also have separate lines as well so less waiting to be seated. I don't know about the Encore, but we've always been able to make MDR reservations on every ship at the same time that specialty dining opens.

The balcony is what sold me!!! 🙂

Exactly, which is why we booked it. Totally not a negative for us at all. Thanks for confirming.

Thanks, exactly my thought (and hope!!) and I've only read good things about them. Looking forward to it - so thanks for the confirmation!

We are also in 10500 and it makes me wonder - I also did a lot of research on this cabin and didn't see any noise concerns over the years, but rather many positive reviews (with only concerns related to closing curtains at night and wind issues). We sail next month - fingers crossed that excessive noise outside any "normal" times won't be a problem. It sounds like these particular rehearsals will be finished but it does make you wonder what might be heard. I'm happy to share our experience with this after our cruise.

Just to add also, when I did schedule M&G, I always did so as soon as we had 25 people - so often it was pretty far out. I just found having the information to begin sharing with everyone sooner than later helped with planning for all.

I'm happy to explain what happened in my situation. I had volunteered to organized the Meet & Greet and we had a whole Roll Call here on CC planning for it. When I reached out to Special Events, they told me that someone had already arranged it. It didn't appear to be anyone from CC, and my guess is it was from the group talking on the other social media platform. I explained to Special Events that we had a CC group planning to meet and can we still arrange it. She told me they would only host one event. In my situation, she reached out to the person who already scheduled the M&G and ended up canceling their request and scheduling ours - prioritizing CC. She did tell me that the free M&G are for CC and not any other sites, and they would prioritize that. On my end, it wasn't so much that I wanted to organize it but more that we had a Roll Call planning to meet (with lots of people not on that other site) so wanted the venue to do so. For us, all worked out fine and we had a great time with the M&G scheduled through CC.

We also sailed the Star last summer and we were happy with the food and didn't have any problems or concerns with our meals. I easily gained 10 pounds! We ate well and enjoyed everything we ate. I only issue I do remember was when I went to order the Prime Rib at Cagney's. The waiter told me they've been having problems with sourcing and had to order the meat through a different distributor - and passengers had been unhappy with the quality of the Prime Rib so he suggested I might want to order something else. I took his advice and ordered the Rib Eye instead and it was great. I just wanted to share this as food experiences can be subjective. Others we traveled with also felt they ate well also on our sailing. My disclaimer is that it's been a year since we sailed on the Star, and I definitely can't comment on any recent concerns. I also would never take away from other experiences - I just wanted to share ours as well.

Our friends didn't have P+ and they were offered and drank our wine at dinner without a problem.

We did that - no problem.

LOL, our bummer was really that we couldn't take the unopened wines. But, it wasn't an issue as we used our Latitudes dinner wine and our friends (fortunately they didn't drink) to take back to the cabin. I'm not sure if they would have tackled us walking out with the open bottle or not? I guess we just figured it was easier to drink the rest instead of finding out? Makes you wonder? LOL

LOL, on our end we had moved on to bottle #2 OR, we also were really wanting to bring an unopened bottle back to the cabin. 🙂

We upgraded to Premium Plus in March and any bottles we got (from any of the dining rooms) were not allowed to leave - whether they were unopened or half full. However, the "free" bottle we received with our Latitudes dinner we were allowed to take to our cabin. They were very clear with the difference - and wouldn't allow any deviations. This was on the Bliss.

Agreed!!! And since I came home with 10 extra pounds, clearly I enjoyed the food and drinks too.

@ceilidh1We were just on board last week and while we had some delays (main dining room dinner was 2 hours both times and the waiters in there did seem new/confused) we didn't have many of the other issues you've encountered. The last night we arrived for dinner at Taste at 5:45 and just walked in -no line. We were also a jam-packed full cruise. I wonder why such a difference between weeks? I'm glad you're still enjoying your time on board - we enjoyed Steven also and went the The District each night to watch him. BTW, we all got the mysterious on-board credit also and everyone I talked to received $29.37 each. We not only had the voicemail message about it but also the last day all morning they were making announcements for certain people to come pick up their money. I'm assuming it was returned port fees - whatever it was, I'll take it!!

I second this recommendation. We spent 2 days in Seward following our cruise and booked the Kenai Fjord tour with Major Marine. It was truly the best excursion and day I've had on any of my many cruises. We saw so much that day including all the Alaskan sea life you could imagine, up close to glaciers, and such fun!! It was the best day ever!!! We enjoyed Seward itself as well - stayed in a great Airbnb, ate well, wandered and saw all kinds of wildlife (both at the Sea Life Center/Aquarium and in the wild) and once it was time to leave, enjoyed the glass dome train from Seward to Anchorage.

Just to add (as I realized I left it out), we had no problem if we wanted to order a second bottle at the same sitting and they offered to leave the champagne bottle with us several times.

We just got off the Bliss. We got bottles with P+ every night at dinner, no problem in all dining rooms and specialty restaurants. However, we weren't able to take any bottle with us out of the dining room. Even when we wanted a second bottle and I specifically asked if I could take any leftover back to the cabin, they offered for us to just fill up the glasses and take those. Contrary to this, they had NO problem with us taking our brand new unopened free bottle from our dining voucher.