DaKahuna

Thank you. We are really looking forward to this vacation. It was originally scheduled for August / September 2020 but COVID, then we re-scheduled for 2021 and Alaska sailings did not happen so after a two year delay and a very hot summer, we are looking forward to cooler weather and some beautiful scenery and wild life.

It is official. We also checked in for tomorrow's flight to Seattle. My plan is to provide a lot of pictures, similar to what I did for our December 2021 and March/April 2022 Celebrity cruises, as I can and share our experiences with those of you who are along with us on these cruises, are cruising on Quantum at a later day, or are simply looking at possibly booking a cruise later. We will be sailing in a Grand Suite so the meals will be almost predominately in Coastal Kitchen, which I have seen few reviews of for this Alaska season.

Take clothes that are loose fitting and comfortable.

I am really enjoying your post. I am a fan of Long Island Ice Tea's so am curious how a Boston Ice Tea Party compares?

i can verify this. My wife, our son, DIL, SIL, and I all have iPhones. Our daughter has an Android. When we are on the shipboard WiFi, all the iPhones use iMessage and we can all exchange messages except our daughter. So we have used WhatsApp for the last four years when on WiFi only and it works well. As @MandyMooToo said, put your phone in airplane mode and then turn on WiFi and connect to the ship's WiFi network. You will be able to SMS with anyone using the WhatsApp regardless of what type of phone they are using and make phone calls, provided your carrier/phone supports Wifi calling.

Color me jealours -- mine shows this : I''ll get more excited tomorrow around noon Eastern once we have our negative COVID antigen test results in hand. Then we will also have this to look forward to --

Ours has been left in our room a couple of days before departure with the regular nightly advertisements and Daily Planner. There is usually a deadline to turn it back in to Customer Services about two days before the end of the cruise. We have gotten into the habit of making our flights later in the day and try to be some of the last people to leave the ship. I learned that the hard way when we had to 'baby sit our luggage' at Fort Lauderdale International for two hours before United would allow us to check our bags in. We did not know there was a limit to how early because we had always used Luggage Valet in the past.

While we have had many of the wait staff remind us of the survey and how important it is, we have never had anyone come out and say to give them a 10. They have explained how messed up the grading system is and that anything other than a 10 adversely affects them but I cannot recall any of them specifically stating to rate them as a 10. So, I have always answered the question with a 'No.'

My wife and I have a few specific extra things that we ask for on day one, e.g. place sheets over the sofa and chairs, extra ice, a hot water kettle for the room, etc. For this I normally give the room steward $20 at the time we make the request. Also, if the room steward does more than just normal cleaning and servicing of the room during the course of the cruise, we trip again on the last night or the morning of the last day of the cruise. We consider ourselves to be very low maintenance but if we see that any wait staff, bartenders, room stewards, that we encounter daily put forth a little extra effort, we feel like they should be rewarded.

Thank you both for your responses. We are in the same cabin for both sailings but never considered the Room Attendant or dining room wait staff could be different.

Actually, we have watched a few reviews of Wonderland and looked at the menu and find it is not really our cup of tea.

So when doing consecutive cruises and you want to tip extra do you do it at the end of each cruise or at the end of the last cruise?

Thank you so much for a wonderfully comprehensive review. We are looking forward to boarding this coming Monday.

If I understand it correctly, if you have already pre-paid gratuities, then the increase does not affect you, or at least that is what my TA told me.

We have always left automatic gratuities in place and tipped as warranted at the end.

To be accepted by Royal Caribbean the test must be proctored/monitored by a qualified medical technician.

CVS in my area appears to no longer be doing rapid test. I have received "no appointments available" for the last two week.

We thought about cancelling but decided that we would just go ahead and make the trip. We already have waited two years for this cruise, cancelled in 2020 and 2021, and did not want to wait any longer. Our main attractions for Alaska has always been the snow capped mountains and the wildlife but we are sad that we will be missing the glaciers.

The 8/29 was originally scheduled for Sitka. The Quantum sailings alternated with Sitka one week and Skagway *the next when we book the 8/29 and 9/5 sailing over a year ago.

Contact Royal Caribbean - they may still do testing for those that require it. However, there is a chance testing requirements, even for Bermuda, may changed between now and October.

You can always cancel and re-book your cruise. But seriously, is it worth the $20.00

This has no applicability whatsoever to Royal Caribbean.

What CCL does has not impact on what RCL does.

We are on the same B2B on Quantum that you are currently booked on and have decided we are going to continue to sail. While we will miss the glaciers, we've been to Alaska twice before and the glaciers are just one part of the beautiful scenery.

Yes - Glaciers are cancelled for the remainder of the Alaska season for Quantum.