rjp50

I called the Port of Miami and was told that you can't make reservations for parking at the port's garage for RCI but that there should be no problem getting a parking spot. Is this true?

We will be going with our extended family on the Oasis in April. We just received an email saying that it is possible to make show reservations online in the cruise planner. Within just a few hours of receiving this email members of our party tried to make reservations and found that they mostly sold out. Does this mean that we are out of luck or is it possible that they are holding some in reserve for onboard booking? This is our first time on RCCL and are hoping this is not a sign of things to come on cruising a mega-ship.

I concur with what has been said about the ship and its staff - no issues at all. The staff can’t do enough to keep you happy while onboard. However, excursions off the ship have been a bit rocky. Lots of complaints about disorganization as well as lack of resources to give everyone onboard an equal experience. They have resorted to a lottery system twice to determine which guests get to participate in some of the expedition experiences. In the case of sea kayaking, only 8 people will be able to participate out of probably a hundred who expressed interest. Perhaps where expedition style cruising gives way to a normal cruise there will no longer be a need to have lotteries. However, the lack of overall organization and on-ship communications may continue. Today there was a general ***** session with the cruise director with a lot of loyal Vantage customers saying that this will be their last trip with them. I have never seen anything like this on any previous trip. The biggest issue is with the extreme lack of communication and, in my view, deception on the part of the home office. I have been waiting for over five months for a refund for the canceled pre-trip that we made. They say they are “backlogged” and we need to wait our turn. Really? Over five months? They won’t even give me a copy of my invoice which shows the amount of the refund that is due. I could be wrong, but after reading other threads from people waiting years for a refund it seems to me that the company is in a very real cash flow crisis. I will not be giving Vantage any of my cash for future trips for fear of them going bankrupt. Your risk tolerance may be different than mine. It’s a shame since, in talking with long time customers, this company used to provide very good service. I have yet to talk with anyone onboard who will use Vantage in the future except for cases where Vantage is already holding their money hostage. PS sorry for the misplaced quote.

Sorry, I never thought of the other potential meaning of the title. I changed it so as to not get people's hopes up.

On a recent Princess cruise in the Mediterranean, Princess offered free covid testing for any passenger that needed it to travel back to their home country. Does MSC do anything similar? While we don't need it for travel home, we will be on a B2B out of Barcelona with a one day interval between the two sailings on different ships. I assume the second sailing will require a new covid test before boarding and was wondering if MSC would provide a free test on our first cruise that can be used for our second cruise?

When I click on this link, I don't see the words you quote. What I see is: EDIT: Nevermind. It is a browser issue. When I switched to a different browser I see the words I quoted below but it also gave me a scroll bar to scroll to see what you quoted. The first browser doesn't give me a scroll bar. Poor web deign on MSC's part. As per our stringent MSC health and safety protocols, all guests both vaccinated and unvaccinated, will need to undergo some health and COVID-19 screenings including but not limited to a health questionnaire, and a contactless temperature check, at the terminal before boarding. For a seamless embarkation process, please make sure to review our health and safety protocols in place in our terminals and to bring: A printed copy of the embarkation form (available in your cruise ticket) A printed copy of the mandatory health questionnaire duly completed and signed within 6 hours prior to the embarkation (available in your cruise ticket) The original test results certificate or vaccination and recovery certificate (paper or electronic format) must indicate that complete vaccination has taken place within the last 9 months (270 days). Those passengers who received the booster vaccine are exempted from the 9 months restriction. A valid identity document

Is this a cruise on the Mediterranean? I don't see any mention of Covid testing requirements for the Mediterranean. https://www.msccruisesusa.com/health-and-safety-measures/mediterranean

I'm confused. Which port are we talking about here. From my reading of the MSC website for Covid requirements for sailing in the Mediterranean. test results are not mentioned. Is this post about US cruising?

Can anybody tell me what language(s) the shore excursions are conducted in on MSC cruises that originate in the Mediterranean? If done in multiple languages including English, do you feel that the full narration is done in each language? We have been on some HoHo bus tours in Europe with live narration and the narration done in the local language seemed to be at least twice as long as that of the English translation. I doubt that English is that much more efficient than other European languages.

Thank you for a very informative post. It would be nice if the HDMI ports on the Oasis are as accessible as the ones on the videos are. While the internet may not be as useful for gaming because of ping issues as mentioned here, hooking up an ipad to the TV for watching movies seems reasonable.

Thanks for all the parenting advice but their actual parents are not comfortable letting them have the run of the ship at their age. That leaves three possibilities - have them stay in Ocean Adventures, have them with mom and dad 100 percent of the time and deny mom and dad any adult time or let them hang out together on occasion in their cabin while mom and dad have some vacation time. It would be nice if they loved Ocean Adventure enough to want to be there and if OA had capacity for them, but if that is not the case, I was trying to develop Plan B. For those who addressed my question - thanks, it was useful information. Perhaps iPad-based games are the best solution.

We will be traveling with our three grandsons on the Oasis in the Caribbean next April. They are video game junkies and are old enough to be left in the stateroom while their parents are out doing adult things. The question I have is, are there accessible connections on the TV in the staterooms to allow the connection of an Xbox? Secondly, are the wifi speeds for the Voom streaming package fast enough including sufficient ping time to allow for gaming?

Ooops, I made a grandparent mistake. The youngest boy will be 8 1/2 at the time of the cruise - 5 months shy of his 9th birthday.

We are first time Royal cruisers and first time cruising with our extended family. We have 3 grandsons who will be ages 7 1/2, 9 and 11 at the time of our cruise next April. The first question I have is the age groupings for Adventure Ocean. I think I have seen that they have separate groups for 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11. I have also seen mention of just one grouping of 6-11. Does anyone know which it is? If it is the former, how strict are they about it? The reason I ask is that our three grandsons are very close and are used to doing everything together; if the 7 1/2 year old has to be separated from his older brothers it would ruin his (and his parents') vacation. The second question I have is whether there are opportunities to play video games for this age group while in Adventure Ocean (yes, I know that video games are the bane of civilization, but I'm only the grandparent.)

Thanks for all the feedback. As far as sleeping is concerned, it is acceptable and possibly preferred to have mom and dad in separate rooms since dad snores keeping mom awake. We will look into some of the other ships as suggested. One other question I had was keeping track of the kids during the day. With so many activities and with at least the older kids getting to be of a more independent age, how do parents keep track of them? We just got off a Princess ship that has the medallions that allow you to keep track of the locations of the members of your party on an app. Does Royal Caribbean have anything similar?

I checked mid-June through mid-August sailings for the Eastern Caribbean.

We are planning a cruise to take our grand kids (boys ages 8, 10 and 12) and the parents for next summer. I watched a YouTube tour of the Wonder of the Seas and it looks perfect for our grandsons - especially the ice rink, water slides, rock climbing wall and miniature golf. However, it looks like the maximum number of people per cabin is 4 thus we would require adjoining cabins for the parents and the the 3 boys. From looking at the RCL web site it does not appear that there are any adjoining cabins available for next summer on the WOS. I was wondering if there are any other RCL or other cruise ships that would be good substitutes for the WOS. If so, what would be the tradeoffs by going with an alternative ship?