Tenderpaw

If the standard the cruise line has to meet is whether we'd do the task at home, they can cut a LOT. We can cook our own meals, clean our own cabins, organize into groups to clean the public areas in shifts, carry our own luggage, wash the linens ourselves, etc. Whether we do something at home is a silly argument. But the bean counters at the cruise lines love that attitude so they can keep on cutting. And there is absolutely no way they keep the same number of room stewards. This is corporate America. They will reduce staff.

If they clean once a day, they will cut steward staff in 1/2, so forget about getting better service. They will use 1/2 cleaning chemicals. And a lot of folks will reuse their towels that don't today. Yes, you can request extra towels, but a lot of folks won't know to do that or will forget.

It totally benefits Royal as a cost cutting effort: fewer room stewards, less towels to wash, less laundry attendents, less water to produce on board, less cleaning chemicals for the rooms, less soap in the laundry. All under the guise of "sustainability".

LOL! That isn't likely to happen. But maybe they can set up a kiosk at the table where we order the food electronically and and a robot brings it to us. But still charge us the same or more for gratuities and tell us how its better for us and for the environment too. And the robot will keep strict control and track of any extra appetizers or main courses you order so you can be charged extra for your convenience.

https://www.cruisehive.com/service-change-spotted-on-royal-caribbean-ship/89773 Ugh! Note, no reduction in gratuities, no reduction in fares. Just less service. But in before all the cheerleaders: 1. it doesn't matter to me because of xyz 2. at least we can still cruise and we don't want Royal to go out of business 3. its still better than at home so it doesn't matter 4. i reuse my towels to save the environment and you should too you terrible person 5. Carnival already does this and its fine.

This. Other cruise lines have done a conversion to get people from one method of counting to a new one. Not all will be happy (I recall thinking Celebrity screwed me when they converted), but the per night system is much more representative of true loyalty.

https://disneycruiselineblog.com New Pearl level for 25 cruises or more. Note still based on number of cruises, not points, so 25 3 day cruises in an inside cabin are the same as 25 7 day or 14 day cruises in a suite. Honestly, beyond a free Palo meal for the current highest level (which is nice), most of Disneys “benefits” center around the loyal customer being able to spend money with Disney before other less loyal customers. Other cruise lines have recognized longer cruises over shorter cruises and offered more tangible benefits for years.

LOL! This is funny! On the Odyssey transatlantic, they had the always available escargot. But one night they had a scallop dish as an appetizer, which i ordered. It came out looking just like the escargot and i thought the waiter made a mistake. Nope, those were scallops in the little dish, they just had another name for it! I like scallops, so I didn't care.

They will keep cutting as long as they think we will take it and "just be happy and thankful that we can still cruise". They were already cutting before COVID and before the massive inflation we have now. This isn't a new thing. Remember when NCL tried to prevent people from taking food from the buffet to their rooms to force the use of paid room service? People complained and they backed off. Remember when Royal tried to change the dining process when the Quantum class first came out? People complained and they changed it back. But if no one said anything because "we should just be happy we can cruise", then that change would be fleet wide now.

LOL! I like the Royal way better but its still a nice perk.

You are correct that the cruise is still nice and much more comfortable than an airline seat. But the cruise lines love the the attitude of "but its still wonderful so stop complaining" when it comes to their cuts and I'm not willing to let them off the hook so easily. Lets not deceive ourselves, this new menu is for their benefit only but they are selling it as a benefit to us (as always). If we go along easily, they will keep cutting until almost everything is pay as you go. But don't worry, it will actually be somehow better for us and still won't "suck as bad as a coach airline seat". Flying used to be a LOT nicer than today too.

We were on the Odyssey transatlantic and loved the ship. Sorentos pizza was very tasty. Giovanni's food was fine and Wonderland was amazingly good. Don't let the weird menu names deter you, the food is excellent in Wonderland. Chops, on the other hand, was a disappointment. My NY strip was overcooked and not that flavorful. A major disappointment there. Bumper cars were a blast and North Star was fun. I waited too long to do Ifly and missed out due to rough weather and then it was filled up. The current captain (Captain Per) of the Odyssey is very talkative and around and about the ship. He keeps passengers informed of weather and anything unusual, like on our cruise on the last day the ship turned around to investigate a "red floating object" in the water. He immediately informed us as to what was happening and then later informed of the outcome.

On Celebrity, are the complementary Elite drinks loaded on your card and good at any bar all day like on Royal or do you have to go to a specific venue? We have an 18 night on Eclipse next year and will be our first time on Celebrity in about 10 years.

Honestly, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often with all the changes in requirements and differing requirements for various sailings. While its easy to say its totally their fault, I have some sympathy for them. We just completed the Odyssey's transatlantic and leading up to the cruise, we had nervousness about this very thing. The website had conflicting sentences in different areas defining "fully vaccinated", one stating that if you had the 2 doses plus a booster, you were fully vaccinated and another saying you had to have the booster within the last 11 months. We were also concerned about the logistics of getting tested but we were able to to the online testing in our hotel. My fear was getting stuck in Rome and having to fly home at full fare costing big bucks. All was fine and we weren't even asked for proof of vaccination, just verbal confirmation. We did have to show proof of the proctored negative test. I was surprised at not having to show proof of vax, but maybe the rules of have changed or maybe our records from previous cruises reflect it. Our ship did have a few COVID cases, about 10 in total according to the captain.

I'm not sure that "regulations" are the issue. The IMO pretty much is world wide. But the Asian market has different expectations than the US or Europe.

People think that technology and crew training will prevent future disasters, just like they thought on the Titanic, Morro Castle, Andrea Doria, Prinsendam, Oceanos, Monarch, Concordia... One day on one of these new Monsters, something bad will happen. Its inevitable. The Monarch happened because the captain desperately needed to take a dump, the OOW made mistakes, the charts were wrong, and the Staff Captain was lazy (my opinion). A combination of issues. As someone said above, herding all the idiot passengers at muster is a form of crew training and it isn't happening now. Except on Disney.

We used these folks for a private all day tour of Rome. It was fantastic. Great service and a local experienced guide. https://rometransferservices.com/

Was on the Disney Wish last month and just off the Odyssey transatlantic. On the Wish, it was a total joke. They attempted a “pause” in activity to review safety and watch the video and no one was paying attention. I told my wife, if this continues one day a lot of people will die. The Odyssey was a little better but as much as o hate the traditional muster, it is the safest. One day a major incident will happen with one of these monster ships. And it could be very bad. Ships can still sink. Had there not been a wind to blow the Costa Concordia ashore, it would have sunk in deep water with hundreds dead.

It’s time for them to go back. I’m on the Odyssey transatlantic now and the Bistro is Pinnacle only all the time and Boleros is Pinnacle only for at least 3-4 hours every night. But you only see a handful of them actually using the space. It’s annoying. The suit lounge and Coastal Kitchen would be just fine for them. Jus my opinion.

All the cruise lines say that booking your next cruise on board is the best deal because you get the best price available plus an incentive, usually an OBC. And until recently, that in fact seemed to be the case for us. We were on a Royal cruise recently and we priced another cruise through our favorite travel agent and the same cruise with on board "next cruise" service. The price on board with "next cruise" included a $200 pp OBC, but the price our agent quoted was $300 pp cheaper for the same ship, date, and cabin. So, the cruise booked with our agent was $200 total cheaper for the cruise. We left and went back on line to re-verify the price because we thought we made an error in the price request to the agent. Nope. The cruise priced through our agent was in fact cheaper. So, we went back to the "next cruise" person and priced it again. It was indeed more expensive, even with the OBC. We asked the person if they had Royal's best price and if the OBC was an extra incentive and were told "oh yes, this is by far the best deal available". So i asked why our travel agent had the same cruise cheaper and was told whatever we priced, it wasn't the same and was told that wasn't possible. Then we showed the Royal salesperson and it was obvious she wanted us to leave. Just something to be aware of. Honestly, we have never seen this before and we have booked a ton of cruises on board. Maybe this was just an unusual circumstance but it certainly happened this time. With the availability of internet, its smart to verify the on board prices are in fact "the best".

I'm probably in the minority, but i find these horns incredibly fake. I would say real ship's horns don't play chords, but some of the old ocean liners had multiple horns that in effect played a single chord, but the Wish's horns don't sound like that. I know these are speakers, not real steam or air horns, but it seems like they could have made it better. The simple tune the Magic and Wonder plays is so much better. The Fantasy and Dream's horn speakers were slightly less in sound quality than the older ships, but they could play more tunes. The wish can play still more, but they over-did it and it's just fake. Just my opinion. When the old ships leave (and they will sooner than many here believe) I'll miss their traditional charms. For reference, a real ship's horn:

Today I saw on John Heald's blog a complaint about "door slamming" by someone's neighbor in which the complainer was practically begging for mercy to be spared from more door slamming. I've also seen people on here also get positively twisted up over "door slamming" with numerous posts about it practically ruining a cruise. My question is, what is "door slamming"? Is it where you just let the door close and latch on its own? Or is it when you pull it shut hard? Do you have to ease it shut manually in order to "not slam"? What is required to socially acceptably close a cruise ship door? I confess, i often just let the cabin door close on its own. From what I have observed, it is pretty common. So, am I a slammer?