rimmit

Quantum class (Anthem, Ovation, etc) is the best for me. Indoor, very spacious, multi tiered heated pool and large hot tubs. Has some greenery. Solarium bistro nearby and front of ship with great views. Beautiful at night and relaxing if you go at night when people are at dinner. Ship also has separate indoor pool for families, so it keeps it quiet and there aren’t people walking through as its at the front of the ship.

Forgot about #2. Lol. Totally forgot about that. Kids are 8 and 12 now and it’s amazing how fast you forget about things like that. I have definitely been peed on while holding my kids in swim diapers. Lol. Swim diapers are nearly useless. They stop some stool and zero urine. Anyone that thinks swim diapers hold any urine does not understand basic physics.

I definitely like the transfer partners better with CSR. There are some decent ones with VX and which you can use effectively though. Being able to transfer to BA executive club and then to Qatar to book the Q suites is definitely the best bang for buck on the transfer redemptions I’ve found. CSR has BA as well though. Not having a straight up US carrier like Southwest or United is a big negative. And only Wyndham and choice preferred for hotels isn’t great for Venture X. It definitely takes some creativity with the VX but I can rack up miles so fast using it, it just works out better for us. Really jealous of the World of Hyatt partner as they have the best redemptions in the hotel realm I feel. I have a ton of miles in VX at this point so it just doesn’t make sense to switch but I have been very tempted.

That is a kid pool area. Not a baby area. On ships there is a difference as they filter the water differently since a baby will pee in the pool for sure. Kids and adults do as well, but for reasons I don’t quite understand this is ok and does not require a separate filter system. I guess it’s because there is a 100 percent chance of babies peeing in the pool and kids and adults only do occasionally???? Not sure to be honest. On the bigger ships there is a specific “baby splash pad” that is typically super small and has minimal features. This is babies only. Then there is a kids area. Then the normal pools. The Radiance class ships only have a kids area and no baby splash pad.

CSR is an excellent card. I am a Venture X guy myself and find the double miles on ALL purchases better for me personally and when booking through their travel portal which I can’t stand but do use, but do to use my $300 credit, they give 10x miles on points and hotels car rentals and 5x on flights. I personally prefer to book hotels directly to get my Bonvoy Points. Based on purchase patterns either CSR or VX are great cards. You need to analyze your purchase patterns to see which you’d get more from. Venture X and CSR both use Visa Infinite for most of their benefits like travel insurance, etc so they have very similar benefits. Venture X does not cost extra to add an authorized user which is great so you can give Priority Pass for free to several people. It’s also only $400/year minus $300 travel credit so $100, rather than the the $550/year minus $300 to make $250. I do like the point transfer partners better with CSR. Each has many more benefits than those listed here. Really you can’t go wrong with either.

I had no issues with the food in the MDR. It was inconsistency of preparation, service, and argumentative nature of the waiters in the MDR. When our order was right it tasted just fine to me and tasted the same as previous cruises. I do find Cafe Promenade has taken significant cutbacks in selection such that I can’t find anything. When the cookies are not burnt they taste the same. Sadly they were burnt 6/7 days. Sorrento’s tastes the same. WJ is also lacking selection. When I found something I wanted to eat it was fine though.

Yes, just look at the credit card and somewhere in a corner it says “Visa Infinte” “Visa Signature” or something like that and look up the benefits. Don’t go to the website for the branding of the card like “Venture X” or “Chase Sapphire Rewards”. You need to go to whoever the main CC company is backing the card and not the bank. Also, to save you some time as I learned this the hard way after filing some travel claims with the Credit Card company. Once you figure out if you’re covered based on the T&Cs DO NOT FOLLOW the directions in the T&C to file a claim. This is a waste of time. For Visa Infinite there was no phone number to call, and it said that claims must be MAILED to a specific address. I assumed this was to deter people from filing claims. So I followed the directions. A month later it was still crickets. So I then call Visa Infinite, they direct me to a number to call Broadspire who they use Travel Insurance through, and talk to someone who then directs me to an online portal to file my documents. I never heard a peep from my snail mail submission. Keep in mind that the CC reps are sometimes clueless as to these benefits and who to contact so it can take a while to figure this out based on who you talk to. Long story short, if I followed the directions in the T&C from Visa Infinite I would have gotten squat. You really need to be an advocate for yourself in this situation.

You have forgotten the yummy classic…. Tomato and pesto. The elimination of any finger sandwich with meat is just sad. Loco Fresh is being installed on more ships in the fleet. Not sure which ones have it yet, but just off navigator and they had it.

Yes. Sadly of all the companies I have dealt with among all of the trip cancellations, interruptions, etc. RCI is the only one that has not given any goodwill if even something small. Disney was of course incredible. The park tickets are completely nonrefundable once you buy them, but they refunded the unused portions back to my CC. The day she got sick we had to miss a dining reservation and it was way past cancellation. I didnt even ask to not be billed the cancellation fee and they just said they’d waive it and hope she feels better. Marriott gave me back my nonrefundable room fare back when I called them. I am a Platinum Bonvoy member so maybe that helps. AA gave me airline credit on basic economy tickets when I couldn’t make my return flight back from Ecuador and had Covid. The list goes on. RCI doesn’t budge though. Anything I couldnt get back or get credit I filed a claim for.

I’ll tell you what happens as it happened to my wife back in Oct. I have a whole thread devoted to this exact scenario where I got a little emotional and calmed down relatively quickly once all the cruise critics snapped me back to reason in regards to policies being policies and that those are RCI’s policies. There were some extenuating circumstances that made me more emotional than normal. Mainly based around the fact that in the year of 2022 we had a track record of basically having a disaster occur on every vacation we scheduled. Such as getting quarantined in Ecuador with Covid after a Galapagos expedition, having a family emergency that caused me to leave the Inca Trail after 1 day on the trail in Peru, my wife getting run over by a car in Zimbabwe, my son being hospitalized while we were in Disney World on vacation and the one in question where my wife got sick 1/2 day into a combined Disney World then 3 night cruise on Independence of the Seas. This was after she had been recovering for 100+ days after being run over by a car in Zimbabwe and had 13 surgeries and we just needed a break. So I was a little emotional in that thread and admit it, but agree with all the posters that the T&C are T&Cs. So given all that I have gotten good at filing insurance claims with my credit card and travel insurance company. So what happens if you are sick on day of embarkation? On Oct 5th my wife started feeling ill midday at Disney and we left. She was having fevers, chills, nausea, vomiting, and a sore throat and muscle aches. I test her for Covid on the 6th. Negative. Our cruise was the Oct 7th. The next day she was even worse. Test her for Covid again. Negative. The 7th comes around and I call RCI asking my options. They said she had to board or we would lose our money. RCI at this point no longer requires covid testing to cruise of note. I did have medical travel insurance, but since this was booked about 5 days prior to the embarkation date, for whatever reason trip cancellation was not an option when I ran the trip for quotes with insuremytrip.com where I buy travel insurance. It had medical and some other benefits but for some reason cancellation was not offered. I didnt care as I figured the odds of us missing were low as we had enough bad luck already this year and the cruise was in 5 days. Lol. Boy was I wrong. Thankfully, the people on cruise critic remind me that my credit card likely has trip insurance and I calm somewhat. They will not budge on the cancellation despite fever and all the symptoms. We go to urgent care as I know to file a trip insurance claim I need medical documentation as I have become a claims filing expert at this point. She ends up being Covid Positive so then RCI states we will get an FCC. We ended up filing with our credit card trip insurance and got our money back that way as I didn’t want another FCC. We also got our taxes and port fees back from RCI. We did not have to worry about medical as we were still in the US and due to all her medical care from being run over by a car we were at our maximum out of pocket for the year within hours of being back in the US after she was medically repatriated. So long story short, the only way they are denying boarding at this point is Covid. I specifically said “So despite her symptoms you want her to sail?” And the rep consulted the supervisor and she said “Yes. If she is covid negative she can sail.” “So you want me to bring a sick person with fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches on board the ship.” “Sir, if she is Covid negative she is good to sail.”

Also right about 6 years ago they started charging for room service. That may have been on your last cruise or not. It may have been there 6 years ago, but you have to scan your card to get pool towels. Based on ship, could be all of them but not entirely sure if all ships have changed to this procedure, you now get your seapass card at your room now, and not when you check in. Based on ship AO is no longer in three age groups. They have 3-5 year old lumped together and then 6-12 now lumped together rather than their old age ranges or 3-5,6-8,9-11. This is ship dependent based on if the AO space was refurbished in the most recent refit. If the 6-12 yo grouping it is much less structured and more like Disney’s Kids club in that it’s more like a free for all.

RCI had no sympathy prior to the pandemic when their coffers were flush with cash. Their sympathy has sadly not improved since then now that they have billions in debt. RCI and cruise lines in general seem to be significantly less sympathetic than other travel businesses. When things have gone awry I have had great customer service from Disney, Marriott branded hotels, and the legacy airline carriers. Despite their stringent cancellation policies, many times I have been able to get travel credit, a refund or coupon when contacting their customer service. They were not obligated to based on the T&C but they typically offer something as a “good will” gesture. The cruise lines are by far the most stringent and loyalty status matters nothing to them in these matters. If past final payment they will stick to those T&Cs to the letter. Definitely look into your credit card policies. I have gotten thousands back this last year filing travel insurance claims via my credit cards travel policies. The pre existing condition clause could nullify your claim however.

When we were on the Anthem that year as well, there were several Xboxes missing from the Xbox pod in the swapped. Also many controllers missing. And one of the acrylic cases that house one of the Xbox’s was totally cracked. I asked the crew why there were missing Xboxes and why they didn’t have enough controllers for the remaining systems and they said the last sailing people stole the Xboxes and controllers and they had not gotten around to replacing them yet.

Yep. They even issued a video on top of the email reminding guests to behave. Think it was about a month ago.

You absolutely always need to buy medical. You can only lose how much you put into a vacation but the sky is the limit on medical costs. There is no upper limit on that. As someone whose wife was run over by car in Zimbabwe last summer, it gives me a great deal of comfort knowing the 100k I had to put out WILL (albeit I am still waiting on a 55k travel insurance claim I filed back in July) be reimbursed eventually. That doesn’t even include all the money the insurance company paid out to the med evac company and hospital once they got involved and we no longer needed to pay for the medical care while we were trying to get stabilized to be repatriated back to the US. Someone could be financially ruined if you do not have medical insurance while traveling, but you will just take a hit if you dont have travel insurance. Self insuring yourself for your vacation based on your personal risk may not be a bad idea but YOU REALLY NEED MEDICAL.

I agree with the posters that suggest X. Celebrity would be better if you want to “impress”. RCI is impressive in scale and amenities, but in terms of an upscale feel it is lacking. It really focuses on being mainstream these days. While there are kids on X, it’s not the level that RCI obviously has. RCI is a family line. It’s not marketed to couples, but it absolutely is a couple friendly and the vast majority of people cruising during times that are not holidays are couples. It’s just not their main market these days.

As a parent of an 8 and 12 yo that cruise and travel extensively, there is nothing that pisses me off more than parents who are lackadaisical. Kids are gonna have their moments. There is no way around that. Parents need to give some effort though. My kids are nowhere near perfect. They are far from it. They’ve had meltdowns at inopportune times or done something they shouldn’t have. If a parent tells you their kid is perfect, they are flat lying. But I can assure you they get removed and disciplined on the spot. We have left Disney World smack dab in the middle of the day. We’ve taken our food to go from restaurants if they’re not cooperating. I’ve left mid meal with my kids from the MDR to let my wife finish eating or vice versa. We specifically booked private tours when they were younger so if there were meltdowns or issues we wouldnt interfere with a tour bus of 50x I am no perfect parent, but I do my best. I make mistakes like any parent and I could always be a better parent, but I’m trying. Parenting is hard, but to just let your kids run rampant is just not acceptable. The fact RCI has to put up signs on the pool deck and notices in the cruise compass to parent your kids is quite telling how things have changed over the years.

Part of it is also the shifting demographics When talking with the security onboard RCI, they state they love working RCI than their previous post on CCL as things are so much calmer and significantly less theft, fighting, and and other onboard incidents. They stated CCL ships came with a brig while RCI ships did not. I have noticed more and more incidents of vandalism on ships over the last 5-6 years. I wonder if RCI is now considering a brig in their upcoming ships or maybe they have already converted space and installed them in some refits.

Ultimately, you know your baby best and what they can handle. We travel extensively around the world with our kids ever since they were born. They did fine and loved it, they especially loved the kids club and nursery, They grew up cruising and traveling. Ultimately, as long as you have reasonable expectations as to what you can do you’ll be fine. If you set your expectations the same as before you had a baby you will be disappointed. We go into every vacation with kids with the mentality that “Everything can and will go wrong. If something goes right that’s a bonus.” And that’s served us well over the countless snafus we’ve had over the years.

Yes, the best way to combat this is by far to just bombard the maitre’d with complaints in a polite manner. If the maitre’d is spending all day putting out fires from something this simple, RCI may find it not worth the time of all the head waiters and asst head waiters to keep this policy in place. At some point something this simple is not worth fighting over. It’s not like twice a day turn down which is truly a HUGE amount of labor saved. I can’t imagine the number of people asking for two entrees at a time is that huge to make that big of an impact on their resources. This really feels like micromanaging to the next level. What’s next? Only allowed to ask for one pool towel at a time? It must be visibly soiled before you can replace it? I am shocked they still set the tables in the MDR. Figured they they’d only put out silverware and glasses as needed at this point. The labor saved for that would be immense. I would not doubt they will limit the amount of silverware used next.

I personally have no skin in the game as I have never ordered a second entree unless the first one was awful, which is rare for my tastes, but I can understand the annoyance for many people. It feels like RCI is basically controlling how you eat and being your mom. I do not go on vacation for someone to tell me I how to eat my food. Ultimately, it does not effect me but can see how some people can be very annoyed by this change.

Yes our other issue was that many times our glasses were not clean or our silverware was dirty. And not just a little dirty. I’m talking food stuck on the spoon and the spoon looking matted with grease. Not like it went through the wash and looks shiny with a little food stuck, but just flat not looking like it was washed at all. It was quite disturbing, as it looked like they assumed someone did not use the spoon. This was at the same brunch when I asked for BBQ sauce and apparently they no longer carry bbq sauce in the MDR during brunch?!? Also asked for a plain cheeseburger and it came with mayonnaise and all the trimmings applied. Totally bizarre experience.

They also used to have people just waiting to assist with helping you with your tray to your seat. That was basically their primary job was assisting people with their trays. Not so much anymore.

I’d be impressed if RCI went back to smaller ships. Back in the 80s and 90s nearly all cruise lines were the same, except carnival. They were all super high class and expensive. It wasn’t until the Voyager and the cruising boom of the early 2000s that cruiselines really started to separate themselves out and focus on different demographics. Now you really have 3 very family friendly focused lines like NCL, CCL and RCI and the more exotically older crowd focused lines like X, PCL, and HAL. Each line has found a niche and target demographic they like. For RCI to go back and start producing smaller ships with less bells and whistles, I dont think that will ever happen as it goes against their target market. Maybe something like a Freedom sized ship, but the Radiance and lower are almost never gonna happen again. I’d love to see them though as I like smaller ships more, and have been on expeditions with as few as 48 pax and really enjoyed them.