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I had a couple of week-long trips to Grand Turk before there was even a cruise port there, and I would love to go back. Naturally I hope the current crisis resolves quickly, but if not, it certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings if our next Labadee stop became Grand Turk instead!

As of six weeks ago, yes you can. 🙂 There's always one provided at the sink to start with. If I don't remember to ask the steward, I just move the one from the sink into the shower, and the next time they service the room, they provide a fresh one for the sink.

For anyone else who might be interested in shopping around, it doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming. There are multiple ways to compare what different online agencies are offering, including the "Find a Cruise" tab at the top of this very page. And while it's true that the biggest perks come from group bookings, meaning non-suites only, we have received some very worthwhile offers from suite bookings. Our upcoming Symphony suite came with prepaid gratuities and a complimentary specialty dinner for two, for example, and that's for just a junior suite.

Our experience was similar six weeks ago. They brought us extra lobsters along with our surf & turf and asked twice if we wanted more. I personally wouldn't hesitate at $125. We love the more laid back and upscale atmosphere, and we find that the food rivals any specialty restaurant.

This is precisely what I was going to say. I would never shame or ridicule someone for having a different risk tolerance threshold than someone else, and only you can decide if it's worth it. I would only add that some insurance policies offer a "cancel for any reason" add-on. That way, if events develop in a way that causes your concerns to increase, you can always cancel.

I've heard that this often works when using a dining package, so your experience doesn't surprise me--although even the dining package swap-outs seem to be getting more unpredictable lately. 🫤 That being said, even for a complimentary dining voucher, it wouldn't shock me to hear that someone else WAS successful in getting OBC. You know what they say ... "Really Consistently Inconsistent." 😆

I haven't personally attempted this, but I know of someone who tried and was not successful. They weren't going to get a refund if they canceled the original reservation, so they just ate there twice. 🙂

You should see "Browse our ships" right below those two options. That will let you pick your ship (or any other) and its current sailing. If you aren't seeing that, it wouldn't be the first time the app has glitched. 🙂

Another vote for Aqua80, mostly because of the utterly amazing mashups of 80s hits. I really wish there was a Grammy for "Best Soundtrack for a Cruise Ship Production Show." 😄

To be fair, I've eaten hundreds of meals in France and Italy, so I'm probably not the most objective observer. 😉 But neither of those menus really impress me. I think I would rank the French night higher than Italian, though. And while I'm far from an expert in Mexican food, I didn't really love that one either. That seems to be a common opinion.

Curious as why you would suggest watching Ovation videos ... yes, both ships are Quantum class (technically the Odyssey is Quantum Ultra), but there are significant differences. To the OP: I suspect that Hoopster95's point is that some background research is a good place to start. 🙂 Your questions are perfectly reasonable, but they can be hard to answer without knowing your preferences, budget, cruising style etc. But here are a couple of general tips: most of the entertainment on the Odyssey doesn't require advance reservations, but the ones that do can sometimes go fast. As a general rule, you can reserve shows around the first of the month preceding your cruise date (e.g. May 1st for a June cruise). Also, if you want to do things like the skydiving simulator or the North Star, the complimentary sessions can go fast so you'll want to snag those reservations right away too. Another thing I particularly enjoy about the ship is Giovanni's Wine Bar. It has my favorite dishes from Giovanni's Kitchen, but you can buy them a la carte and you don't need a reservation. My husband and I will split a margherita pizza and the Nutella/banana dessert and it's just the perfect amount of food for us. The Odyssey is among my favorite Royal Caribbean ships and I hope you enjoy!

It certainly means saving less with vouchers required, but I'm not so sure about saving nothing. On many (not all) ships, the evening hors d'oeuvres have desserts that are exponentially higher in quality than what you find elsewhere. My last cruise had choux buns, complete with craquelin and crème pâtissière in various flavors, that rivaled any choux pastries I've had anywhere in the world. The appetizers themselves tend to be a step up as well, in my experience. I suspect they don't want to "feed the masses" at that level of food cost. That being said, I completely agree with your point about making repeat cruisers feel special and valued. I expect to reach D+ before any permanent change in that direction could be implemented, but for now, I would definitely be disappointed if I was on one of the cruises where Diamonds were shut out in the evenings. I might just lurk around the entryway and bribe people to sneak me out sone choux buns when they're on the menu. 😉

And just in case this is helpful for any other non-drinkers: it's also amazing with sparking water instead of vodka! I'm apparently in the minority, but as much as I expected to love the fried cheesecake, I just didn't. 😞 I find that the chocolate peanut butter tart is pretty good, and the hazelnut-passion fruit bar is to die for.

Perfect illustrations of an important point! If you book Boardwalk balconies largely for Aqua Theater purposes (like we do), the deck really does matter. We always choose the furthest aft on deck 8. Unless you're on the Allure, of course, which doesn't have an Abyss in the way (for now). 🙂

That was our cabin. 🙂 You can see the show sitting down but you're looking through the glass. I took turns standing by the railing for my favorite parts and sitting down in between.

Oh, that's good to know! I backed out when it looked like it was going to charge us.

Yes, you do have to be connected to the ship's WiFi. I'm not sure if it's on every ship or not--before this one, our last cruise was four months ago on the Ovation and it wasn't available.

Not at all on deck 8, fortunately 🙂 I'm not sure if it would block the view from further back, but if you're all the way aft it's not a problem at all.

New to us, at least! I also don't know if it's fleetwide. But as of last week's Oasis cruise, we were able to access our photos from the ship's photographer within the app, from an icon at the bottom of the home screen. We loved being able to preview them without having to go to the kiosks. We couldn't figure out how to apply our free Diamond photos so we had to do that part at the photo center, but we had already picked out the two we wanted. The thumbnail previews showed up within a matter of hours, too. Another bonus is that it was super easy to download the pics we got with our coupons. We still got the emails so I was able to download them to my desktop, but they were on my phone right away. Anyway, just a heads-up if you're cruising soon and you get pictures taken onboard. 🙂

We enjoy them for two reasons: 1) we are huge fans of the Aqua Theater shows, and 2) DH is a bit freaked out by open ocean so he seldom uses our ocean view balconies unless we're in port. This way, he can sit facing the Boardwalk and I sit facing the ocean and we're both happy. 😄 We just got off the ship with our favorite Aqua Theater show (Oasis), so we intentionally booked the furthest aft on the bottom deck (8) and enjoyed the show over & over again. That being said, if you are early-to-bed and light sleepers, it can be loud at night until 11:00. And obviously it's rather a far walk, if mobility is an issue.

Wait ... you mean it wasn't?😲 That's certainly the way things work around here! 😄

I see more value in the Beach Club than most people do, but that's a hard pass for me. 🤨 I'll go up to $125 or so, but these days, even that is pretty much only available on a Black Friday sale.

One important thing to remember is that Labadee is only "Haiti" in the most technical sense. Many USG employees would currently need special authorization to vacation in Haiti proper, but Labadee is so completely separate that it would make more sense to refer to it as Hispaniola than Haiti. It's certainly not risk-free, since no place on the planet is. But equating it with Port-au-Prince makes absolutely zero sense.

I saw it in the Odyssey Windjammer in 2022, so while that is technically "years" in the plural, it's probably not what is usually meant by the expression. 😉We actually saw a few upgrades in Windjammer offerings on that cruise, so it may have been an inaugural season type of thing. I haven't been back to the Odyssey since then, so I couldn't say for sure. At any rate, I agree, it's certainly not the norm anymore. Best to plan on Izumi!

Aw, that's unfortunate timing. But if you have Peacock, they stream it live now!