cloud_nine

We sail September 4th so still have to test, but the interporters getting on in Rome on the 8th won't have to test. So unfair.

The problem is, many people don't have a lot of holiday time, or they don't have a whole lot of control over when they can take that holiday time. So if, for instance, someone only had a week's holiday to take and once they had booked that holiday time off they had to take it, they are not going to be booking a cruise line that requires testing as come two days before, they might test positive asymptomatically and then their only holiday time is scrapped. Yes the test is simple, but it's the uncertainty of not knowing if you're going to test positive or not and being unable to take your holidays. So, I can understand people picking a cruise line that doesn't test, over one that does even if the one that does is their first choice of cruise usually.

Agree, none of the Lloyd's Pharmacies here have any available spaces for supervised testing. Fortunately we have a DAM Health here, but who knows how long that will be open for!

I love a Red Velvet Cake from the R Bar!

No, it's not anaphylaxis, I just get really sick with severe gastrointestinal symptoms. I had never heard of FPIES before, but reading up on it, it does actually sound very similar to what I experience when I eat coconut. I've always had a problem with coconut ever since I was a child (the first time I had a bounty bar I projectile-vomited all over a friend's patio) and it just seems to have got worse the older I get (though that could be because coconut oil and milk are in sooo many more foods now than it used to be).

I have a coconut allergy, so similarly, both food and drinks are a concern, but drinks are pretty easy to avoid, it's food that's the main issue. Coconut oil and coconut milk are in so many things that you wouldn't expect like ice cream, desserts, soups etc so I make sure to email in advance and then go directly to the dining room upon boarding and speak to the Maitre'D/Head Waiter, whoever is there at the time, to have it noted again and make sure they're aware for dinner. Then, I will always order the next nights meal in advance if I'm eating in the MDR. I used to try to just avoid it without making a fuss and letting them know, thinking that I could tell what foods would contain it, but on a past RCI cruise I must have eaten something with coconut in it and got really sick so I don't do that anymore. It also doesn't help that I'm a vegetarian - so many times curries are the only veggie offering on the menu, which more often than not, contain coconut milk - so it's just best to work with the head waiter and let them know what you want to eat the next night. They will make something off menu for you if you want, or make something on the menu work for you (if they can). So make sure your daughter (or you, if she's too shy to ask) speaks up and asks if there's something they can do.

I would skip Rome, especially if you've spent time there before. I always stay on board at the Rome port, and the ship is always practically empty. It's great! Palma is the best in my opinion as everything is a lot nearer than the Italy ports and there's so many different things to do there. There's the beaches, the Cathedral, shopping and wandering around Palma itself, but if it's your first time there, I would get the train to Soller, or visit the Caves of Drach.

Concierge will contact you about a week out. You can then reply to the email to ask them to book your dining for you. If you want to eat in Coastal Kitchen for dinner (the suite restaurant) you also should book this with your concierge. You should book your shore excursions through the cruise planner - I wouldn't wait until you're onboard as many may be sold out or overpriced then. Keep checking your cruise planner daily, they might add more or the price may fluctuate. Yes, you can bring sodas and 2 bottles of wine/champagne per stateroom. If you buy alcohol on board (in an inboard shop for instance) RCI will keep it until your last evening on board, at which point it will be delivered to your stateroom. You can however, go onto onboard gifts on the RCI website and buy a bottle to have it delivered to your suite on the first day. Voom is included as a Sky Class guest, yes, and priority seating used to be a thing, but I haven't cruised since Covid so I don't know if that's changed. Someone rlse should be able to help more with that.

I was on a cruise in August once where the kids were so unruly that the captain had to do daily announcements "reminding" the kids - and the parents of kids, I guess - not to run in the corridors and stairways. Literally a minute after one of these announcements, a child who was with a parent, sprinted around a corner into the corridor and nearly knocked over my mum, and a lady walking behind her who was on crutches. I'm all for kids having fun but not when that fun threatens to hurt other people.

It depends on what you think is worth it. The food and service is leaps and bounds ahead of Royal (they're also amazing with allergies/intolerances), the entertainment is just as good (you even get a show with dinner in certain restaurants!) and you have to remember that soft drinks and room service is included on Disney (which are generally extra on Royal). Even the alcoholic drinks and specialty coffees are a reasonable price! Plus you can bring 2 bottles of wine/champagne on per person at every port, which certainly helps to balance the cost of alcohol, if you drink. The rooms are slightly bigger on Disney too, and the split bathroom is lovely. However, there are a couple of things I didn't like about Disney, in that in order to book certain things (Shore EX, Alcohol tastings, etc) if you were a first time cruiser, you had to wait until all their loyalty members had booked theirs first, so by the time you could book, a lot of things were booked up. Their IT department could also rival RCI's (absolutely awful!) and with everyone checking in/booking their shore ex, tastings, arrival times etc all at once (it opens at a certain time on a certain day and it's all go, go, go!) the website crashed quite a few times! Ultimately, it's up to you to decide if it's worth it. I'm not sure I would pay 3x the price tbh, but I don't have a 6 year old.

Until recently I hadn't heard of anyone else (except my dad) with it either, but I've spoken to a few people on cruise groups in the last year or so with coconut allergies and intolerances, and also read about a vegan chocolate company recently that switched from using coconut oil to another oil because of the amount of people who were contacting them about coconut intolerances. So I guess it's not as uncommon as you or I thought!

Some vegetarians can't or don't want to eat from a vegan menu. For example, I'm severely intolerant to coconut in all its forms (milk, oil, cream etc) and vegan dishes tend to be very heavy on the coconut (most vegan cheeses especially branded vegan cheese are made with coconut milk for example, plus lots of plant based veggie burgers etc contain coconut oil - don't ask me why!) so I actually can't order from the vegan menu. The last time I did order off the vegan menu on RCI (before I realised about the coconut in the "cheese" thing), I projectile vomited for three days. Needless to say I'm now super hesitant to order from it again even with the chef/head waiter's okay. So having an extra vegetarian menu (with even just one or two extra options) would be nice for me to choose from, instead of having to think of things to ask them to make specially. Having just one vegetarian option on the menu to choose from is a little iffy, especially if that option is a curry (coconut milk) or just something I don't like. Other veggies may just want to eat real cheese, milk, dairy based dishes. Not all vegetarians want to eat vegan, nor should they have to. *shrug*

Thanks so much for finding this out for me! And I'm glad I asked now since you get to enjoy the Suite Lounge perks that you weren't aware of! Enjoy those drinks! 😉

Loving this review! Your photos from the Caves of Drach were stunning! Would you be able to find out if soda, wine and beer are free from 11-11 in the Suite Lounge, please? I've been hearing mixed reports.

Considering you are vegans, I'm surprised that you don't know what foods contain/are animal-based. I'm a vegetarian and make it my business to know everything that has meat, fish, insects etc in, and if I don't know, I ask or avoid it altogether. For example, I often avoid mousse-based desserts as it is likely they would contain gelatine. If there is a soup on the menu that I am interested in, I ask what broth it is made with (chicken, vegetable etc). I don't automatically assume that something is safe for me to eat just by the way it looks. I am very sorry that your mother inadvertently ate snails, but this really is not Royal's fault. They were not trying to be sneaky, they were just calling it by it's proper name. Escargot is what it's called. It's like someone from the States coming to the U.K and eating black pudding without checking what it really is.

Yes, we always change for dinner. June can get pretty warm in the Med, and lots of the tours are quite walking-intensive so you could get quite sweaty (I do). For day wear I tend to take one or two pairs of shorts and some tops to go with, and a few lightweight summer dresses. Also, remember that if you'll be heading into cathedrals or other religious places that shoulders (and knees too I think) need to be covered. Sundresses, capris are fine for evening wear. Or to cut down you could take a skirt and/or pants with a few tops and mix and match.

The tender boats drop the tours at Athinios port (where the buses are waiting to pick you up) and everyone else at the old port of Fira.

A tour won't help with the wait times unfortunately. All the tours do is drop you off in Fira with a ticket for the cable car. You still have to queue for the cable car with everyone else to get down to the tender boats. We've had both good luck and bad luck with the queues. Once we didn't have to queue at all, another time we queued in the hot sun for over an hour. It all depends on how many ships are in port that day and the times they need to be back on board. What a tour will help with is getting off the ship and onto the tender boats early, as the tours are always the first off in the morning. Just be aware that Santorini is busy! Oia is lovely and the views are phenomenal, but the crowds can get pretty insane. As for beaches, they will be volcanic. So, they'll be red and black sand ones. If you're looking for white sand beaches, Mykonos is your best bet.