Donsyb

On 5/20/2024 at 11:34 AM, BillOh said:

Yes, as prepared as I need to be. I did learn something new watching her sailaway yesterday.  I have loved the cantilevered s since they came out on Freedom. 

The ones on Allure, Oasis and Sypmhony look nice, but I think I spotted on Wonder the glass goes all the way to the bottom making it an infinity hottub?

Yes they do on wonder

11 minutes ago, yogimax said:

I have never had a cruise director impact my cruise one way or the other.

 

I am curious to hear how the CD impacted your cruise.

This. I never understand when people say a CD is a big part of their cruise. They aren’t even on my radar 🤷🏼‍♀️

29 minutes ago, green_apples said:

And just like that. Ovation is in Singapore from

 

20th October 2025 - 12th March 2026

 

Although disappointingly, only 3 and 4 night cruises......

Anyway it’s now 15th May and still no Singapore cruises 😞

20 hours ago, little britain said:

Why not book via USA ? 7/8 of my future cruise are with my USA agents and the only one that isn’t is because my friend booked it otherwise it would be 8/8 ! 

Did you find it easy to get a good US TA from the U.K.?

4 hours ago, Loracpin2 said:

Double occupancy on th Oasis is 5400. Add triple and quad and occupancy on our July 2023 sailing was 6800.

 

As much as the wait staff in the Windjammer did their best to handle the crowds, it was always chaotic and dirty. Food offerings and taste mediocre at best. Fortunately our group had early dining for dinner. That was the good part since we were seated upon arrival. As for the menu, the food offerings and taste were also mediocre as best.

 

Maximum capicity of 6800 passengers also impacted the inability to find seats for the pools, sign up for seats for the shows, and mostly everything else our group wanted to do.  

 

 

I think you need to check the definition of DISASTER in the dictionary……

we don’t do the windjammer,  but had no issues on either of our oasis class sailings, both of which were at capacity

1 hour ago, HicksRA said:

I always have to laugh when people ask about two tops thinking they’ll be a private experience. There’s usually about 7 of them crammed so close together you bump elbows with the guy at the table next to you when you try to put food in your mouth and people trying to get by drag their butt in your green beans as they scoot sideways…

We’ve also never had a problem getting a 2 top on RC 🤷🏼‍♀️

2 hours ago, Loracpin2 said:

Stay with Celebrity!!!! Latest RCI experience was on the Oasis last July to join Daughter, Son-in-Law and Granddaughters. Spending every minute with Family was FANTASTIC!!!! Sailing the Oasis was a DISASTER!!!!  

What was wrong with Oasis? We loved it.

9 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

Wasn’t Ovation going to china ?

Spectrum is showing in China

3 hours ago, Aaron3 said:

Just off anthem 

 

I asked when singapore Oct to Apr 2025 to 2026 would be released as I'd heard may 10th and nothing . 

Was initially told may not have them and ovation had been announced for elsewhere. 

After probing and asking to see the other Asia ports ovations last sailing being early October I said oh where does ovation go there then, at that point they smiled and accepted that I knew and said we can't say. Bought the next cruise pay deposit and get some $obc if booked within 2 months and after doing so as we stood up was told they are on the system they kist haven't been told when they will be announced or available 

Wasn’t it originally week commencing 13th May they were supposed to be out? Hopefully shouldn’t have long to wait 🤞

1 hour ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

I didn’t know that, or possibly after the shutdown it wasn’t there in the planner but is now…we’re used to early dining now 😁

It was there in 2022 when I took my first post Covid cruise and was still there last year. The new mid seating would seat us better than either early or late though, so might consider that if it’s available for our next cruise.

2 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

Back when we were able to make MTD reservations thru the cruise planner, I would book nightly reservations for us and our friends for the same time for every night.  So after the first night, after that we had the same table and servers, and just walked in every night past the guards at the desk.
So it was very much like main dining and not at all like MTD. 
I think that was changed post Covid. That’s when we went back to early dining. 

It was kind of a pain booking it online each night at a time.

It would have been much better if instead of first choosing a day, we chose a time, and then just chose the days for that time.

But of course, Royals programmers don’t think like a passenger.

You can still make MTD reservations through the cruise planner (or at least you could when I last cruised in December). We booked all

of our MDR nights in advance.

17 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

 

That’s a hard pass for me. I’ll look into it when it can be booked in advance like the normal times. I want no parts of dealing with anything MTD-related on Wonder. We had early seating on deck 4 in March & the MTD “line” as we left the MDR was more like a sea of people extending out towards the elevators.

We had MTD dining on wonder in December and it was great. We book for around 7/7.30 and there was either little lines or when there was lines, it moved quickly.

48 minutes ago, DennysDad said:

I got a $200 FCC, bottle of champagne, bottle of white wine. It pays to complain daily. 

Not quite an FCC for the full value of your cruise though, which is what they claimed they got!

Someone was moaning about this on FB and were 100% blaming Royal for it.  They claimed they knew someone “high up” at RC and got a FCC for the amount of their cruise because of it, but most people called that as BS 🤷🏼‍♀️

18 hours ago, Nolefan95 said:

Then they shouldn't be cruising. Cruising is expensive these days on RCCL.

They’re saying they can cruise in a different RC ship for less. So why shouldn’t they do that if they wish? Not everyone is desperate to sail the newest and biggest at any cost - doesn’t make them less “fun”.

On 5/8/2024 at 3:49 PM, Aaron3 said:

 

 

Hoping that they all get added on the 10th as expected. We'll be on anthem for the only 2 nighter of the season from the UK and looking to get a (hopefully at least 5 night as on 2024) singapore cruise on for Christmas/new year 

 

Ovation will be a new ship for is and will be good to compare to anthem 

We’re also U.K. based and hoping to get at least 5 nights from Singers in Jan 2026 - my OH’s 50th birthday and our 25th anniversary 🤞we were booked on it for new Year 2020/2021, but obviously it was cancelled 😞

4 hours ago, CruisingWalter said:

Royal Caribbean is the one cruise line we recommend set time dining. They really don't do "my time dining" well at all. I've seen massive lines on multiple ships for the my time experience. I honestly don't understand why it's so hard. Carnival actually does it best with their Hub app. You simply tell the dining room you're ready for dinner and the app will notify you when your table is ready. No need to wait in line, we were usually enjoying a lounge or some music while waiting for our table.  I've never understood why Royal hasn't incorporated something like this into their app. 

Whilst I have read of issues on here, it’s worked great whenever we’ve done it. Longest we’ve had to wait is 10 minutes.

There isn’t a combined package like there is on NCL. As others have said, you can prepay gratuities at the time of booking if you wish. You can also prepay for a drinks package (which will

include gratuities). The price for the drinks package isn’t set and can change by sailing, but seems to be between $65-80 per person per day based on prices people have paid. There are regular offers such as x% off or buy one get 50% the second etc. you can buy and then cancel and repurchase if the price goes down.

I believe it has changed based on some things I read on here 

I’ve never heard of anyone without reservations NOT getting into eat with MTD so think it’s extremely unlikely. 

Prices are on the app. Eg radiance shows Soda is $3.50, virgin cocktails $7. Doesn’t show coffee prices - they were $4-5 last year

The one time I wanted to get the price drop, they said I would have to cancel and rebook.  We would lose the deposit and OBC that came with our original offer, so wasn’t worth it.

They seem to be replacing vintages with Giovannis wine bar on the newer ships eg wonder and icon

6 hours ago, Steelers0854 said:

Day 5 St Maarten

 

 

We started today much like all the others. Got up, grabbed a quick bite at the Windjammer and got our workout in. Because it was a port day the gym was a ghost town which was great. After our workout we headed to the pool deck and secure some padded loungers under a large overhang. It was cloudy at this point and we couldn’t tell where the sun was, but we picked the best spot we could. For the next few hours we had passing rain showers but otherwise it was a perfectly relaxing and temperate day. By 2pm we needed a small snack since we had dinner at Chops again.  We we went to Windjammer again and grabbed a salad and burger patty.

 

 

Before long it was time to get ready for dinner. Tonight we had much the same as we did the night before. The only differences were I got the lobster bisque and the ribeye. The soup was a tad too salty but the ribeye was great.

 

 

 

After dinner we headed to 150 to place DWs order for dinner tomorrow. Then to the aqua theatre to grab good seats for the makeup show tonight. While waiting in line to be let into the theatre spot started falling on us. I surely hope it doesn’t ruin my shirt, but word of warning to you all that the boardwalk is apparently in the line of fire for falling soot.

 

The show was great, they did a few things we hadn’t seen the night before. Unfortunately towards the end of the show the seas were rough enough they skipped some of the dives so I’m glad we came both days.

Soot has been reported to be an issue at the aqua theater. We didn’t have the problem there but did when we were watching the Flo rider