elleluv

Lots of great information! Thanks for taking the time to post. Where did this discouragement come from? Was it the CD in his shows and on stage? I understand the sentiment, but since I won't be there till May 1, I'm keeping an eye on the situation. Club Orient has some chairs out, I heard a bathroom has been built and its coming back, but I'll keep watching.

I'm not sure where the OP got their information, but we stopped in St. Maarten while on Jewel over Christmas and there was a note in the Cruise Compass recommending that passengers not go to the French side of the island due to the devastation on that part of the island.

We went out to Maho and saw a LOT of damage on the Dutch side along the way. Maho beach was open and busy, but not packed. You could see there was a lot of erosion, but it looked like they had been working to replace the sand that was lost. Sunset Bar was open and operational, so we sat and enjoyed a couple of drinks and a snack while the "kids" went out and played in the water.

I would suggest that your SIL have a conversation with his 1st Sgt prior to final payment.

DH is retired AF and is currently working for them as a civilian. Last I heard, part (but not all) of Mexico was on the prohibited list. Cozumel and Costa Maya actually *may* be all right.

As a civilian, DH still needs to report any foreign travel and get "briefed" on potential safety risks in those areas.

 

Sometimes Vintages or the Champagne Bar will have wines in addition to what's on the CL list. On Radiance they had wines left over from the Australia/New Zealand season that were very drinkable. So we made good use of our three coupons.

I'll have to make a point of checking out the CL wine selection at those two venues. Our taste in wine is pretty similar, so if you found something you like there I would expect to as well.

I had 5 bottles of wine on my recent Radiance cruise, so that was plenty... I'd just grab a bottle from my cabin and bring it along with me.

Hope you enjoyed your Solstice sailing, we missed you over on Radiance.

 

 

 

How do you get three amenity bottles? We are Diamond Plus and receive one per cabin. Just curious. :D

If I recall correctly... second bottle at 350 points and third bottle at 525 points.

This actually turns out to be a change that costs RCCL revenue with some passengers...

I don't care for the drink offerings in the lounge, so since they stopped charging the corkage fee I've been bringing along two bottles of wine to bring to dinner. Those two bottles along with the amenity bottles provided to me by Crown and Anchor are typically enough for me during the cruise.

Now that they are back to charging a corkage fee, I'll likely make due with the wine in the lounge to supplement the C&A amenities.

Sadly I know. I had planned on going the very end of April. But sadly, my mother in law intervened again. Lol.

The end of April may not have worked any better...

We are just off the 22 Apr 2017 Harmony sailing. Spring break was still alive and well, there were 1700 kids onboard.

I agree with all that you stated. It should curb the issue quickly. I hope you are doing well, every thing is good at our place.:)

Glad to hear everything is good there... things are good here as well. My husband and I are going to be boarding Harmony this weekend, really looking forward to him seeing the ship for the first time. :D

I wouldn't book a suite under this policy, but why not just book a regular cabin to get the onboard booking credit, and then upgrade to a suite when your plans are final? You should get more obc when you upgrade your cabin.

That's exactly what my plan is from here on out, Marci... and if I can't get my first choice of cabins, so be it. No way will I book a suite onboard with this new policy.

They lowered their deposit for full suites a few years ago, it might be the time to increase it raises it to the old amount again. It might reduce the number of people that book and then cancel on a consistent basis.

Hi Andrew,

That's exactly my issue with this new policy... They drastically lower the deposit amount for suites a couple of years ago and then they are surprised when some passengers will tie up a suite (or multiple suites) with those small deposits on sailings they may not intend to do...

I would have had no problem with them going back to a deposit of 200% of the full deposit amount... If they did that, it might have potentially solved the problem.

We tend to book most of our cruises 18 to 24 months before sailing and although we always intend to go, that's a long time and things happen.

I missed meeting you guys on the cruise, Steve... I was really looking forward to doing some "mingling" at the M&M, but sadly, it didn't work out that way.

The fridge was empty, but there were 2 large bottles of water on the desk that were available for purchase. I put mine in a cabinet so they were out of the way and two more were delivered several days into the cruise. I asked my stateroom attendant to touch base with the bar service people, and they came back and picked them up otherwise I'm sure I would have been charged as well.

Thanks for the review and comments, folks. Looking forward to joining you Sunday. :)

Great review, Andrew. It was fun reliving our cruise. :D

Arlene and I really enjoyed meeting you and Lisa. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll run into you again. ;)

Email sent out to Travel Agents today:

Dear Travel Partner,

We are writing to provide important information regarding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cell phones. Please provide this information to your clients as soon as possible. Royal Caribbean, Ltd. will no longer allow Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cell phones onboard our ships. This decision was made in light of recent incidents and safety concerns raised by Samsung about this particular device, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recent ban of the phone from all airplanes. We ask that guests who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 not bring the device on your cruise. Thank you for your assistance in notifying and updating your clients about our Samsung Galaxy Note 7 policy. As always, thank you for your ongoing support of our brands.

Sincerely,

Hi! How did you program the remote? We brought a remote and even managed to change the inputs on the TV on Explorer back in Sep. No matter what we did we could not get the TV to register the fact we had an HDMI cable attached. We could not figure it out for the life of us and neither could the stateroom attendant who even brought in the Samsung remote!

I was on Explorer in September and had the same problem... absolutely no trouble changing the input (I didn't even need the remote that I brought along). I think they had the HDMI inputs locked out... I'm not a techie, but I don't know anyway of getting around non-functioning HDMI inputs.

We used a private company for a similar excursion a couple of years ago... they picked us up at the pier. It may be worth a look:

https://www.romeinlimo.com/rome-civitavecchia/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TLT6A/

 

I have one of these with special peppercorns in it at the house.

 

 

 

As much fun as I've had in this thread, I'm a avid fresh ground pepper fan. I have several grinders AT HOME and I'm always on the lookout for fun/unique peppercorns and mixes.

 

Pros:

Very small for a pepper grinder, about 5" tall and as thick as a man's thumb

Light as a feather

One hand operation

Does a good job and seems to be holding up ok, I don't use it daily or anything, but it has been in the house for a couple years without issue.

It would fit in your purse or pocket easily

 

Cons:

Not adjustable, the grind is a bit finer than I prefer... but it's awesome for delicate peppercorns

Doesn't hold a ton... but I use a lot of pepper and believe it would last me a 7-night cruise without issue

Glad to see this positive review... that's actually the same pepper grinder I purchased to bring along with me for future cruises. I received it last week and will bring it with me on my next trip. It looks like it will fit in my small clutch that I generally bring down to dinner.

Have your luggage tags readily available so that when you arrive at the airport in Orlando you can put them on whatever bags you plan to check at the port as soon as you pull them off the baggage carousel.

I just used the RCCL transfer service for the first time a few weeks ago. Once I checked in for the transfers at the airport and gave them my bags I didn't see them again until they arrived at my cabin. I was sailing out of Seattle, so it wouldn't hurt to double check when you arrive to make sure they handle it the same way in Orlando.

 

OP-the issue is that you're complaining about something that was taken away...yet nothing was taken away????

Seems to be a common misconception on this thread... on Explorer at least, something was taken away. The waiter/assistant waiter used to come around with fresh ground pepper... that is no longer happening on Explorer. The waiter/assistant waiter no longer have access to a pepper grinder.

I actually understand the OP's disappointment.

I was just on Explorer 30 September.... the problem isn't that there aren't pepper grinders on the table. The problem is that the Waiters/Assistant Waiters no longer have access them either. As someone who loves fresh ground pepper and uses it at home, it was a real disappointment for me.

The only way to get fresh ground pepper in the MDR on Explorer was to ask your head waiter and have him grind it for you. We only ate in the MDR 3 nights, and we were able to find him one of the nights... the other two nights we went without.

Some of you who don't love fresh ground pepper like I do may find this funny, but I did actually order a travel sized fresh pepper grinder from Amazon to carry in my purse on my future RCCL cruises.

I would dispute that. BLECH on both of them. ;)

How soon they forget... ;) :D I was just sitting next to you 5 nights ago when you did a side by side taste test of the two Merlots and declared Tisdale to be the winner.

Keep in mind that when you get your stateroom assignments, they could potentially be on different decks or on opposite ends of the ship...

Re the coffee machines, one of our concierge contacts complained that their service record is extremely poor and consequently she stocked extra parts whenever possible.

 

They apparently are not made for the high volume that we frequent cruisers put them to. Another issue is self service, through ignorance of how to handle the equipment, we are hard on them.... That concierge requested and used staff support at high volume times to operate the machine.

They are definitely not the right machines for the volume of coffee that gets made in the lounge... My husband found a copy of the users manual online for the concierge on Radiance this Spring when the machine wasn't working for an extended period of time. We were surprised to see that they are only rated to make 140 cups of coffee a day. That may have worked fine 10 years ago, but it's definitely not the machine they should be using with today's volume. The same company makes one that's rated for 600 cups, which still isn't a lot, but would be more reasonable.

On the BR you could eat breakfast in Chops ordered from a menu. Not sure if it for Diamond and above or D+ and above. It was very nice, I hope they will still be doing that in Feb.

It is D+/Pinnacle/Suite Guests (GS +) on Brilliance...

We were on Radiance earlier this year and it was Gold Card holders (GS and up and Pinnacle members)

I can't figure out why RCI can't figure out MTD. Princess & HAL don't seem to have a problem with it.

I haven't ever sailed HAL, but the absolute worst Anytime Dining experiences I've ever had have all been on Princess.

The worst case was on my last Princess sailing which was last year. The Anytime line on the first formal night on Crown went past the International Cafe and all the way around the Centrum to the opening for the elevator stack on the other side of the ship! :eek:

We took one look at it... had our portraits done and went back upstairs to change and have dinner in the buffet. We talked to some folks later who said they waited in line for almost an hour and a half!

Stolen! :eek:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ROYAL-CARIBBEAN-CRUISE-LINE-GUEST-BATH-ROBE-100-COTTON-WRAP-STYLE-ADULT-GUC-/252260723687?hash=item3abbe92be7:g:8QQAAOSwKtlWlAle

Could be... but maybe not... I've actually got one still in it's package in my closet that was given to me as a prize from Royal... :)