The Fun Researcher

You will see shorts and T shirts in there ALL THE TIME, especially embarkation day lunch. We've done embarkation lunch twice and between the two occurrences all 19 of us were in jeans or shorts.

We did Quantum to Alaska last summer. Was fantastic. The first day and last day are the only ones in open ocean. The others are travelling between islands or near the coast in the "inner passage" There are great views all the time from the Solarium, and a bonus is that if you walk all the way to the front lower level of the Solarium you can open a door(s) to the outside where you have great views from the "wings" on both sides of the ship. It's absolutely a big trade-off of more cabin space versus that balcony. Alaska is one place where the balcony was worth it for us. We were constantly popping open the door and getting out the binoculars, etc and on a balcony you can see fully in front of you and to both sides. Very convenient. All other cruises I'm perfectly fine with an inside, and only upgrade to a balcony if it's not much of an up-cost. If you don't mind the lack of convenience, you can still get great views around the ship but a balcony is a little more protected and easy to pop back into your room to get warm.

You aren't missing anything. Royals benefits for Diamond and above are WAY better than X's Elite. The 5-7 happy hour with Elite is very inconvenient as it's right around dinner time and you can't order drinks with Elite benefits from the MDR. We've never used laundry either, but that's the next best benefit in our opinion. If you have the drink package already then the vast majority of Elite status is moot.

https://www.tomlovescruising.com/2019/01/28/independenceots/ The Indy was Amped so that's a big positive. Love what Royal does with their AMPED ships!

Ooh, sounds exciting! We should name the ghost.

The more we've sailed on varying styles of ships, the more we appreciate the Royal Promenade/Esplanade. They make it very easy to navigate around the ship and provide a grand casual space. We do not care for Centrums at all. They don't provide the grand space inside the ship like you get with the Promenade, and makes the inside feel chopped up. It's a night and day difference to us, reinforced by our sailings on NCL and Celebrity both of which only had Centrums. You mileage may vary but that's our take. Liberty for sure all else being equal.

Glad your mom is on the rebound.

Thank you for the wonderful video Tatka. Brings back great memories of sailing on Liberty (our previous sailing was out of Galveston). In Bermuda, did you tour on your own and use local transportation or did you book through Royal. We're doing the 5 night on Liberty to Bermuda in June this year.

Ah perfect thank you!

I totally thought this was going to be another thread about Bluetooth speakers

Used to see their posts all the time. Typically enjoyed their content. Haven't seen anything months. I hope all is well.

Rushing to open the door to the hallway is a pain. I wish you knew ahead of time what they were going to announce. 🤣 Art sale, no thanks. Captain's announcement providing some relevant information about the sailing or port, yes please.

Agree completely. A few other small differences... Freedom class has the cantilevered hot tubs, a separate Sorrento's and Café Promenade (instead of them being combined), and I think Freedom class has freshwater pools vs saltwater for Voyager class (I could be wrong on this last one). Personally, I love the AMPED versions of both classes the most.

I'll let you know in June 🙂 We used to say Freedom Class and the nearly identical Voyager class (especially if they are AMPED!), however it's been almost 5 years since we sailed on those classes. We've done Quantum and Oasis classes since then. We've grown to really love both the Quantum and Oasis class mainly because there is just SO MUCH to do on those ships, but we'll be sailing on the Liberty again in June. We'll see if the Freedom/Voyager class is still our favorite. What we do like about the Freedom and Voyager class is the over all layout and flow of the ship and they do a great job of dispersing the crowds. They still have tons of amenities/venues and are not small ships by any means.

These cuts to quality and increases in upcharges is across the entire cruise industry, not unique to Celebrity. We've experienced it on Royal too. However, the problem is, the changes at Celebrity are bringing it down and removing it's "upscale" separation compared to 3-4 years ago.

By far our least favorite port in the Bahamas/Caribbean. For being the busiest, it has a pretty pathetic lineup of excursion options. It's only busy because it's so close to Florida. I wish they could find a better alternative to Nassau. We were just there again last month. We've managed to mostly avoid Nassau but our kids had never been there so we got off the ship to explore the new port area. If it wasn't for that we'd be HAPPY to stay on the ship.

This is how we felt a month ago. We've only sailed X twice. Once in 2017 and once 2023 on the same ship. Our first cruise with Celebrity was a noticeable bump up in food quality and service and amenities. Now I feel like Royal's latest ships (Oasis and Quantum Class) have matched or even leapfrogged X. Not only is there more to do, but the food quality is on par (in our experience), service is similar... I went into our cruise last month very much looking forward to what we received from X back in 2017. Unfortunately it fell flat. We weren't looking to find problems with X, quite the opposite. We love more options for cruising but we've mostly crossed it off our list. I will keep Edge class on the list though and if the price, timing and itinerary is right we can give that a try

I appreciate your straightforward comments. 👍🏼

I don't have bias either way regarding Celebrity. I'll "call it like I see it." I gave a ho-hum review of the Equinox on our most recent cruise the 5 nights before Christmas 2023. Our prior 7 night cruise in 2017 on the same ship was great. Here's a Celebrity compliment... On embarkation day, I LOVED that I could drop off our carry-ons into the room before they were fully ready to be occupied.

I'm hoping the new Icon class ships put pressure to lower prices on the other classes. We'll see. Here's to hoping. When I look at the tour of the Icon, it seems more like a reconfigured Oasis class. Despite all the crazy hype for the Icon, the Oasis class was far more revolutionary in it's time IMO. When I watch the tours of the Icon it looks like a tweaked Oasis class.

We love lunch in the MDR on sea days. We did an 8 night on the Allure in June 2022 and we spent every opportunity we could, as a family, having a nice leisurely lunch. I think there were 3-4 sea days on that itinerary. Would SORELY miss it if Royal stops offering this on sea days. A dedicated lunch menu is way more important to us than some sort of brunch mix.

Agreed, no need for a jacket. I had one but 1/2 the guys in our group did not. A button down shirt and slacks are perfectly fine. It’s interesting but Celebrity did away with “formal” nights moreso than Royal. Dress as you like. Happy cruising!

I’m a late night snacker but not a day snacker. We do early MDR seating which has gotten really early on Royal due to how they are handling My Time Dining now. So yeah after a few drinks I’m really looking for some protein and salty snacks before bed around midnight to 1am. It’s just my thing. 👍🏼

I haven’t noticed a shift towards more healthy eating, or more working out, in the past 12 years we’ve been sailing.

No arguing that, ...but please Royal give me more or better late night options, even if it means paying. (within reason...)