The Fun Researcher

Thank you, I appreciate all that excellent info. I did not realize the free one did not go over the side of the ship! Do you know the answer to my question regarding the ripcord?

Does Ripcord cost money? I see that I can prebook it for our March Anthem cruise for $29 right now, but wondering if it's complimentary if we waited until we board. Reason I ask is that I'm pretty sure your first reserved ride on the NorthStar is free, however I can prebook an extended session for $19.

Good points. Also just speaking from our personal perspective, Royal continuously asks us back to sail over and over again. I'm sure we are on the very low end of the spending on board. They keep asking us back despite the fact that our total folio across two cabins for our family of 5, is normally $300-$400. The only thing we purchase in advance are a couple of soda packages. Once every few cruises we'll do an excursion through the ship but normally book excursions direct with vendors. After 8 (soon to be 10) cruises with Royal you would thing they would stop asking us back if they weren't making enough profit off of us. Dan

How would you know this? I would assume the opposite. Dan

Sorry for your loss.

Yes, Anthem. Pretty good suggestion!

Agreed. About the only thing that can take excessive time in our experience.

My take is that all the joking with the Pins are just that, jokes.

How do you check how many ships are at Coco Cay any given day? Thanks. Dan

Include your booking numbers for all cabins at the table (make sure you are all linked), the ship and sail date. I tend to ask for generic things that matter to me, from experience like: 1) Away from entrance and main walkways 2) Away from main busing stations 3) If possible by a window

Thanks! 👍 I think we've scrapped the Blue Lagoon more so based on research and reviews lately rather than interfering with dinner. However if we find another option that again interferes with dinner we'll probably try things in this order: 1) See if we can get into dining room under MTD, 2) check availability at 8pm, 3) Windjammer

They're just reminding the Pins what it's like to live in the slums. Dan

Since 2010 I haven't noticed a change in the speed of service. I always figure about 1.5 hours but we normally have a group of 6-10 at one table. ETA: ...and I'm perfectly fine with that Dan

This is what I was going to say. One benefit of Vancouver is getting to see the inside passage. Having said that, we are leaving out of Seattle in July. My entire side of the family is going (16 folks spread among 6 balcony cabins). One of my sisters lives in Seattle so that kind of made the decision for us. Dan

It wouldn't ruin our cruise to eat at the buffet one evening, but our family dinners in the MDR are always a highlight of our cruises. It's a special time for us to wind down, chat, and be pampered with the full service. That's just us though. Everyone is different. My wife's parents and our son (15) will be on this cruise. He hasn't been to Nassau before, otherwise I'd consider just staying and enjoying the ship. We'll also be visiting in December with the same group plus our two college age daughters (who also haven't visited Nassau before). Hopefully we find something worthwhile to do. Dan

Fortunately we’ve only been there once back around 2015. We did a mediocre, sail and snorkel excursion. For being one of the busiest, if not the busiest, cruise port in the Caribbean it’s pretty surprising to have so few good options there. We’ll be there twice in 2023. There is no way I am going to complain about going on cruises, but I just wish Nassau had better offerings.

Looking more into the Blue Lagoon reviews we've decided to abandon that excursion. We'll find something that better suits our needs. Might even walk/taxi over to Junkaroo and just grab chairs/umbrella/drinks at our leisure. Why is it so hard to find something good to do in Nassau? Dan

Looks like chairs/umbrella's are easy to get according to this video. I think this is what we'll do in March. Why is Nassau such a tough port to find good things to do? Dan

Thanks! We'll speak with the Head Waiter the night before. We much prefer the MDR to the buffet for dinner, and don't want to fork out the $$$ for specialty that evening. Dan

Looking to try the Blue Lagoon Island excursion in Nassau this March. We have fixed dining at 5:30pm. The excursion starts at 1pm and is 5 hours duration. Believe it or not after all our cruises we haven't run into a situation like this before, but I'm guessing we wouldn't be ready for dinner until 6:30pm or so. What do we do in this situation? Could we ask for a seat with My Time Dining that evening? or could we still do our normal fixed table? Dan

Remember when a dozen eggs were around $0.39 during Covid? How the coin has flipped! Nothing to do with cruising but it's shocking the difference.

It all depends on the size of the charter compared to the size of the ship. A charter cruise would cause me to look around for other cruises before I circle back and consider it. I don't want venues closed off to me that normally would be available. Plus when you get a large group like that together, there can tend to be a sense of entitlement taking areas over with "their group" Just my thoughts. Dan

Loving your review for the photos and your excellent commentary, especially when you are so well versed in the other three cruise lines! -Dan

Just did a quick search for Jan and Feb and yeah, I'd say prices are up on average roughly about $200-$300pp. Dan

Sorry but didn't read all 7 pages... Is this impact only to the "dinner" buffet? They aren't cutting back the lunch offerings are they? Dan