Tolkmit

This is not something that has been stated by Royal. It could end up being true, of course. But what actually gets said in Q&A's with Captains, etc. is that Royal takes stuff like bridge heights under consideration when deciding on ship size. What we know is that it will be smaller than Oasis class. And that they will build the ship(s) to be able to fit the places they are prioritizing taking her. That could mean a 100,000GT ship able to go to Tampa, or it could mean a 200,000GT ship able to go through Panama. We don't know either way. The definitive statements being made are just people hearing what they want to hear then passing it off as fact.

Super handy website, thanks for compiling all that in one easy to read spot. Unless I'm going crazy, I do think Wonder has a few specialty places not listed there; 150, Gio's Kitchen, & Izumi.

I think most are lumping Vision and Radiance class ships together. And because neither of those classes was ever slated to receive the Amplification stuff. Royal investing a lot into Voyager class and not into Radiance class suggests they expect to keep Voyager class around longer. I also think people talking about replacing Radiance class it doesn't necessarily mean Royal getting rid of Radiance class. Instead of 2 Quantum 2 Radiance class for Alaska season, it could be 2 Quantum 2 Discovery; with Radiance class moved to just being out of Tampa & Baltimore while Vision class gets sold.

Attempting to read into the name might be a mistake. It's not even "Discovery Class" it's "Project Discovery." Much like Quantum Class was originally "Project Sunshine" the lead ship and class could be named just about anything, and the internal project name we are all using is not necessarily indicative of anything, it's just one possible name it might end up having. To make it worth building new ships, Royal is going to want the return on investment to be at least within spitting distance of their other new ships. A ship around 40% of the size of Icon would cost around 40% of Icon and hold around 40% of the passengers. Meaning prices similar to the range of Wonder, Star, and Icon. (Utopia is a different animal, short cruises can be cheaper because they make far more in onboard sales.) Yes, there are some people interested in the sort of stuff you are talking about. The question is, are there enough of them willing to pay significantly more to take that cruise on a newer, Royal ship instead of an older ship or one on another line. Royal can charge more for the same cruises to Alaska on a Quantum class ship than they can on a Radiance class ship. If the majority of that price difference is just because Quantum class is newer, then new Radiance/Vision size ships makes sense. But if the majority of that is because there is significantly more to do, more bells and whistles, on Quantum class, then a new class in the Quantum range makes sense. And I think it's likely mostly the latter. People won't pay as much for ships that don't have as much to do, and smaller ships can't have nearly as much to do.

No, you've been making assumptions. The vast majority of reports are the class is "smaller." You assume that to mean what your subjective opinion classifies as "small" when in fact it simply means not as big as Oasis/Icon. The ship could designed for anywhere from 500 to 5000 passengers, and it would still be "smaller."

I did a transatlantic on Serenade in fall of 2019, heading to Boston when Hurricane Dorian hit the area. It resulted in us missing 2 planned ports, going to one unplanned port, and getting into Boston 1 day late. The seas were only mildly rougher than other transatlantics I've done; they did a great job sailing around the rough stuff. I always prefer west bound due to time changes. You deal with jet lag either way; but 25 hour days on board >>> 23 hour days on board.

It's all opinion, but I personally disagree; it's a way to honor your past; or for the superstitious it imbues the new ship with the luck of her predecessors. Long maritime tradition of it, for instance the US Navy is building it's third aircraft carrier named Enterprise, based on the heroics of the the WW2 ship.

Alaska can handle Quantum class size ships. The vast majority of ports Royal regularly sends Radiance class ships to in the Eastern Med can as well in fact. Project Discovery is likely to be a "smaller" ship compared to Icon the same way Project Sunshine (aka Quantum Class) was to be a "smaller" ship compared to Oasis... still fairly large by every other measure. People who want something new that is closer to Radiance or Vision size... I think are likely to be disappointed. They would cost around half of what Icon cost, fit around half as many passengers as Icon, so they would need to charge similar rates to what they are getting for Icon to make it worth building them instead of just more Icon class ships... and it seems doubtful the market would support that sort of pricing.

Yep, pretty much. I mean, I can't say how common cancellations are (or no-shows, although someone showing up to the pier without proper documents is functionally the same thing and that does happen occasionally); but with RoyalUp being an automated system, it costs Royal next to nothing to get the bids. And Oasis has what, 2800 staterooms? Even if less than one half of one percent of them cancel, it could be 10 staterooms. Which is could be 30+ upgrade bids accepted, 10 people upgrade from inside balcony to the canceled ocean view balconies, 10 from ocean view to the freed up inside balconies, 10 from interior to the freed up ocean views. Snowballs into a decent chunk of change they make extra for no additional cost to themselves, because they are paying to maintain the automated system regardless.

Disney Cruise Line was operating at a significant loss for it's first 5 years, and was propped up by the rest of the company. It then starting managing to break even, but went back to losing money and needed to once again be propped up externally, in order to expand. It wasn't until it had 4 ships running that it actually started gaining traction in the market, and making enough money to expand without needing external help. If there is any lesson from DCL; it's that, if you are going to have ships operating around the size and price range of Virgin; you need to have at least 4 to have hope of growing the company. I don't think Virgin's marketing plan for Australia was the problem. The issue was their business plan plus covid. Virgin knew it would be operating at a loss for a few years as it sold cruises for cheap in order to build a customer base in the US market. I believe they planned to increase prices in the US market, then use the profit from that to sustain losses in the Mediterranean and Australian markets while they built a customer base there as well. Covid delayed them becoming profitable in the US markets; but they tried to get started elsewhere anyways, hoping the positive reviews & word of mouth from the US market would give them enough of a jump start in the Mediterranean and Australia. It didn't work. They were still going to be operating at a significant loss in both markets this year. So, when the opportunity came to break their Australia contracts due to international issues; they took it. They can make money in the US with the increased prices, and focus on building their customer base in the Med; then in a year or two, once they can start making money off the Med, use that plus the US profits to sustain losses in Australia and build a customer base there. Once they are making money all 3 places, then they expand. It's all speculation, obviously; but it's a theory that makes sense and fits the facts. Don't get me wrong, Virgin has some planning issues that have contributed to everything. From the start, they didn't want to just be an upscale, adults only version of already existing cruise lines, they wanted to do things differently. So rather than take what other cruise lines do and make it their own, they built from the ground up. I think a lot of the stuff that most of us really like about Virgin comes from them doing it that way. Unfortunately, they've also created a lot of problems for themselves by not learning from other cruise lines mistakes, and it's going to be very interesting if they are able to tackle some of those problems without losing what makes them special going forward.

RoyalUp bidding is completely unrelated to room availability. They get bids in case of cancellations or no shows.

No, a 60 dollar drink credit would not actually cost them 60 dollars anymore than giving a set number of free drinks a day does. Like... you know how you get a 6$ slot machine credit as Diamond? You can't spend that anywhere else. I'm not sure where the thought a drink credit would need to work differently, but... no. The way it's spelled out clearly in their terms and conditions, quote "Slot machine credit ... is non-transferrable, has no cash value" etc; they could easily do for drink credit.

It was something like 15 months after Royal Caribbean trademarked "Star of the Seas" along with other options before it was officially announced as the name of the second Icon class ship. So any revamp of C&A is probably still quite a ways off.

Spinning? I said instead of a number of free drinks they would attach a dollar amount to it in my first post. I think it's pretty obvious that meant a dollar amount of free drinks instead of a number of free drinks; not just a general Royal giving you money, though apparently that wasn't clear to you. But I'm not sure why, when I subsequently spelled it out for you, you've kept arguing that it doesn't cost Royal much to give free drinks. It does, and I've explained the concept of lost potential revenue pretty clearly. I'm not sure, if you understand that alcohol is a huge source of revenue for Royal, why you think that giving it away instead of getting revenue from it wouldn't matter. I'm not sure at this point what you aren't understanding, but as you seem to be getting upset I'm not going to continue discussing it with you. Have a good day!

Who said Royal would allow a drink credit to be used for something else? And it's not what I "want" to believe, it's information from Royal's quarterly earnings reports. Around a third of their income is onboard spending. Alcohol sales represent their biggest single non-casino earner.

Royal literally gives people 6 14 dollar cocktails a day already. I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't give those people a 60 dollar credit for alcohol each day, when they currently give up to 84 dollars per day. By changing the way they calculate it, from comped drinks per day to comped drink charges per day, they come out ahead, which is why I expect they'll do it at some point. It's also nearly irrelevant what Royal's costs are for buying alcohol. What matters to any business is the loss of potential revenue. If you buy stuff for forty cents, then sell it to someone for 40 dollars one day; and the next day just let them have it for free; your bottom line the second day is still forty dollars worse. Nearly a third of Royal's income is onboard spending, and a significant portion of that is alcohol sales. Royal is 100% concerned about the inflation of higher tiers of the loyalty program, because it represents an ever increasing loss in potential revenue. If they think they can claw some of that back without an excessive negative backlash, the question is not if they will do so, the question is just when and how they will do so.

How so? Are you saying they'll find it funny to do this, or they'll laugh at the idea?The dollar amounts are about what I would expect them to pull. The cheapest beers are 7.50. Plus 18% automatic gratuity pushes them close to 9 dollars. Diamond currently gets 4 free drinks. So if you buy the cheapest beer, you get 4.5 free instead of 4. But anything other than that, you get less than current and Royal comes out ahead. And that's the immediate effect, it gets even better for them in a year or two when they raise drink prices without raising rewards.

Personally, I think a revamp is probably coming, but it will be the opposite of what you are hoping for. Royal wants to de-inflate the higher tiers, not get more people into them. My guess is they combine Royal and Celebrity's loyalty programs, and create entirely new tiers with new names at that time, and re-work the rewards so it's not incredibly obvious how much you are losing with the conversion into the new program. For instance, instead of a number of free drinks each day, they'll attach a dollar amount, like 40, 50, or 60 dollars free per day depending on tier. And they'll add in a few policy changes at that point, like children not inheriting as high of a tier from their parents, etc. And I'm guessing they will do it soon, while they are sailing mostly full so they can afford the short term hit.

Has anyone actually had the DBE show up under addons for both guests? I've always just had it show up under me as primary guest despite both occupants having it. Also, has anyone had it show up for their 2025 sailings booked prior to the extension of the program?

Yeah, but that's Carnival. Well, not the losing the car, that's just bad luck. But in the exact same situation, Royal gave everyone free internet to coordinate however they needed to; took the ship to Miami to allow those who wanted to get off to do so, and then took the ship back to Galveston for those who wanted to disembark there. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it wasn't Royal's fault and they lived up to their cruise contract.

You have DBE until the end of 2025.

Virgin hasn't been lying; but they have been making statements open to interpretation. They say the season in Australia was successful. It probably was in the sense that it got better than targeted post-cruise survey ratings. It almost certainly wasn't in a financial sense. People infer them claiming a successful season to mean they were happy with the result, which them cancelling this upcoming season suggests isn't true. But Virgin didn't actually lie. If Applebee's decided they didn't care about making money and dropped their prices by 90%; they'd have amazing reviews and be winning awards from people who were used to eating at McDonalds and Taco Bell. If instead of lowering prices, Applebee's doubled their prices overnight, their reviews would tank from what they currently are. Virgin was amazing when they were charging half of what they charge now and gave you tons of onboard credit to go with it, especially when the ships weren't sailing full. All of that is changing now that they are trying to be a successful company; so referencing reviews from people who paid 12 or 24 months ago prices isn't very relevant. Virgin was amazing for the price. But some of the issues that were excused based on them being new, ignored based on the low price, or minimalized by the low population onboard; are starting to be talked about a lot more. Yes, there are some posters who are hardcore fans who will defend Virgin no matter what. But reviews of start-up prices Virgin is not a good response to reviews of today's prices Virgin.

All my recent cruises you've had to pick up the soda cup at a bar, or the first day they will have a table out with them. It used to be possible to use the same cup on back to back cruises; but Royal reportedly fixed it. The cup has an RFID in it, and when you first use it in one of the machines, that id is given an expiration date for 2 weeks after the current date. The cups used to be good until that expiration date, regardless of cruise length. However, at some point they started manually over-riding and expiring all activated id's at the end of each cruise. This is sometimes seems to get forgotten, so you'll see the odd reports of people using the same cup on b2b's still; but doesn't work most of the time.

Except the cruise line is doing nothing to negate your travel insurance. You are. The cruise line does not force you to get off the ship, it's a choice you are making, and one you have agreed in your cruise contract that the cruise line is not responsible for and you are assuming all risk by doing so. Additionally, the cruise line bears no responsibility for insuring you remain compliant with contracts you sign with a third party, which is what travel insurance is. If you choose to purchase a policy that is invalidated by you entering a certain country, then choose to enter that country; that is 100% on you.

For the most part, no. If you are a "regular" somewhere, for instance if you spend a couple hours at Schooner every night; AND tip a little extra with each drink, the people going around taking drink orders are probably going to glance your way a little more. But it's about tips, not anything else.