Tolkmit

Mike Hunnerup signed off the Odyssey on 11/13; and Ana Riberio returned from vacation taking back over.

I've had pre-check pretty much since it came out in 14, and travel quite a bit for work. It's slowly, primarily becoming a quality of life improvement as opposed to a reliable speed improvement. You will definitely, on average, have shorter wait times for security, sometimes SIGNIFICANTLY shorter wait times. However, as the number of people with pre-check has grown, I've increasingly run into the TSA line taking about as long as the non TSA line. It's not often, but it happens enough that I wouldn't recommend believing you can get to the airport later based on having pre-check anymore. And that trend is going to continue. So ultimately, it's a question of how much do you fly. It's really nice, not having to take off your shoes & belt, not having to remove stuff from carry on. However, if you fly once a year, I don't know that it's worth 17 dollars per time. If you fly once a month, 100% get it. I have no experience on whether a DUI will effect approval. However, there is a very high chance it will effect how long it takes for that person to get results. My father and mother applied together, and 1.5 months after her getting approval he still hadn't heard anything. He called, and found if you have any unusual flags, you get put into a separate review that takes a very long time. For him, he was retired Air Force; and got flagged because he previously had certain clearances, but no longer did (purely because he was retired.) Having "lost" those clearances put him in the "review" stack, so it took him months longer than my mother to get approved. This happened again when they renewed. So if you are going to get it hoping to have it by a certain trip, expect that party member may need on the long end of whatever their current projections are for approval times.

The pandemic caused this to happen a lot more often over the last two years, than it did pre-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, it was relatively rare. Not unheard of, but rare. Going forward, I think the expectation is for it to return to being fairly rare; but no one can say for sure. It happening on rare occasion will always just be the unfortunate reality of cruising.

That's not how pre-paid tips work at all. Everyone's pre-paid goes into one giant pot; and gets divvied out among the entire (tip receiving) crew. The reason they like to keep the same guests if possible all week, is because some people will tip extra for good service; and that is far more likely to happen if you get good service from the same person all week. My Time Dining will honor reservation times; but will only attempt to honor all table requests. They cannot guarantee table requests. Too few window seats, too many people wanting window seats; plus needing to use those tables more than once a night and not being able to guarantee when the people who eat before you will leave.

As others have said, just go to any specialty restaurant and make all of your reservations there. Worth remembering, transatlantic & transpacific cruises tend to have increased numbers of back to back passengers, who will be the first to board. So I'd go as soon as you get on.

If it's something that is 1 to 1 and doesn't have any sort of surge protector, it's allowed. If it turns one euro plug into multiple plugs, it's considered a power board, and technically not allowed; although there is a wide variance in enforcement.

can work =/= reliable. And it's not the download speeds that are concerning, it's the upload speeds. The tests on Freedom have not consistently shown improvement in upload speeds than current, and often are below what Zoom themselves say is needed for reliable usage.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/can-i-connect-devices-into-my-stateroom-television

Officially, you are not allowed to plug any electronic devices into your television. Per Royal Caribbean policy.

Why is that picture taken mid test, instead of waiting 10 seconds and showing a picture of the actual results? Pretty suspect to anyone who actually uses the speedtest website to know. Starlink has been live for guests on Freedom much of the summer. (Beyond is just the first they are maketing, not the first to actually get it.) Most reports of tests put download speeds in the 10-15 mbps range during heavy usage times (evenings, sea days) with better ping than showed there; but upload speeds often down to the 1 to 2 mbps range. That's good enough for working from the ship if you mostly need to access information and send emails/documents; but definitely below what you need for reliable zoom calls.

So if all three of those cabins become available, they will accept based on totality of their income, which depends on what other people bid. For instance, if you bid 200 for ocean view, or 300 for balcony, but someone already in an ocean view bid 200 for balcony; they will move the person in ocean view to the balcony, and you into their ocean view, getting 400 (200 from their bid for balcony & 200 from yours for ocean view) rather than taking the 300 to move just you to a balcony. What happens to your cabin, since you're in an interior, is pretty random. There is a chance it stays empty. There is a chance they use it for crew. There is a chance they move someone who is in a guarantee that is unhappy with their assigned room to yours once it opens up, and someone else's cabin stays empty or gets used for crew.

Royal offers basically everyone the option to bid for an upgrade to the ~5 categories immediately above them; regardless of any current availability. Them offering you a chance to bid does not mean they have cabins available. Royal's meter telling you "bid strength" is also almost completely unrelated to the likelihood of your bid being accepted. The scale is a generic amount based on all cruises on all ships; nothing specific to your ship or your sailing. Royal is very unlikely to reject any of your bids until after 5pm the day of your sailing. There is no benefit to them to reject bids until they know everyone actually boarded and all rooms are occupied.

Currently on Allure, most nights, there is late night Latin dancing in Boleros until approximately 1am, with no age restrictions. There is also late night dancing in Blaze until approximately 2am, which is 18+. There are no 21+ venues or events. I wouldn't expect Allure to change anything in regards to this between now and December, as this is pretty standard for US sailings on Oasis class ships. (Since you are getting conflicting answers, FYI you can confirm all this on the Royal Caribbean App. Hit the person icon on top, hit select a different sailing, scroll to the bottom, hit "Get more details on ships we support", hit Allure of the Seas, then choose a current sailing. You can then see everything apart from the shows that require reservations for the current sailing's Cruise Compass.)

FYI, class of ship actually has nothing to do with it. For instance, Freedom class Liberty and Independence have Saturday Night Fever and Grease respectively, Quantum class Anthem has We Will Rock You; but Oasis class Wonder has nothing from Broadway/West End, just original productions. I believe Odyssey is actually the first ship built since 2007 without a Broadway/West End show; excepting those designed specifically for the Asian market. Quantum, Ovation, Spectrum, and Wonder were all originally designed/built for the Asian market, despite most of them currently homeporting elsewhere. So it will be interesting what they do with Icon, I imagine they'd love to get a big splash show like Hamilton or Wicked for her.

"The Effectors" and "Showgirl" are the two main theater shows, and "The Book" is the 270 show.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, since literally nothing in this thread could be construed as adulation. You do know what the word means, correct? He is someone certain people are interested in. Literally every thread about him, there are multiple negative or questioning comments about why people care. Stop expecting people to justify their interests or things they like to you. It's rude.

Some people find it interesting. If you aren't one of them, just don't click on the thread. The amount of negativity anytime he gets brought up just reeks of jealousy.

Agreed, only way this is really screwing someone is if the refund takes more than a couple days. Sucks getting your hopes up, but it's not getting screwed when you are getting exactly what you expected outside of the 5 minutes between emails.

No, laptops aren't considered power boards because they are considered computers. They work much, much differently internally. (Yes, I realize I said anything that turns one plug into multiple plugs is a power board. That's because there is no point in explaining things in a more technical way, they point is to put things into easy to understand terms for the average person; and the average person doesn't look at a computer and think "That's a device for splitting power" they think "That's a computer." Despite it being able to split power.)

USB is just a type of plug, when you are talking about power boards. It doesn't matter what type of plug it is. American standard (A or B) European standards (C, l, or G) or USB plugs... they are all just plugs; one plug into multiple plugs equals power board. Again, the chances of them confiscating something you take on board are quite small, even smaller if it's just a USB thing; but technically it is against the rules. You aren't going to get in trouble, they might just take it at security, or your steward might take it if he see's it plugged in while you are away.

I work in a related field. I can assure you, a cord is not required for something to be considered a power board. Anything that turns one plug into multiple plugs is a power board. The fact the rules have never been enforced for you isn't surprising, it's fairly common for them not to enforce their own rules.

The one thing that you are allowed to bring, is a one to one europlug adapter. All, or at least most, cabins have both a US plug and a European plug. An adapter to turn that European plug into a single US plug is not against any of their written rules. And that gets you an extra plug. Again, this is all what their stated rules are. It's uncommon for them to enforce their rules. But It's worth knowing what they are going in, so if you decide to spend money on a "cruise safe" adapter you know it might get confiscated.

No, Royal says no extension cords or "power boards." Anything that changes one outlet into more than one outlet is a power board, and against the official rules.

There is no such thing as an extension cord/power strip that is approved for Royal Caribbean. There are two reasons cruise lines don't allow extension cords/power strips. First, because if it has a surge protector, that is a fire hazard due to the way electricity works on a cruise ship. Second, because if it is too low of a gauge of wire and you try to pull too much power over it, that will cause heat and once again, that is a fire hazard. Some cruise lines specify extension cords/power strips are not allowed as long as they don't have surge protection, as that is the primary concern. So when you see something advertised as cruise approved, what is really being said is that the product doesn't have a surge protector, thus meeting the requirements of lines than specify no surge protector. You are meant to think it is allowed on all cruise lines, but that is not what it is actually saying. It means it is approved for the cruise lines that allow those sorts of extension cords/power strips. Royal isn't one of them. However, Royal's official rules are not strictly enforced. Security VERY seldomly will confiscate electrical stuff when the bags come on board. So ultimately, it's all based on your room steward. If they got and follow their exact training, any extension cord/power strip, even those advertised as "Cruise Approved," will be confiscated. Others may not know or care. Others may be swayed by something saying/showing as "Cruise Approved." It's impossible to know what yours will do until you are on board, though most seem to do nothing. This is why you get such a wide variety of feedback and responses. People buy stuff that says "Cruise approved" and have stewards not take it away, so they believe it's allowed, when in fact it isn't, the rules just aren't often enforced. While others will say theirs was confiscated, because they ran into someone who does enforce the official rules.

I'm not sure where you heard they don't force you to quarantine onboard for any other illness, but that's completely wrong. Cruise lines have always forced passengers to quarantine if they believe you have certain communicable diseases, like norovirus. What is changing is the CDC requiring you to quarantine after you get off the ship. Cruise lines covered the cost of that CDC required quarantine. Now that the CDC is no longer requiring that, it's unlikely the cruise lines will continue paying for it.