twangster

That was grabbed from the website a few days ago. I don't know what the old verbiage was or when it was updated.

True, but the onboard prices for a bottle of wine even with a discount are much higher than the price for a bottle in a retail store that can be carried on.

Hurts the solo cruiser though.

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/onboard-alcohol-guest-policy Guests are not allowed to bring beer or hard liquor onboard for consumption or any other use. Alcoholic beverages (beer, seltzer or hard liquor) seized on embarkation day will not be returned. Security may inspect containers (water bottles, soda bottles, mouthwash, luggage etc.) and will dispose of containers holding alcohol. Guests who violate any alcohol policies, (over consume, provide alcohol to people under the legal drinking age, demonstrate irresponsible behavior, or attempt to conceal alcoholic items at security and or luggage check points or any other time), may be disembarked or not allowed to board, at their own expense, in accordance with our Guest Conduct Policy. Guests who are under the permitted drinking age will not have alcohol returned to them. Please Note: All guests must comply with TSA guidelines for transporting liquids. On embarkation day, each guest of drinking age may bring one (1) sealed 750 ml bottle of wine or champagne. Boxed wine and other containers are prohibited. Guests who purchase alcohol bottles onboard, in a port-of-call, or bring more than the one permitted bottle on boarding day, will have their items safely stored by the ship. These bottles will be returned on the last day onboard for enjoyment once home. For consecutive sailings, guests of drinking age are allowed to bring one (1) 750 ml bottle of wine or champagne for each individual sailing. Additional bottles will be stored by the ship and delivered, one bottle at a time, to the stateroom on the first day of each new voyage. Guests bringing more than one bottle at the start of the first sailing should have documentation for any consecutive sailings available to share with security.

Exactly. Some people don't care about blocks. Some people do care about blocks. So as a compromise they are finding cheaper blocks. So be it. Their ship, their rules.

WINE ALLOTMENT UPDATE Starting on March 3rd, 2023, the new wine and champagne allowance for Royal Caribbean will be one (1) 750 mL bottle, per adult of drinking age, per sailing. The bottles should still be brought via hand luggage/carry on and not in checked luggage. We recommend each guest bring their bottle in their respective carry-on bag for security purposes.

When I book Star it is generally for the cabin. The genie is a side benefit. Sometimes, Star is better deal especially with larger groups where adding UDP, DX and gratuity on a per person basis adds up quickly with more people involved. For a solo or a couple it can be harder to make Star numbers work purely on the basis on what's included.

Every perk or benefit has an associated cost for every business that offers a loyalty program. To any business it all sums up to a line on a spreadsheet at budget time. When that number is too big something has to give. Give up the v1 blocks and accept v2 cheaper blocks or give up some other perk. I'm not sure anyone would like the other ideas they had to contain the cost of the loyalty program.

I'll reserve judgement of the blocks until I see them. The way I see is the company is a financial wreck right now. Sorry, but it's a disaster from any money perspective. The free blocks from the free loyalty program have a cost to them. They tried to get rid of them and they could have held that position but they relented. Now they are trying to save money. Completely understandable. It's a free gift in a free loyalty program. Nothing more. It's not a birth right of cruising. With nearly a complete set of v1 blocks the v2 blocks just create a whole new reason to book more cruises.

This is cruisecritic. Try cruisehappy. :)

The interior guarantee cabin can only hold two guests. You can't put a 3rd in that cabin regardless of age or size. The 2nd mock booking is for a cabin that hold three guests. That's a different category of cabin so while both are interior it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Cabins that hold only 2 guests are plentiful and because there are more available they are cheaper. Supply and demand. There are fewer cabins that hold more than two guests so they are more in demand and they fetch a higher rate. Also guarantee cabins are almost always less than picking your own cabin. Try pricing 3 adults vs. 2 adults and 1 kid. Pick the same cabin # for both mock bookings. Only then is it an apples-to-apples comparison. Then you should see the effect of KSF if it is offered on that sailing.

They started launching v2 mini as a stop gap realizing that Starship in regular and routine service is still a while away. The full size v2 can't fit on Falcon 9.

You get priority to wait... instead of regular waiting. With regular waiting you show up, they punch several keys on the keyboard and the result is you wait. With priority waiting they see you coming and make you wait right away. It's much faster waiting.

If you call and tell them it's your fiancé they sometimes will and sometimes won't. Technically a fiancé is not an equivalent to a spouse. If you refer to them as your spouse they probably will without getting into the details. The same address notation is widely accepted as a criteria but that's never been documented by Royal anywhere. The exact wording is: A Crown & Anchor Society member can be added into a relationship with other family members in the same household and receive equivalent tier status; however, Cruise Points will remain according to actual cruises taken and calculated using the Program level accrual system described above. Pinnacle Club member tier status will not be awarded to dependents if earned by their parent and/or guardian. Pinnacle Club member tier status can only be earned by an individual, spouse or significant other* by one of them accumulating 700 Cruise Points or more in the Crown & Anchor Society program. For all tiers except Pinnacle Club, a relationship is defi ned as a spouse or significant other* and children less than 18 years old. For Pinnacle Club a relationship is considered a spouse and/or significant other*. *In all instances, a “significant other” is defined as someone in a similar relationship to an individual as a spouse.

Depends on the LA. Sometimes day one, sometimes on some other night. I don't think they put that much effort in to it. I also don't think the LA does the actual placement in the cabin so they have to rely on other staff to do that and that means it can vary and out of their control.

So like Royal - inconsistent. I've always gotten one and sometimes when sailing S2S close together I've received two. Yet I keep seeing reports like yours that folks never received one.

Most definitely. It will be all of a year before it gets closer to where it should be globally on the water. Of course if Starship starts flying that will help a lot. It can lift more and into a higher orbit so they get into service faster. Starship is the key to the needed bump in maritime coverage and performance.

Typically with Royal deployment decisions are made based on maximizing revenue. It's not enough to make some money at any given home port. If a ship can make more money somewhere else that's where a ship goes. If Royal can make more money placing Voyager class in another home port that's where Voyager class will go. Same with other classes.

After a major modification like water slides they probably had to validate the weight and balance engineering. If I'm not mistaken that involves some testing and equipment that would then need to be removed before returning to service.

Starlink very recently updated their maritime coverage map to indicate global coverage. Despite that Starlink isn't finished. User experience is not going to be consistent for some time yet. Please return after your TA and post your experience.

Sadly C&A doesn't service the world very well. The most reliable way to get C&A issue resolved from Australia is to call the US toll free number using Skype. Best $8 AUD ever spent.

I recently had the same experience. The cruise had points on the recent cruises tab but my total never increased by that amount. After two weeks I called CAS and they fixed it. If it's been more than 10 days I'd call. 800-526-9723

Starlink speeds vary by ship for reasons only an adept and highly technical IT department could explain. Absent of that existing at Royal we just have to accept that speeds vary by ship.

Two other friends and I all had our May Seaside cruise mysteriously reprice. Our bookings are not linked. The port fees & taxes went down a buck or so, the cruise fare went up ~$82 per guest. One friend managed to get his cruise fare before taxes set back to the original booked rate. One friend is still fighting with them, final payment is 2 days. I couldn't get mine repriced but they did change my final payment date from Feb. 26 to Feb 11. Fortunately I caught this on the evening of Feb. 10 and cancelled the cruise. I received my $99 back today. Neither of my two Meraviglia cruises resulted in points. Both attempts to get my points have failed with "you didn't sail on that date". I did and have my cards to prove it. MSC is a disaster from an IT perspective. I knew that based on my other cruises. They are cheap and so I booked more with them because I can tolerate some jackshittery and see past it in the name of a cheap cruise. The changing of my final payment due date I am fairly certain was a human being deliberately jacking me around. If I didn't log in on Feb 10 they would have cancelled my cruise for non-payment on Feb. 11 even though final payment on my original invoice was Feb 26, and my frinds on the same cruise had unill Feb. 26. But I get it, the MSC fanbois can jump on this post and write it off as some crazy cruiser making stuff up because their beloved MSC can do no wrong. Still waiting to see if my YC Thanksgiving cruise gets messed with. I'm just about ready to walk away from deposit. Flame away fanbois...

On Divina last year in the US they only had draught Heineken. I had the easy package which only includes draught Heineken but they offered bottles of Heineken since they ran out of draught.