RobInMN

7 minutes ago, keishashadow said:

Likely, the best option. Set it and forget it.

 

 If she forgot to sign into pkg and started posting videos, wouldn’t go over well with her parents once that cell phone bill came due.

Make sure to put her phone in Airplane mode when on the ship. And depending on cell phone plan, may need to make sure it's in Airplane mode in foreign ports also.

Yes. You can either purchase 1-4 people their own internet or you can purchase multiple devices for 1 person. 

When you purchase multiple devices for 1 person, it is cheaper. The number of devices is the number of simultaneous devices connected, not the total number of devices you might want to use.

Once you've connected with the maximum number of devices, to switch devices, you have 2 options:

1) just connect with a new device. This will kick off one of the other devices. Most likely the one with the oldest connection.

2) explicitly log off one device and then log in with the new device.

If you purchase a device for each person, then each person can switch devices all they want without affecting anyone else. But it costs more.

Sounds like you could get along with just 2 devices. one for you and your DH, and one for your GD. Or just one that I would guess your GD will monopolize, but that you and your DH could use when you need to.

Not quite the same thing, as they knew we were doing a cruise.

A couple years back I found a really great deal on the 2 BR AquaTheater suite on Allure out of Galveston (cruise was last September). I asked our daughter if she and her bf (now fiance) wanted to go. Of course she said yes. That's all that was said. Nearly 2 years later, other than dates, or discussing excursions, she never asked asked a single question until the night before we left:

her: "Is our room close to yours?"

me: "right across the hall" (technically the truth if you know the 2 BR AT layout)

her: "did you get us a beverage package?" (She's thinking refreshment)

me: "we got you covered"

My wife & I actually had talked about whether or not to lie if she asked too many questions, but she never did. She never even used the phone app to look her room up.

Go down the day before. Night in the hotel. Still nothing. Just looking forward to the cruise.

Next morning, get an Uber to the port and get dropped off at the suite area. Not sure she really paid any attention to where we were. My wife was chatting with them as I checked in with the shore Genie, who then whisked us up to the suite lounge.

her: "did you guys move up in status or something?"

Since we knew Genie Jay was going to show up any minute, the jig was up. And told them we were doing a Star suite.

her: "you kept that secret for 2 years? I don't even know you!"

 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

We had a great time. Jay was awesome!

6 minutes ago, pontac said:

The hotel nearest to where most river boats moor is the Movenpick; boats moor behind the hotel https://all.accor.com/hotel/B4I7/index.en.shtml

Not quite. Immediately behind the Movenpick is where the ocean cruise ships dock. We stayed there before a Royal Caribbean cruise. I could look into the bridge from my room the morning of the cruise, and we literally just walked next door to check in for the cruise. Current Google Maps photo shows Jewel of the Seas docked there.

From what I recall from 2022, river cruise ships appeared to be docked in many places. The closest to the Movenpick is that you have to walk East from the hotel a 1/2 block, then cross an in-fill restaurant, then walk west a few blocks over a canal entrance bridge, then either down some steps, or walk another block to a road access where you then walk back East a block. But like I said, there appeared to be river ships docked in a number of other locations.

I do recall that Viking had a seemingly permanent table set up in the lobby.

For access to the Amsterdam Cruise Port, Movenpick can't be beat. But it adds 25 minutes walk to anything else in the Central Area.

There is already a thread dedicated to this subject:

While I believe it's rare, shows have changed, but I am pretty positive that none have ever swapped or rotated. They are basically permanent. 

The only one I know of is that Allure started with Chicago and switched to Mama Mia at some point.

1 hour ago, Hoopster95 said:

Blue Puffin is first class, it’s small group (15 people?) and they took Care of their customers.

 

I’m with them again tomorrow in Hommingsvag, so really looking forward to the North Cape!

We did the North Cape tour with Blue Puffin in 2022. Nothing but raving reviews all over the Roll Calls. They did an excellent job! I believe that for that tour, it's just a husband & wife team (plus drivers). We had the husband in our bus and at one point, passed his wife in another other bus going the other way 🙂 (did things in a different order). 

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

Before we left, I bought a Samsung remote on Amazon for $10.  I have newer model Samsung remotes at home, but they don't have a Source button.

 

While the Samsung remote works great for RCI cruises, we bought a universal remote that we pack with the Firestick for travel in general. Not everyone uses Samsung TVs. I think LG is the second most common one we've run into. It's a distant second.

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

Now for the tricky part.  I never was able to get wifi to the Firestick previously.  I have heard of using the browser app on the Firestick, but I could never get that to work. 

 

This time I turned on the hotspot on my Android phone, and I was able to piggy-back the wifi to the Firestick!  The hotspot will not start in airplane mode, so I just exit airplane mode to turn on the hotspot then go right back into airplane mode and the hotspot stays active. 

This is what we do. Even if you can get the browser to work, you would have to do it every single time you wanted to use the Firestick. It is FAR easier to just set it up to up to use you phone's hotspot (or a travel router). Also, once you have it set up, then you just need to get you phone connected no matter where you are, ship, hotel, etc.  BTW, as you indicate, my wife's Samsung Galaxy S22 will let you turn Airplane mode back on, but my S20 will not. I can still hot-spot the WiFi, but I have to leave airplane mode off, so I disable Mobile Data instead.

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

With vpn we can access everything except YouTube TV, but I have a GPS spoofer for that

 

What I find works with YTTV is to run the VPN on both the phone as well as the Firestick itself. I don't know if I did something wrong when I tried just one, but since I did both, it's never failed and now I'm afraid no to. 🙂 As I think you are aware, if you run YTTV on a device that has a GPS, that will override the VPM location, and if you attempt to disable it, YTTV will refuse to run.

Ah! GPS Spoofer! I'll need to look into that! There's been times I've wanted to watch something from my phone where I don't have access to a TV to use the Firestick. I was watching a college football game on a plane using YTTV and after about an hour, it kicked me off as being out of area.🤣😡

14 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Can you plug a firestick into the TV in the room?

Yes. Most cabins' TVs have the HDMI ports accessible.

You should bring a Universal remote so that you can get access to a 'Source' button.

On newer ships' that have TVs with the interactive UI  (not sure if Oasis has this), you will also need to unplug the network cable and power cycle the TV. When the network cable is plugged in, it will auto-launch the custom UI and you usually will not be able to switch the source.

17 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Will the rooms have network TV though? my recollection is room TVs were very limited

No. They do not have network channels and what they do have is so limited it is useless to us. That is why we travel with a Firestick and a universal remote.

7 minutes ago, CuseJeff44 said:

Thanks all. Hoping i can at least stream on my phone 🙂

Again, I highly recommend a VPN service. I use ExpressVPN, but any will work as long as they have servers in the US.

You can stream fine. We do it all the time.

The NBA finals will be on ABC and FUBO. If you have HULU+Live, YoutubeTV or any other cable/satellite that has your local ABC station, you can stream the game. I would highly recommend getting a VPN so that you are not geo-locked.

However, I will warn you that from my experience, if you attempt to watch YoutubeTV on a device that has a GPS, the GPS location will override the VPN, and if you attempt to turn off your GPS, it will refuse to work. I don't know if any other service does the same.

If you have a firestick (or Roku?), it does not have a GPS, so that's what we primarily use anyway.

Also, I swear I've read that some people have reported that for some major sporting events, they will make them available at 1 bar, even if they are at odd hours due to the ship's location. I would kind of think a game 7 would qualify? But I certainly would not count on this.

Adventures by Disney's affiliation with Ama is exactly why we chose them in 2019 for a 3 generation cruise with 9 of us. It was not a Disney chartered cruise, but figured if it was good enough for Disney, should be good for us. We did Rivers and Castles from Nuremburg to Luxembourg. Our niece was the youngest at 10, my parents, the oldest (80's). There were a number of kids, probably a couple younger than her. There were 2 family groups larger than ours. I can't say that any particular age range stuck out with me. Ages ran the gambit.

My wife & I did the Grand Danube on AmaMagna in 2023 (From Vilshofen to Giurgiu). We were 54 at the time. First week was designated as a "Wine Cruise". Not sure if that had anything to do with it, but we felt the age range screwed younger that first week than the second week. We were probably right in the middle the first week, and maybe slightly on the younger side the second week. The second week's itinerary probably is not as attractive to the younger cruisers, so that might have had something to do with it. There were no kids on either week. Guess would be that the youngest might have been mid 30's?

We also did a Christmas Markets cruise on Grand Circle in 2022 with my family (minus our daughter this time). While overall the largest age group was probably older than us, there was a wide variety of ages and families, and the crew made a comment about having the most kids they've ever had on a cruise.

So, from my limited experience, while the cruise line you choose has a lot to do with it, as some don't allow kids at all, I think certain itineraries might lend themselves more to families or younger cruisers than others.

12 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in Tromsø, Norway, from the end of May to the end of July. During this time, the sun doesn't set above the Arctic Circle, and days can last up to 1,600 hours

 

https://www.visitnorway.com/things-to-do/nature-attractions/midnight-sun/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwsPCyBhD4ARIsAPaaRf2Ht69cBzNzKA4z3g1Qljo22FpgXkmrt99MwUN4vDpNy7iKCbtKuRoaAlfUEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Keep in mind, Norway does Daylight Savings, and the ship has likely changed to Norway time, so true "midnight" is actually 1:00 AM.

We did the Arctic Circle cruise in 2022, and went North of the Arctic Circle only a few days after Summer Solstice. I stayed up to 1:00 AM to take pictures. Posted some in this forum previously. We crossed the Arctic Circle on Thursday, and they announced on the ship that the next Sunset would be Monday 🙂, when we dropped back south of it.

18 minutes ago, barbeyg said:

@twangster, and @Hoopster95, thanks so much for the great photos/videos and taking us all along.
 

Quick question on the Twizy in Geiranger.  How was the fit for the back seat rider? 

Chels of Trev and Chels can show you:

32 minutes ago, rncruiser said:

If I recall, you will need a picture of each person you are checking in that is acceptable to the app. I believe it will need an uncluttered, preferably white, background. 

Correct if you are doing the full check in. This post and thread is only about selecting boarding/check-in times for everyone in your party. You go back later to complete the rest of it.

4 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

When they did the double points deals after the shutdown, many took advantage to move up, and now royal is left with a lot of D+ and Ps along with all the perks of those levels.  It makes much more sense to shift part of this new burden to X to allow space for the families that tend to spend more on WiFi and beverage pkg.

We did that. We took 125% FCC's and parlayed that into a 24 night B2B Arctic Circle and Iceland & Ireland. Add to that an 8 night cruise to celebrate our daughter's HS graduation, and then pretty much only because of the double points deal we scheduled a 3 and 4 night cruises mid way between other trips. All in JS's. 39 x 4 = 156. Went to D on the 8 night, then D+ on the 24 night B2B. 🙂 

1 hour ago, Coral said:

On my Christmas Markets cruise - we had normal excursions and then free time to visit the markets. It was a good mix. I definitely felt like I saw the ports that we stopped at. I had full day excursions in Vienna, Munich, Regensburg, Bratislava and Salzburg that involved seeing the port sites. Our Christmas markets trip wasn't just Christmas markets.

Thanks! That's good information. Like I said, my only Christmas Markets experience was on GC, and they only do 1 excursion, with no options. So I am guessing that some of their normal excursions were replaced with the Christmas Markets. 

1 hour ago, AspiringCindy said:

I'm guessing they will change the original plans. Mason Jar would be a great add-on!

What restaurants were on the 2020 refurbishment plans?

Here's the original Press Release from 2019:

https://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-release/1403/new-amplified-adventures-on-royal-caribbeans-allure-of-the-seas-to-make-a-summer-splash-in-europe/

Even though I am a fan of Ama and agree with everything @AtlantaCruiser72 said, I am not sure if the excursion options is as important on a Christmas Markets cruise. I've only done 1 Christmas Markets, it was on the Danube, but it was with Grand Circle (not my choice, my parents booked & paid for it). I can tell you all kinds of differences between GC and Ama. I've never done Viking. Anyway, while there were some normal type excursions, the excursion at almost every port was the Christmas Markets. I assume that they would be the main excursion on an Ama one. Biking tours are probably not that popular on a Christmas Market cruise either, unless you are hard-core 🙂 

I'll second the vote for AmaMagna. That is an amazing ship, unlike any other. It is a choice for Christmas Markets but has it's own listing. I will caution you though. I almost hate to recommend it as a first river cruise ship, as no other ship is likely to measure up if you do more in the future. 🤣

2 hours ago, time cruiser said:

My husbands only hope is that they keep both flow riders, and not replace one with the kiddy water park 

The didn't remove one on Oasis when it was Amplified. I think it's safe.

18 minutes ago, jerseyjjs said:

 

 

Would much prefer Playmakers over Sabor.

If they stick with the original plan, I believe that it was figured out that Sabor (which we really liked) would become Portside BBQ, and Playmakers is what would go where the Crown Lounge currently is. The original plan did not have Wonderland.

We'll see...

Didn't need a new thread for this question. It's been asked in here:

There is nothing to make anyone believe that it is a one-time deal. It's only an extension of the existing program that ended with Elite and Diamond (everything higher was limited to those).

People who already had Elite that were D+ have checked and they are now showing E+

3 minutes ago, 3yorkies said:

And rumor is that Sabor will be removed, which is a favorite too.

Not so much a "rumor". At the top tier event last September, the Allure Hotel Manager stated as much. She said that she hopes we enjoy it (and the Champagne Bar) while they are still around as they are going to be replaced.

1 hour ago, RFerrington said:

I suspect that the amplification specifics will depend largely on what hardware/equipment had already been pre-purchased and sitting around in storage, waiting to be installed for the past couple of years.  I can’t see them “wasting” hardware/equipment that has already been purchased (purple slide, bionic bar, etc) even if it’s something that they might choose not to do if that decision were being made, today.

I've wondered the same thing. When Allure's original Amplification was cancelled, I believe that she was less than 5 weeks from starting. I imagine that much of what they were going to install was already on site or near by. How much of that has been stored for the last 4 years, vs. what did they try to liquidate. Certainly, something like the purple slide which was custom would likely have been stored (used for Wonder or Utopia??). But I believe that it was stated somewhere that all A/V was going to be replaced. Like every single TV. That's thousands of essentially off the shelf Samsungs. Have they stored those for the last 4 years or did they liquidate them for cash? Assuming they still do this, do they want to do a fresh install with 5 year old TVs? Lot's of questions.

BTW, those robots could be easily re-sold. They are not custom to RC. They are standard manufacturing robots.

1 minute ago, GetToLivin said:

Do we know for sure they're going to move the Crown Lounge? Such a special space, I'll be sad if it goes 😭

Even with the original Amplification announcement, I don't believe they ever said that explicitly, but based on the plans of what they were adding, and the fact that they moved it on Oasis, I think it's safe to say that it's almost guaranteed to be moved to where it is on every other Oasis class ship. Sorry.

That said, there has yet to be any announcement itemizing what they are going to do. We don't know if they are just going to dust off the original plans and implement them, or if they will make any adjustments. In 2019, they were all hot for the Bionic Bar, and Allure was going to get it. Now it's 2024, and the Bionic Bar is very meh. It's constantly babysat by crew and I don't think it generates much revenue anymore. On Utopia they went with the Pesky Parrot instead. The hotel manager on our Allure cruise last Septmeber said that the Champagne Bar was going away (as well as Sabor), but did not specifically say what was going in their place.

38 minutes ago, mjkacmom said:

On RCL they let non suite guests access to suite benefits?

@SilkySal indicated that the rest of their party was in a GS, so they would already have suite benefits.