RobInMN

Vertical. Sorry, it might look great on your phone, but makes a terrible YouTube video.

I think the average age can vary a lot by cruise line. Our first river cruise was a Dunube cruise on Vantage in 2005. My parents had done a number of river cruises prior. This was something my parents wanted to do with us. There were 6 of us, my parents, me, my wife, my sister, and her husband. My parents were in their 60's the rest of us in our mid 30's. My parent's were probably on the younger side, and the 4 of us "kids" would have been the youngest on the cruise ship (other than crew), by a good 25 years, if it wasn't for the fact that the company owner's (grand?)daughter and her friend were on board. Every daily itinerary listed the number of steps (climbing steps) that would be on that day's excursion. I think all us "kids" would describe it as far more interesting than fun. There were a lot of things "missed" because it was not appropriate activity level wise for the target passengers. Next river cruise was on AmaWaterways, Rivers and Castles, from Nuremberg to Luxembourg in 2018. While my dad still paid for it, I had a lot of influence in the selection. My parents now about 80, us "kids" now close to 50, and our kids, 10?, 13?, & 18 all came as well. There were at least 2 other family groups like ours. There were people of all ages, even a few kids younger than my niece. I think everyone, regardless of age, had a great time. Much more active group, lots of excursion options, and even different activity levels for those excursions. Last river cruise was on Grand Circle. This was sprung on us after it was booked. It was a Christmas Markets cruise just this last December. My daughter and her boyfriend didn't go, but my sister's kids (now 13 & 16) did. While not nearly as family oriented as the AmaWaterway's one, and not as many kids, the crew made a comment about never having so many kids on one cruise before. Average age of the passengers skewed higher. Even so, my sister's kids and other kids on the cruise seemed to have a good time. My wife & I do a lot more ocean cruises (Royal Caribbean), but have AmaMagna booked here next month for the Grand Danube. We plan on doing both more river cruises and ocean cruises in the future. Whether it's ocean or river, we agree about the "floating hotel". We love that aspect. of it.

BBC! (Banana Bailys Colada)

This goes for kids and cell phones/tablets too. I'm so tired of parents giving their kids their cell phone or a tablet to keep them entertained and they are watching videos or playing games with the volume on (sometimes loud). Headphones people! Headphones!

No Royal Caribbean ship has passenger accessible self-service laundry. However one is apparently being added to Serenade for the World Cruise.

This is actually incorrect. In the Star class, you get the Genie, and gratuities are complimentary (not "pre-paid" - although included in your cabin cost). "Complimentary Gratuities benefit applies only to onboard staff who provide standard dining and culinary services, stateroom and general housekeeping services. Star guests may tip their Royal Genie and Concierge separately, at their own discretion." https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-are-the-benefits-of-royal-suite-class

ok, stupid question tie in. We will be in our first Star class next Fall. With or without OBC, can you simply charge the Genie tip to your on board account and have it charged to your CC at the end with all your other on board charges?

🤣 I'm in your camp. I couldn't tell you what it was supposedly about. However, I did enjoy watching it, but mostly for the technical and effects part of it. We also didn't like Effectors. Found it absolutely cheesy and campy. Story was completely lame. And while I liked the effects for The Book, these were just all lights and eh stuff. I also agree about the bright lights in the audiences eyes. To be honest with you, we think the 5 minutes of Rogers! The Musical (as seen in Hawkeye) has better production quality. To put this in context, my wife loves musicals. She loved Hairspray! on Symphony (both cruises), and while I'm not a musicals person (unless you count The Blues Brothers🤣), I actually enjoyed it as well.

We did the 12 night Arctic Circle on Jewel last Summer. Slightly different itinerary, but it was awesome. Norway is absolutely stunning. As others have said, yes, this does Fjords. Flam and Geiranger are the 2 big main ones. We only saw Flam. We loved going up to Honnigsvag. I think we were more impressed with the more northern ports than the more southern ones. And while Symphony is probably our favorite ship we've been on, I think this cruise is probably our favorite cruise we've done. You're going to have an awesome time! This post has some info and links to more posts I made. In that post, click the first post linked for some pictures I took.

There have been many threads and discussions where people think it's perfectly fine for THEM to sneak into their rooms early to drop their stuff off, because they are just 1 or 2 people, so they can't possibly be a bother to the room stewards trying to turn all the cabins. So I am more than willing to give this officer the benefit of the doubt at snapping at anyone that opens the cabin hall doors prior to the announcement. My first thought would have been to wonder how many other people tried to get to their rooms early before you opened the door, B2B or not. And honestly, how much you paid or tipped is completely irrelevant here.

I attempted to summarize various experiences reported on this forum in a pervious thread:

I tried sending an email to that email address, but have not received any response. We also don't do Facebook. 😞

I said something like that, not that one specifically. Sorry I didn't take the time to research and find a specific model.

If you are trying to put 4 adults in 1 room, I'd recommend looking hard at at least a JS. You'll really appreciate the extra space in both square footage and storage. The walk in closet is large enough to double as a private changing room😉 Plus you get double points, as it's a "suite". For privacy, someone on here once mentioned magnetic hooks and (shower?) curtains.

yep. Sorry, was directing that at the OP. Just giving them an example of what you were talking about. I use one also.

Yes, get something like this. Just make sure it doesn't have surge protection https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Charger-PowerPort-iPhone-Galaxy/dp/B00P936188/ref=sr_1_16?crid=1JV84GFHKL4A9&keywords=usb%2Bcharger&qid=1675300707&sprefix=usb%2Bcharge%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-16&th=1 You can also get something like this to make use of the Euro outlet: https://www.amazon.com/European-Charger-Vifigen-Universal-Compatible/dp/B07H3R4JHM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P8QQHXLSPMC9&keywords=usb%2Beuro%2Bcharger&qid=1675300809&sprefix=usb%2Beuro%2Bcharge%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1&th=1

Zero charging ports. I don't know if there are any additional ones elsewhere in an GS, but our JS only had 1 Eruo and 2 US at the desk (plus the shaver one in the bathroom). I am pretty sure that this is the standard for any Radiance and Voyager class ships. And likely Freedom also.

Points were converted in 2012 per the formula documented here:

While we haven't gone quite that far, we've simply put "no sales pitch please" on our questionnaire, whether it was the old paper ones or the newer tablet based ones. I feel the wording is non-confrontational. And if we're lucky, we'll get an extra couple minutes of massage that they would have taken up with the sales pitch.

Minnesota here. Winter: Furnace is set to 68. Summer: A/C set to 72. In the spring and fall (and rare summer), if the dew point is less than 50, we will open the house up, and that can be totally nice up to 80, and tolerable to about 85. Especially if there is any bit of a breeze. Humidity is "Relative Humidity", it is relative to the temperature. 80% RH at 70 degrees is much worse than 85 degrees with 30% RH. My comfort is directly related to the dew point, not RH. I totally believe in the whole "but it's a dry heat" thing. Summer in Minnesota, if I'm going to a restaurant and it's 85, with a dew point of 65, I'm probably not going to be eating outside on the patio. Visited my SIL in Albuquerque one summer, sat on the patio, in the shade, totally comfortable, when we left, the car said it was 105 degrees out!

It's cheaper to do 1 person, 4 devices. It's very easy to switch. You can actively log out of 1 device before logging into another (logout.com or something). or you can simply log in on the next device, and it will tell you that you are already at the max, and if you confirm, then it will randomly kick off one of the other devices. (oldest connected maybe??)

What is this "Check" thing you speak of???🤣 Seriously though, pay with any credit card that has any rewards of any type and send a check to your CC company.

First, I'll say that we stayed about 3 blocks or so from the Munich Central (Train) Station. Pre-cruise, was just my wife, daughter (19), and me. The cruise was us, my sister, her, husband & their 2 kids (10 & 13?), and my parents. We did all of our tours through Radius Tours. I'm sure there's others that might do same/similar tours, but we were very happy with Radius, and would recommend them. I think all the tours met at the train station which was then very convenient. We did: Munich Bavarian Beer Tour. We did this the night we arrived. We felt this was a perfect thing to do after a day of traveling, and as an introduction to Munich. Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site Tour Third Reich Tour – Munich’s cruel history (Same day - immediately after) Neuschwanstein Castle Tour (long, all day tour) The next day we went to Nuremburg I would say that Dachau is an absolute must. If you are remotely interested WW2 history, the Third Reich Tour should be on your list. I love castles, cathedrals, forts, and ruins, so I really liked Neuschwanstein, but if that's not your thing, easily skipped. The one thing we did not get to due to timing and days it's open is the Munich Documentation Center. It is a 3 or 4 story building that houses the Munich and National Socialism exhibit. It came highly recommended, but we just could not fit it in without arriving 1 day earlier. And you need to go to the main Hofbräuhaus and also the Augustiner-Keller Beer Garden, it's right near the train station. If you do the Munich Bavarian Beer Tour, you will end at the main Hofbräuhaus. The Third Reich Tour will stop there to explain it's historical significance, but not eat/drink. like @Second seating said, the train was super easy. In Munich, we walked with our luggage to the train station (you'll see lots of people doing this). Train station is very easily navigable. In Nuremburg we caught a taxi right outside the station that took us to the port/dock. We were very impressed with Ama, and actually have them booked again for the Grand Danube on AmaMagna. The ship were were on was AmaDante, and it's not necessarily the newest, but nice. Crew was great. Only two negatives. The first was that 2019 was abnormally hot (everywhere), and the ship's AC was not designed for such heat. I feel this was probably a common issue regardless of ship/company that summer. They tried their best, and had everyone try to keep the curtains on the sunny side closed as much as possible. Second was also not their fault, and that was leaving Mainz, there was a barge was beached on a sand bar blocking river traffic as they tried to free it. This delayed us from leaving by a few hours, which meant that it got too dark for us to see the castles along the Rhine River Gorge earlier than planned. We got to see many, but not all that you would normally get to see. Anyway, if there was a castle or Roman ruins tour, I took it! Different family members sometimes chose different tours. No complaints about any of the tours from anyone. In Tier, my sister's family and us actually left early and walked up to to the Roman Amphitheater and Roman Baths on our own before joining up with the actual tour group at the Basilica of Constantine. If I remember correctly, the actual tour was just going to do a drive-by of the Amphitheater and Baths and we wanted to go in them. Ama had no issue with that. The Castle Hike in Wertheim was cool, and has great views! Probably the biggest issue with excursions is picking one over the other. Don't have time to do them all.

Has there been any hints from RCI about possibly doing this again in the future, like maybe once every 5 years or so? I'd love to do this after we retire.

We took AmaWaterway's "Rivers and Castles" in 2019. It went from Nuremburg to Luxemburg. Starting on the Main-Danube Canal, then the Main, then the Rhine. We did 3 days in Munich before the cruise. I highly recommend it, regardless of who you book it with. We also just did a Christmas Markets cruise (Grand Circle - wasn't my choice) that also started in Nuremburg (2 nights here was part of the cruise), ending in Vienna. Didn't actually get to see any of Vienna due to flight home, but loved the cities we visited, which was mostly in Bavaria. If your husband's genealogy is rooted in Bavaria, I would recommend spending a few days in both Munich (Dachau, Neuschwanstein) and Nuremburg in conjunction with a river cruise.