Kreative03

Just off Icon with UDP and a couple of things to note 1)Booking onboard left us with limited availability when it came to dining times in most if not all venues. This included MDR. 2) Large group dining was almost impossible to accommodate booking onboard. 3) MDR quality and service was outstanding. I’ve noticed on the first few months of new ships they tend to hit it out of the park and that is the current case onboard. We did MDR twice. 4) We used UDP for Playmakers but never ended up using Basecamp or Izumi in the Park credits based on how we used the ship. 5) We found Chops and Izumi lacking relative to prior experiences. We did Giovanni’s twice and all courses disappeared. We made the decision to skip a second Chops to head back there and took literally any time they would give us. happy to answer anything else

You must be fun to cruise with. I promise, my kids are cute, the older one is exceptionally polite (and well traveled) and I enjoy spending time with them. We’ve never not felt welcomed in the Retreat, no matter the ship. Every now and again we want to enjoy a show or specialty dining that they might not and rather than subjecting everyone to something they aren’t into, we would prefer a few hours of babysitting.

When they switched it to Retreat only it was moved to $30/hr for up to 3 kids in the same family. Have you done it lately and did they revert the pricing?

I’ve tried and attempted to get babysitting on ships since the the Covid restart without much success. And have had another kid since 🤣. It’s been advertised as recently as 2023, so I’m still optomistic. Has anyone actually been able to obtain this service, and on what ship? Going on Beyond this summer and am oh so hopeful we can get it for even one night.

You can only get lunch on sea days using UDP. We wrongly assumed that 4pm would be coded as dinner instead of lunch since they have continuous service and the same menu at each meal. We ate at all restaurants on harmony - sabor and JR for lunches on our sea days, and we did Izumi 2x and Giovanni’s 2x. We can’t handle main dining on Royal, so we’ve just understood UDP is what we do now. We’ve never been on a ship with playmakers, so that’s new to us. I’m trying to ascertain if my credits will allow non-dinner hours snacking. Basecamp for example seems to close at 8pm but is listed solely as snacks.

Is there a time for the daily credit? I know on port days lunch is not included and we got hosed once on Harmony for not paying attention at Sabor when we tried for an early happy hour.

This looks like it was a 6/1 change, implemented on all cruises subsequent to that date.

@Norwaylady - I had it properly set up, and this was in the midst of the cruise, so I had changed nothing in the 85 steps of getting online on the infinity :-). The most frustrating was having network intermittent connectivity while sitting in one spot—as I am ok with slow, I just can’t stand the constant dropping and failure to reconnect. I can’t imagine having tried to work on the ship and felt terrible for the crew manning the ilounge desk with nothing to offer except “keep trying”

Thanks for the linkup. I missed it but it’s a nice summary. desserts also gone on the Eclipse. But curiously the kids menu has retuned its missing items.

I got off on Saturday - agree it is absolutely terrible. Almost worse than when internet was contained to the onboard computers. They have embarrassing tech issues as the icing on the cake for that ship, which just highlights how badly it needs a long dry dock to be revolutionized. They need to stop giving 4 devices free and worry about the bandwidth. I never need to see this error message again on a ship. Absolute trashfire of a Wi-Fi offering.

Sad to hear it. I’m usually a spoiled luminae diner as of late but being back in the MDR I was looking forward to my favorites. Time to book up some specialties.

All - I haven’t been on board a ship since mid-March, but apparently the MDR has taken classic desserts down to two. Hope you weren’t a cheesecake or chocolate cake fan (hint: that’s everyone in my 10 person traveling party). Our waiter confirmed that they are limiting classics, and he felt confident the other two might reappear, but not on this cruise. I’m curious if this is the case fleetwide? I’m heading to the Eclipse next Sunday and will be so sad for two weeks instead of one if this is the case.

My Daughter was 2 weeks from 3 on the Apex innaugural. Almost no children onboard. They would not accept her — claim was due to insurance, even though she met the potty trained requirement. Same thing for my nephew 4 weeks away that same year on a different ship . YMMV when aging kids up across programs, but we’ve met a hard limit on the “are they 3” question several times over.

Babysitting is restricted to those in Suites, and is subject to ship availability. I have yet to have it offered since return to cruising, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. It will be charged to your folio so yes, OBC can be used. Hopefully someone with experience recently can let you know about Eclipse. For excursions, many have strict age limits and many can accommodate infants that are not shown. Do not assume you can book the whole family if the infant shows online as “not bookable”. Since you have a larger group it is helpful to contact Private Journeys to help make the booking and they know most of the actual restrictions.