griffy116

Saw a post on another cruise board for Allure where a few guests were adamant that the toilet tissue sounds "inferior" and they will be bringing their own. No one was able to convince them that this would create problems. Their response, "too bad. My vacation. I don't use bad tissue." When your tush is that sensitive, choose a land based vacation. The plumbing on the ship can't handle it and you end up causing grief for everyone down your hall and causing a whole lot of nasty work for the crew.

I thought we were the only ones that didn't feel paying for meals at the Specialty Restaurants. I don't have a problem with the food in the MDR and I'd rather spend my money on a restaurant pre or post cruise than while I have a perfectly good meal waiting on me in the MDR.

First cruise with RC, I was in a panic at the idea that if I needed to do a load of wash or press something, I couldn't. It has turned out to be one of the GREATEST PERKS of cruising. I do NO laundry for the duration of the cruise. When we did a med cruise with a few nights pre-cruise and post cruise added in, I did the Wash 'N Fold and carried a travel size of Downy Wrinkle Release and it was all good. Besides, after a few days of all the desserts, snacks and meals, the extra weight will smooth out even the most stubborn wrinkle. :D

I waited far to long to travel, putting it off for "one day." After a health scare about 8 years ago, I got my passport, traveled to Europe. I missed out on so much while waiting on "one day." Everyone should get a passport and see some of the countries that require you to have a passport to visit. You don't know what you're missing and it's the best gift you can give your children and grandchildren.

I have a petsitter who will be staying in my home. The last week will be exhausting, with cleaning the house, printing instructions, giving her any numbers she might need in our absence, cooking chicken for the dogs and shredding it and cooking a few things for the petsitter. Getting packed and making sure all the documents are in order. Getting cash from the bank. Confirming reservations for the hotel, transportation from off-site airport parking, and all the other transportation. The morning we leave will be a madhouse. We will want to have time to sit calmly with the dogs. By the time I get on the plane, I am asleep before we leave the ground and I get a couple of hours of sleep and when I wake I'm ready for my vacation.

We are within the time frame to check in but we are holding out waiting to see if some of the problems can be resolved. I've seen so many people running into problems that I dread starting the check in process.

Just wondering if the reason is that it is comprised of a group of 12 other adults in the group ended up with a few 11,12,13 year olds. They might feel that affected their total experience and complained. My sister and nephew used to go on cruises with us and she always carried on about how it was "unfair" that her 11 year old son wasn't allowed to participate in everything, regardless of his age. She would purchase a fruity alcoholic drink for him (putting us at risk of getting thrown off the cruise), took him to The Quest (which is adults only), let him join her in the Solarium, and I'm sure if our ship had this activity, she would have argued until he was allowed to participate so that instead of having 11 other people that could contribute, the group would have had 11 people contributing and an 11 year old they had to pacify by allowing him to take up their time participating in or ignore. If you think that someone of the other 10 people wouldn't have preferred to have another adult, instead of an 11 year old, you're just kidding yourself. We stopped cruising with them because of it. Not everyone is going to say, "he's so mature and he was a real asset to our experience." Just saying this from my own experience with a parent that never recognized that the world didn't revolve around her child.

I have disembarked twice from there and it's the easiest ever. Both of our cruises from there had people embarking from Rome and Barcelona so that helped and we hired a private driver. There was only one flight per day so we opted to stay an additional night in Rome but I think we could probably have made the flight. We just didn't want to stress and the idea of missing the flight because of a wreck on the highway or a piece of lost luggage (we didn't self-embark) was too much for us to think about...or maybe it was the idea of getting ONE MORE DAY in Rome.

You may already know this, but you'll have to link the reservations for all cabins that want to have dinner together. We use a TA and that way I just tell him what we need for all three cabins and he handles the "sticky" situations with RC if the arise, including price reductions.

You can ask a bartender for the wine glasses or the cabin steward. If you bring the bottles with a cork, bring your own corkscrew. The ones the ship gives you aren't really that good. We broke two of them given to us. We will be buying the screw on bottles or bringing our own corkscrews.

Airfare is ALWAYS cheaper to FLL for us. Since there are usually 4-5 of us, we rent a car. Hotels are cheaper in FLL too. By the time we add it all up, whether we are cruising from FLL or MIA, we fly to FLL.

Not sure it's true but I've heard that they toss clothing items because of safety/sanitary purposes. Can you imagine how disgusting it would be to have all the clothing and shoes that get behind waiting to be "claimed" and getting them back to the owner? And no, the crew isn't salivating to lay claim on anyone's smelly shoes, regardless of the brand or how much they cost when they were new.

We did the Hawaii cruise with RC MANY years ago. We live in an area where a lot of people have chickens. We don't, but when we got to Kauai, my small grandson spent every spare minute trying to capture one of the chickens running around...and yes, they are EVERYWHERE.

Not hard for us not to spend on the ship itself. We pre-purchased our soda+Voom package and we have OBC which will go toward any drinks we purchase.We pay the petsitter who will be staying at our home to watch after our 3 little furbabies. We have our tips on auto-gratuity, but we count on this expense before we board. We usually book a tour from an independent vendor. Our expenses start with airport parking, tip to shuttle from parking to airport, tip for shuttle from airport at port city to hotel, uber or lift plus tip to get to the port, tips to the porter at the pier. We have to eat on the day we arrive in the port city. Taxi and tips to taxi in port, gotta have a few souvenirs and a meal and drinks in ports, especially since we are visiting places that have been hit hard with the hurricane, including the marketplace on Labadee. Then transportation back to the airport at the end of the cruise, and finally a tip to the shuttle driver who returns us to the airport off-site parking. There's always another meal on the day we head home too. That's what drives the cost of the cruise up over the cost of the actual cruise itself for us. It's not the additional spending we do on the ship.

After many cruises on RC, for our upcoming cruise, the suits are staying home. The idea that it ruins your dinner if someone in the dining room isn't dressed in formal attire is crazy. I'm not worried about being in the dining room with people in their prom dresses, bridesmaid dresses, Mother of the Bride dresses or something that should be X rated in my slacks and blouse. I'm also not worried about someone in shorts. And if you want to get all technical about it, what's the difference in a man with hairy legs in a pair of shorts and one in a kilt? One of them is probably not wearing underwear. Ok??? I don't care what anyone else in the dining room is wearing. I don't think RC does either.

Let's face it. It wouldn't be this difficult or this restrictive if people didn't come on all the message boards bragging about one buying the package and they both use it and how easy it was to fool RC. Now they are talking about how they find "loopholes" and they'll shut those down soon.

A flat iron is not like an "iron" and is not banned. It's like a curling iron with a different function. We took ours on two Med cruises. We used the U.S. voltage because someone said the EU outlets are weaker and theirs didn't work when plugged into them. We had a small converter we carried with us because we stayed 2 nights pre-cruise and one night post cruise in Rome and the flat iron worked fine. We carried the cube that gave us extra outlets plus USB outlet. MUCH more efficient than an extension cord, because it allowed us to charge two phones at the same time, while having other things plugged in simultaneously. We got ours on Amazon a few years ago but they sell these everywhere (even in the grocery stores). The only outlet in the bathroom is really pretty useless unless it's for an electric razor. We were able to keep our phones charged, and use all of our electronic "gadgets" charged and ready to go.

Pizza is often a go to for us when we're home so when we are on a cruise, we're fine with choosing other foods. As for the room service being $7.95, it's a flat fee and less than one drink or same as one beer.We've ordered a LOT of food from room service from the menu if we want something different from pizza. We've gotten some great sandwiches, dips, really good burgers, fries, dhips, desserts and salads...all for $7.95. It was nice to have all the options from the menu for $7.95 no matter how much you order and quite the bargain. We've had made from scratch pasta...made and served in front of us in the MDR for lunch on sea days. The Tutti salad is fabulous in the MDR. The burgers on the menu in the MDR are really good. If we are in port, we have lunch there, not back on the ship.

Royal will provide a corkscrew upon request.

We bring our own after breaking two of the little plastic things that RC provided for a corkscrew. I mean maybe we were just too anxious to get that bottle opened but I've never broken two corkscrews in a row before. ;)

We have traditional early dining and it is at 5:30 p.m. We would have preferred 6 pm, but we too prefer the early dining so that everyone in our family can have the night to do what they prefer. We booked all of our shows and the 5:30 dining works out perfectly for any of the shows. None of the shows, including the ice shows start earlier than 8 so 5:30 dining will give us plenty of time. I'm not sure whether early dining on your cruise will be 5:30 or 6, but I would think that either of these times would give you plenty of time to make any of the shows. Hope this helps.

Don't know if this is a help, but we always build in an extra hour, at the least, when we do a shore excursion on our own, just to account for any traffic, a mechanical problem with transportation, etc. I've stood on our balcony too many times and watched people racing to the ship as it was about to leave because they cut it too close.

Puerto Rico is going through a lot right now with the impact of the hurricane and power outages across the island.

Exactly. We've sailed from PR before and it's been very smooth. I'm sure a lot of things have become more difficult recently,as they have experienced not one but two major power outages in the past couple of weeks. I've never had an experience as bad as we had when disembarking from Galveston last summer. I heard from many others that didn't experience the massive delays standing in a line in sweltering heat and a massive transportation snafu they were having on our particular cruise. Everyone trying to leave from Galveston on our cruise was complaining. I'm sure this didn't happen with every disembarkation in Galveston or no one would ever sail from Galveston again, and it probably doesn't happen with every embarkation in PR. Sorry you experienced a bad start to your cruise.

If you and/or your kids are Star Wars fans, there's a shop on Front St, Dutch side of island of St. Maarten owned and operated by the make-up artist for Yoda and Star Wars. Museum with memorabilia and souvenirs for purchase. Easy to get to and inexpensive, plus leaves time for the beach or shopping on St. Maarten.

I carry my meds in the pharmacy bottles and I carry the printout from my latest doctor's appt that gives my diagnosis, medical statistics,etc and all my current medications. Satisfies any questions about meds but also if something happens, it gives them current medical history in case I were to have an emergency medical situation arise. Better safe than sorry.

We've sailed on Celebrity this past year and almost exclusively with RC on the rest of our cruises. If your connection with the sea is important, an Oceanview balcony on either line will satisfy your needs. If dress code (or lack of) is important, we found that Celebrity and RC are actually more alike than different. Slacks and a collared shirt (polo) will be fine on either line on what RC considers their formal night and Clebrity's "Chic" nights. After many years of packing long gowns and suits, we felt perfectly appropriate in slacks and polo for men and slacks and blouse for women. We didn't wear shorts but we did see shorts at dinner on both lines. RC definitely has more that will appeal to the kids from character parades to the ice shows, character breakfast, etc. The loungers on Celebrity are better. The food in the MDR are very similar. We had been told for years that Celebrity had better food. Everyone has a different opinion but we just didn't find that to be true for us. We loved the treats at al Bacio on Celebrity but missed being able to get a little sandwich at the Promenade Cafe on RC. Celebrity has some nice touches you and your wife might appeciate that would be totally lost on your children, like the wash clothes handed to you in the restrooms which RC doesn't have and a cup of ice cold water as you head back to the ship from a port (although RC has started doing that at some ports too), and the ease at getting a canned drink to go, which RC makes more difficult. You get a fountain drink or practically have to bribe a bartender to get the drink in an unopened can (with the drink package) on RC. The rest of our group missed the drink fountain on the RC ships (also with a drink package). If quiet relaxation is what you are after,Celebrity has more of that than RC. RC has something going on in almost every corner of the ship at almost any hour of the day or night. We found that we missed the activity level. RC ships like Allure have Central Park for quiet relaxation at all times if you are looking for that. As for the smoking, I'm a smoker and outside of the fact that there is a smoking section in the casino on RC, I didn't find any difference in the two lines, even though most people believe Celebrity is more restrictive.Both lines limit smoking to a couple of outdoor sections which are easy to find or easy to avoid. Can't help with NCL as I haven't cruised their line.