BrianLo

I think they are actually leery of truly mentioning COVID at this juncture. I'm confident a double digit percentage of guests had COVID by the end of our sailing. The Facebook group was rife with posts about everyone testing positive after the fact. Really, truly I felt like they were hiding their staff shortages from us to not cause a stir and impact the general sentiment and future bookings from the Australian market Yes, maybe it's truly a test, but it sure didn't seem pre-planned for my cruise and seems to be only happening on both Australian vessels that are fairly overwhelmed with the virus right now.

All crew were masked (I think they had to be). Guests were about 20-30%. Much higher than I've seen on other cruises with mostly North American cruisers, but still a strong minority.

I will say if this is a permanent change, my biggest issue is not the once a day service but the sheer timing of when one receives it. If cabin stewards double their load moving forward, I found the timing to your room being serviced was generally quite slow. My experience on other RCL vessels this year was consistent that if you put your sign out and leave for a good hour it’s pretty reliable the ninjas would be in an out. Or often I could see them visibly notice me leave and swing in. Versus I’d frequently leave the room all day, return to it still being uncleaned and would vacate when the cabin steward did eventually come. The one day I turned down service entirely, because his shift was finished at 6 and I wanted to spend the 5-6 window in the room. It visibly upset my steward that I received no service, which was obviously my preference and not really his fault that my room was at the end of the rotation. He did compensate and get to my room instantly the following day.

I just want to make a couple speculative comments. I was on quantum Nov 26th sailing and my cabin steward was already doing once a day cleaning. The embarkment day I did have a turn down service and then never again. This was not an advertised change though. I say speculative because there was quite a lot of covid onboard and even the cruise director was in isolation for 5 days at the start of the cruise. I was strongly under the impression they had massive staff shortages. Despite the once a day clean my cabin steward hadn’t been able to get to my cabin yet one day until after 5PM, despite me having been out of room prior to 8am. I overheard he had 25 cabins. There was no way logistically for him to achieve turn down service as well. So yes, while it is definitely occurring on quantum, I don’t know if it’s really intentional right now as a test as opposed to just being acknowledged for the current cruises. If they suddenly stop doing this in a few cruises I’d chalk it up to staff shortages more than a real change they are pursuing.

I’m onboard - surprisingly this incident is not well known (I learned about it just now). Everyone has complained about how poor the tendering process has been though, now I kind of understand why. Yes, this was indeed at Mystery Island. Surprisingly tendering wasn’t too delayed that day, but they have been over cautious and slow.

Ah I guess it was always more this way. I was expecting more this go round and was chalking it up to the pandemic. Though on their destination splash page they talk about exploring Arabian nights and when you look at the actual options there are zero. I didn’t want to call it out specifically, but I keep looking to do royal and my calendar is almost exclusively going to NCL since the itineraries are almost always more interesting. Part of the problem is me as I am not looking for any Caribbean itineraries. Albeit when I stand in front of the plaque walls on the ships their past destinations are a lot more all encompassing than current itineraries suggest.

Much of this is surely chalked up to load factors and ‘post’-pandemic profitability. I’ve just noted that as 2024 deployment rolls out that variety is few and far between. A lot of itineraries are far leaner compared to competitors with more sea days (albeit with the ship focus maybe that is the point). Of course they are all in on the Caribbean and the shift to Australia seems a bright spot. I get why Asia and the Baltics are still absent. Where is South America, or really any consistent British Isles or Northern Europe. Let’s not even get into the African continent or Middle East. Was Royal shifting like this pre pandemic?

Utopia of the Seas is going to be pretty awkward to market. I expected the evolution of Oasis Class (make it 'bigger' from a fresh slate), so in that sense I'm not disappointed in what we've see so far. I think there is some very obvious improvements that will be notable; -Particularly the doubling of the outdoor public pool areas (from three to six), the far more interesting pool deck architecture, the huge number of water slides and a significant uptick in whirlpools. The pool deck is in almost all ways superior on paper. Save the probably bad decision to reduce to one flowrider. -There's in some senses an entire extra deck worth of pool and sun and an entire extra promenade deck from the oasis class. -The Aqua Show and Ice Show clearly will be in much more modern venues than Utopia. -The suite area is on paper also a significant improvement. That said - I am still waiting for the "innovation". Hopefully we see one tomorrow. I guess the Crowne Edge is sort of different and I am not underselling the measurable pool options. But I don't think "we covered the diving show in a glass dome" counts. Even the Quantum ships had the sky diving simulator, 270 and Northstar, probably other novelties I'm underselling. A lot hangs on the Pearl, I guess?

Oh interesting. Yes I definitely see that. I wonder if there’s a buffet or something akin to the solarium bistro because this is what I was referencing and it certainly seems to imply a second distinct venue.

I read elsewhere that its a Mediterranean restaurant called The Grove, that is indeed supposedly a second Suite only restaurant.

I think from the pool views there is a bit more nuance to it than you are seeing. The Deck 7 Splash Zone is definitively a little kids area, but interestingly the aft 'adult pool' is separated by a boardwalk bridge to enter it. I see this as the little kids area with a nice semi-half barrier spot for mom and dad to have something nice... within eye shot. I would have said that's a major loss because of sucking away all the prime aft placement, but the chill area aft on deck 15 with the infinity pool will have the far better view and looks boring adult enough and separated that it will probably skew older crowd. I would bet this becomes a defacto secondary adults predominated area and it's quite large. The ship has a solarium AND an adults only outdoor deck, which is actually a bit of an improvement even if the former seems smaller. TBD as we haven't see much of the solarium still. The deep pool and the whole category 6 area I see heavily dominated by families (6-Teens). All that aside there's STILL the other infinity pool, probably another adult forward area AND the Swim up pool (reserved for the drunk rowdy crowd). I don't see how this is a downgrade for adults from Oasis. If anything they merely took some kids areas and threw the moms and dads a bone and actually went out of their way to take the smallest families off the top decks entirely.

I think Indulge food hall is truly one of their big unsung innovations. It feels like a really nice melding of the MDR and Buffet. I agree though there's a fine line between whether it will or won't be free 6 months from now. The free options actually feel more comprehensive than any ship before, which is probably not the direction people initially expected out of NCL.

Thanks everyone! Went ahead and made the change!

Hey Cruise Critic, was going to ask this on another website but stuck with moderator approval. I have bit of a quandary that I cannot find a direct answer to as it relates to a few overlapping issues. I have a cruise booked as a solo for September 30th to Hawaii on Ovation. It was booked Spring 2021 under the double points promo. All well and good and it just so happens to cause me to bypass Emerald entirely thanks to the essentially 9Nx4 earn of 36 points (If I understand that correctly). While that seems like a masterful strategic plan, it was just dumb luck that I realized way after the fact. Or so I thought. I just realized I booked into a studio cabin and have recently put together that does not qualify for single supplement doubling of C&A points. If I were to pay (not royal Up), for an inside, or frankly even I might just spring for a balcony at current prices: 1) Does my entire final payment carry over and can I essentially just pay the difference that I am seeing currently priced out on RCCL? 2) Would that change, resulting in me paying for a regular cabin, result in x2 Solo Points. Or is it stuck to what my original cabin booking was for? 3) Would the Double Points promo from last year still retain itself on the booking, or be dropped in the process? Frankly as long as 2 of the 3 apply it's likely worth the price difference anyways. 3/3 is a no brainer at the price difference and the diamond perks for a 10 day cruise in December.

Definitely comes off more premium and modern, which is a good thing I think. Now I will say it's a bit hard to compare pricing on their first of the class versus the 6th of RCCL's. Oasis and Allure were quite pricey back in the day. I'm sure it will moderate once there are 3-4 ships.