Oak Hill Cruisers

RCI serves nice cookies and eclairs in the Diamond/Concierge lounges in the afternoon. Yummy but ruins MDR appetite.

On repositioning and B2B cruises, you gotta go for the fruit plate over the sugary confections lest you look like Frank Barone sitting down with unbuckled belt and pants.

We usually call one of our table mates or tell them the night before if we intend to skip out for the buffet.

According to Weight Watchers (we're not on the program now), there is an internal 'clock' in most of us that goes off about 20 minutes after you start eating. So if it takes like 45 minutes to more than and hour to get all the courses down, you're 'full' just after the appetizer!

No problem with the buffet getting full before that clock rings.

GS and above - copy that. Thanks for the correction.

Screens on Radiance & Brilliance were pretty good - watched Rock of Ages whilst treading water in main pool. Pretty cool.

On our recent cruises on the Radiance & Brilliance, the Diamond & Concierge lounges filled up pretty quickly and they set up a food table in the main lounge.

With more & more Diamonds and Diamond + cruisers being minted, RCI had better consider making the lounges a little bigger or the Diamonds may be forced out to make room for the Diamond + & Pinnacle people.

Tip: go early or late to get into your lounge - no holding seats, please. :-)

We see lots of people dressed in tuxes and long gowns eating in the Windjammer. We guess they like dressing up for the free cocktails in the Diamond/Concierge Lounges.

I got turned away from a formal night wearing a short-sleeve collered shirt - a lose-win because, more and more, I'm favoring the Windjammer over the MDR.

Yes, the drink stations and the choice of soft-serve ice cream AND frozen yogurt on the Elation Lido Buffet was miles ahead of anything on RCI and Princess.

Buffet a great place to escape stifling formal nights and those silly waiter parades in MDR and the singing of O Solo Mio with guests waiving their napkins....;-)

On RCI, suite guests go right to the top in perks. A first-time junior suite guest gets access to the Concierge Lounge and pretty much all the perks of Diamond +, usually reserved for interior or balcony guests who have to amass like 170 plus cruise credits for Diamond + (top perk for us will be free wash & fold [200 credits for Carnival Diamond]).

Some folks (not us) could really resent the notion that first-time cruisers with extra bucks can barge into 'our' exclusive lounges that we had to log 80 to 170 nights for.

Each RCI cruise has a nice welcome back party for past guests (with champagne and heavy finger foods) hosted by the CD & captain. RCI pays LOTS of attention to repeat customers and suite guests.

Just saying......

On our Baltic cruise on RCI, the ship's clock was set to local time at one port so that folks on self-excursions would not be confused by the local time.

Carnival, RCI & Princess cruisers lamenting the McMansion-sized ships should defect to Holland America if they want something on the smaller size (and higher price). I just drool when I look at HAL's 'world cruises' on their website - only $19K for a 114-day around the world cruise. ;-)

Some folks still think that the mainstream cruise lines offer 'gourmet' food in the MDR. Really, it's on par (sometimes) with good hotel banquet fare. I'm just as happy to chow down at the buffet feeding troughs. At least you know what you're putting on your plate and not getting disappointed when served in the MDR.

Keep your expectations low and enjoy the cruise.

We've been on only one Princess cruise and several Carnival & RCI cruises. We like all of them.

One thing we like a lot on RCI is the perks once you make Diamond (80 nights) which includes access to the Diamond Lounge where there is this fantastic coffee machine that dispenses free specialty coffees and a nice continental breakfast is served every morning. The Diamond Lounge is a great place to get away from the madding crowd and read your Kindle. Also, they serve free wine and mixed drinks at a pre-dinner party every night. After we get 175 or so nights, we become Diamond + and we get a smaller & more 'exclusive' Concierge Lounge (populated by lots of monied suite guests) but we still can downgrade and slum in the Diamond Lounge which is less stuffy and more fun.

Another thing we like about RCI is the layout of the Windjammer Buffet serving stations which consist of several 'pods' rather than the single lines seen on Carnival & Princess which means almost no lines at the feeding trough.

But we liked the buffet food better on Carnival. We're not gourmands, so the MDR food on all three lines is just fine with us.

But....with our next cruise being a 36-day B2B on the Carnival Legend, how will we survive without our beloved RCI Diamond Lounge! ;-)

On RCI, if you book a suite, you get some nice perks like double cruise credit, access to the Concierge Lounge (and the Diamond Lounge - better view of the pool) with free booze and specialty coffees. Also, on most RCI ships, the suite guests have their own private sunning deck, reserved seating poolside, and reserved seating in the main theater.

But, we're interior 'troglodite' cabin dwellers and only have access to the Diamond Lounge.

Get friendly with your diamond concierge. On our last two sailings, we got off the BOTS to do a walk from London back to re-board the BOTS at Harwich and the diamond concierge held our heavy bags for us. Great service!

Super pictures and writing. Captain's Suite a little rich for us interior (trogledite) cabin dwellers. ;-)

When we were on the Radiance OTS, we chatted with several D+ and suite holders who said that the Diamond Lounge was nicer than the Concierge Lounge because it faced forward and looked onto the pool deck.

Also interesting to hear that some D+ cruisers were miffed by the 'snooty attitude' of some of the frequenters of the Concierge Lounge.

As a suite holder, you will have a gold seapass card and that will get you into anywhere you want to go, including Concierge.

I'm hoping that the Brilliance refurb has included a Diamond Club.

We had JJ on the Radiance OTS and she was just great. She told us that she was the only Korean crew member onboard and, of course, we chatted about the YouTube phenom PSY and his Gangnam Style video.

I warned JJ that I would steal that fabulous cappuccino machine.

I'm curious for reports from those who have booked the dormitory-type accommodations instead of the private staterooms. I've heard that they are similar to the accommodations in hostels.

On the 5th (Grand Promenade) deck of the Voyager class ships, there is a footbridge between the aft elevators (just aft of the Champagne Bar & Guest Relations.

This footbridge has black & yellow warning tape on the deck at each end indicating that the bridge is sloping up. But, especially on the first day, several people stumble on this footbridge. I saw one guy take a bad tumble - his cane flew 20 feet.

Watch out.

DrSmudge,

Great review!

Any reports or remarks from your fellow passengers who were booked in the dormitory accommodations?

I'm wondering how those dorms compare to dorms in hostels.

Does anyone have photos of the Class C dormitories? The Aranui website and their glossy mailed brochure do not have any pictures of the dorm areas.

We have lots of experience staying in hostels in the USA and Scandinavia, but still would like to see some pictures and get some more feedback from those who have done the dorm option on this ship.

Yeah, that ferry saved me lots of riding time when I was doing a Seattle to Washington, DC cross-country bike ride in 1974.

Southhampton to NYC on QE2 in December. Scheduled for 5 days but heavy weather added a day. Very heavy seas -- tricky dining for a day or two.

I booked 1st class with a twin porthole view. Watched Ben Vereen, Pia Zadora, and Mike Douglas in rehearsal for and taping of an on-board TV show (never aired, to my knowledge).