Brandis

We'll be arriving in Vancouver from an Alaskan cruise next summer with Royal Caribbean. Are they usually berthing at Canada Place or are there other cruise terminals farther away from Downtown? Also, we plan on going to Whistler after the cruise. Does anyone know a luggage transfer service that would take our suitcases to Whistler for us?

A couple of years ago, we did Whale Watching in Juneau, it was part of a bigger excursion package (Mendenhall glacier, whale watching and salmon bake) They had a $100 refund guarantee if we wouldn't see any wales, they said they didn't have to pay not even once in 10 years of operation. And we truly saw so many whales on that trip, it was amazing!

We once had a great salmon bake in Juneau, it was pretty much in the middle of the city, but there was a wooded creek with an old mine and it felt miles from civilization. 🙂

On Brilliance of the Seas, the Solarium Pool usually was open 24h a day. I sometime went up there around 3AM when just woke up. Had a nice relaxing swim, grabbed a slice of pizza from the 24h snack bar in the Solarium and went back to bed. On our upcoming TA on Wonder of the Seas, there are plenty of nights I could do that. Do they keep any of the pools open at night?

It even makes less sense for Wonder of the Seas TA. Our last day is in Nassau. Coco Cay would be farther north and closer to the final destination of Port Canaveral. And Wonder leaves Nassau in the early afternoon in order to get to Port Canaveral early in the morning. So Coco Cay would have made much more sense, they could have stayed there longer than just half a day.

RFID cards don't have a black magnetic strip, but a chip and an antenna, which is basically a thin wire which is inbedded in the card near the edge, in a loop. If you interupt the loop by punching a hole, the card won't work anymore. Why not use a plastic card sleeve on the lanyard?

Solarium Bistro is also a breakfast favorite of mine. Pretty much anything I'd want at the Windjammer I can find at the Solarium Bistro as well. If I just want some cereals and tea, Park Cafe is the place to go. And for an old-fashioned American breakfast (for us non-Americans), Johnny Rockets is great and the outdoor seating is a plus as well. That breakfast shake looks great, in the past, they didn't server milkshakes. I asked since it's included in the refreshment package but was told they only started doing shakes for lunch. We usually try the MDR once or twice per cruise for breakfast, since it's sometimes nice to be served. But there usually was a long wait until the order arrived and more often than not they got some stuff wrong or forgot to bring it.

I think, originally Oasis class was only planned to be used in the Caribbean. Wonder was supposed to go to Asia initially, so she shares some similiarities with Quantum-class ships, like the renaming of Dazzles into Music Hall and the additional casino in place of the Disco. In Oct. 2019, we were on Spectrum of the Seas out of Shanghai to Japan and certainly appreciated the fully enclosed Solarium. As an added perk, on Quantum-class ships doing Asian routes, the Solarium is part of the Suites area, so it was never crowded. Windjammer is definetly bigger, it was moved down one floor compared to the other Oasis class ships which allowed them to do a circular design, opening up room for additional seating. However, I'll certainly miss the lounge chairs in the Aqua Theatre, not sure why they got rid of them. My guess would be capacity, on a bench of the same lenght you probably get almost double as many people compared to a row of lounge chairs. Another thing which is different on Wonder compared to the other Oasis-class ships is the shows. Would have loved to see another musical onboard. But with the initially planned deployment of Wonder in Asia, I think they were trying to put in shows which don't depend too much on dialog.

In my opinion, the app is better, if it works... You can also do the health questionaire right with the check-in in the app, no idea why the same is not possible on the website. Also, the website provides no easy possibility to add the Set Sail Pass to your wallet, as it is only shown as a PDF you can print out. Another problem the app seems to have is that it cannot handle different departure ports or split cruises. Wonder is currently doing 4 night cruises out of Barcelona as well as 3 night cruises out of Rome which apparently can be booked as weeklong cruises from Barcelona as well. You still can add the 3 night cruise in the app, but as soon as you try to open it to do the online check-in, it tells you that it cannot find that cruise...

When the first ship tours of Wonder came out earlier and I saw that big movie screen on the pool deck, right over Central Park, I was worried that if they ran movies on that, the sound of the movies might spoil the atmosphere in Central Park, especially when eating outside at Giovanni's or listening to the guitar player. Looking at the current ship entertainment schedules, it seems that movies are always playing in the Aqua Theater. That would be a great change. But then I'm wondering if the screen on the pooldeck is being used for anything now.

A friend of ours who is joining us on Wonder of the Seas TA is a semi-professional icehockey player. I was wondering if he could bring his own shoes to skate during the open sessions in Studio B? Or do you have to use the skating shoes they provide?

Indeed, I'm currently cursed with the split-cruise problem. Since we aren't boarding at the main port bit mid-way in the cruise, the app won't let us do online check-in.

We booked an Oceanview GTY on Wonder of the Seas on the 4-nights pre-TA cruise. Because it is a split cruise with the main departure from Barcelona but us boarding midway through in Rome, the app doesn't recognize this cruise and we had to do the check-in on the website, where the boarding passes are shown but cannot be sent to Apple Wallet. On the readable part of the Set Sail Pass, cabin no. still says TBA, but when I scan the barcode, it supposedly shows a cabin no., which would be a balcony cabin on deck 8, which would be very nice of course. But then I'm not sure why it still says TBA. Also, I thought a GTY would only get you a cabin in the cat. you booked. Or could you get something better if you're lucky? Muster Station is already shown as D02, which is Studio B, if I'm not mistaken. Does this sound about right for an Oceanview on deck 8?

Could it be that the current cruise has been cancelled for some reason? When you look at the menus in the main dining room, it always shows the menus of the current cruise. If the current cruise is only 8 nights long but yours is 15 nights, you'll see tabs for the menus of 15 nights in the MDR, but after night 7 or 8, it will just say "Venue closed".

Or I just go back to wash my hands again before starting to eat. Besides, I normally don't eat with my hand but use utensils 🙂

However, the agent I was talking to didn't even try to answer my question and said right away that she would have to get in touch with a "resolution specialist" who supposedly should know that stuff. But given the answer, I'm still not very confident that we won't have to test for the TA even though we have been on a short med cruise with no test requirement as the first leg of the B2B.

Yeah, I know. It's mostly because then you aren't in the middle of it all and are a bit shielded at least on one side. Also, being from Europe and not being used to AC, I found that usually there is less chance of a draft when sitting near the outside walls.

Similiar situation for me. We're doing the 3 nights cruise from Rome to Barcelona, followed by the Transatlantic on Wonder. Since the first is shorter than 7 days and doesn't go to Greece, no test is needed. However, for the TA, full vaccination is mandatory and a test done not older than 3 days before boarding. Since the previous cruise will already have started outside of the testing window, I called RCL to ask if they would offer tests on board for B2B passengers. The agent I talked to didn't know, so she contacted a resolution specialist and his answer was we wouldn't need to do a test for the TA as no test was necessary on the first leg, so the same would be true for B2B passengers on the second leg. Still not sure about this, but in case it's not, I really hope they will let us do the test on board.

We like Fishlips Bar & Grill, it's pretty close to Terminal 1. They have a second floor deck with great views of the waterway and the ships. Their food is very good as well. If we vacation in Orlando, we usually try to get in an afternoon trip to Cocoa Beach to visit Fishlips and do some cruise ship watching. https://www.fishlipswaterfront.com/

Even worse, if ships call in Warnemünde in Germany, most itineraries say "Berlin" which is landlocked as well and a 3 hour trainride away.

We have done 2 cruises over Halloween in the past. First was 2018 on Harmony. There, they had decorations and carved pumpkins all over the ship. In the evening, Windjammer had a Halloween dessert buffet with cool looking scary cakes. They had a walk-through haunted house in Boleros which was fun. Later in the evening, there was a packed Halloween party in the promenade, complete with a balloon drop. Lots of people in costumes. 2019, we were on Spectrum out of Shanghai to Japan. They had a few decorations on the Esplanade, the Halloween Dessert Buffet in Windjammer was very cool as well. About 80% of the passengers were Chinese, which usually disappeared from the public areas by 8 or 9 PM. Of the remaining Westerners only a few had costumes. But they had a cool Halloween party with costume contest in the aft 270 lounge with a projected animated Halloween backdrop. Our upcoming TA on Wonder leaves Barcelona on Oct. 30, so Halloween will be on day 2, looking forward to it and bringing a costume myself this time.

Do you think it is more effective to send a mail a couple of weeks before the cruise or to talk to the Restaurant Manager on the cruise before as we do a short cruise before the TA on Wonder in October. On the longer cruise, we are a party of 8 and have a couple of first time cruiser which might enjoy sitting near a window. I also think those tables usually are a bit quieter than when you sit somewhere in the middle of the room with other tables on all sides.

I guess it's also because people might show up late on the first day, Waiters have to introduce themselves, explain procedures to new cruisers and getting to know the new guests as well. On our Japan cruise out of Shanghai on Spectrum, it was actually quite the opposite. Apparently, chinese cruisers prefer to get done with their meal as quickly as possible. We prefer to take our time. So by the time we had finished with the appetizers, the chinese families around us already were in the middle of dessert, pretty much getting ready to leave. 🙂 Even with telling the waiters to take their time, we were done in less than an hour. But the food wasn't good anyways. For Westeners, they just had a laminated paper with a couple of menu options (even with pictures), it felt like ordering at a street vendor in an exotic country. Luckily we had the lowest category of junior suites booked (they were really affordable) which included their own restaurant and lounge (Silver Dining) in the place where the Solarium Bistro normally is. Service and food there were top class and we never went back to the Main Dining Room. For higher category suites, there was even another dining location on the floor above, called Gold Dining and Lounge 🙂 Looking forward to enjoy the Main Dining Room on our upcoming TA on Wonder. Heard good things about the food quality there.

Once took the train from Villefranche to Monaco. When we left the train, I noticed a purse on a seat. It contained a US student ID and a couple 100$ in cash. As there was a photo on the ID we looked around the station if we could find the owner, but there were so many people and we were pretty much the last to leave the train, so we probably missed them. So I kept the purse and when we passed a police station, I went in and wanted to drop it for lost and found. The officers obviously weren't in the mood to work and almost treated me as if I had stolen the purse, they asked where I found it and since it was in the french train, they said I should bring it to french lost and found (which I didn't have time for, since we had to get back to the ship in Villefrance and the lost and found office for the french train company would have been in Nice). Then they asked me why I just didn't keep the money, it sounded as if they thought I was stupid to hand it in. In the end, I just told them that I thought it was the right thing to do and that I wanted to go on enjoying my vacation day. So he finally, but still unwillingly, took down a report on his typewriter and after about 20 min. I was free to go. Wasn't a very nice experience.

I'm curious how the beds on Wonder will be, as she is fairly new. I also hope firm, as I do have a firm mattress at home as well and my back aches if the mattress is too soft. A couple of years ago, we cruised on Brilliance. On boarding day, we saw how they loaded hundreds of new mattresses. About mid-cruise, they changed the mattresses in our cabin and the difference was amazin. Before, the mattress was sagging in the middle, the new one was perfect. Our last port was Labadee and they unloaded the old mattresses there, I assume to donate them to the communities. Some of them looked pretty gross, but probably still a lot better for some haitian families than sleeping on a piece of cardboard. That said, there is a limit to the firmness I appreciate. We once slept in a Korean-owned hotel in Beijing and the bed literally was a concrete slab covered by a thin topper. That was horrible 🙂