GJustice

You can't just leave it at that, our local master of all things tech on cruise ships 🙂 Don't need a book, but some insight maybe? BOUND to be some interesting quirk behind them.

Just to follow up, I received my passport Wednesday the 3rd and DW got hers yesterday. Pretty good turnaround.9 days from start to finish.

Wanted to add after I saved it 🙂 Disregard this message: Click into the Renew Your Passport link, then to the next screen to Start an application. You won't get the "real" "we're closed" message until you get that far. Took me a few tries to realize they never seem to remove the red text on the front screen. Good Luck 🙂

We've regular Royal Caribbean cruisers (14 so far) with a B2B in November but decided since there's nothing "new" as far as itineraries from Galveston for the next couple of years to try out river cruises. Booked on the American Serenade Grand Heartland from MN to NOLA in September 2025. Found LOTS of videos on YouTube about the ACL ships and itineraries. Looking at Deck plans, I ended up moving up a couple of cabin classes (not REALLY that much more money) to get above/away from the bow gangway/entry hall/vestibule locations since ALL unloading/loading traffic passes those cabins. Likewise, the deck right above that area would likely be quite noisy as well. Ended up on deck 3 in an AAM. We're both turning 65 this year and HATE flying (hence our Galveston home port) but seems no real option until Royal gets some new smaller ships and expands itineraries.

I was able to get in yesterday to do mine and today to do DW's 🙂 Started at 12:00 CDT yesterday and 12:09 today. Got several "we're done for the day" messages today, but tried a few more times and got in, so "opening time" of "midday" seems to be a moving target. Only took about 15 minutes each, including taking the picture, saving from phone to cloud, downloading it and uploading it to the website. It's doing some sort of validation of the photo, as it took me a couple of different ones to get one that it would accept. Waiting for follow up emails of the processing status. Still shows "payment pending" even though my credit card reported the charge immediately.

Found video for sister ship Serenade and don't see a pullman. Not a guarantee, but most likely Radiance is the same.

In the before times, you could access some of the common travel sites from the computers in the Internet Cafe/RC Online/Library, where ever they put them now WITHOUT logging into your Voom account. Not sure if that works anymore, but someone might be able to confirm/deny it.

Agreed. I've had lost of issues with "group texts" that get converted from "plain SMS" to "multimedia" that some(many)times don't get through until I get back out of WiFi calling mode. I've not had problem with single texts to a single number.

AT&T requires you be on the cell network to activate WiFi calling. THEN you can test it by going into airplane mode to test it. YMMV on other carriers. I just know I once tried to set it up after we left port and wasn't able to.

You can setup/use WiFi Calling if your cell provider supports that. Make sure you setup both phones while you're still on your home cell network before you board.

We were on her (Nordic Empress) in 1993. First cruise we ever took. Our In-Laws introduced us to cruising. 🙂

I was just thinking, where's @chengkp75 and there you are!

The CPAP has a power cord and an additional one likely wouldn't be noticed. A "standalone" cord in a carryon would be very obvious.

I rode it back in Oct '21 (first post Covid cruise) and there were only 7 of us aboard. Capacity is 20 so it was great to be able to move around and see the INCREDIBLE VIEWS from all angles. I paid $55 and think it was worth it. YMMV

Following as we're booked on Serenade September 2025 and I'm leaning toward only renting a wheelchair for wife that normally uses a scooter on ocean cruises since they are such large ships. River cruise boats seem small enough that a scooter would be more trouble than it's worth.

Surprised, but they canceled it and applied the payment I had made to the cruise balance. Refund would have been nice, but I'm fine with the outcome. 😉

I DID buy both, but plan to call ACL next week to see if they do overlap and cancel the ACL one if they'll let me. Both had a short window to purchase after initial payment to get full coverage, so I didn't do my best due diligence. 🤪 I'll report back here once I get it all sorted out.

Following up - I went ahead and bought a comprehensive (including Cancel/Interruption For Any Reason) policy for this trip since there's a 21 day "window" from initial payment date to get "full" coverage. Cost about as much as the ACL plan, but between ACL plan, this policy and our Credit Card coverage we should be covered for any eventuality.

@chengkp75 Fancy meeting you over here 🙂 Seen lots of GREAT information from you over on the Royal Caribbean board. Looking forward to you take on river cruising and ACL in particular.

We're also Loyal to Royal cruisers (16 cruises) for decades now, but decided to give river cruises a try, booked next fall (2025) on Serenade for the Great Heartland Cruise (St Paul to NOLA) after doing a LOT of reading and YouTubing to learn about it. Wanted to try the Paddlewheelers, but while nostalgic, they seem to be too small and are sold out far into the future. Settled on Serenade as a better option for us. The midship gangway (when usable) looks much easier to navigate than the bow gangway for DW who has major mobility issues. I did a lot of research on rooms/decks and applied my "big ship" rules and moved up to a deck 3 cabin to get away from the crew/gangway areas which I suspect might be noisy at times we'd want/need quiet. Following this thread to see what others will contribute 🙂 We did NCL's Pride of America in 2018 as the only "good" way to see Hawaii and understand the US flagged/crewed difference and we're excited to see how that works on these boats (ships?).

It's precruise refund "protection" that gives you a larger percentage scale. It is absolutely NOT any sort of trip interruption protection. We're booked September 95 for the Mississippi River cruise but I haven't shopped any insurance yet.

Wifi calling has issues with multimedia and group texts even on land, so... Plain texts and calls work fine.

I had to call last year and learned I'd fatfingered my c&a number 🙃 they fixed it. They've always been helpful.

Where I learned to use a pizza wheel as a salad prep tool 😃

When we got ours I couldn't SEE the specks. 🙂 Was in line at the LA desk to complain when one of them caught the light "just right" and I realized there IS something there. Never worn any of them, just sitting on my dresser mirror. 😞