Royal Caribbean change age of of drinking

I wrote a blog last week about how I thought Royal Caribbean was perfect for families with small children or adults on their own but were sadly lacking for the 17-21yr old age bracket.
This is because at the age of seventeen the average British teenager is far too old for the kids clubs but won't be allowed to drink on any of Royal Caribbeans cruise ships until they turn 21, (you can read the full article here).

Now I'm not claiming responsibility for their policy change, I'm just saying it's a bit of a coincidence it happens a week after I write about it.

Hmmmmm, yes I know, I've got a big head! 

Problem with Royal Caribbean cruises?

You may or may not remember me mentioning before that one of the things I like to do after I've booked a cruise for someone is to give them a call when they get back from said cruise just to make sure they've had a good time and that nothing went wrong.
It's also useful in finding out what the different cruise lines are up to onboard and which lines are best recommended to different people.
I was making one of these calls today when my passenger highlighted what he thought was a major flaw with Royal Caribbean.
But what do you think..........?

Project Sunshine - Have you heard?

As you know I always try to keep you all informed of the latest cruise news, gossip and rumours. Working for a specialist cruise travel agency I obviously get to speak to a lot of reps from the different cruise lines and hear some of the juicer gossip.
Something I heard today however has got me quite interested so I thought I'd share it all with you straight away.

The secrets of Royal Caribbean - A round up

This is just going to be a quick round up post for you all today.
recentley Ive been writing about some of the hidden gems available onboard Royal Caribbeans ships. Just little known facts about them that you may not have realised before. However I've noticed that the different posts are all scattered over the last couple of months so I thought it might be helpful for you to collate them all in one place for ease of use.....

QM2 vs Independence of the Seas

I've been watching a show recently, (I think it was originally on Bravo), called Deadliest Warrior. It's a semi historical show where two groups of 'practical' historians will represent a warrior from the past ie a Ninja vs a Samurai. They test all the different weapons/armour that these warriors had to offer, (normally on an un-suspecting crash test dummy), and then at the end of the show all the data is collected and loaded into a computer which then determines who would of won in a fight, had they ever of met in real life.

It's actually quite fun and at they end they get two actors to enact the final result, it's definitely worth a watch.

The point of all this is that it's given me an idea for a series of blogs based on the same principal. I'm going to pitch two different ships together in a head to head 'fight' to see who comes out on top. The first match will be between.........

Should I Cruise during Hurricane Season?

I don't care about hurricane season!
I know that this sounds like a bold statement to make, hurricanes ruin many thousands of lives each year, as well as holidays but when booking on a cruise ship there really isn't anything to worry about.

I’ll explain why in a minute; first of all, talking about hurricane season in general you can practically guarantee that each year that some "expert" group will issue their prediction for the season, and no matter what it is, "highly active" or "quiet," the news media gets all excited and jumps all over it. These predictions are really of no value, other than giving the news media something to use to boost readership or viewership and try to whip the public into a frenzy.
I say these long term predictions are next to useless for several reasons.

Chocoholics Ahoy

Until a couple of days ago if you had asked me what RCI stood for I would of said Royal Caribbean International, but you could now be forgiven for thinking it stands for Royal Chocolate International.
A few months ago RCI started trialling a ‘chocolate breakfast’, including hot chocolate, chocolate milkshakes, chocolate pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate waffles with caramel-banana topping, although I couldn’t find any sign of Coco Pops on the menu. The kids menu maybe?