Sometimes you see a Royal Caribbean change coming and sometimes you're completely blindsided.

And this week I was definitely blindsided by one of the changes of Royal Caribbean made when it announced very quietly, not really announced, I guess, just kind of stuck in there in the new rules, that going forward beginning in March, the drink package, specifically the deluxe beverage package and the Royal Refresion Pack package will no longer include the Coca-Cola

freestyle cup and in addition, because you don't have the cup, you don't have access to the

Coca-Cola freestyle machine. The new change goes into effect. You cover this at real coringblog.com,

but it begins March 15th, 2026. And if you'd like to, after you buy a drink package, still have access to the

souvenir cup and or the machine, you would need to pay a $5 surcharge, $4.99. That's the cost for the

cup, and then it's good for the rest of the sailing and whatnot. It's a really interesting change

and surprising. And a lot of people have It's a really interesting change and surprising.

And a lot of people have obviously have a lot of opinions on it. Let me start off by saying, first and foremost, it's a cutback. It's not a good look and I'm not here to defend them what they're doing. What I really wanted to talk about today is why they're doing what they're doing, or at least speculate as to it. Now to be perfectly clear, if you still buy the soda package, you still get the soda

cup and access to the freestyle machines. It's just the refreshing package and the deluxe

beverage package have changed. I'm really surprised by the refreshing package. Okay, the deluxe

beverage package, you want to make the argument that if you're buying the alcohol package,

you're probably mostly using it for alcohol, fine. But the refreshing package, I would argue, is still very much leveraged by

folks who want to get soda for it. Because it's the non-alcoholic drink package, right? I mean,

sodas are still included. That's an important distinction. You can still go to a bar, lounge,

restaurant, and get a, you know, soda by the fountain, if you will, you know, serve to you or a can of it. It's just the freestyle machine and the souvenir cup. Now, there have been a lot of theories as to why Royal Herman's doing this. And I've thought about this a lot, actually. I mean, a couple theories. One is that it's wasteful, meaning the cups are either being wasted, there's a cost to them, something along those lines. Let's be clear, we'll look at me for a while now, I think for at least a couple of years, doesn't actually deliver the souvenir cups back in the day. When the drink packages first were introduced, you would get in waiting in your stateroom a souvenir cup to use. And if you bought one, you'd have one in your room, you had two packages, you had two cups in your room. And then after COVID at some point, Royal just stopped doing that. They basically put the onus on you to go get it. I'm not sure why, probably a cost thing. It's just cheaper not to pay someone to take up time and deliver them all. It's just easier for you to go and grab them if you need them. And so maybe this cutback is about waste and that many people didn't do it. I know I certainly, I wouldn't say I've never gotten it since then, the cup that is. But I think of all the times I've bought a drink package in the last, I don't know,

however many years, if I've gotten the cup, it's probably been like two or three times

at the most. So there's that aspect. There is the one possibility is that it's guests abusing

the privileges, right? Because the soda cup, once you have it, no one, there's no verification

process that you who are, you you have it, no one, there's no verification process that you,

who are, you know, have the package is the one actually using the cup. The cup has an RFAD tag at the

bottom of it. And, you know, the machines just simply scan it. So it has no idea if someone gave it to

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