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Recently while surfing the RCCL website looking at cruises I noticed a number of great cruises with a "Flash Sale" savings. The savings for the two of us usually amounted to 550 dollars per cruise per cabin. We generally stay in a Grand Suite and prefer the smaller ships. We also enjoy Perfect Day at CocoCay and Labadee over busy shopping ports. I guess you could say we enjoy cruising, ships and the nice people we meet. Also smaller ships are all older which greatly reduces the cost of cruising. Long story short I was able to book eight cruises which all had Flash Sale savings which allowed us to book an additional cruise with the savings. We're trying to get caught up after the shutdown and this should just about do it. At 73 every cruise is a blessing. Bill

We were on the Oasis 2 weeks ago and asked for the room to be cleaned in the morning. The cabin attendant asked if we wanted the couch left as the bed all week or if we wanted it put back as the sofa in the morning. He would then stop back while we were at dinner and make the sofa back to a bed. We asked for it to go back as a couch during the day and bed at night.

I've sailed Allure a number of times but in more recent times twice since the restart. Still a great ship. I'm secretly hoping they don't add the purple monster but if they do it'll still be a great ship.

Oh, the old buy eight get one free marketing gimmick.....

We transferred our last reservation to MEI with no issue. We got paired with Jenn and she's been amazing. She assisted us with changing an October cruise to December and was able to get the room we requested to be near our family members. Any time I've emailed her, I've heard back quickly, even on a Sunday. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with your TA but maybe give MEI another chance.

Since there are three different Carribean cruise destinations it would be nice to split the search options. I’m looking for a southern cruise for maybe next year. So I think it would be easier if they broke out the search option to western eastern and southern. That instead of just Caribbean cruises. Just an idea to make searching easier.

Day 4 First move this morning was to the Solarium hot tub at about where I again encountered my “tubmates” from Alaska, who were discussing the -20 temperatures they had left behind. Made the hot tub temperature seem even higher, and my sore leg muscles from yesterday’s treks were delighted! Then back to the cabin for a shower and get ready for the day. VB screen is still blank (except for the simulated balcony railing) so called Maintenance who said thy would check it. Off to breakfast in the MDR, where I’m welcomed with smiles and a window side 2 top - so nice! Sea day today, and it’s lived up to its name — lots of sea, and running high! A fair amount of wind, too, and not very warm, so most people are staying inside. Went to the Captain’s Corner with Captain James and CD Thiago. Really well done, although kind of sparsely attended. Got a nice fact sheet on Navigator which was very informative. Captain James is a great communicator and is very engaging. So, on to Sob reason #2: I decided to watch the GU-UConn elite 8 game in my cabin; listened to some of the radio broadcast during dinner (my AirPods were hidden by my hair, and I was careful not to outwardly react to what I was hearing.). Dinner was Mixed salad and arancini for appetizers, and New York Strip with baked potato and roast vegetables (broccoli and carrot slices). I asked for Medium — and I got Medium! The baked potato was perfect, and the broccoli, although I didn’t get any “roasted” impression, was nicely done without being soggy. BTW, I don’t eat cooked carrots if I can avoid it, and this time was no exception. So, I made a happy plate with just two carrot slices and a little strip of fat from the steak left on it. No dessert, as I had plans. On the way back up to the cabin, I grabbed a little slice of cake and two coconut cookies from Cafe Promenade, and two glasses of wine (to last the rest of the evening, I thought). OK, ready for the rest of the game! Well, no, I wasn’t ready for THAT outcome. At its conclusion, I turned off the TV and just kind of vegged for a while. Figured I would go to the Production show, and JUST as I reach deck 5, there’s an announcement that due to technical difficulties on the stage, the show will be postponed until Day 5. So there are hundreds of sad people around me now. Time for a Kraken and Coke, and a retreat to my cabin to work on language skills with Duolingo and vocabulary skills with Wordscapes. Oh, and did I mention that my VB screen is frozen once again? Tomorrow, Ensenada, where I can kayak my cares away! One piece of good news is that it should reach high tide right around the time we’ll be near La Bufadora (2 pm), so the water “geyser” should reach pretty good heights!

I noticed a few complaints on these board regarding the service they have received from RCL. And while I am the first to say they aren’t perfect I thought I would share a couple of examples of where they have gone the extra mile to make things right when they have gone wrong. In each case we received service which was above and beyond what we expected. In each case we just let them know there was an issue and never expected anything in compensation. My advice. If there is an issue let them know. Be nice and polite. Remember every staff member wants to make your cruise enjoyable and whatever went wrong it either wasn’t the staff members fault or if it was a mistake on their part they do it on purpose. An issue with air-conditioning (we think) We were in a room that had a bit of an issue with the air-conditioned. We mentioned it to our stateroom attendant who apologised and got maintenance to look at it. It took them a couple of days to fix it but eventually got it working. We thought nothing of it and forgot about it. On our last day we got a letter in our state room saying a 30% refund had been credited to our credit card. They didn’t mention what it was for hence we ‘think’ it was due to the air-conditioner. Cancelled excursion due to weather. We were on an Alaskan cruise and had saved up to an excursion of a lifetime which included a helicopter ride to a glacier and then a bobsled ride. Unfortunately there was low cloud cover most of the morning so the helicopters couldn’t fly. This certainly wasn’t in RCL control but they offered us a more expensive excursion which also included a helicopter flight later in the day. Unfortunately this also got cancelled as the weather hadn’t lifted. We thought that was the end of it and resigned to not being able to take the trip. About an hour later we got a call on our cellphone only to tell us that they had one spare space on a flight leaving in 30 minutes which they guaranteed would fly. While it meant I couldn’t go as there was only one seat my wife had an amazing trip. What I was impressed with is they took the time t to ring us and see if we wanted the spare seat. They didn’t have to do that. No sugar free soda in Coke Freestyle We were on a cruise where they didn’t have any sugar free soda on the ship. We mentioned we couldn’t find diet free soda to one of the staff in the Windjammer out of passing. Before we know it a manager came and gave us bottles of diet coke and let us know we could go to any bar and ask for free diet soda. We thought that was the end of it… then when we got back to our room that afternoon there was a plate of cookies waiting for us with a little note. Then every day or so another plate of cookies in our stateroom Issue with on board credit We made a booking for an upcoming cruise and there was a bit of an issue with the onboard credit. The indicated we would receive $400 when in fact we received $50. A quick email to RCL and not only did they fix the mistake but they added a whole $400 making it $450 onboard credit.

Cough, cough, (photoshop), cough, cough. Oops. Did I say that out loud? Darn it.

Who else is ready to cruise for the holidays??? I don't know about you, but I am so excited!!! I will be sailing with my family of five for the very first time! Everyone is a new cruiser except me. I have been on two cruises in the past with Norwegian. I am looking forward to experiencing Royal Caribbean, which comes highly recommended from my cousin. 265 more days to go...

We'll be on this sailing! It's our family's first cruise as well, and we can't wait! My kids already made a massive paper chain countdown that has taken over my hallway.

A TA can put a short hold on a room for you. I'm not sure how long. You can't do it yourself but you can book as refundable.

We just got off Anthem this morning. Absolutely no issues or itinerary changes. Actually made it to our three ports ahead of schedule.

This document gives a nice overview, easily perused. It is kept somewhat up to date https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/countries/ITA/pdf/Fleet-Guide.pdf

Bar was pretty well stocked last week on Jewel. I did my best to empty some bottles, too.

Remember, your GTY rate is for ocean view or higher. If you bid on an upgrade, you could theoretically "win" but your original room could eventually be assigned a better room. (This would be very rare of course). But there's no need to worry at this point. GTY rooms can be assigned anytime between the day you book and the day you board with no obvious pattern to when or where and at a better price.

Last cruise I did notice a lack of supplies in the bars and shops (i.e. no Crown Royal) no sure if it was just or just supply issues. In the end it didn't diminish my experience. The cruise experience is always changing and I just go with the flow. As I see right now RCL had 8.5 Billion in debt a the end of 2019 and are sitting around 21.3 Billion at the end of 2022. Carnival in the time went from 9 Billion to 32 Billion. They're all in the same boat. The tourist industry got smacked hard and I look at it being in pure survival mode right now. Add in the high inflation for the past year. No way they can offer what they did pre pandemic at that cost. Right now I want them to do what is required to allow their long term survival.

"Routine engine maintenance" was cited as the reason for adjusting a number of itineraries as far back as June last year. On our 12-night Canaries cruise in September/October, although we did not skip any ports, our time was cut in several of them, sometimes significantly, such as Madeira and Tenerife, where our full-day stops were effectively reduced to half. I have two upcoming cruises on Anthem, one next month and one in July, and I would not be at all surprised to get one of those emails any day now where they say they're enhancing the cruise by changing the itinerary.

there was a sargassum/sea grass issue a bit in costa maya, but that's western caribbean and the beach resort did a great job of grooming it/getting it cleared away for us the entire day.

Funny they never took down this commercial for the "Amped" Allure on their Mexican youtube channel:

This past cruise on Jewel we had an AC pipe leaking which resulted in a wet carpet. Housekeeping was great in both getting the carpet dried and disinfected as well as getting the actual problem fixed, with essentially zero impact to us other than when they had the carpet pulled up to dry. I got a 25% FCC for my troubles (though it was really no trouble at all, but I'm not going to turn down 25% FCC from what ended up a pretty expensive cruise.)

It depends. Assuming you're booked on a through ticket (i.e. with the same airline or airlines that have an agreement such as American and Iberia), your bags would be checked through to Barcelona. You would not have to collect them in Frankfurt. On arrival in Frankfurt you would go through immigration (passport control) but not customs. On arrival in Barcelona you collect your bags and go through customs (but not immigration, since you did that in Frankfurt). However, if you are booked on two separate tickets or with airlines that don't have an agreement, then you will have to clear immigration, collect your bags, clear customs, re-check your bags and go back through security, but you wouldn't have to do either immigration or customs again. Under certain circumstances (such as a visit by the Pope, an international summit or an imminent terrorist threat) EU member states are allowed to tighten their border controls and in those cases you could conceivably have to go through immigration again on arrival in Barcelona so you should be prepared for the eventuality, although these occurrences are very rare.

I plan to have a copy of my invoice on my phone if necessary. I paid for the perk and I want it.

:some more background info: harmony is probably not my first choice for O-class ships (we like symphony and oasis the best) but i do prefer sabor to el loco fresh, especially now that ELF no longer serves breakfast. ...excuse me, i need to go into mourning now. i miss the days of el loco breakfast. i know you can go to the jammer and get all the pieces and do it yourself but it's just not the same!! #firstworld problems. this is the least planned of the three cruises we've had on the books from december 2022-now, so i am also going to try and challenge myself to pack less. ...key word being challenge. we are also very aware of the fact that the sun is going to be HOT HOT HOT. much hotter than our usual times of december/february, so anywhere we can find an umbrella when in the sun will be a priority for us. even we know our limits. dinner we have reservations at sabor one night and will probably go back there for dinner at least once more if J likes it. i am definitely going to try and get us into jamies for the truffle pasta one night as my love for truffles cannot be stated enough. since we are not in a JS, there will be no dinners at coastal kitchen for us - i have already made MDR resos for every night at 6:45 as a precaution, as our one glaring miss on odyssey in december was not having MDR or other dinner options and we felt it keenly. honestly, i could eat tuna fish (un)melts from park cafe each day close to dinner time and probably be fine, supplementing with pizza from sorrentos - but even i love a good salad and grilled vegetables at times. we'll figure it out as we go along. ports/excursions we are returning to the holland house on st. maarten!! i have already emailed the hotel to have us slotted in for a day pass (two chairs, umbrella, and 4 drinks along with wifi and bathrooms) for $25 plus tax. it probably isn't the cheapest of the beach chair options, but we love the staff and the white umbrellas and the peace of being there. we also feel safe there (since we've been there a few times) and that goes a long way, too. this is the second sailing that we scored beach club passes at PDCC on the BF sale, so we'll be going there on the last day. this time, we will walk straight on through instead of taking the tram and i'm hoping to score the seats we had again last time. (though i would definitely change up my lunch order) drinks we each ordered the water package when it was still the 24 oz dink dink bottles. since then, it has changed in the cruise planner to the 1-liter bottles of water... so i have no idea if we're going to get two 1-liter cases of 12 bottles between us OR FOUR 1-liter cases of water. STAY TUNED ON THAT. if we get four, there is absolutely no way we can drink all of that. i think someone here has returned/rejected a water package before - would be willing to fight for the returned OBC if that's the case. (more money for specialty dining!!) one of the things we did not do on symphony the last time was to grab a drink at wonderland. i am intrigued by their drinks menu and love that we could go for a quick diamond drink and then carry on to dinner. it's loosely on the agenda for us this time around, but we'll see how it goes. we will likely divert to vintages for champagne and call it a day. entertainment we have resos for the aqua show and for grease. we didn't make it to hairspray last time because that was the day we needed to change cabins, but i really WOULD like to make it a show onboard one of these days. the aqua show is always my favorite, so i am looking forward to that as well. we didn't (but don't usually) get tickets for the comedy or ice shows, but that'll probably be when we head to CP to play uno. lastly, we have a little bit of OBC that we will split and then of course, that extra $50 for the premiere pass fiasco -- perhaps we can use that towards jaimes. i've already printed out my packing lists -- don't judge, i have one for outfits (ostensibly so i don't overpack; it may come as no surprise that this doesn't work as planned ) and one for everything else. it is... double sided. (i am very type-A, guys.) given that we are in a CP balcony and not the JS this time, i know there's going to be a little less space than we are used to, so i am going to TRY to pack less. seriously. i swear.

The Allure is darn near perfect, IMHO

Can we hold a room on a future cruise with out paying the deposit? Or is that required?

Hello all, After may cruises staying in a interior room, our last cruise was a balcony room. After having that room for a week, I don't think I can ever go back to an interior room again Well? now I've booked a Suite. Granted it's only a Junior Suite, but I'm hoping it's worth it vs a standard balcony room. If it is, I feel that I may going on a dangerous road wanted to keep stepping up My question is?? What perks (if any) can I expect with having a Junior Suite? I think I've heard that all suite guests regardless of what type have priority boarding? Is this true? Also, do suite guests have access to a different dining room? Just want to know what perks come with this room so that I don't miss out on anything. We will be on the Harmony this October. Thank you all!

We had a waiter doing his first cruise on his new contract, and first with the new menus. He unfortunately didn't know anything about the menu, GF or not. But had no issues with ordering the GF and no issues come the next day.

Oh good I’m glad to hear that. I am so much looking forward to our vacation. We’ve been planning this for 2 years. But since it’s our first cruise. I did t have any expectations. Only what I’ve read and heard. So either way I feel we will have a great time. It’s hard to be disappointed when you do t expect anything

"Hog chickens, not chairs"

YES! Finally... we could check in yesterday (day 42 before cruise) at around 2:30p in the afternoon. Earliest check-in time was 11a (other cruises I've had 10:30a as the earliest.) Maybe because this is a repositioning cruise. I'm on a FB roll call and 11a was the earliest for everyone.

Day 2 (continued — and on to) Day 3: Yeah, no (now there’s an oxymoron for you!). I will try to right this sinking blog by reverse blogging - to bring me back to where I was two days ago;-) TODAY is Day 5 (sob reason #1). We are now heading through the Ensenada harbor towards our berth which will be catty-corner (as usual) to the Carnival ship which is already there. Personally I prefer our berth as the VB camera points out towards sea and the upper decks have a great view of Ensenada. My long-awaited kayak excursion to La Bufadora doesn’t leave until noon (it’s now 8:09 a.m.) so I’m having a leisurely breakfast in the MDR. I woke up about 6 am to see that my VB screen stil had no live image. I checked the Bridge cam on the TV, and sure enough, it was morning outside! Since this is the second morning this has happened (I called “Maintenance” yesterday morning about it, and by the time I got back from breakfast, it was “fixed,” so I assumed they had been by), I checked in at Guest Services, who said they would contact IT. Of course, by the time I got back from watching the sunrise, it was working again. That is just the way things work! Then IT called me; I tried to describe the recurring “outages” and they insisted it was because it was too dark for the camera feed to work. To make a longer story shorter, I will note what time it goes “off” tonight, and what time it comes back on tomorrow morning, and note it on my survey. I really like the Virtual Balcony cabins, and that live view is an integral part of the experience. Breakfast pix!

Hi @DannyWC! Take a look at previous Cruise Compasses for Oasis to get a better idea of the food venues, general hours, etc... https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=275 Here's a snapshot from one day of a Cruise Compass from this month:

If your balance due is $500 in July you'll be set.

I thought I had read they would still do the pull out and put away of the couch, I could be mistaken. On a cruise back in November the attendant never put away the pull out sofa for my friends room. I was not onboard or I would have let her know it is supposed to be a provided service.

When we changed planes in Frankfort for Barcelona, we had to make sure and follow the signs for passengers with connections. You don't want to exit to baggage claim unless you are instructed to do so.

I love Harmony, so far she is my top Oasis class ship. Did you book Sabor and Jamie's already in the planner or will you wait to board? The Cheshire Cosmo is my favorite Wonderland drink. Yay cardinal sin buddy flying in the same day as I normally do.

Being semi retired I have a lot of time to research. One of the tools I use when scouting out cruises is cruise plum. Try them and see what you think. https://www.cruiseplum.com

She was supposed to receive amplification in 2020 (but we all know what happened that year ) Royal have since postposed her amplification indefinitely, but she was supposed to receive: Ultimate Abyss dry slides The Perfect Storm waterslides Revamped Adventure Ocean and teens spaces Expanded Splashaway Bay Lime & Coconut Bar Laser Tag: Clash in the Crystal City The Royal Escape Room – Apollo 18: Lunar Landing Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar restaurant Portside BBQ restaurant El Loco Fresh restaurant The Sugar Beach candy store Bionic Bar Spotlight Karaoke Music Hall Personally, if Royal ever decided to send an Oasis class ship down to Australia, I'd want it to be Allure, she's the only one left that doesn't have all the fancy waterslides etc! And she looks way nicer than her sisters... Wonder looks way too cluttered on her top deck... that's just me though, beauty is subjective...

Good to know about St. Thomas leaving at around 3. We’re not early rise people so I think after breakfast aboard the ship we’ll just relax at Magens beach for a few hours. Looks like at. Maarten is where we’ll do some sight seeing

Speaking of 1 year, has there been any discussion, official or unofficial, of a group hotel or maybe more importantly transportation to Colon from Panama City?

After a royal up for the cruise I just got off, my new set sail pass was white and had no status or category on it. After using the browser console to edit the HTML, mine suddenly had the right colors, status and category. Not that it matters, as long as you act confident in what line you need to be in, I've never had anyone look anyway.

I tried it once and got super queasy. But I also got queasy doing VR minecraft with my kids at home

https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9227510 I see she is out doing donuts off the coast of Spain.

If you currently have an annual tier comp on the books, you only have 7 days left to use it. It will expire on 3-31-23.

Made it to Grand Cayman but we’ve anchored off the south shore instead of the west which has delayed arrival and messed with private excursions. We got in contact with our bike rental and alerted them to the change so we hope we’ll still get those! Sun is finally shining but all underwater (snorkel/dive/glass bottom) Royal excursions were canceled due to low visibility. Falling behind on the blog but will update on our Cozumel adventure later, we loved seeing three sides of that flat thing!

A lot of this information is dynamic. It changes on a regular basis, sometimes, daily. Keeping data bases updated requires good communication and hands on the keyboard. Companies have a lot of focus on this when it comes to cash flow. Public schedules and such, not so much. Its more localized by cruise directors and ship. People usually choose their cruise by port, destination and cost. Smaller details like an Escape Room can usually be found out by drilling down to each individual ship once it is chosen.

Just be faster than than the other part of “We” and you won’t need bear spray.