twangster

At the top of this page is a link for "Cruise Compass". That's the name of the daily newsletter that is delivered to your cabin. Select Anthem and hopefully there is an itinerary that is similar to yours. Room service has a $7.95 service charge per order. An order can be all the food you want and it is still $7.95. If you forget something or decide to eat more that second call would be another $7.95 service charge. Continental breakfast is free.

SeaPass card is your cabin key and what you use on board at any bars or stores to make purchases. You also use it to get on & off the ship at ports of call. Some ships require a card to be placed into a slot to activate lights and air conditioning. Basically it's the newer ships that have this feature.

Ships that use RoyalIQ so Quantum class and Harmony. Unfortunately not Allure, not yet anyways.

In the name of research I will try your recommended device on my next cruise.

No wifi once away from the ship at their private destinations.

Thanks for blogging. Makes me look forward to my Symphony cruise!

C&A discounts are sometimes combinable with other discounts. It's impossible to predict. You can search for a cruise fare and then apply your C&A member number and see if the rates drop. There are three ways to search with your C&A status applied: 1. Use the "More Filters" search The problem using this approach is that you can't see what "normal" pricing is (without C&A discount). 2. Use the "See if you qualify for exclusive rates" link. Once you are in a specific cruise you can see the price without it then use the back function to step back to the # of guests page and clink the link to apply your C&A status and search for pricing using it to see if the price changed. This can be done on a cruise by cruise basis, it forgets your C&A number if you click the "change itinerary" link and search a different cruise. 3. Ask your travel agent. I often ask mine to price a cruise with my C&A and without it. She normally does so anyways and reports the lowest rate of all the fares she can access including with and without my C&A status applied.

I've seen up to a five device plan. Are they offering a six device plan now? Keep in mind that iMessage on Apple phones works for free at the moment on Harmony.

Something to consider is "Reset Networking" on an iPhone. It will forget any saved WiFi networks such as the back home but sometimes it solves some wifi weirdness on iPhones.

Shocker! RC having issues with their website...

For that matter what about folks cruising solo? I pay full fare times two yet I only get one set of C&A on-board offers. I should get two BOGO drink coupons, two days of free internet as a Diamond or four days as a Diamond Plus, two free photos instead of one free photo and so on. When it comes to any loyalty program (airline, grocery store, cruise line, etc) the rules in the form of terms and conditions are set out for all to see and it is what it is. To be fair, Royal's Crown and Anchor Society is so much better than Carnival's VIFP program. Night and day better. Perfect? No, but I enjoy it for what it is.

Cruise fares are becoming like stock. They go up and down every few weeks. If your June cruise aligns with a downward trend you luck out at NextCruise. If your June cruise aligns with an uptick in fare prices, you lose at NextCruise. I'd suggest not to forget about using a travel agent. They can often find fares not present on the website. The website seems to have eliminated refundable fares. So far my agent can still find refundable fares in the system. One solution may be to book refundable now, then once on board in June check with NextCruise. If you get lucky and stars align you can cancel your refundable booking and go with the NextCruise booking. Having said that I didn't bother to visit NextCruise on my last cruise. I saw rates drop while on Serenade and called my agent to convert a refundable ocean view December booking into an non-refundable balcony for $30 more. After the cruise I saw rates drop on a different fall cruise and did the same thing - converted from refundable to non-refundable and upgraded my cabin from OV to a balcony. A travel agent for me is becoming like a stock broker to help me manage the up and downs of the cruise fare market but it is work on both of our parts.

I upgraded to 11.3 during my Serenade cruise and I noticed more wifi related issues after upgrading. Apple has become pretty bad with wifi issues over the last couple of years with no signs of it getting any better. I think it has to do with attempting to sense poor wifi connectivity and switching over to cellular to maintain usable connectivity. For example you are standing outside your house and while your phone is connected to your wifi it isn't really useable. The phone then switches to cellular even though you are connected to wifi. The problem seems to be the way Apple has coded it, when in airplane mode the phone is still trying to over analyze the connection and look for something better. The latency of satellite internet is causing the phone to think it needs to do something to make it better. All assumptions on my part but I do think 11.3 wifi code is worse on iPhones, at least in some circumstances such as on a ship.

For an upcoming San Juan cruise I used Royal's Air2Sea airfare. As a frequent business flier I'm pretty savvy at working the system but in this case it was cheaper using Air2Sea for the same exact flights. That's not always the case but don't forgot to check Air2Sea.

Two things in play I believe. First I don't see the option of selecting refundable or non-refundable like I did last week. There used to be a light blue box for non-refundable and a dark blue box for refundable. Now when I select a cabin type it take me directly to non-refundable pricing. The fine print for NRDB remains the same: *Price is per person (unless otherwise specified above), cruise only, reflects any promotional savings, and is subject to change and availability until booked. Non-refundable deposit: Non-refundable deposit booking (“NRDB”) cancelled prior to final payment due date will receive a future cruise credit in the amount of the deposit minus a $100 per person service fee (the “FCC”). FCC is non-transferable and expires after 12-months from issue date. 100USD/100CAD per person service fee applies to changes to NRDB ship or sail date. Note with a $250 per person deposit ($500 for two), if you cancel or change ships/dates before final payment date the penalty is deposit minus $100 service fee. With a $250 pp deposit that means you would retain $150 Future Cruise Credit (FCC) for each person. You do not get this back as a refund, it can only be applied towards a future cruise booking and you have 12 months to use it. The second item in play is the cancelation policies that recently changed as @Matt blogged about and posted above. While the NRDB policy above with an FCC is for changes prior to the final payment date, the new cancellation policies in the blog deal with changes after the final payment date and how much you will lose for cancelling the booking. For example it used to be if you cancelled 15-28 days before the cruise you lost %75. Now the policy is any cancellation under 30 days you lose 100%.