twangster

Keep us informed. I can't possibly cruise with people who don't do tequila shots.

I think the actual loss isn't that substantial. Consider that on most cruises around half or more are first timers. Based on C&A numbers I've always captured at top tier events the ship is rarely full of return of guests or even 1/2 full of return guests. Time and again, most of the newbies don't find sites like this or other social media cruising sites until after they got the cruising bug. Most guests didn't know about this event. DX sales have been estimated to be less that 15-20% of guests on average. The truth is most people don't buy a package. Many people don't know about cruise planner sales or know to check for price drops. For every DX sale, many people never think to come back and check for price drops so many pay a higher rate to begin with. For me it only glitched for half of my 2020 cruises. Not all 2020 DX packages were subject to the glitch. It was a relatively short window of opportunity. Many people missed it. There is also the potential for positive side effects. Once a guest experiences the DX, many will be more inclined to bite the bullet next time. I know I enjoy it more when I cruise with the DX. There may be some positive future revenue from this. Alcohol sales are high margin. It's a huge profit center. There may be lost potential revenue but not an operational loss that appears as a red line item on a balance sheet. Some people had no intention of buying the DX in 2020. I didn't since I use Diamond happy hour drinks. Now I've bought it 4 times. Many people like me who had no intention of buying the DX did buy it because of the glitch. Sure we bought it cheap, but that is revenue that Royal never would have captured otherwise. That's a positive. Royal gets to keep and use this money for the next 8 to 16 months until guests sail. That's some money in the coffers that otherwise would not have been there. That will help make the next installment payment on the Odyssey build. Traditional DX promos have been used to stimulate sales and maximize potential revenue. Stopping those could negatively impact potential revenue long term. If people would eventually cave and buy DX at higher prices Royal would never offer DX promos. Why would they? Combine all the factors and it's a drop in the bucket. It's not going to impact stock prices or financial results.

Call Royal and ask. I get an emailed statement after the cruise. I've not seen any unexpected charges.

Pricing is relative to on board prices, not the last sale price you might have seen last week. Sales are not cumulative. Last week's promo may have been 25% off. This week promo is perhaps a BOGO. However the both are measured against on board rates. You don't get a BOGO of the last sale price from last week. In some cases they amount to the same final price, but not always and not for everyone.

It sort of is... YOU didn't bid high enough

I swear that is closer than Ovation in Vancouver.

If your ship has a Bamboo Room those handcrafted drinks are the best! : https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/11143-navigator-mar-1-2019-9-nights-southern-caribbean/&do=findComment&comment=107806 https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/11143-navigator-mar-1-2019-9-nights-southern-caribbean/&do=findComment&comment=107968

It really comes down to your expectations for your pictures. Smart phones are great for convenience and outdoor daylight photography. Even the best and newest camera phones start to fall apart in darker conditions including ones that tout special dark picture capabilities. Point and shoot cameras offer portability but typically better performance over even the best and newest phone across the spectrum of photographic conditions experienced on a cruise. They typically come with the added benefit of a zoom lens. DSLR or mirrorless will produce the best pictures at the cost of size and lugging them around. I don't bring my expensive gear on cruises anymore with the exception of bucket list destinations such as Alaska, Hawaii, Europe, Panama, etc. Here is a live blog that was captured with a point and shoot camera, albeit an expensive one: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/9521-adventure-ots-13-night-snowbird-migration-quebec-to-ft-lauderdale-oct-8-2018/ This cruise was captured with an iPhone using some extra cost lenses: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/6297-adventure-5-nights-5518-repositioning-san-juan-to-bayonne/ Both have some good pictures but many of my iPhone pictures were not good enough to post to the second blog and I vowed I'd never do another cruise without something better than a phone. Even when I bring all the camera gear I own it doesn't always come on every excursion. Particularly if I've been somewhere before I'll just take my phone to a beach for example. At the end of the day the best camera is the one you have with you.

Royal does not offer a drinking waiver for anyone. By policy for North American cruises drinking on board is determined by age on boarding day and requires being 21 prior to embarking.

When I rented from Alamo in December we shuttled from the port to the rental car center at MIA but they didn't offer the service from the airport to the ship (I asked). We debarked, rented a car and went to Key West for a few days. We weren't going back to the ship but I asked about the shuttle to the ship for future reference. I guess they figure there aren't a lot of people renting cars, returning them and heading to the ship versus folks trying to use them as a free shuttle to reach the ship. Debarking passengers wind down starting at 11am for most cruises so there would be little point with shuttles running past noon. On one hand the busses actually go that way to pickup passengers so it seemed to be a policy thing. Maybe they've updated their policy. Or maybe you got lucky since the shuttles were still running.

Not a lot of history to draw conclusive results into a predictable trend. It doesn't happen that frequently and not for a few years now so things that happened 4 or 5+ years ago aren't sure things in today's modern times. I imagine a lot depends on the deal they negotiate. If a buyer wants the ship now with few modification a sale could be quick. Most times buyers try to negotiate modifications into the deal so their financing has it all included. This might mean down time for modifications but ship yards often are booked for two years or more in advance. That may slow down a deal. It all depends and doesn't occur often so there is little historical data to draw from.

Many (most) of my cruises have no OBC. Some have small OBC. Once in while I'll get some decent OBC. However I tend to be drawn to cruise deals off season so the rates are lower and there is less promotional margin for incentives to book. It all depends.

When every one at a bar sees all the $18 drink club members throwing down a cash tip they'll just assume it's customary and start tipping cash as well. :) In seriousness though on any given cruise the number of folks who benefited are likely in a small minority. Relatively speaking when blended in with all the regular drink package purchasers and pay as you go drinkers the effect is most likely negligible. If the $18 DX club does throw in more tips than normal it's probably so close to a neutral effect it would be hard to measure.

It should be much like a charter where they typically some OBC and/or price protection on alternate cruises. It depends. At this point just assume they are going as planned. They probably will.

No mention of GB yet. All ships have different categories of balcony cabins. In some cases they are used to denote cabins capable of additional guests, in some cases you get a bigger balcony and in some cases they may be aft view balcony cabins. In some cases they are combinations of these features. Deck 7 forward on Radiance class are the only balconies that allow you to look straight down the side of the ship to the water. The extra couple of feet does mean you can rub shoulders with your neighbors but I really like these deck 7 extended balconies which are also clear to look up towards the stars.

Radiance class physically fit in Baltimore. The question is does Baltimore fit Radiance class. Tampa already has Brilliance.

Known issue when DX is purchased and cancelled prior to the cruise. SetSail passes and SeaPass cards still have the little DX on them but the billing system on board knows the truth. Bartenders want to get it right and they don't want to charge someone who has the DX so they often will double check with the guest and will often refer them to guest services.

My understanding is an expanded casino. For example the Music Hall has been removed on Quantum.

Happy dance

ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING TRAVELS Dear Guest, Well, this round’s on us. On Monday, July 1st, 2019, from 4:00 PM to 1:30 AM EST, we posted incorrect pricing of $18 USD per person, per day, for Deluxe Beverage Packages. Given that we typically price these packages at about $55 USD per person, per day, it was the (messed up) deal of the century. This was a BIG mistake! It might have been bad code, a random computer glitch — or maybe we just need to reinstate our intern typing test. Any which way, it was our error, and we’ll own it. Enjoy your deep, deep discount — while we go drown our sorrows. Happy 4th of July! Sincerely,

Only in New York City, thank goodness!

Royal uses an open source database behind the front end that we see. While they migrated the front end public website, the monster database is another matter. Lipstick on a pig. I've mentioned it before but I suspect Royal's IT organization is underfunded. Their executives talk up technology on ships yet don't want to spend any money on their IT organization or IT infrastructure. I imagine a weekly meeting with an executive goes like this: Executive - I've got this great idea where our website will let our guests do all these wonderful things IT - Given the state of our archaic systems we'll need to upgrade the 10 disparate platforms that should've been upgraded 15 years ago and consolidate them into a single modern platform. It will cost $1M and we'll need to hire 5 developers. CFO - We can't afford that. Go ahead and do it but don't spend any money.

It's a brand new plane! Canadian Bombardier CS plane who partnered with Airbus and re-branded it as A220 after Boeing went evil and a certain administration placed a 300% import duty on them. Jealous even more now. First a group cruise and now an A220 ride. What does a poor bot have to do to keep up with a Lulubot? #botenvy

Quite normal. GTY's can be filled right up to day of embarkation. Luck of the draw.