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twangster

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Everything posted by twangster

  1. The pricing I've heard is closer to $2,500 for overwater cabanas for 8 guests, somewhat less for 6 guests. This includes entry to Coco Beach Club so the pricing will be higher than non-Coco Beach Beach cabanas.
  2. PDF Version CocoCay Cabana Guide.pdf
  3. Shouldn't be a problem. All the water park Cabanas are well away from the slide spray zones.
  4. The 10 drink can be shared. A couple can buy one card and enjoy 5 drinks each. Unlike the Deluxe beverage package, they encourage sharing the 10 drink card.
  5. Not after September. It will begin to offer the same misleading marketing enjoyed on other ships in NCL fleet. https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/21130-norwegian-ends-open-bar-on-sun-and-sky.html
  6. CLIA routinely meets with different cities and regions to represent the cruise industry as a whole. If you were an owner of a hotel you would lobby against the cruise industry. If you were a bar or restaurant that enjoys business from cruise passengers you would be in favor or cruise ship visits. There are two sides to every story. Some benefit from cruise ships, some don't. Nothing unique to the cruise industry. I visited Stonehenge when you could walk right up and touch them. Tourists got out of control. People wrote on them, stood on them. Traffic became a nightmare. Roads had to be expanded, a visitors center was built. Such is tourism.
  7. My understanding is that the NCL Sky will no longer include drinks. I recall seeing an announcement that after a certain date the free drinks are gone. Nothing is free on any ship. It might be included, but you pay for everything on a ship that is included. Don't believe for a minute that NCL is operating with lower profit margins. No business is going to leave money on the table. Creative marketing at it's finest. The disadvantage is for people who don't drink. They help to pay for everyone else's libations.
  8. From what I’ve heard the acquisition rate for the DX is somewhere around 20% on average. Royal is totally into data analytics. This increase wasn’t done to make up for this or that, it’s because the numbers support it or there is other reasoning behind it. They will constantly test to see what the market will bear. It also creates an opportunity for sale events that appear to be really great deals which will increase acquisition rates. If the new normal is $85 on board then a cruise planner sale comes along at $56 that will appear to be a great deal and large numbers will be motivated to jump on that deal where as today $56 is or was on the high end. Plenty of new, never cruised before make the mistake of buying drinks as they go and having large bar bills. That’s not a bad worst case scenario for Royal. The majority of cruisers are not Diamond or higher. The acquisition rate of DX for this small segment of their customer base will likely not change very much. However people may be motivated more for a push to achieve Diamond for the free happy hour drinks which are immensely popular. Another worst case scenario is the trial proves to be in error and they lower prices again or offer more sales promotions. Perhaps they have plans to offer Celebrity like perk bundles which are popular on Celebrity. By raising DX prices the perks will appear to have greater value.
  9. Not all St Thomas stops are equal. St John's works best when you have a long day in St Thomas. What hours are you there? Here was a day in St Thomas and the Royal excursion to St John's last year from Serenade: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/6002-serenade-33018-10-night-eastern-caribbean/&do=findComment&comment=64272 This excursion was called "St John's "All Inclusive" Beach & Snorkel". If doing your own thing plan not to take the last possible ferry and don't assume a cab will be around when you need one. Give yourself lots of buffer, islands ferries run on island time.
  10. Day 7 - Sea Day On our way back to Miami. Lot's going on around the ship but I'm on my office balcony working some more. Voom has worked better on this cruise. While in St Thomas my cell signal would drop randomly before coming back. I ended up going back on Voom and using wifi calling which was more stable compared to the local cell towers.
  11. Dinner in Chops, the second of my D+ BOGO. This is the 8th times I've eaten in Chops on Empress and it was bound to happen, the odds were not in my favor. Finally a meal that was just okay. Service was great but the filet lacked in flavor just a bit. It's wasn't a bad steak but it was just average. Maybe the Diamond Happy Hour wine closed down my taste buds, a better wine might have enhanced the meal. Should have stuck with a paid glass of wine.
  12. Day 6 - St Thomas After a short overnight ride over from Tortola we arrived to a rain storm in St Thomas at Crown Bay. Fortunately it's the Caribbean. If you don't like the weather wait 15 minutes. This is a work day for me. Gotta pay for these cruises somehow. I stayed on the ship. #boring I was curious where we went last night since it's a very short distance. Looks like we just puddled around for a bit then made our way to St Thomas.
  13. I haven't put a lot of effort into renting a car at CB. I used to fly to St Thomas often before moving there for a spell. I rented at the airport. Looking at Google Maps I see a few car rental places but they are a 10-15 minute walk. Looks like choices are Budget, Dollar, Thrifty, Discount, Premium and Economy. Note: some state in the contract that you can't go to St. John's. They drive on the left in St Thomas but cars are left hand drive. Just a heads up, it takes practice getting used to driving on the other side of the road.
  14. Not an issue. After St Thomas was reopened following the storms I was on Anthem into Havensight. CB had an Oasis class and a leased ship that was housing relief workers so CB was full. Havensight is 100%.
  15. The two port areas are operated by different companies. I suspect Royal has better terms or rates with Crown Bay.
  16. Melbourne is a sleepy little airport which can be great but sometimes that means rental cars options are more limited or priced higher. It's also not that much closer, it's still a drive. One thing I didn't like, if a flight has delays or cancels there are very few flights into Melbourne while Orlando has many daily flight that your airline can move you to if one flight cancels. I did Melbourne once but now just use Orlando when cruising from PC.
  17. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/08/14/royal-caribbean-adding-late-night-and-two-call-visits-perfect-day-cococay At the moment some are "late night" and some are two stops or a combination of both. I don't think they are offering overnight stays at the moment. Two stops because they are replacing a sea day with a 2nd stop. The stops are not typically two consecutive days in a row but that could happen..
  18. The types of incidents that make the news are few and far between. Things can happen with or without alcohol when people perceive someone has done them wrong. On an increasing basis people are easily offended when they see something that isn't their way of living. A few people drinking and talking loudly in a hot tub is just good fun and enjoyable to some people but downright outlandish and god forsaking to someone who doesn't drink based on their religion. I was on a cruise over Super Bowl and didn't observe any outlandish drunken behavior or fights yet people went into a FB group to complain "drunken people were all over the place wreaking havoc on their vacation the whole cruise".
  19. Royal tends to dock at Crown Bay unless CB is full, at least in my experience.
  20. I lied. Chops on Empress was $39.99 plus 18% for a total of $47.19 on board using my BOGO.
  21. The port area is very nice with some shopping, a few waterfront bars and no pushy vendors.
  22. Too soon it was 12:45pm and time to head back to the real world. The barge returned victims back to the excursion boat. With that we were off towards Tortola.
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