twangster

Several price drops for Jewel to Norway this spring. Final payment due date approaching and I have saved several hundred with three price drops over past few weeks although last drop was minor. My cabin type comes and goes from inventory so it’s been an exercise in checking frequently.

If OP had 28 points before the cruise then a child earning 14 points from zero would not impact the relationship highest member counter unless the child also had 28 points before the cruise. However given that the child is 2, it’s unlikely they have sailed enough in their short lifetime to be 28 points before the cruise. A child can’t cruise before an age of 6 months so it’s a short window for a 2 yo child to earn 28 points. I’m also not sure a minor child’s counter can trump their parent’s counter. A CAS relationship flows from parents to minor children. I’ve never seen an example of a minor child having more points than their parents. Possible I suppose, but it’s not clear Royal would let the child’s status dictate the parent’s status.

For future reference always request copies of the Royal Caribbean booking invoice for all cruises and if any updates are made, changing cabins, price adjustments, etc., request a new copy of the booking invoice.

The current state of the loyalty program isn't an accident or reached by some inadvertent mistake along the way. The current state of the loyalty program is where it is because that is what Royal wants it to be. Furthermore I'm betting Royal wants it to scale higher, not lower. They don't intend to cut it back, they desire it to scale to 10x what it is today. To get there Royal needs to remove components of the program that restrict that growth from occurring. You can't create a room large to accommodate the scale that Royal hopes to achieve with the CAS. The lounge has got to go. Don't shoot the messenger.

A TA can move an NRD booking into a group but it will remain NRD and you must satisfy the full PP deposit requirement for groups so a $100 NC NRD deposit will require putting down more deposit money to move it into a group. Suites are not typically offered for group rates but can be moved into a group for other purposes like a group cruise. You typically lose the $100 deposit requiring full deposit for refundable at NC and often the NC OBC is decimated so it rarely makes sense to book refundable at NC. With only $100 at risk with an NRD booking I rarely book refundable at NC anymore.

The Diamond lounge concept was great in the day but it will never scale to where Royal is taking the loyalty program. The fact that we have reached this point in the life cycle of the DL isn't a problem. That is a sign of success. Perks like free drinks are a huge win for the company. Alcohol is cheap and four free drinks every day gives Royal a huge leg up when a cruiser shops across cruise lines. Real estate is hard to come by on a ship. This is a step in the ongoing life cycle of the DL concept. Eventually a free coffee voucher added to D and up perks is the next step in re-purposing valuable real estate on a ship into something else. Soft perks like vouchers are easy to adjust over time. Hard perks like physical space dedicated solely to a free loyalty program just doesn't make sense. What other cruise line has them? Ten years from now there will be no loyalty lounge. It's an outdated concept that isn't required anymore and a waste of ship real estate.

An influx of new D/D+/P members is a good problem for the company. Time and again I see threads on “the problems” with so many loyal returning guests. Hello? That isn’t a problem. That’s a great thing and proof the loyalty program is doing precisely what it is designed to do. It’s a phenomenally successful program and from the company perspective it’s a major win. Returning guests who dislike being among so many other loyal returning guests is only a “problem” in the minds of those that choose to make it so.

If she is a no show then nothing happens to the cabin price. Her port fees and taxes will be refunded. If you call to remove her, then they could reprice, but since there would be no gain by calling to remove her a few days before a cruise, most people don’t.

Just to clarify, you and your spouse have separate counters in the system. When you are in a CAS relationship, CAS will display the counter of the person in the relationship who has the highest number. Despite that each person earns points that go towards their individual counter only. For example: Husband has 10 points Wife has 45 points. Both people will appear to have 45 points despite husband actually having 10 points. If the husband then goes on a cruise and earns 9 points while the wife stays home... Husband now has 19 points Wife still has 45 points. Both people will appear to have 45 points despite husband actually having 20 points. The husband's activity will never apply towards the wife's counter.

After experiencing the Odyssey MDR it's going to be hard to go back to the earlier Q class MDR.

I imagine the constant complaints from many Bayonne regulars about the same old ship, same old shows, same old...etc. Long term it will be interesting to see if a different Q class ship comes back to the Atlantic side.

I built a graph of different cruise line loyalty programs and what it takes to reach the top in each program. I adjusted each to normalize for the different top levels such as 700 on Royal and 3,000 on Celebrity. CAS vs. Captain's Club vs. Latitudes vs. VIFP. I took suites out of the equation since most cruisers don't stay in suites. Crown and Anchor does start off a little wonky before reaching Diamond but if that is the "golden point" after reaching that level all cruise line thresholds to level up track each other pretty well. In summary, it's not broken and doesn't need to be fixed.

There are sort of already tiers within D+ at 340/350 and 525 they just don't have names. Granted the 525 level is effectively an extra bottle of wine, DP340 for solo cruisers is a massive benefit that has saved me thousands. Of all the CAS perks offered, DP340 has netted me the most dollar impact of any benefit. Many couples leverage DP340 to accelerate the climb to 700 so it's not just solo that can benefit from DP340.

As @smokeybandit has offered, you are not in violation of the PVSA. Changing ships addresses the issue, staying one night or more on land establishes that you have fully entered a country taking the PVSA out of the equation. It's truly the end to end journey on a single ship with every night spent sleeping on that ship. Even if you walked off Quantum and straight onto Radiance the same day that is not (currently) a PVSA violation.

Yes, but had to call and book everyone at the same time. The primary reason was to ensure the kids were on the same flight reservation with the parents in case of IROPS so everyone in the family would be rebooked together by the airline. In this case the minor kids were in the cabins of the grandparents while the parents were in their own cabin. The grandparents lived in a different city so they had different flights. This was called into A2S and took about an hour to get done.

The biggest issue I have with the OPT is that the waiting area for boarding is outside, in the sun, or possibly in the rain. As ships grow in size this issue scales proportionally with more time spent in the outdoor waiting area as ships increase in size. Terminals in less desirable areas can work. Bayonne and Fort Lauderdale are prime examples and both handle Oasis class. Even Miami isn't an intersting port isolated out there on Dodge Island without any shops, bars or restaurants. The lack of an abundance of international direct flights is an issue for Brisbane, the industrial nature of the port in Brisbane less so. I now find myself on the Quantum TP leaving Sydney in 2025 (moved from Ovation). I was tempted to book the preceding 2 night repo cruise from Brisbane to Sydney but Brisbane is a pain to get to. So instead I'm probably going to just do the TP and lose the South Pacific cruise before that I had booked on Ovation. Brisbane port being less scenic than Sydney isn't a factor for me. Getting to Brisbane is.

It’s bad enough folks are using this forum to post other cruise line trip reports. Doing a train live thread here is even further far fetched.

It's not very hard to finance a new build when they have iconic numbers to show as predictions for estimated returns. That billion dollar+ ship also secures that billion dollar new debt for that new ship so it's a lot different than spending a billion fixing up old ships or servicing $40B in debt for example. Cost cutting and new charges are a way of the mass market cruise industry. Everyone who plays in the mass market space is doing it. Cost cutting or "service optimization" does allow debt to be repaid faster. As much as I hate the service changes I also recognize why investors would demand it. The company also has to keep the future on the radar screen. All these mega ships generating mega profit will allow them to work on a smaller less profitable platform such as Discovery. More LNG capable ships prepares them for when they will have no choice but to get rid of Voyager and Freedom class. That day isn't in the near term but it's not that far off either.

The problem is no one wants pretty but polluting ships. More regions are strengthening emission requirements. Making guest areas pretty is really lipstick on a pig if they don't replace or retrofit the now very old engines. Thinking this through... Radiance class use jet turbines engines so they are not the same bunker based engines that most ships around the world use. Those jet engines are now 20+ year jet engines. No airlines runs the original 20 year jet turbines, most western based airlines operate newer jet turbines and even those newer jet engines are under attack for not being clean enough or green enough. There have been some concepts put forth for converting old bunker based fuel oil engines to run biofuel but so far this hasn't been attempted at large scale in the cruise industry. That concept doesn't apply to jet turbines engines with no clear manner to convert very old jet turbines to run biofuel. Nor has biofuel been offered in bulk at cruise ports around the world. Placing jet turbines in Radiance class was a great idea in their time but that time has long past. Those jet turnibers may just make Radiance class prime to eliminate from the fleet albeit for different reasons than eliminating Vision class. Silversea is part of the same parent company to which Royal and Celebrity belong. They did do full retrofits of old ships of the same vintage as Radiance class. The interiors of those ships look brand new. Despite that Silversea is aiming to eliminate those old ships over the next few years despite just recently investing heavily into retrofits. I think with that expensive lesson learned it is unlikely that Radiance will receive anything other than basic marine maintenance they are forced to do to keep the ships registered.

Booked it last year for summer 2024.

In fairness Royal's executive team has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. That comes way ahead of building ships that a small subset of return guest desire. I agree with your assessment though. Most of my research now is going into exotic train journeys which come with stops at various places with excursions. They are like a cruise on rails with very good food, like Michelin rated food. My first train trip will take place this summer. There is one in Peru, several across Australia and New Zealand that look really interesting. Some of them are less than a balcony on Icon.

I've moved on to sacrificing Royal trinkets such as keychains, highlighters and single use backpacks.

6218 is an obstructed balcony cabin where the lifeboats are stored just off the balcony. For the most part you can look over the top of the lifeboat which is around the height of the balcony railing. From the balcony of 6218 you should not have a lifeboat davit directly in front of you but there is a davit in front of the next cabin forward of 6218. This may be in your view when looking forward or to the right. If you look carefully in the photo below you can see a lifeboat visible through the glass of the balcony. Looking over the top of the lifeboat you can see the ocean in the distance but the view down towards the sea right beside the ship is blocked by the lifeboat. Here are some additional photos that illustrate how the lifeboats are stored relative to the deck cabins. In this last photo you can see the white davits or towers that hold the lifeboats. Some deck 6 obstructed balcony cabins have one of these davits directly in front of their balcony. That shouldn't be the case for 6218.

It’s a fixed view from a camera mounted on the bridge.