twangster

Just now, princevaliantus said:

May I ask why you only received a S50 OBC as Balconies receive  $100 OBC for NRDB?

Not on this cruise, it's only 5 nights. 

 RC direct only suites get any OBC.

It's well into 2019 so I'm hopeful pricing will improve over the next 400 days.

12 minutes ago, princevaliantus said:

is this a non-refundable or refundable price?

NRDB

Yikes.  Not good.  I guess that's the danger of prepaying a 3rd party transportation company.

I just use Uber or Lyft.  I check both because if one doesn't have any drivers close by the rates go into demand pricing.  On my last Galveston return to Hobby airport Lyft wanted $135 while Uber was $50. 

While that is displayed during the booking process, it isn't required at this time (it used to be a while ago). 

I booked MTD almost exclusively and prepaid gratuity isn't required.  I usually choose to add prepaid gratuity but that is my choice, it isn't required.

Pop quiz...  who thinks Royal's website is totally awesome? 

For those who doubt why a travel agent can be a great resource, how did you answer the pop quiz?  What makes you think the best price is always displayed on the totally awesome Royal website that you think is so great?

Here is an example of one of the three cruises I just booked with MEI travel.

Using my D+ C&A balcony discount for a 6D balcony the Royal website the total is $2,122.85.  That doesn't include gratuity and no OBC is offered.

I though this was going to be the price of this cruise. 

Jacki York with MEI responded to my request for a quote for the same cruise, same 6D aft balcony.  I asked her to include gratuity.

The total is $1,471.35.

That's $651 cheaper and it includes prepaid gratuity plus $50 OBC.  YOLO!  Book it!

Seriously if you have ever had issue with or grumbled at the Royal website, why would you trust it so much booking your own cruise?

If I had booked this on my own using the Royal website, I would be paying $2,122.85.

What did it cost me to save $773?  Zero.  MEI doesn't charge fees for their services.

This doesn't happen on every cruise I book, but since I book a lot of cruises I've seen enough examples to know the value of a free quote from MEI Travel.

Likes

• It's San Juan.  Love this port and embarking there is like getting an extra stop on the cruise.
• Evening departure, gives more time to explore San Juan and enjoy the lights of the city during sail away.  Relaxed day one.
• You start deep with the Caribbean so you can visit islands that are harder to reach from the US Mainland without longer cruises
• Often cruises fares are better (fuel costs are lower on some itineraries since you start deep in the Caribbean)

Dislikes

• Airfare can be higher than flying to Florida (often offset by lower cruise fares)
• Fewer flight options coming from Colorado, flight times

14 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Apple more or less did it with their Intel migration announcement, since they had to admit IBM had dropped the ball and Intel was the way they had to go to remain competitive. Of course they spun it into a positive (Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field to the rescue!) and I'm sure RCI's PR dept could do the same in some fashion with a statement along the lines of what I had written above.

My point was just that this should have been pre-announced and managed one hell of a lot better than they've done, so they'd have... maybe not fewer people PO'd at them, but at least the level of vitriol getting thrown their way would be more tempered.

People never like it when you change anything, especially a web site.  Carnival has gone through several iterations each drastically different and was 'shocking' each time they did it.

If these recent changes had gone perfect and everything worked out of the gate people would still be moaning and complaining.  I don't think any company has to warn or notify users they intend to give their website a facelift.  People are upset because it changed.  The fact that it was executed poorly just amped that up a notch.

1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I think "Stubborn Canadian Scorpio" suits me nicely...for now...

For now?  Working on the stubbornness are we?

Some people enjoyed the deserted island feel of Coco Cay but others found it boring with nothing to do.  Some people are not beach people who can waste a day lying on a lounger.  The. Entire. Freaking. Day. 

I'm not sure where the prediction that a free beach day will be taken away in the future.  I just don't see that happening, ever.  That would amount to being charged just to step onto the pier and I don't see that ever happening.

Pricing will be driven by supply and demand.   If 99% of an Oasis class ship buys the all day water park pass,  they will raise the price.  If they set prices too high and not enough people buy it, there will be frequent sales or it will be offered at a lower price.  They prepared a business model to sell this to the board.  They ran pricing predictions and cost modeling.  It's a for profit business with shareholders they answer to. 

Some people just don't like change.  I see that as choice.  Now I can choose to do more on one visit, less on another, much like my Labadee strategy now.

On Adventure early May, they missed my welcome aboard beverage but did have four bottles of water and some cookies.  Petit fours a few days into the cruise.  C&A beach towel gift for D+.  Other D+ reported getting their bottle of wine so I think mine was just overlooked.  

3 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

"Changes are coming, and in the beginning some of them may be painful. We have a legacy system that is ancient and incapable of handling what we need with our future plans, and replacing it is not going to be easy. We're going to try our best to keep problems and issues to a minimum, but nothing this complex ever goes exactly as planned; so know that when a problem does come up, we will break our backs to fix it as fast as possible and keep the transition moving forward as quickly as possible. The end result will be a much better system that everyone will appreciate, but until we're there we ask for your patience."

This is as much a PR CF as it is an IT one.

No company marketing department is going to sign off on a negative statement that admits anything isn't 100% roses and kittens.

These migrations and upgrades have been pretty painful from a customer perspective.  The scope of the CF leads me to believe it's much larger than the IT department.  Hopefully they've learned some valuable lessons.

25 minutes ago, Matt said:

Me too.  Shaping up to be pretty darn impressive.

Those over water cabanas look like something from the South Pacific.  Very cool.

21 minutes ago, Matt said:

She works and you can go back to doing....whatever it is you do.  Based on what I've observed, Jacki will free you up to post more on the message boards, buy new camera lenses and come up with new nicknames for @Lovetocruise2002

The last thing I need is more time to look at more cruises. 

4 minutes ago, Matt said:

Complete breakdown of Perfect Day at CocoCay prices, including what will be included and not included: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2018/06/05/royal-caribbean-officially-opens-perfect-day-island-experiences-bookings

I was just reading this!  Great blog that answers a lot of questions for me.

I'm excited!

7 minutes ago, Todd W said:

just curious,  would TA's have any better luck with this exception?

I'm thinking this is one best handled directly.  Having said that...

I've not tried to do so through a TA, I've always cruised with a fellow drinker and we both bought the package or I cruise solo and it's irrelevant. 

Jacki is going to busy tomorrow, I have multiple cruises booked through MEI that she will no doubt, proactively check for me with this sale and with future sale events.

Just now, georgeh said:

i guess you guys are right...but i'm a programmer, and i welcome the chance to unplug

Nothing wrong with that, it's your choice. 

Some people could care less what TV channels are provided on a ship as they don't watch TV.  For other's it is important to them.

I don't drink soda so the price trends of soda packages are interesting to observe but have no impact to me, much like the price of internet packages have no bearing on some cruisers.

With several thousand people on ship you can expect a wide diversity of likes and dislikes.  No one way is right or wrong, to each their own. 

2 minutes ago, georgeh said:

Now, scale this up for a cruise ship.  You will have hundreds of people trying to play candy crush, social media, or stream music.  In order to allow for this many people to have decent access over a sat connection, it would cost hundreds of thousands per month.

The lesson i suppose, is that we should just unplug from the outside world for a week...isn't that what vacation is for?

Satellite rates are without doubt, much higher than domestic rates, but they aren't increasing.  With increasing satellite providers leveraging low earth orbiting constellations rates are actually coming down.  Yet Voom has increased 40% in one year, while other cruise lines using the same provider are rolling out much less expensive internet options. 

Each of us vacation differently.  The purpose of a cruise is not to disconnect from the world.  I suppose if someone cruises once every few years they can pursue that option.  For someone who cruises once every few weeks or months a cruise isn't about disconnecting from the world, rather living for brief periods of time on a ship. 

I feel your pain with respect to balcony discounts.  They really become more meaningful at each level.  I've progressed up through C&A levels fairly quickly by cruising solo and cruising often.  This has allowed me to observe some perks like the balcony discount at different levels over a short time period.  Royal is doing a lot more frequent sales and marketing campaigns then they used to several years ago.  Those aren't always combinable with C&A discounts yielding that $1 your experienced at your current level. 

Having made it to Diamond Plus I can confirm the balcony discounts are real and I'm sailing in balconies more than I used to.  I've observed the balcony discount becoming better and better at each level.  It can vary on a per cruise basis, based on other promo rates so it may not always appear great if you only cruise every few years and you happen to pick a particular cruise where the balcony discount isn't as high as other cruises.   It varies by ship as well - not all ships have the same balcony cabin ratios as other ships.

Here is a random sailing in January 2019, first without any C&A discounts

Now with C&A discounts

For a different ship on a longer cruise this looks different, first with no C&A discounts

Now with C&A discounts

Note that balcony rates are cheaper than Ocean View rates.  I see this quite a bit now which is why I am sailing in balconies more now than ever before.  I've even seen where the discounted balcony rate is within a few dollars of the inside rate.

I've found a good travel agent who looks at all available rates including rates that aren't present on Royal's website.  On occasion she has flat out told me the C&A rate is not the best rate for that cruise while on another cruise it is the best rate.  I have a couple cruises booked where the refundable rate was cheaper than the non-refundable rate presented on Royal's website.  That's an the advantage of a good travel agent - they don't just look at Royal's website like you and I can, they see into the system and can see more than what is displayed on the website.

When I was gold I had to choose between Radiance of the Seas in Alaska and Celebrity.  I chose Celebrity because I wanted to try them.  In doing so I missed out on earning C & A points.  As I've progressed up through C&A it has occurred to me at each threshold I would have been there already had I chosen Radiance back then.  I don't regret sailing Celebrity but it has cost me in terms of progressing up the C&A ranks.

Keep an eye out for a deal on a suite cabin, even a junior suite.  You earn double C&A points with a suite which can help you move up through the C&A levels much faster.

@Truth - welcome to the message boards!

I'm not sure when you are sailing Allure so keep in mind that over the next several months Royal Caribbean has hinted at a new "chat with others on your booking" feature in their Royal app for ships like Allure.  We don't know when they might roll that out but if they do you can be sure it will be discussed here on this site. 

Here is a typical example of the onboard offers for platinum:

Platinum.PDF

Like most loyalty programs the benefits get better at each level.  Personally I think Royal's Crown and Anchor Society is superior to other cruise lines but that is for my needs and likes/dislikes. 

I was 3 cruises short of platinum on Carnival which is earned around the same point that Diamond is on Royal.  For the entire time from zero to that point the only real benefit of Carnival's VIFP program was one bottle of water in the cabin and eventually a drink coupon that could only be used on the last night after 6pm but not in the MDR.   Once you do reach platinum on Carnival the biggest benefit is priority boarding.  Contrast that to Diamond which is earned with roughly the same amount of cruising on Royal and you get priority boarding, nightly happy hour drinks, meaningful on board offers and much more. 

Like many loyalty programs, loyalty is rewarded - that's kind of the point.  It is provided in incremental steps, getting better and better at each level.  Like airline loyalty programs if you fly one trip on United, the next on American, the next on Delta and another on Southwest you aren't really displaying loyalty to any of them and while each appreciates your business, it doesn't get you very far in the respective loyalty programs. 

Cruising is much the same way in terms of each cruise line's loyalty program.   Only you can decide if the perks of each program is worth a long term strategy to remain loyal to any particular one.

Believe it or not, I see all of these little maintenance issues on the website in a positive light.

I knew a guy who did a lot of work on their old databases a few years ago, before I even started cruising Royal.  Like most US airlines it's a pretty complex environment with legacy baggage.

Royal is making baby steps towards a better place - I honestly believe that.  It can't happen overnight or in just one maintenance window, it will take time. 

Just wait...

18 minutes ago, cruiselife said:

I had just started to come around to the idea of dining packages being a good value. With this increase I don't think I will book them anymore outside of special occasions. I just have a hard time being convinced that $30 per meal is a good deal. I certainly would never pay full price to eat at any of the specialty restaurants, but now even the package price is pushing it.

Agree.  The BOGO2 used to be $30 so I'd buy it when offered.  Since it went to $40 I haven't bought it again.

I managed to get the 4 dinner package for Symphony @ $100 and a few months ago saw it disappear all together and the 3 dinner package was $100.  Now the 3 dinner package is back down to $85 but 4 still isn't offered.

I suspect they have an automated script that adjust prices based on sales trends on a cruise by cruise basis.  Same with drink packages. 

It's all still a lot cheaper than going to Atlantis in Nassau which I've never considered to be worth half of what that resort charges for it.  

The existing inflatable slide at CocoCay isn't free, the small existing water park in the ocean isn't free and sold in 1 hour blocks.  The snorkeling today isn't free.  I have yet to find a zip line anywhere that's free. 

If you don't want to participate in the existing or new optional activities, just go to the beach like we've always been able to.

On the bright side I wonder if this may be related to upgrading the ships hotel/billing/portfolio system to make it compatible with all the new tech features they have promised for the fleet such as mobile check in.

That's got to be a complex and huge undertaking to modernize each ship's software and servers to a common platform and version capable of moving forward with new tech.