Traveler

Keep checking it , they will bring it back I guess.

We did it around September and it was allot of fun. You get a safety and orientation for 15 minutes and then you get on the jet ski for 30 to 45 minutes , riding in a line after the instructor.

13 hours ago, Summer Bee Sweet said:

Thanks @Travelerfor the info! Cozumel is the only port on this list that I’ve visited before and we’ve never made the trip.

I’m really glad Manchu Picchu is covered. Had no idea it was that far away.

 

Thanks, 

In that case its very good , has both Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu  are at least 2500 $ worth per person (if not more). I have done Machu Picchu from Lima , using local TA and most booking by myself , it was around 450 $  PP (including the flight and two days of not expensive hotel). 

Here is the list of the wonders during this cruise .

If RCL will give to choose which of the wonders to use the free excursions It will be good to choose the one that might cost more (combination of entrée fees and complexity to go there).

Chichen Itza - port Cozumel - to go there you need to take a boat and a bus , in regular cruise it cost between 100 to 150

Chirst The Redeemer - Rio De Janeiro ,  should cost 50 to 100 $  , I would not recommend to do it by yourself 

Iguazu falls , port Buenos Aires - this one going to be one of the expensive as Buenos Aires is vey far from the falls (actually Rio is closer , Sao Paulo even more), It will require flight (its 15 hours drive) so if RCL will give it for free , go for it.

Machu Picchu , port Lima (Callo) , Peru - Again one of the expensive one , it will require a flight from Lima airport (which is in the same City as the port) to Cusco , from there , or one hour buss to the train station or a direct train to Aqua Cliente (3 hours) then a bus to Machu Picchu (30 minutes). You should know there is a quota of number of people that can enter the city so its better to get this tour from RCL. 

Great Barrier Reef , Cairns , Australia - not sure but I guess there are many options here to take different tours.

Great wall of China , port Beijing , China - Private tours can be organized , its a few hours drive , it can cost between 50 to 150 $ and around 250 $ from Royal Caribbean.

The Taj Mahal , Cochin , India - This dose not make any sense at all , Chochin is in south India and the Taj is at the north , it will require a 3 hours flight to New Delhi and 2 to 3 hours drive to Agra , Mumbai port is closer (and you can take direct flights to Agra). its going to be expensive (but less then Machu Picchu).

Petra , I guess port of Aquba - It is two hours drive from Aquba , tours are between 70 to 200 $ .

Great Pyramid of Giza , port of Alexandria , this is around two hours bus drive . tour should cost around 150 $ (rough estimate) 

Temple of Artemis , Ephesus , Turkey - tours from RCL cost 80 $  (before sells).

The Colosseum , Rome , Italia - 1.5 hours drive from port , bus to Rome around 40 $ , entry to the Colosseum around 18 $ . Tour from RCL around 120$.

I guess I am missing here some wonders as there should be 17 and I found  only 11

4 minutes ago, MG728 said:

When do people usually find out their assigned boarding time? (Like how much before the cruise) I’m trying to set up my transfers but hearing they strictly adhered to those times now, I don’t want to choose a time too early since we are travelling with our kids.

You will get to choose your check in time after you will complete your online check in.

1 hour ago, rcrabb said:

We booked our first back to back cruises, same ship, same cabin for both.  We will go through the online checkin process for both cruises but may I assume the port checkin time assigned for the 2nd cruise is moot and we can deal with the actual in-port embarkation process while on the first cruise via the service desk? 

I do know we will be administered a COVID test by RCCL near the end of our first cruise to meet the testing requirements for  the 2nd cruise.

TIA

Yes , you can ignore the check in time of the second cruise.

We done B2B with Symphony several weeks ago. We got invited to do the test few days to the first part of the cruise. The test itself was on the last cruise day. On embarkation day we were requested to meet at one of the bars were we got our new card keys after a while we were escorted out of the ship , done quick face recognition at immigration and went to the sect floor to wait until escorted back to the ship. 

14 hours ago, Vancity Cruiser said:

Unless you go super frugal (in which case why go if you aren’t actually going to explore and see all the sights of the world) I don’t see how you could do this trip for under a quarter million for a couple

First not all the 150 stops are really ports , some of them is just going near something (I do not really think you are going to a port in Elephant island for example". Second , there are many ports which is easy and even recommended to tour by yourself , for example Singapore , I would buy a prepaid subway card (or a day path for tourist) and go to the Gardens by the bay (free entry) , check the botanical gardens and maybe check the Marina bay sands , all without fee. Mykonos , the ship will tender you to the old port were you can just walk and tour the very nice village. Palma - you pay 8Euro PP for return trip to the city and you can easily tour it without missing anything. For sure there are places which I would prefer to take tours from the ship.

For logistic perspective I wish RCL would organize a way to allow cruise on the world cruise to send things to RCL ports were it will be delivered to the ship. That way , people can shop online or just have family/friends send them what they miss. 

21 minutes ago, twangster said:

Not the way I sing.  Not after 390 times would they let me on stage.

For sure a "you got talent" contest can be done for few nights.

22 hours ago, cruisellama said:

This question would apply to any "world cruise", but how do you keep the theater entertainment fresh on 274 day cruise?  I can't imagine you watch the same 3-4 theater productions every week.   I can easily see how you bring fresh entertainers / acts like comedians, singers, magicians on throughout the cruise, but would expect the large productions to be limited over that period of time.

Lots of headliner shows and some local performers from the different ports 

2 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

It was merged with the other thread since they were discussing the same topic.  That thread was around last night. Looking for it now.

Its vanished while I was written a comment , wondering what happened to it or what was wrong with it  h

It's a tender port that brings you directly to the village.

A friend is asking : Anyone know what is the official nights schedule  and when is the lobster night?

So we went to book it but then I saw no double points so we gave it up. 

13 minutes ago, twangster said:

I literally just received a Royal survey asking  questions about pre-cruise testing.  I don't see it going away soon, but... who knows.  

Testing will remain with us for few month , maybe they will change it back for 3 days or allow something more comfortable , same for masks. I wish I am wrong.

The news might be also signing some contract/affiliate with another  company , maybe some entertainment or maybe even a fast food chain.  

There will be many photographers and no issues to take 100 pictures and more (actually you should take more so you can chose).Take into consideration that the photographers are not really "professionals", I think they were trained for few days and become one , some are good , some are not that good. 

Starting using real good cheese in Sorento's ? 

16 hours ago, cman2020 said:

It’s a obc as a result of the price going down. So your saying if it wasn’t used it go back to my cc? 

This is what they were written on  the ODBCs , you should ask but I believe for such ODBC they will return the portion that was not use to the payment method you used. 

34 minutes ago, cman2020 said:

How would you do so? Just draw against your obc in the casino then cash out? 

Go to a machine , choose personal banking (your pin number is your month and day of your birthday) choose room charge and type the amount of your ODBC you want to take out . Print the ticket and take it to the machine.

But I guess it depends on the type of the ODBC , if it is something you got as promotion you might not be able to get it like that . If it is something you got as a results of price amusement or something like that you will get it if not used by the end of the cruise back to your CC.

2 hours ago, UNCFanatik said:

Staff serving buffet...ice cream...drinks...etc

That actually one of the best thing happened due to C19 . To many times we all saw people grab food on their hands or even returning food to trays. If not for C19 prevention at least for Noro .

1. Remember that the casino know you are captive , its not that you can go to other casino next door ... Therefore   you will see things like single odds craps tables and not so good odds at the machine (just my impression  anyway).

2. If you are playing the machines remember to check how many points you have at the last day. points can be converted to free play (without any impact on your status) for example if you have 1000 points you can  can convert them to 20$ of free play. Many people are not aware to it or just forget to do so.

3. Since its a cruise expect to see many first timers in the casino , do not be surprise to see people splitting 10s  or standing on 14 against a face card / taken a card on 13 against dealer 6. Anyone is allow to do it , you just need to decide if you want to keep playing there or go to another table. 

4. Check during the first day if you got any free play , many time the casino will give everyone between 5 to 100 $ in free play which is good only for the first two days.

5. Ask the Casino manager how many points you accumulate during the last day , mainly if you played the tables , sometimes you are entitle to some cruise vouchers which are not automatically being processed.

6. Always show your card and use it at the machines , even if you are going to play just with 20$ , remember , its not about how much money you put at the beginning its about how much you played with this 20$ . For example if you are playing blackjack and play 20$ each hand for two hours and you win every second hand and lose the following one you considered as you played average 20$ for two hours . Same with the machine , if you started with 20$ and played for 1 hour 5 $ each hit,  winning every second hit (in average) you actually played total of  1800 $ (5$*60 minutes * 6 (playing every 10 second) .

7. Do not start a game few minutes before  a show or dinner time , saw many people that got good hands  , saying "just one more hand" and missed shows/dinner , its never good for the relationship  

8.  Remember your plans for the next day , you don't  want to play until 2-3 am when you have early excursions ... 

9. If you used the option of getting money from your on board account and you are lucky enough to win some money and hold to it until the end of the cruise , consider to go to the guest services and pay your on board account using cash  , (that is if you are not collecting points on your credit card , in that case ignore it)

10. Have fun , you are on vacation not at work ...

12 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

Hmmm maybe this is a revenue thing. RCG is trying to get people who don't sail to spend more time on the island. That would be a big boost, other non-cruising guest paying to stay on their private island.

The questions , how many villas ...  if it is 5 villas it will not do much change as not sure how much you can ask for such experience . 

1 hour ago, levib2 said:

Thinking it would be nice to sit out with 2 of our friends if we upgrade to a Jr. Suite.

Depends on the ship but in the Oasis class usually the JS balcony is around 80 f comparing to 50 of the regular one.

Day 7 continue.

Back to the ship we got to the cold room which was a blessing and started to think our packing strategy as we did not want to leave it for the last minute. Just when we thought we done with  it we heard the door bell , it was the cabin attended with the bottles of liquor we bought in the ship and during our previous cruise. More things to pack great. It was also a good opportunity to give the cabin attended the envelope which he  rightly deserves as he was doing good job maintain our cabin. We went to chose our diamond free photo , we found two that we liked and asked to print it. Dinner was again in the cabin , we asked for few salads , few rolls of sushi and the cheese cake from 150. At the distance we could see the convoy doing it's way back to Miami

After dinner we went to check some activity, its funny how on the last night all the bars seems to be full. I went to guest service to pay in cash the week bill when I found out they charged me for towels , they took it out quickly. I pinged Sunil if he wants to come and say goodbye , he said he will see us tomorrow while disembarkation, wanted to give him the envelope and some present we brought with us back from home. It had to wait for the last last day :-). We tried to go to sleep early so the disembarkation will be less stressed , some of us successfully done ,other went to update the blog.

Day 8 , we schedule the meeting with Sunil at 8:45 , I went to being some food from Park Cafe and later coffee from Starbucks. At 8:45 Sunil came and we brought him a present and the envelope . He brought a porter with him and we did our way down to the port , Sunil hand is over to another porter which handed us to a lady who took until the exist. The taxi line was 5 minutes and at 9:10 we were already in the airport

1 hour ago, Tiffeven said:

I'm really feeling Nyssa's pain.  When I told her we were getting off the ship to go home today, she very sadly said, "But why? I want to stay here!" 

Unfortunately,  all good things must come to an end.

 

Tell her about the next B2B just around the corner ...

Day 7

Today , CocoCay , I do love this place but prefer to have a sea day as the last day of the cruise , ohh well "You can't always have what you want , but if you will try sometime you'll see you get what you need". We started with late breakfast at the balcony at 9 am and got ready for the island.

I grabbed few month ago tickets to the beach club for 65$  pp which comparing to the price I see now it's a pretty good and. We wanted to get there early , Sunil with the other genies organized all the star class to meet and escorted  to the Island so it went really fast. We were one of the firsts to arrive the club so we could have chosen were we wanted to seat. We took one of the large beds near the pool and the bar. I went to sweem in the infinity pool and it was very refreshing , I will spare from you pictures of me in the pool. 

Later we started to enjoy the club drinks 

When you enter the club they ask you to go to the host and reserve time for lunch , we asked for 12:30. When the time arrived we went to the resturants were the host escorting you to the washi washi station and stay until you wash your hands properly. It brought me back to the pre school time , but I was happy to see they followinge the  procedures. For lunch you get  the appetizer box which includes several salads and ceviche. For main course my spouse went with the filet mignon and I also wanted to try it per @Matt recommendion but had also request  from @Tiffevento test the lobster and compare it the ship so I took one for the team and order a surf and turf. I thought they will bring me a smaller portions but it was full one. 

The lobster was very good.

THe food was good and since they get the meat from the ship I guess it may be better since they have a good grill chef. That's also was the only place until now they ask us to cut the stake and check if it is cooked the way we wanted. For dessert we took the rum cake as it was different from the regular dessert we got until now.

We stayed another hour in the club and since it started to get hot we went back to air conditioning at the ship.