Traveler
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Posts posted by Traveler
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12 hours ago, Ak60 said:
Can I use movit or rav hopon without physical rav card on each phone ?
For the train you better buy paper tickets from the machine (using cache or CC) as everyone needs to use the bar code entering and existing. This is what we usually do. You can use one move it for up to 8 people you in the bus or light train. In the bus after you scan the barcode you can choose the number in the light train before you go to the train.
Ram Kav you will need one for each passenger. You can buy one for 1.5 Dollar .
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1 hour ago, Ak60 said:
Any suggestions that i should not do or should do in this little time .
The train option is excellent (although crowded during Sundays and Thursdays) and the train station for the port is very close to the luggage drop off. Regarding Jerusalem it's all depends on what you want to see. A good option that I like is to start in Jaffa gate , enter the wall boardwalk on the right (don't enter the gate) walk on the wall (entrence fee is few dollars) and have nice view. You should go down almost at the end which will bring you to the Wailing wall , you can enter and go outside from the opposite direction doing your way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre . Post the church you can do your way to the market street and go all the way back to the Jaffa gate.
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20 minutes ago, Skippy67 said:
I'm guessing you meant to say Prime instead of Prefer as the first category.
Thanks for compiling this, very helpful...now if it can be pinned for anyone with questions about Casino Royale.
Thanks ,I fixed it
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28 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:
I have never received a certificate on day 1...only the one at the end of the cruise.
They are not that common , I heard of them few times (also the host asked me if I got one) but only got one on our last cruise , its is quite limited offer and anyway , you can not use more then one certificate from the cruise as I understand it.
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During the last few months there were many questions and new post around the casino “free cruises” system , how it is working and how to use it.
Here is the information I gathered and the way I understand it , feel free to add to it /correct me.
Club Royale which is the name of the Royal Caribbean casino loyalty plan offers three different kind of free cruise offers/certificates:
Annual cruise – Any one that is qualify to one of the three tree upper loyalty tiers are entitled for Annual cruise:
Prime (2500 to 24999 points) – Inside cabin.
Signature -(25000 – 99999 points) – Balcony.
Master – (100000+ points) – Grand suite.The Annual cruise can be booked from mid-April to end of March on the next casino year you got qualified for the tier. For example, if you got to be Prefer at December 2022 you will be entitle for the free cruise from April 2023 to March 2024.
The current offer is good for any 7 nights (or less) cruise with some blackout dates (like holidays) and not available on the newest ships (like Icon).Instance certificate- During a cruise you can get two kind of certificates :
1 – instance certificate for people that cruised in the past and played in the casino , this certificate might be in your cabin at the first day of the current cruise and based on your pervious cruise level of playing in the casino. Many time people are not getting it and there is not any clear rule who gets it and who not.2 – instance certificate at the end of the cruise which you will get based on your play at the current cruise and the points you accumulate. It can start from low as 1500 points up to 25000 points for a Grand suite and 2000 free play. The number of points that are required for getting discounts/free cruise can change from cruise to cruise so its better to verify it while you are on the cruise(you will have the information in the Casino host desk).
On the night before the last night of the cruise or during the last day ,your casino host will send your room the certificate. If you continued to gamble during the last day you can ask the host later to re print you a new certificate incase you past some point threshold (for example you got certificate for 4000 points and you now have 5000) .
Free play – The current on board certificates also can includes some free play for the cruise you will book with this offer , to be entitle to get it you must book the cruise using next cruise option. To make it simple, if you think you are entitled for a free cruise and a free play you can go to the next cruise location and book your specific cruise from the offer list or book a wildcard next cruise (which is good for booking any cruise) and use it later to book the cruise you choose .Such booking need to be done no later then 30 days after your cruise (please note it used to be 7 days so better to check it every time). If you failed to book it in 30 days , you can still use the next cruise open booking to book a cruise up to one year but you will not get the free play.To get the list of cruises you can choose from or ask of the host can print it or (And much better) wait a day or 2 and check for the offer in the club royal offers site - clubroyaleoffers.com enter your last name and C&A number to check for the offer name number , it will show you all the different itinerary you can choose from.
Mail/club royale ite offers - From time to time Club Royal can send offers using snail mail , emails or just load it to the club offers site (clubroyaleoffers.com).
The Logic / algorithm behind the system of who gets the offers is really not clear , mainly I guess its 10% based on player activity, 5 % last cruise points accumulation , 5% reviewing customer current booked cruises and 80% using voodoo .
The number of offers and number of cabins available is based on current not sells cabins status and inventory , the speculation is that RCL using this kind of offers to fill up empty cabins. In other words , successful selling efforts = less comped casino offers.There are few things that might impact receiving offers such as wrong email (the usual excuse), two accounts which are using the same email (for example if you opened account for a family member and use your email), already heaving many offers booked and not being a us resident).
Q&A (as per my understanding the program):
· What do I need to pay ? – IF it is fully comped cruise you will need to pay only port fees and taxes.
· Can I add people to the free cabin offer ? – Yes , usually offers are for two (although lately they came up with single person offer) you can add more people to the cabin but it will be most likely with full price.
· Can I use the offer to use on a cruise which is not in the list ? – Some of the offers/certificate comes with dollar values, with this kind of offers/certificates you can ask to use the dollar value for another cruise (but usually without many discounts so not all the time it will be cheaper than just book a regular cruise).
· Can I give the certificate to someone else ? – No the certificate is not transferable.
· Can I upgrade an offer/certificate – Yes you can try to upgrade , most of the time the upgrade will cost the casino rate differences between the upgraded cabin and the cabin in the offer, sometimes the price might surprise you (for both directions).
· Can my travel agent book the offer for me – Yes , but take into consideration , as far as I understand that most likely the commission the TA is getting for such booking is much less
· Do I get C&A points for a casino comp cruise? – Yes, you are getting full C&A points including double points for being in suite.
· Can I combined offers for a better offer – Yes, sometime , depends who you are asking but only if the offer is of the same kind (like two annual offers) . Its always good to try.
· How I am getting the free play ? – During the first day of the cruise when the Casino is open go to the casino cashier and ask to use the free points , they will load it to your account.
· Are free casino cruise entitle for royal up offers ? - Yes most of the time you will get the Royal Up offer.
As always , play for fun not for the offers
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41 minutes ago, Darryljerry said:
Thanks so much @Traveler We arrive on Thursday and have a taxi lined up to take us to our hotel in Jerusalem. We are renting a car from Friday through Monday and will turn it in at Haifa. Is there a particular reason that Jerusalem will be so busy on Thursday?
Thursday is "Jerusalem day" and from the morning to 4 or 5 PM there will be many people marching around the old city but I guess it will be OK just might take you more time to arrive to the hotel due to traffic.
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I can't advice anyone here about what to do. I can just say that in the past usually such issue ended in less than a week, nothing guaranteed it will be the same but there is a good chance.
Second , the situation now impacting only the south/mid part of Israel up to around 100 km from Haifa port. Just to give you indication, yesterday there was a 40000 people concert in Tel Aviv under the open sky's. It was approved.
Third , actually such tension is like earthquake, sometimes heaving small earthquake making sure you will not have the bigger one in the near future.
This weekend wil show to were we are goin.
RCL will cancel the cruise if they will think any danger to the passengers or crews as they canceled Odyssey Israel ports this week.
Wish that everything will work well for you and that you will be able to enjoy fabulous cruise.
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Oh sorry to hear that , just a very bad timing ( from my experience, most likely it will over today/tomorrow) , yes there were two alarms in Tel Aviv (one of the alarm caught me outside) but all were intercepts. Can not blame the Captain for taken this decision has he responsible for the safety of everyone although he could give some more time to leave the port . Enjoy the rest of the cruise.
- anneglubis, Jkaczano and RafaellaCG
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Day 7/8
We went back to complete packing. At first we wanted to do self disembarking as we had an 1045 am flight but then we got our luggage number which was exactly for the same time we thought to go off the ship anyway. We also had one duffel bag which was quite heavy so we thought to do the regular process. After getting the luggage out we went to find some food to be stored for the early morning. We got some sandwiches and pineapples and put the in the refrigerator, it was very useful later. I went back to the Casino to make sure all the points are added including the table games , the host told me I am missing some points for the next instant offer so we went to do what usually I recommend people not do , played to get reward points. Surprisingly it was working well (at least the end of it) but at the beginning of this session I thought I will give it up as it seems the money I will spend might be more than the benefits I will get. Once got to the required points I went to get the certificate. It was quite late so we went to sleep what left from the night. At 6:30 am the alarm clock went on and we started to get organized and eating the sandwich we stocked last night. Once we were ready and our number called we went down to terminal just to wait 15 more minutes for our luggage, why to call if it's not ready ? We collect our luggage and went outside to catch a taxi, there were no lines for the taxi. At 7:45 we already in the airport which concluded another cruise.
Regards , Yuliya&Assaf
- AlmondFarmer, MaryS, She Sails Away and 11 others
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Day 7 - Sea day.
Finally we could both sleep the extra time until almost 10 am , it was needed after the early late days. We rushed into the diamond club to grab something just to see that they already collecting the food and going to throw it , so sad to see all the berries goes to the trash but we did missed the deadline so no complaining. We decided to went to to the Solarium as it was or that or the WJ and nothing reminds me it is the last days as WJ mornings. Food was the same nothing to talk about. We tour the ship for a while , went to choose the pictures we wanted , it was not a warm day but still the sun was out and people used the pools and the water slides. I stood in the line to pay some of the bill with cache , as it was the last day and the casino was not bad. For lunch we decided to go to the Park Caffe for a salad and a sandwich. Salad station was very basic , not many addons like it used to be, not sure if it was some seasonal issues or cutbacks. In general I felt that the free food option went down a notch , if it is the park cafe with less veg options, the Sorento that did not served the antipasti anymore or the El Loco fresh with a very diluted guacamole. I do hope it just because it was the second cruise in the region and its not a fleet wide. Post dinner we went to watch the love and marriage show which was so funny , well maybe not such funny for the cupule that had a very interesting story about the place you tell at such game show just to quickly notice that there 12 years old daughter entered to the theater and was in the audience. That is the issue with only one sea day itinerary , you need to squeeze all the game show in the last 24 hours even it means some of them will be at the middle of the day. We continue our ship tour and went to the casino , nothing to report , it was OK , post that we went to catch some sleep which was interrupted twice by the shore alcohol distribution, at first time they brought only two of the bottles , second time they came with the rest. Dinner was again in the MDR , service was very good and quick , it was the royal theme night but no lobsters just jumbo shrimp. We went to see Flight which is our favorite show in Symphony and went to finish our packing. I went down to use my free play in the Casino , you saw what happened , a nice surprise for the last day.
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Day 6 - Napoli.
There are so many things hs to do in this port of call, the city , Amalfi cost, Sorento , Pompeii and Capri are just some of the options. We decide on Capari , cheapest way to get there is to just exit the ship, walk 5 minutes and buy tickets to the ferry ride . Few month ago I catch a cheap excursion from RC to go to Capri , it make sense as it contains the small busses and also the chairlift. The funny thing was that the self guided excursion cost 1 $ less , go figure. The issue was that this excursion started very late at night around 7:15 am , this should be banned by by Geneva low or something like that. We were ready on time with even few minutes to grab something to eat from the DL. Some how we got the same guide as we had four years ago so we already knew all the jokes:-) . The ferry ride took around 50 minutes and we were waiting for our turn to go on the minibusses, this took 15 minutes and we were doning our way to Anacapri . At Anacapri you get to choose between a museum and a chairlift all the way up the mountain. We love the chairlift as it's a 15 minutes ride in a very beautiful and tranquility scenery.
On the mountain you can have a view over Naples bay and the famous mountain Vesuvius.
Post Anacapri we took the minibus to Capri were we had some free time which we used for walking around (it was a very busy day) and eat a good overpriced pizza with a fish plate for starter.
For dessert we bought some local made cookies and a cannoli which was very good. We had a 30:30 ferry ride that brought us back to the ship. Yesterday we went first time to the main dining room. Food was good and service was excellent. I might add that no lobster night during this cruise. After dinner we went to watch the battle of the sexes game show follow by the quest that was run by the new cruise director that was just replacing the previous one, she did a very good job .
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If anyone have any questions about the ship or port of calls let me know tomorrow sea days finally I will have some time to check .
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Day 5 - Rome.
The ship is arriving the port of Civitavecchia which is 1 hour from Rome. We had train tickets to Rome which we ordered online a month ago, they where for 9:15 am which meant we had to wake up early. Quick breakfast at the diamond club and we done our way to Rome. There few ways to get to Rome , one by shor excursion, second by train and third by external company bus. We took the train option, the cost for return fast trains was around 15$ if you want you can pay 10 Dollars for slower train . To get to to the train you get hope on a 6$ shuttle to the tray station but the line was long so we took the free port shuttle to the port gate and walked 15 minutes to the station. In the port gate you cam also take a 25E bus that takes you to Rome it's once the bus is full it will start going to Rome and drops you near the Vatican city. We arrived to the train station on time and went on the train for 45 minutes ride, although we had seat assignments our seat were taken and it's seems no one followed the assignments so we just took a seat like everyone else , at the first 10 minutes people were still standing but after that everyone got a seat , I guess there is some logic in the Italian system.
We arrived Rome Termini station and went the most important place in the station, the bathrooms, you see in med itinerary you go to the bathroom when you can not when you need , important rule. The bathroom cost 1 E and it accepting CC . We started to work to Trevi fountain. Nice thing about Rome, no matter were you go in Rome there is something to see , we passed several church, went inside some of them
We arrived the fountain , this is what you hope to see
This is what you see most of the time although you can still come near it with some patient.
We continue to the beautiful Spanish stairs.
We went to take our first espresso, the way they do it is different and we like it very much. We started to feel hungry and went for searching for a nice resturant. We decided on a restaurant that had nice interesting salads and traditional pasta , it was good. Next we did our way to the Vatican city area visiting some interesting places.
We started our way back stoping in the Pantheon
We stopped in a shop or two and by 4:30 we arrived the station to take our train back. This time our seat was available and we arrived after 50 minutes back.
Total steps 35000 , weather was just perfect for such excursion. -
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1 hour ago, SweetPea said:
Cats definitely need to be bribed when left!
Gorgeous pics! You're totally making me want to book a Med cruise.
She will be OK our son stayed with her and she loves him, also my spouse mother is checking on her from time to time but for sure I want to reduce the time I will need to go to work with long sleeves:-)
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Day 4 La Spezia.
Sorry for the late updates but as you can imagine it's a super busy ports of calls.
So we were few hours in the cinque terre and enjoy it very much as usual. Weather was perfect, I highly recommend this time of year for med cruise as it can be very hit during the summer time. When we returned back to La Spezia I went to by some wines and chocolate, so now we have wine from each country. If you need to buy wine LA Spezia is the last port with good supermarkets in walking distance. Had also to add some bribe to the one we left at home so she will let us in welcoming us and not plan a revenge
For dinner we went to the WJ , must say the food wasn't what we remember, no sea food at all (we checked all week), not much verity. To complete it we went to the Diamond launch which had nice appetizers. Not sure why but no water station in DL , need to ask why. Post dinner we had the 1977 ice show which we like very much. It's a was the first show of this new ice team and they change some of the act. Three of the drones crushed , considered to add some RC IT joke here but I know it's not them this time so I will hold myself.
Lots of activities were still going but we had an early plans for Rome so we wrapped it early and tried (not so successful ) to rest.
Tomorrow Rome.
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Day 4 La Spezia.
La Spezia is the port for Florence, Pisa and cinque terre . In Med cruise its one of our favorite port of call due to the incredible view and possibilities. This time we wanted to visit cinque terre which are 5 very nice colrfull villages. There are few options to visit it. First, the wrong one is to pay 150+ $ to RC excursion. Second is to take the train and third , the best option is to take an HOHO boat that brings you to most of the villages and allow you to visit as many villages you want . The cost is 39 E per person. Since we went to sleep late we missed the first two boats but went to catch the 10:50 am one. The boat peer is on the boardwalk going left from terminal facing the city. When we arrived we saw long line for the tickets, or so we thought. The line did not seem going anywhere and we thought we are going to miss it. Finally it started to move and move fast , that was when I realized it was the line for getting on the boat and not for tickets. I quickly went to buy tickets and we were on the boat after 5 minutes and started our journey. The best way is to go first to the last viillage and do your way backwards. The main issue with cinque terre is which pictures to use. Here is a good link with information about visiting the villages
https://www.cinqueterre.eu.com/en/boat-excursions
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9 hours ago, ckruetze said:
That would depend. For me as a European this would be the other way around. If I really want to see Nice, I can fly there for a weekend. I'm hoping that I can enjoy a nearly empty ship every day this summer when I'm on the Symphony.
I agree with you , it would depend where you are coming from and how easy for you /how often you can visit the places outside the cruise.
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5 hours ago, She Sails Away said:
It sounds like it's already pretty warm out there?
The weather is just perfect 20 C or 68 F. Maybe not for swimming but for site seeing we could not ask for better one.
- She Sails Away and WAAAYTOOO
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Are we too whiny?
in Royal Caribbean Discussion
Posted
Not sure how much time you have and which airline you are flying with , but if thus airline have early flights you might want to go to the airport, check inn and drop your luggage then go to Manhattan knowing you will need less time.e at the airport. Just check if the airline counter are opened and they don't have any restrictions.
Luggage locations also available in Pen station so you can take a taxi from the port to Newark Airport, from there using the air train you can go to train station which will take you to NYC pen station or you can take a taxi directly to Manhattan which I think might cost more and you might struggle with traffic.
If you are flying from Newark for surevi would first try to check-in, drop the luggage and take the train (20 minutes) to Manhattan