Traveler

I agree with you, they should have a better solution , read only as you described or in the worse case scenario some shared screen option. Any site that has PII information can not work without such method , getting my password is not one of them surely if they are SOX complaint (and they should be if they operate from the US or give service to US). I wonder if its a common practice or it was an initiative of the CSR.

So here is interesting alarming story . After almost 48 pass and I still could not retrieve the new reservation and when I went directly to the cruise planner I got a message that I could not order anything as payment is missing I called RC. First the CSR tried to convince me that I need to wait 15 minutes until I will see the reservation I explained here that I already done it for a day or two , she asked me to try IE instead Chrome , I tried just to get the same results (bit surprise).Next she asked me for my user name and password , wow , that was the first time ever that any CSR asked me such information. I gave her the password (and that is exactly why my password is different for each site , and yes I changed the password later).She tried and admit its not working . I guide her to try the cruise planner to see the error message I am getting , she got the same.At this point she told me she will talk to her supervisor so he can open and IT ticket for this issue , I told her that I will wait but I do not think it is IT issue, more like reservation that stuck on something. After around 10 minutes she came back to tell me she still waiting for the supervisor , 5 minutes after she asked me to check it again and what do you know it was working perfectly, apparently for some reason the reservation was still stuck on "offer" status so it never fully processed , once she change it all issues were fix. Still alarmed from the fact they wanted my password but I am happy the issue revolved just sorry my password was not something like "RCSiteisBS"

Thanks, Do you remember if Mkyenos port is near anything ? meaning can I walk from the ship to the city ?

Yes, until now I could have done it in a matter of minutes but with new site you never know. Anyway the site is down now for maintenance so I will wait few hours until it will come back.

Opps , Just saw I reacted on another thread , anyway , after all the wonderful advises here we decided to go with the Greek Islands option. We already booked the cruise and tickets. we will fly two days before the cruise so we will have at least a full day to tour Venice. Panning to book hotel in the mainland outside of Venice 15 minutes from the airport (we will land quite late)15-20 minutes by train from the city and 30 minutes from the cruise terminal , some of the hotels are offering shuttle to the cruise port , still need to check that. Hotels inside the city are very expensive and more important its not that easy to travel inside the city with luggage. Trying to add the new cruise to my account seem to be the most problematic part now , amazing (or maybe the fact I am still amazed that something is not working with RC site is the amazing part)

Thanks again for all the recommendations. After the suggestion here and some brainstorms we decided to book the Greek cruise from Venice. Just completed to book the cruise and the airline tickets, I guess its time for us to check the Vision class ships ?

Thanks everyone , The ports in the Greek cruise are : Kotor Montenegro, Curfo Greece, Athens Greece, Mykonos Greece, Argostoli Greece. The ports in the Northern cities are : Hamburg, Oslo , Brussels

Well the ship and the weather , Its hard to know if we will like the smaller ship or not , but it is 7 nights cruise , maybe its better to try in a shorter cruise , on the other hand the fact we are doing the Symphony few weeks after can compensate if we will have issue with the ship (which I do no think we will have). There is one think about big ships we both like and its about ability to walk allot and have enough places to walk to. The Greek Islands should be nice ports to visit I agree although we can visit it quite easily. Currently I am tending to the Greek option , we will need to choose soon as flights becoming more expensive every day (or its only because I forgot to clean the cookies)

Thanks for the info , Regarding the weather , well its hot and humid in the summer (Although today we are enjoying 25C) so sometime we are looking for colder weather during August. Well I must be frank here if it was Navigator or Indi doing the Med cruise we would not hesitate

Hi all , need some help to decide what will be our next cruise and thought why not to use the wisdom of this wonderful forum: So here is the story , my spouse and I should take a vacation at the last week of August, we cannot avoid as it is some kind of company policy. Usually, the last week of August travels are very expensive but this year it seems flights became very cheap so we have some options. Now we are really trying to figure out what will be the best for us , there were some option for land vacation (Amsterdam and Paris , London or Even Romania) but we found that we can take also another cruise.We have three options: 1. Indi for 3 days from Southampton 2. Navigator 7 days to northern Europe from Southampton. 3. Rhapsody 7 days to Greek islands from Venice All the cruises cost more and less the same (the 3 days on Indi cost just jumped) , all the flights also cost more and less the same so we heaving a very hard time to decide which one to take.Until now we only been on Oasis class (all of them), Freedom (Indi and Library) and Voyager , never something smaller (if you do not count the tendering boats). Oh , one more small information , 3 weeks from this cruise we already have the Symphony booked ?. Here are the pros/cons (I took out Indi from the list as it does not make sense from financial perspective) : Navigator Pros : Bigger ship has Sabor on it My Spouse never been to London before and we will have 3 days to explore it prior to the cruise. Should be better weather on the North Sea. (but you never know) It will be our first time in Oslo and Hamburg. Direct flight. Navigator Cons: Long transfer from London to Southampton and even longer when we will need to go from the ship to the airport (Luton). (and not sure if I want to rent a car as they are driving on wrong side ? ) Flight time longer. Flight is with low cost airline which mean we can travel with small suitcase or to pay extra. Hotels in London are expensive. We will need to take one extra vacation day. Rhapsody Pros : More cruise ports (6) none of them we visit before (and only Vision class can visit). More special restaurants comparing to Navigator. Flight time shorter (the main flight) Flight is with regular airline which includes two free suitcases. My spouse never been to Venice. Shorter transfer to the airport and port. Mainland hotels near Venice are cheap (and some are very near by the train station). Rhapsody Cons: Small ship, does not have many attraction (not even promenade) – not sure if we will like it or not. No direct flight (well the cheap flight we found anyway). Weather can be very hot at ports. What do you think?

Make sure you attend the SPA tour on embarkation day . During the tour they will let you enter to the SPA raffle which will take place later at early evening (you need to participate the raffle meeting to win) even if you will not win the first price (500$ for the SPA) many time all the participates will get some kind of a discount letter. Enjoy your cruise

Here is a check list I used for one of my cruise , its not a full one , but it can give you some idea : Passport with at least 6 month left until expiration that has at least empty pages +Visas if needed Credit cards + Notify them that they might see transactions from foreign countries Medicines and first aid kits Prescriptions for medicines Sunglasses A4 copy of each passport photo page Passport size photos *2 Printouts of the hotel bookings + the address Printed ship luggage tags Clear tape to attached the tags Small bag for the first night. Small backpacks for the shore excursions Copy of the sail passes after you complete the online checking Charges for the cellphone/camera/tablets better one that has many USB exists as the power outlets in the state rooms are limited Copy of the flights tickets including prints of the flights back. Camera Extra battery for the camera and extra memory cards. Battery bank for long shore excursions for emergency recharge. Sandwich nylon bags for small items Electric universal power plug for the hotels and the ship (in the ship you will find Europe and US power outlet) Magnets to hang things in the staterooms Eyeglasses prescriptions Two bottle of wines Printout of any planned activities including private shore excursions List of emergency phone calls including Royal Caribbean phones at each country/port. Port address both in English and the local language Books/cards/crosswords books/small games for the flights and ship Driving license Empty plastic or metal bootless to feel water Thermos to keep some hot water in the room (you don’t have Kettle in the stateroom nor you allow to bring one) Shampoo/Conditioner - in most of the stateroom there is one liquid which suppose to serve as soap/Shampoo/Conditioner so its better to bring some with you. Folded dress shirts for official nights - usually I give some shirts to the nearest laundry and ask them to iron it and pack them folded - in the state room there isn't Iron to use Sunscreen upload songs and movies to your cellphone/tablet. Install the airline application over the cellphone Install offline dictionary on the cellphone Update the roaming plans for the cellphone Cancel newspaper subscriptions Money for tips Transfer arrangements Willkie talkies- a good cheap way to communicate on the ship with family and friends swimming suite

Actually , the interesting question is who supervise the RC casino (or actually any cruise company casino). In mainland US its quite clear and each casino is committed to certain percentage of payouts. I can not complain on my last slots machines experience on Symphony Of the Seas , maybe it was just pure luck or maybe the machines were tuned to be more generous for the new ship.

Regarding the certificates , The highest certification you can get is Balcony cabin for two were you can use for certain cruises, if you want to use it for other cruise you are getting a 1000 $ off any cruise. As other said here , its easy to accumulate points in slots machines , there are two reason for that : 1. Its easy to track the slots machines , once you put your card in (or wave it in the new ships) the computer track your exact play and can calculate how much money you used while in table games its harder . For example if you are playing 50 $ per hand at a BJ table which has 10 $ minimum and its not being notice by the host/Pit boss the system will calculate as you played only 10 $ per hand. 2. The certificates value and other perks are calculate from the theoretic money you loose in the casino , since slot machines has much worse chances than table game you are getting more points playing them.Theoretic money lost is calculate by the money you play , the casino edge and the time you are playing

Wow , for one second I thought I am reading a thread in CC? As part of my work I am traveling all around the world (most of the US, Canada , South America, Asia , Europe) and I like to watch and learn about the differences and similarity in culture, food , sports , way of doing business , many time I find much more similarity than differences (well maybe not in food). I will be very bored if everyone act the same. I cruised from the FLL, Barcelona , Honk Kong and all was very nice, I guess I will not cruise from Baltimore in the near future just because currently we prefer big ships and from Baltimore I can see only small ships cruising, also much easier to fly to NYC. Planning to cruise next year from Southampton has I found some nice itinerary with Indi , I am sure we are gong to enjoy it as we enjoy all our cruises until now.

I will try to answer some of the questions : 1. Beach safe , in CocCay , I do not think you need it as it is a private Island of RC and very safe , you also do not need to take too much money with you, Nassau is different story, but I will invested in such Beach Safe only if all of you planning going on the same time to swim. 2. Usually , you should have 1 Official night (most of the times on the second day) , but the best will be to go on this site to the cruise compass archive and find similar cruise which can give you allot of information what to expect. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass Some example for a four day cruise : https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/majesty-of-the-seas/mon-2018-03-05-0000 3. The best will be to come around 10:30-11 AM , most of the chances that by 12 (and many time earlier) you will be able to board. most of the big lines start to form around 1 - 2PM when people start to come from the airport. mind that rooms are available only from 1 PM. if anything goes without issues (ship are not late, custom is not doing special checks or ship need extra cleaning) you should expect between 10 - 20 minutes (tops) lines in the check in and between 10 to 40 minutes wait to be boarded (many time not even that , our of my 6 cruise until now I had to wait only on two , all the rest was just check in and directly tot he ship). to minimize the check in time it is highly recommended to complete the online check in at RC site.

Bottle of water and special coffee includes in the package. The only thing which is not included is Starbucks coffee in ships which includes it , but even on thous ship you can can get special coffee (espresso base) in several locations. And yes , you just go to any bar and ask for bottle of water, many times they will also have a stand of bottle water near the gangway before you go out of the ship. Regarding the type of water , I am not that sure , but if you ask I think you can get also Evian. So if you got the drinking package do not bother to get the 12 bottles. Even if you do not have the package you can being several bottles of water on embarkation day without any issues (beside carry them with you as they can not be with the checked items )

Is it that rainy they closed the Abyss , as wind should effect it , after all its a closed slide.

Well not from the WJ but still red velvet cake (now I have to eat it ?, still good).

Have a wonderful cruise , following for sure. Regarding NY and the behavior of people , the funny thing is that many of the people that gave you the look and said something nasty to you came to the city only few weeks ago and got the same treatment themselves, its just a NY thing I guess ?

On Dec I took a cab from FLL airport to the cruise terminal , it was just me and the backpack (I drop my spouse before with the suitcases) somehow he charged me 20 $ , so yes , its better to take Uber which they can not play with the price.

Enjoy your trip.

Most of the hotels in Barcelona are at most 20 Minutes from the port , most of them which are the city will be around 10 to 15 minutes, Last time we stayed at 4 points Diagonal (which is on the 22 neighborhood) which was very well and 10 minutes from the port , after the cruise we too the Crown plaza which was also quite close to the port. If you are planning on last minute purchase (like wine) just have a look on google map near your hotel if there is a supermarket around. One important thing , on some of the hotels site they will show you hotels which are in Barcelona area but are actually are in near by towns , just check the distance from the city center. also , usually rooms are smaller than the average room size in the US.

I have done the BOGO on Symphony , Although they ask you to choose the first night dining time they never really secure it (and not for the first time). Once we board the ship we went to the central park to find one of the special restaurants which were open so we can book the required restaurants. We went to Choop grill and it was quite easy to book the two restaurants we wanted (Wonderland and Hooked) so it seems no restrictions. On day 1 we went to Wonderland and on day two to Hooked.

Seems the silent disco nights are becoming very poplar around the fleet Wonderful pictures as always.