Traveler

Hi , 

Rhapsody of seas Aug 25  18

Symphony of the seas Sep 23 18

6 minutes ago, twangster said:

I emailed them recently about updating upgrade and gift preferences and received this reply:

We strive to give our high level Crown & Anchor Society members an especially warm welcome onboard.

[omitting irrelevant verbiage]

To ensure your preferences are updated, please contact our office directly at 1-800-526-9723.

You may choose your selection by calling us at 1-800-526-9723, or e-mailing us at crownandanchor@rccl.com.  Our representatives will be happy to assist further. Our hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 11:00 pm EST; and Saturday and Sunday 9:00 am to 8:00 pm EST.
 

But is not crownandanchor@rccl.com the email you sent the request  before  ?, 

At the end you will create endless loop and you will crash RC site

Following , enjoy your cruise 

Regarding the welcome gift it is not added yet to the site , you will need to call or send them email with your request (at least one time).

 

Just now, monctonguy said:

They could just charge a small fee to visit the WJ after  9pm..like $5.95 per guest or something......

Don't give them ideas  , someone might take you seriously  

It should be quite simple for RC to keep the WJ open for extra few hours, even if it will be limit to one section.

Two more things I would love to have  are : Ability in the WJ to walk and bring some more food without losing the table and without the need to leave someone to watch. The other thing is some kind of a timer on the pool chairs , once someone is leaving the chair he can start this timer (for 10-15 minutes) and if he is not returning by that time he will lose it.

Regarding the late serving on the Empress, its very nice I wish they could have done it on all the ships

Kettle on each stateroom , I heard you can ask but not all the time they have one.

I guess we are all here love to cruise with Royal Caribbean. 

Although I only cruised with RC until now (so I cant compare)   I feel  we are  getting wonderful experience and a good value for our  money. 

Still from time to time I think there are few small things which if RC changed/added could  make the experience even better  , I guess each one have is own list :

Leaving the WJ open for longer hours at the evening  - currently, beside the room service its very hard to find something to eat after 9 PM .

Iron room - I understand why they will not locate iron on each room but maybe iron room in few places  can be used if you need to iron a T shirt, yes I know I can give the shirt to iron for a fee but it takes time to get it back and sometime it cost more than the T shirt

In room  Kettle  - just to start the morning with a coffee or tea  without going all the way to the nearest station, I know its not a safety issue as you get them in JS and up . if its a matter of stocking the coffee product well , they can say its self service , meaning , if you want coffee/sugar/tea bags, just bring some from one of the coffee places.

Room service outside of your room - lets say its night time , WJ is already closed and you do not feel eating a Pizza or sandwich, your partner is already sleeping, it could  be nice to be able order food (with the same fee) to some of the other places , maybe even leave some of the WJ table sections open just for it ? 

Oh and most important , working, friendly, usable  website .... 

 

I wonder what other people will suggest ?

I was on Voyager of the seas when sailing was changed to midnight .

They did manager to have the dinner without any issues before the muster drill , but in your case with the sailing time earlier I might consider the option to eat that day in the WJ 

9 hours ago, cruise-y said:

I cruise all different lines so never bothered to sign up on RCCL's Crown and Anchor until I'd cruised with them a few times and finally figured I'd be back.  So now I'm "gold".  What does that mean?  What do I get?  The website says I get a private lounge on disembarkation day with a continental breakfast.  Is that true?  Is it worth it?  Where is it?

Do they accrue your points after you pay for a cruse or after you actually take the cruise?

 

Sorry, I'm sure this has been answered multiple times before.

The "breakfast" on the disembarkation lounge is usually coffee and some pastries , nothing near what you can get in WJ or other places.

  

4 hours ago, JLMoran said:

A) This is nuts that there is so big a discrepancy in points rewarded given the difference in play time and I assume average bet (although I'll grant you can burn through money at the slots about 20-50x faster than at your typical craps table).

B) It's a serious testament to how freaking tight the slots are.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd just as soon dump my money overboard after the casino host counts the bills, or set fire to it in a rubbish bin, as play those slot machines.

But I don't care about making that second tier, either, so I'll just play my $5 pass line with $5 odds, have my time in the casino last a hell of a lot longer, and also have some fun being social with everyone at the table.

Here is more and less how they calculate the points (its true for most casinos).

Its all about odds and math. each points has value , we can calculate it roughly by looking on the certification  , to get a 1000 $ certification you need 4800 points to get to 4800 points in  slots game (easier to calculate) you need to play 4800*5 = 24000 $  as you get one point for each 5$ you play , remember this number I will get back to it later

Now each game has its own house edge which is the chance you will loose , in blackjack (if playing right) its around 1-2%  in slots , its rally depends on the casino but can be 5% - to 15% and even worse, craps , again depends how you play , if you play the odds it can be also around 1% while 3 card poker is more around 5%.

The way they calculate it for a table game is something like : the house edge * the average bet * number of hands you played = theoretical casino earning  which % of it will return back as perks to the gamblers 

The average bet is exactly why everyone say you need to get the host attention (or the pit boss) since the house edge and time of playing are tracked automatically but the average bet is not. so lets say you were on a 5$ minimum  blackjack table  and played for 4 hours but you played 50$ per  game , if the host/pit boss is not tracking your average the automatic calculation will be done as if you played 5$ bet only ... 

Back to the slots example , so if the edge is 10% and you need 24000 $ play to get a 1000 $ certification it means your theoretical losing for the "free cruise" will be 2400 $ (they will add to it also the free alcohol in the casino bar).

To get to the same in a black jack table or crap (lets assume 1.5$ house edge)  you will need to  spend 2400/ 0.015 = 1600000$ ...   

The average number of black jack hands per hour is around 50- 60  so in other words if you play average of 10 $ to the the 160000$ you will need to play 266 hours ...  while only 26 hours if you play 100$ per hand (which you will get if you play 4 hours  per day * 7 = 28 hours) .

The better the edge of the house in a game , the less time you will need to play . 

This not 100% accurate but it can give you a good example why you are not getting so much points playing table game,  I think the most important is to remember :

For the long run the house always wins , so play for fun , do not ever play to get certifications/other perks , 99% of the time its cheaper to pay for it directly.

I have not got the email yet , but I never get any emails from Royal club , always need to call them to get the deals. no matter how many time they checked it and try to fix it still no mails. well I will guess I will have to call again in few days or maybe its just in the queue  

From financial perspective I think it make sense if you are using it at least 2- 3 times .

If not just order a treatment ... it will cost almost the same 

We used the Thermal spa on the Symphony of the seas.

It was nice although we did not use it too many times. On the first day you come to the spa you are getting some scrubbing kit (you can chose which one). Each time you go to the spa you check in in the counter and get a locker and a robe , did not see slippers. towels are available in the thermal suite area and in the lockers/sowers.

  

4 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

@Traveler, that CSR asking for your password is inexcusable on multiple levels. First, as you noted, that's a gateway to social engineering and hacking into any other account you hold anywhere else. Second, for thing like that the CSRs should have a read-only "Impersonate Client View" kind of tool on their side, where they log in as themselves and then activate an impersonation function that takes your ID and shows your reservations or other details for review. It's a standard in every financial site I've ever worked on, and I'm stunned Royal's IT department hasn't.... Oh, yeah... Royal IT. 

In all seriousness, this should be reported to a supervisor. Don't frame it in a way to get the CSR in trouble, but ask them in very serious tones why they don't have that kind of tool and what the hell they are thinking having reps asking for full login credentials in this age of cyber theft.

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.   

 

On 6/3/2018 at 8:14 AM, twangster said:

I usually give it 24 hours.  Sometimes I can add them right away but many times I just do it the day after.

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"

3 hours ago, Sweety said:

Love Mykonos and Athens. Must try gyros over there and lemon potatoes.

Thanks, 

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

3 minutes ago, twangster said:

I usually give it 24 hours.  Sometimes I can add them right away but many times I just do it the day after.

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  

56 minutes ago, twangster said:

Is the ship the destination or are the ports the destination?  Which is more important?

I get the feeling the ship is holding you back from choosing the Greek cruise.  As you have noted the smaller ship is required to get into some of those ports. 

Last year I sailed on Allure in May then my next ship was Grandeur.  Mega to small.  I loved Grandeur.  It's a wonderful ship.  It's only considered a small ship by Royal Caribbean standards.  By the measure used by all other cruises lines, having ~2,000 guests is not a small ship. 

The Greek Islands are on my bucket list and I'd have no hesitation sailing Vision class ships so I know what I'd do, but this is your vacation.  Follow your gut. 

 

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) 

9 minutes ago, Ray said:

for me i would do the med trip, simply down to the fact its somewhere i havent been and its hotter.  

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