Psycho and Barb

9 hours ago, Xaa said:

I'll have no sympathy for chair hogs leaving their items and then having a difficult time getting their towel deposit 

All they have to do is grab a replacement towel from the towel station early in the morning when nobody is around…The towels are out and ready but nobody around to hand them out.   We have seen chair hogs stop and grab a handful and use them to mark out their chairs.

Just noticed the cost of the unlimited Dining packages on our three booked cruises have jumped up.  They have not changed since we booked them till today.

Our Wonder of the Seas cruise the UDP was $219.99 on the 17th of Oct and today, the 21st its $260.99

Our Adventure of the Seas first leg the UDP was $188.99 on the 17th of Oct and today is the 21st its $208.99

Our Adventure of the Seas second leg the UDP was $250.99 on the 17th of Oct and today is the 21st its $277.99

54 minutes ago, tonyfsu21 said:

There’s chair hogs and then there’s Freedom 3 or 4 night out of Miami chair hogs. I have seriously never witnessed more hog sightings at 06:00 on any other voyage we have been on. Keep in mind we are D+ and sail the Freedom weekend voyages quite a bit. I would say 60-70% of the chairs and 100% of the prime locations had either a book or a towel on them and it was still dark out. This happened every single morning and I witnessed it while taking my AM walk. 

Want to have some fun?  Grab some of them towels and books and drop them at the towel station.  Grab a cup of coffee and grab you a seat…It might take a few hours for the show to start

We have seen Royal do this in the past on a few ships.  The problem we saw was how bad the Royal staff were treated and how some cruiser claimed they only went the restroom even though we had not seen anyone in those chairs at all.   We saw one very intoxicated individual become very hostile to the staff member...So hostile, we contacted security.  Everyone knows it needs to be done but Royal needs to back their staff or better yet, have security do the tagging and removal so they could use their bodycams to record any negative reactions. 

Must do!

The first thing we do as soon as we get onboard is find our dining area and check our table.  If it's not right or what we requested is very easy to get it fixed...A simple conversation with the head MDR person will get it fixed.   

If on an Oasis class ship, we've must get a roast beef sandwich from the Park Cafe.

Meet our room steward to make sure they keep our ice bucket full...Lol

Attend the Quest!  We are hoping they bring it back now that the Covid restrictions are going away.

On 10/15/2022 at 8:45 AM, PG Cruiser said:

We had the same experience.  We linked reservations for 8 staterooms and made a request to be seated in the same area.   One family in our party was assigned to a table very far from the rest of us.  I had to sort it out with the MDR manager.  This is the reason why no matter what has been discussed over the phone with agents or what is on paper, I still spend a good hour or so as soon as I get onboard to confirm everything.

The dining room and the MDR manager is one of our first stops when we get onboard.  Never had a problem getting dining issues resolved.

For us it all depends on how many times we have been to a port to determine what we will do.  We did sail a B2B on the Explorer of the Seas out of Puerto Rico last November and the first cruise was we had a port stop every day.  We didn't have and planned excursion every port, but we were exhausted by the end of the cruise and was glad the second weeks cruise had two seas days to just chill and rest up.

On 10/13/2022 at 12:15 PM, Lesa t said:

Our cruise goes to Haiti in January.  I am a bit nervous about going there. Any feedback?

Best feedback we can give is!

1.  Labadee is just a beautiful beach type beach day and one of our favorite ports!!!.

2. Get off the ship as soon as you can to grab you the best spot on one of Labadee's five beaches.  If you have kids...Head to Adrenaline Beach so the kids can play under the supervision of the ships Adventure Ocean or got to Arawak Aqua Park for all the inflatables.  if you just want to chill and relax or maybe read a good book...You can't beat Nellie's beach.

3.  Try the Dragon Breath Zipline.  Psycho's GPS Camera said he hit 48 MPH on one of his rides.

4.  About noon, head to one of the three Open air type restaurants for some barbecue.  You can leave your stuff on your chairs at the beach.  We've never had a thing stolen.

5.  Is to just relax.  If you have the booze package it also good on Labadee.  And when you are ready to call it a day, you can grab one of trams to get back to the ship.

Never seen the booze package sell out…Probably, it’s just another one of Royal’s incompetent IT screwup’s 

49 minutes ago, RichCruise7 said:

We sail on the 23rd from Miami with Labadee one of the stops. I've read exactly this countless times. Not looking forward to that stop just for that reason.

You have to decide to go into the local selling area...It's not in an area that you will encounter during your normal day at Labadee...Unless you want to.

It’s nothing but Royal’s fuzzy math. 

We went a lot more before the drink change and miss the old days.  It was nice when it was packed and you met a lot of great cruisers.  Now on some ships…The Diamond lounge is a graveyard 

It use to…Before Covid 

2 hours ago, CrznTxn said:

They do not want to pay the up charge to the cruise line. If they did it would cost the $84pp that the other beaches do. Glad they do not, at least for Nachi Cocom. I will take the $59 charge and pay the taxi fare for a real all inclusive exclusive beach, personal palapa and much better food. The best part is the bartender is super friendly and will fix our drinks exactly (strong) as we like them.

And Nachi has a limited on people they allow in everyday where other beach clubs pack in as many as they can.  We love Nachi.  

16 minutes ago, ElmoHongZito said:

 The resorts look kind of run down, looks like there could be excessive seaweed (including smell) with brownish water at times as well. 

Unfortunately, this port seems to always have lots of seaweed no matter where you go…It’s been there every time we’ve been there.  Most the resorts have a small army of people constantly raking the seaweed.

I’m sorry, but if we ever earn Pinnacle…I’m wearing that dang tag!  Think about what it takes to earn that honor…We would wear it with pride.   Just bring honest 

18 hours ago, Clay said:

I'm doing Celebrity next week so we will see if they have it. 

I would be happy to hear if they have it or not after your cruise 

We call the big tee shirt sales…Walmart at Sea !

Psycho sticks it in one of his ball caps…Barb never wears hers.  

2 hours ago, ElmoHongZito said:

Our port days are in the following destinations…

Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico

Roatan, Honduras

Cozumel, Mexico

Coco Cay

 

Would also like to know your thoughts on booking excursions thru the cruise or separate and if separate when to book (in advance or on the spot when we arrive to port).

 

 

 

You can Goggle any of these to check them out.

Puerto Costa Maya...Maya Chan Beach Resort...All inclusive

Roatan, Honduras...Infinity Bay Beach Excursion...All inclusive

Cozumel, Mexico...Nachi Cocom...All inclusive

Coco Cay...Chill Island...No reservations required

Park at the terminal...It's a very short walk to the ship

On our June Alaska cruise.  We were surprised to receive an unexpected and very large refundable OBC from our TA...First time ever, we didn't spend all of our OBC and on an Alaska cruise to boot!  Our Un-refundable OBC was used first and the rest was put back our CC.  

2 hours ago, steverk said:

The inside passage is an odd place as far as cell phone.  Generally speaking, the ship will not turn on its cell tower when you are close to land.  Since you are surrounded by land in the inside passage, it is possible they would never turn it on and you would never have a problem.

During our June inside passage, we sometimes got better service using land towers then the Radiance Wi-Fi in several areas on the inside passage.  We have Verizon and our plan includes roaming and Canada...We would switched it off Airplane and as long as we didn't see the dreaded cellular at sea we were good to go.  Didn't have any cost added to our Verizon bill.  

Not an option we use.  We always select our room...We like being on a certain side of the ship and close to elevators.

42 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

When they actually have them on the ship... which hasn't been the norm since startup although they seem to finally be making some progress.

We got our last one after the start up on the Explore of the Seas