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Iluv4n6

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Posts posted by Iluv4n6

  1. Thanks, @OCSC Mike.  We are booked on Anthem out of Southampton (UK) on May 19.  So we should be able to check in at midnight GMT 45 days from sailing which would be comfortably in the early evening in the central US.  Wasn't sure if all cruises were locked into RC HQ (Miami) time for determining midnight 45 days out from embarkation.  Good to know that isn't the case.

    The app is easy to use and works great for snagging an early boarding time.  The app has taken ~2-5 minutes after midnight at the embarkation port to open up check-in for me based on recent experience.

  2. 21 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

    My edocs for a cruise in 19 days also say "Request a check-in appointment at www.royalCarribbean.com/onlinecheckin."

    I wouldn't give it a second thought as long as you have your arrival time in the app.

    Thanks @OCSC Mike.  Good to know my wife an I aren't the only ones without our check-in time being shown in our Guest Ticket Booklet...I think I'm done with my first, second, and third thoughts about this...😆

  3. Thanks @Ampurp85 and @smokeybandit.  This must be the first time I looked through the Guest Ticket Booklet for anything other than cabin assignment and luggage tags.  Seeing that the Cruise Summary page of the booklet (page 3) shows a line for "Check-In Appointment" lead me to believe that the summary page would confirm this detail as well, since I had checked in 45 days prior to sailing (and ~15+ days before receiving the Guest Ticket Booklet).  Instead, the summary page just indicates "Request a check-in appointment at www.royalCarribbean.com/onlinecheckin" in the line for my Check-In Appointment.     

    This still seems odd to me given that all the other details on the Cruise Summary page are provided and accurate (e.g., dining time, stateroom, deck, room category, reservation ID, etc.).  So this omission/conflicting information jumped out as a potential red flag for my check-in appointment until I went back to the app and saw my original appointment was still there...have learned the hard way to not assume much regarding how online systems operate and to double-check information more often than not. 

    Besides this inconsistency, the Cruise Summary page is handy and provides a good snapshot of your basic cruise info.  Would appreciate learning if anyone has seen their check-in time confirmed on the Cruise Summary page of their Guest Ticket Booklet. 

     

  4. My wife and I just received the PDF of our Guest Ticket Booklet for an upcoming cruise later this month and I noticed it does not show the check-in appointment time we reserved when we checked in using the app 45 days out.  Wondering what other cruisers may or may not be seeing for their check-in appointment times in their Guest Ticket Booklets.  Our TA didn't know why our appointment time wasn't shown in the booklet.  Maybe this is just another sporadic/unexplainable RC IT issue.  Good news is that the app still shows our correct appointment time (11AM).

    Thanks! 

  5. This is such a helpful and timely thread...wife and I will be checking in on the app next Wednesday evening (11PM central, midnight eastern) and will try jumping straight to the arrival time (and adding our other info later).  We tried this for our last cruise in January and ran into error messages out of the gates, so we ended up checking in a couple days later.  This will be a trail run for the app check-in process for a large family group cruise coming up early next year.  Don't want to fumble navigating the app for that one...😆

    Profile icon it is!

  6. Hi -- Wife and I will be sailing on Serenade for the GC in October and it looks like this ship still has an R Bar.  This is our first Radiance class cruise.  Maybe this bar type is still common on this class of ship, though we have never come across one, sailing mostly on the larger ship classes.  We really enjoyed Champagne Bars on Oasis class before they mostly all were converted into bionic bars (no thanks--unless really bored and have the DXL...even then not much fun).  Thinking the R Bar may be a throwback in the vein of Champagne Bar that would be fun to experience before they go bionic one day, too...

    Have any (good, great?) experiences at R Bars?  Any off-the-menu (or on-the-menu) specialty drinks they might offer that are unique to R Bars?  I suspect they all are locked into pretty much the same ship's/fleet's drink menu, but maybe not.    

    Thanks!

     

  7. Hi @Pattycruise, thanks for your reply.  I have been using the website for pre-cruise reservations.  And I just noticed that when I clicked on the cruise planner button yesterday, I must not have scrolled down a little to notice cruise planner buttons for both reservations.   So I quickly and inadvertently clicked the first CP button I saw and could reserve for our friends but not my wife and I.  I just logged back in and scrolled down to click on our actual reservation and I can book for my wife an I after all.  But the error message still prevents me from booking anything for our friends, possibly due to them being in a different Group ID that they are also not aware of.  Not a big deal, just a minor snag.  Will ask our MEI agent about it after the holiday...

    Besides the error message issue, this is essentially another of my "Oh, never mind" replies to a discussion I started, lol...note to self: just pay better attention to what you click.

    Have a great new year!

     

  8. How can we remove a guest from cruise planner reservations for dining, shore excursions, etc.?  The RC website is not allowing us to make a reservation for another couple that I was able to add as guests.  Yesterday, we received the error message that they are either using another currency (not true) or have a different group ID (may be true) which prevented me from making any reservations for both couples.  I just logged back in while we were on the phone with the other couple to make our own individual reservations for the same specialty restaurant.  Problem now is that my wife and I show up as the secondary reservations labelled with this error message.  Our friends show up at the top and I can reserve for them, just not for us. 

    I have not found an easy/obvious way to remove guests or otherwise de-link someone from the cruise planner reservation site after I added them.  I think that would be the easiest solution for us to book our dining reservations if I can find out how to do this.

    Believe me, we know from experience that the RC website can be unpredictable from time to time.  But this is a first to be locked out from making any reservations under you own login because you attempted (and failed) to make a reservation for added guests and now appear as secondary guests under your own account.  Yikes...

    Any suggestions appreciated...would hate to rely on wait until tomorrow to see how the website behaves, but that may be plan A...

    Happy New Year!

  9. image.png.b0661e2ab6c99bfd59e98ab6f3d33dbb.png

     

    Just wondering if other bloggers have received a similar survey from RC.  My wife and I received the above email this morning and will take the survey this evening.  I guess we have cruised enough (or recently enough) to now be part of the "select group of guests" .  That and $14 will still get us a fun beverage--once we run out of the Diamond freebies, that is!  😀

  10. I used to be a web-only check-in guy and felt more in control and less apt to make mistakes using the keypad and computer screen.  But after taking the suggestion of members these boards a couple cruises ago, I started checking my wife and I in with the app and won't go back.  Being able to scan in our passports and snap photos from the app really speeds up the check-in process.  I thought my usual fumbling with the small keypad on my phone would slow me down compared to the online check-in process but it never did.  Or maybe I'm just better tapping small keys on my phone than I have been giving myself credit for. 😅

  11. In our experience, the check-in wait times (after you are inside the terminal) can vary quite a bit and the appointed times probably won't be checked by terminal staff after the first couple appointment times. For our last cruise on Allure through Port Everglades in Sep, we had a noon check-in time and entered a sizable but generally moving line outside the terminal at about 11:30 AM.  When we reached the door (at about our check-in appointment time), there were no signs for appointment times -- they just wanted to get all guests processed as efficiently as possible. 

    Inside and after the bag scan, we entered the main room with probably two dozen small lines you could pick from to be checked in by staff using tablet computers.  This is where you arrive at the luck-of-the-draw stage of checking in.  You can't know which passengers will have problems with their check-in information, or which staff's tablet will go down preventing a line from being processed efficiently.  To my wife's (minor) annoyance, we each entered a line next to each other.  This turned out to be a good thing because one of the lines experienced an appreciable delay compared to the other.  The one in the delayed line (I won't say who) ducked under the rope and we merged into a moving line to marginally speed up our check-in. 

    In the early days after the restart and before passenger numbers returned to normal levels, we breezed through check-ins.  We also recognize that each terminal's check-in layout and process is a bit different and some are better equipped to handle a larger stream of passengers than others.  It may also be that our last embarkation day was during a partial network outage at Port Everglades that affected many of the check-in staff's tablets.

    All things considered, we will go with the flow of check-in even if it is a bit choppy so we can board the ship sooner.  We like to nail down some reservations and stop by our muster station right after we board and would prefer not to do this later in the afternoon.  Then we enjoy our first beverage and, mentally, our vacation really kicks off.   

    What we will do for our next cruise is actually check in on the earliest date possible (45 days form sail date) and not dilly-dally with the check-in.  Nab an early check-in time right off the bat so you don't feel compelled to re-check a bunch in an effort to snag an earlier appointment if you can.

    Happy Cruising!

     

     

     

  12. We are considering booking Serenade or Grandeur out of Tampa to check out a smaller ship and to fit a cheaper cruise into our vacation calendar. This would be our first cruise on a ship below Voyager class (i.e., one without a Royal Promenade) in a long time. The current fleet guide notes that Grandeur features Broadway style shows.  The description for Radiance Class/Serenade does not indicate anything for shows, even though the ship would have a theater like they all do. 
     

    We are familiar with the range of entertainment on Oasis, Freedom, and Voyager classes. And we may stick with the larger ships because of how much we enjoy all the fun things they have to offer including great entertainment/shows especially on Oasis class. We really like the shows and musicians on the ships. But we would like to hear from recent cruisers on Radiance and Vision classes (Serenade and Grabdeur in particular) to compare the range of entertainment options these ships offer.  Might tip the scales one way or the other for which cruise we select.

    Thanks!

    Iluv4n6

  13. On our last visit we took an excursion to the Carambola Beach Club (the tour to Nevis we wanted to go on was cancelled, so this was our back-up).  Very nice beach with good beverage service and food options. 

    On our first visit to St Kitts we took a taxi to the Ship Wreck beach bar, which is a fairly short distance down the same beach as the Carambola Beach club.  This is a fun, kitchy ramshackle bar with great food right on the beach.  Lots of monkeys around for photo opps.  

  14. Decisions, decisions!  Our next cruise (wife and me) will be on Allure, in part because it was a good deal for Oasis class.  We also love two of the venues on this ship that we want to enjoy again before they are amplified away some day: the Champagne Bar and Sabor.  Aruba is also a big plus on your itinerary. 

    I would second @AshleyDillo if only because the funds you save on the cheaper cruise can go toward the next one. 😄       

  15. All ships in Oasis class have so much to offer -- the neighborhoods (especially Central Park), the Aqua show, and Jazz on 4 (cool jazz club in the Deck 4 Entertainment Place) are at the tops for my wife and I.   And if you happen to have a drink package, or even if you don't and you want a nice place for an after dinner drink, you have to stop by the Champagne Bar in the Royal Promenade.  Allure is the only Oasis class ship still to have this classic establishment.  Great drink menu and wonderful bartenders! 

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