HtownHolly

We are sailing Icon on 3/8/2025, and I'm finding that hotel and booking sites don't go out that far yet. I'm kinda anxious about this because it's Miami at Spring Break. Am I missing some kind of "back door" for getting a room just the night before we sail?

Agreed. Gotta navigate to the specific port’s page, and then look for sailings from there. It works, but it’s not the most intuitive.

5 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

We were all 10 years younger when this thread was first started

My fault, lol. I clicked on the >> That goes all the way to the oldest posts, rather than the next page… and didn’t notice these were from 2013, haha. Still a valid topic of discussion

A bit far out there, but that means more time to daydream and plan! This will be our second trip to Coco Cay, and our first to St Thomas and St Maarten

Hope to meet other travelers!

Eastern. Or actually southern! Loved the ABC islands (kinda sad you don’t see Bonaire as much). Been to Mexico many times already, and Roatan twice. Offerings out of Galveston are limited. Looking forward to our first time to St Thomas and St Maarten out of Miami

Not any more than 15 months - which is the closest to first sailing we'll have ever been on. I don't think I've even see a second Icon class ship name announcement yet?

I just booked on Icon for spring break 2025 and am excited. We'll finally be getting away from the Western Caribbean/Mexico ports, and hitting a couple islands we haven't been to before (St Thomas and St Maarten). The last couple cruises we took a friend along for my teenage daughter to hang out with and that's been kind of stressful coordinating with another family, so this time it'll just be me, DH and daughter in a balcony. If others want to join us, they can get their own room, hah.

Time to daydream and start looking at excursions - daughter wanted more good beach time, and this should do it (especially with Coco Cay on the itinerary). I just hope there are enough spots with shade because we are like whiter than white, lmao.

On 8/3/2022 at 2:29 PM, CrimsonCruiser said:

Griff from Griff and Alyssa and the J's from JJ Cruise made good points about the mattresses being very firm when purchased so that they hold up better to the high usage. I don't have anything to indicate if this is true or not (and I don't even know if i would notice as I'm a fan of extra firm mattresses and the only new ship I've been on was Odyssey and I was quite happy) but I thought it was worth mentioning in case that helps your future bookings.

May be that the recently amped ships have gotten the new mattresses?

 

 

Not sure I buy this. Mattresses in homes are slept on every single night, and I bet they are not replaced as often as ones in a cruise ship. Also it’s not as though there are high enough ceilings in a cabin to like jump on the beds or abuse them in ways you wouldn’t at home (which might cause faster wear and tear aging).

Personally, I 100% cannot sleep normally on a RC mattress. I’ve had to either prop up with lots of pillows in a semi-sitting up position, done the same on the couch in the cabin, or slept on the deck chair if we have a balcony. They are just awful, IMO. Would be nice if they had bendy beds

On 12/21/2022 at 6:46 PM, _1stTimer said:

On 12/22/2022 at 11:51 PM, Pattycruise said:

Read the fine print on that.  Earlier in the month it was “must book within 60 days to keep the NEXTCRUISE OBC”, if booked after 60 days you lose that OBC

That’s fine - we will probably figure out in the next 2 months where to go next. And even if not, it was nice to not have to make a decision “now” about when and where to go next, because we are always trying to get other family & friends to join us, and it’s difficult to make those decisions if they aren’t already on the ship with us

I’m thinking in February or so, but can’t remember.

Been really good so far. It was mid 70s to mid 80s in Mexico. Smooth sailing on the seas and even though I the sailing is near capacity, it doesn’t feel crowded. The Neighborhoods concept does such a good job of breaking up the crowds. Even at the elevators! Allure looks good - not showing her age, IMO. Air conditioning in the room takes a bit to kick in … that’s the only negative I have.

I saw the Aqua Theater show on Harmony 3 years ago and the one here is just great as well!

Also, NextCruise has a new booking offer that I took advantage of (kiddo wants to sail Icon next… can’t blame her after seeing the docus onboard about it). Reduced ($200) deposit, and you don’t have to chose your sailing - booking can be delayed up to 12 months. 

We are on Allure now and did not reserve parking. Had to park in Lot 14, but a shuttle takes you to the terminal. It was $108 for a 5-night cruise.

So we’ve been to Cozumel and Costa Maya a few times, and would like to try somewhere else next time. Grand Cayman looks great, but I don’t get the sense RCCL sails there often (or else it’s on the much older/smaller ships). 

What other Caribbean options would fit this bill? We’ve been to the ABCs, Labadee. Jamaica and Honduras, so bonus points for suggestions of new spots. Maybe revisiting Coco Cay is in order (were there 3 years ago). Are other southern/eastern islands ones with nice sandy shores?

Let's see... Navigator, Harmony, Independence and now Allure in a couple weeks.

Happy update on this! I got the Royal Up offer email today so thought "hmmm, maybe things are opened back up?" I still don't see the cruise listed on the website, but asked my TA to give it a go again, and he was able to make the change, which I can now see online. Hooray! And surprisingly enough, the shore excursions and drink package purchase transferred over to the replacement passenger as well.

11 days to set sail so this got a little close, but everyone is thrilled that it worked out finally. SHEW!

3 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

If your cruise is closed, they will not reopen to add passengers. Each ship has a certain number of lifeboat spaces, if those get filled up, they can no longer add passengers. It doesn't matter if your room can hold more.

This is understandable, for adding more people. I'm hoping something can be done for changes which do not impact capacity. Like, what if I noticed a name was misspelled and wouldn't match any official documentation - it's over 2 weeks out, so seems like that kind of "administrative" change should be possible, but so far the TA has not been allowed access to make any changes at all (of any kind).

dupe - see quoted below

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Unless there is some extenuating circumstances such as FCC in that's guests name, casino discount from that guest, Crown and Anchor discounts based on that guest or something similar you should be able to swap a guest so long as at least one guest name from the original reservation remains on the booking.  

If guest #2 of 2 changed names 3 months ago then guest #1 can't change names, ever.

None of those apply. It’s swapping out one “never cruised before” 14 yo for another. The sailing currently doesn’t show up on the website so maybe it’s sold out. But we aren’t impacting capacity or changing rooms or anything. Just names. I’m pretty frustrated with this, honestly. TA basically said all he can do is try calling daily, and no reason for blocking out TAs has been given to him.

Howdy folks! Been awhile. I'm using an MEI travel agent and he and I are getting different feedback from RC about a change to my reservation. We want to swap out one passenger for another (someone not currently on the reservation), on a fully-paid sailing that is still about 3 weeks out - he was told that he can't do that. When I called RC they told ME he should be able to (and of course wouldn't just make the change over the phone with me, since I went through a TA). Anyone run into this before? It's super frustrating... I know the manifest isn't set yet (it's on Allure, Dec 18), and we've paid for the whole thing, so... not sure what gives.

I'd expect it to be twice whatever you normally would get.

23 hours ago, PG Cruiser said:

 

Have you had personal experience with this double promo since they launched it?  

We just got double points on our 8/15 cruise on Indy. Just in a balcony and not single occupancy, but for a 7 night cruise we got 14 points each.

You're correct, it was the first revenue sailing out of Galveston (for RC at least... dunno about Disney and Carnival). Crowds were non-existent. With a capacity of something like 3,400, there were fewer than 1,300 aboard (and like 70 were un-vaccinated kids). Some stuff was not operating, which was a bit of a bummer: no ice skating or skating shows, no laser tag, no escape room. Grease had one performance (the final night) and Windjammer wasn't available for dinner. Embarkation and debarkation couldn't have been easier - in part because of the lack of people, but also the facial recognition at customs is easy-peasy.

Food was great, staff was SUPER HAPPY TO SEE US - our head waiter called the stateroom the day after we opted out of MDR, to see if we were unsatisfied with dinner, haha.  To be honest, it felt like a little bit of a ghost town, BUT... absolutely zero issues with chair hogs around the pool, LOL! It was a nice change of pace, though I think I'd prefer a bit more hustle and bustle onboard, and to have all amenities open and running. The ship is in great shape - it was our first time on her, and we really enjoyed it.

Had a great time on Indy last week! Our next scheduled cruise is Allure on 12/18/2022 out of Galveston, and because it's so far out (I don't think I want to cruise during summer vacation anymore -- TOO HOT, and because we have a school age kid, our options to get away are limited), I decided to upgrade my original booking which was one Central Park balcony and one Ocean View balcony, to a JS that's connected to an Ocean View balcony. It'll be nice to have a tub, and with double points now extended through that sailing date, it'll put us almost to  Emerald. I'm going to keep this a surprise for my family. Moving on up

We used lanyards with badge ID sleeves on them. They are the same size as a credit card. Try to get one that's clear on both sides, because for some stuff you they need to scan the barcode on the back.

52 minutes ago, goodionik said:

It all has to do with the fact that the company doesn't want to take responsibility because something could happen to a sick person. Especially now, when tourism has suffered the most and money is very scarce. You can understand them. But then I also agree that there are millions of people with diabetes, hypertension, and other things.

In my best SpongeBob narrator voice: