ultimate_ed

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/a-cheapskates-cruise-on-icon-of-the-seas-a4c92fb4?st=0uii0wetbjogukd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Perspective on a cruise on Icon of the Seas without buying the extras/upsells.

I had posted this in the News section so you may want to look at the comments there as well. (I always struggle a bit with deciding whether a topic should go in the "News" section or this "Discussion" section, but anyway). As a follow up - one thing that stood out to me was that this cruiser hadn't received a room assignment before arriving at the pier. Since it was a first cruise for them, they didn't find it odd. I'm curious how common that is for a GTY booking to not know your room number until you arrive at the port? It seem like other discussions I've read with GTY bookings it's common to get the room number at least a few weeks ahead of the sailing.

I've never actually booked a GTY room as I've always wanted to specify groups of rooms close together. I've considered it for future cruises where it would just be my wife and I with one cabin, but this does give me pause. It also means that I'm never going to skip the travel insurance, especially when there's air travel involved.

https://www.reddit.com/r/royalcaribbean/comments/185ni0s/overbooking_on_the_day/ Saw this one this morning and found it pretty shocking that this guy is finding out when he arrived at the port that RCCL didn't have a room for him. From what I've gathered in the comments, this was a first time cruiser with a GTY booking. It's not clear, but it appears that there may have been a dozen others who were also denied boarding due to overbooking the ship the as well. That's some disappointing inventory management to be sure.

Yes, but even if Carnival as a cruise company goes into bankruptcy, all their ships will still exist and will be available for passengers. The shareholders would get wiped out, but the debt holders would own the ships and the Carnival name to keep on sailing. Much like what GM went through back in the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

On the one hand, I suppose it's good that other people are buying all the crap. The alternative would be none of that and just paying higher cruise fares. I can easily walk past all of those while I'm on board. If someone else wants to subsidize my cruise by purchasing overprices watches, bracelets, and artwork, who am I to complain?

I don't disagree, and ultimately this is the price they all paid for being non-US companies - they weren't eligible for any kind of COVID bailouts/support from the US government the way the airlines and other businesses were. Of course, they probably wouldn't be able to exist at all if they had to comply with US shipping and labor laws, so there's that. I'm still betting one of the big three is going to go through a bankruptcy reorg at some point. The amount of debt (and equity dilution) that Carnival, NCL, and Royal all took on was staggering.

It's probably worse than either - one or two of your rooms get kicked, while the others don't. In your case, the last thing you want to do is put in for the offer. Each room, even if you paid for all four, is a distinct booking in RCCL's system. So, you're possible to "win" the offer for one room and get it moved to Voyager (or a later Allure sailing), while the rest of the rooms stay on Allure.

Yes, but all those shares and bonds they sold to keep the lights on with no ships sailing have to be paid for. It's pretty telling that with bookings and on board spending above pre-pandemic levels, they're still losing money.

Right? This is the thing I don't understand with folks, supposedly adults, "forgetting" stuff like this. I've got two cruises booked and I have appointments in my Google Calendar for each of them a week ahead of the final payment date to pay the bill. And both of those are booked with an agent that has my card on file to make the payment. Heck, my driver's license expires in 2028 and I've got a reminder in my calendar 3 months ahead of that to tell me to renew it. We don't actually have to remember anything anymore. But, we do have to take the initiative to use the organization tools we have available to us living in the future. Definitely an expensive lesson for the OP's friend.

That's interesting. My Symphony sailing the week before Christmas, we got the "old" style cups. Never had issues with the freestyle machines being out.

Wanted to piggy back a bit on this topic as I'll also be sailing Voyager later. I've not doubt it doesn't have the full range of Coke products since it doesn't have the freestyle machines. Is there a listing anywhere of what sodas they do carry? I prefer Coke Zero.

That would jive with my feeling as well. Given the responses so far, I guess I should have been more specific with my question. Naturally, anyone coming to the U.S. to sail from a U.S. port is going to have a passport, so that is going to drive the overall percentage up. But, as you noted - I don't think most Americans have a passport and I think that's a big factor is why the mainstream cruise lines don't make them mandatory regardless of what U.S. law allows.

Let me start that I'm not asking about trying to cruise without a passport. We always take our passports to cruise and I think it's the only way to go. This is more of a curiosity question that maybe Matt or one of the resident travel agents knows the answer to: What percentage of cruisers use a passport to board vs a birth certificate? I had seen the story last week about folks on a Princess sailing getting denied boarding due to the places they were going requiring a passport, even though it was a closed loop cruise. Many commenters I've seen on various forums and news sites argue that the cruise lines should just mandate passports for all travelers. Yet, they don't. I have to conclude that there is a large enough fraction who don't have/use passports that the cruise lines feel imposing a blanket passport requirement would put a big hit on sales and be a big deterrent to getting first time cruisers. So, while I would bet most of us as regular cruisers (or at least wannabe regulars like myself) take having a passport for granted, I'm curious if we're really the minority?

I have an upcoming cruise in a month on Symphony and MTD was the only option available when I booked. It's one of the ships where booking shows and dinner ahead of time has come back and I've taken advantage of that...sort of. The MTD options each night mostly fall within the hour of 7-8pm and there are two nights where I have shows reserved that conflict with any of the available dining slots. I'm figuring I'll just have to try to do a walk up earlier, but I can't find anything on what the time range is that MTD is actually running on the ship. Is there a "standard" for this, or does it vary by ship/sailing? Also, should I expect more MTD reservation options to show up once I get on board? Worst case we do the Windjammer those nights, but I'm paying for the dining room, so I'd prefer to take advantage of it.

Those poor hamsters running hard in their wheels trying to power the RCCL servers... Seeing lots of reports on the Facebook groups also and my experience is the same. Can't cancel anything, nor purchase anything. Prices changing from splash screen to purchase screen.

https://www.houston.org/news/cruise-terminal-upgrades-additions-galveston-will-draw-tourism-money-region I don't know that this article says anything that we don't already know, except I didn't know that the Carnival Jubilee will be the port's first "LNG-fuled cruise ship" after terminal upgrades. It's great to see the Galveston port folks have the foresight to keep investing in the facilities and hopefully making Galveston a future home for an Icon class.

"Sale" price for The Key is showing as $30.99 for me....oof! I think I'll be sticking with my 4 device surf/stream plan - averages out to $11.74 pp/day

I recently put the Royal app on my phone as another step in getting ready for my December cruise. I logged in with my ID and it's the only one for the family. I've always handled my wife and kids stuff through my account. Now with logging into this app on the phone, I'd like everyone in the family to be able to do the same on their phones so they can see schedules, maps, etc. Should I create accounts for everyone to log in themselves, or can everyone log on to their phones with my account?

We're all the winner now!

That's actually why I'm asking. Though, in my case, the tour is pretty much in the middle of our in port window, so shifting the window +/- 1 hour due to a time zone difference won't cause me to miss or come back late, but will impact when I plan to get off the ship. Looks like the ultimate answer is I'll just have to make sure to see what time it is local and ship clocks when we dock that day.

I've read all the previous ship vs local time zone questions....and I'm still confused as it seems the answer may be a variable. So, I'll try to keep it specific - the times shown on my cruise receipt for arrival and departure from the ports - are they based on the local port time, or are they all Miami time? My specific cruise leaves Miami and goes to St Maarten, St. Thomas, and Coco Cay. St Maarten and St Thomas are Atlantic Standard time (and don't change for DST), while Miami and Coco Cay are Eastern...and also change for Daylight Saving Time. Since it will be December, everything will be in Standard Time. I would think the times on the receipt would have to be local time, given all the places in the world that RCCL sails to.

We're taking a Symphony sailing in December with St. Thomas as one of the stops. I'm looking at some options for things to do and I see there are a couple of locations where cruise ships can dock - Havensight and Crown Bay. Is that something that is known in advance? Or will it be the kind of thing that we won't know until we get there? An excursion I'm looking at is a short walk from the Crown Bay dock, but pretty clearly a taxi ride from Havensight. Not a big deal either way, but I was curious if there's any kind of predictable pattern.

We also do two cabins - but, usually a balcony for us and a interior across the hall, or nearby down the hall. It's generally ended up only being slightly more than putting all four of us together in a balcony and gets all the bonuses of a second room - more space, extra bathroom. We get extra key cards so we effectively have one large room that everyone in the family can access.

Thanks!