WannaCruise

Two cruises in an inside.  Of course balcony rooms are better but we make do in an inside and would prefer to cruise more often. There are so many things to enjoy on the ship that th room is less important to us. And 1 year wait us a long wait.

I'm officially ON VACATION!!!!   I worked my last overnight (dog) shift last night and my last night as a 911 dispatcher .... it crawled along for the most part.  Now I have 2 1/2 days to get house and hounds ready for our pet sitter, and to get us packed.  The weather away from here is looking like it's going to be pretty good, except when we leave.  5 degrees? REALLY?  I do NOT want to drag a winter coat with me to Miami, to the ship, and back.  This is BS.  I'm going to FREEZE  in the Uber.  I want to talk to the weather manager.
Speaking of wanting to file a grievance, the first hound to be bathed has some issues with this entire process.  (i.e. the princess is NOT happy).  I'm sure the boys will feel the same way.

We clean up pretty nicely when we want to

there’s always one in every crowd.

 

I was experimenting with that last week.  When I entered my Crown and Anchor number my cruise fare dropped by $89 and the $300 OBC disappeared!  I called my travel agent to book the room I wanted and told her "do NOT put in my crown and anchor number or I lose out".  Turns out when she went to book the  C & A field populated when my birthday was put in and she's texting me of the price drop and the OBC gone....I said "no kidding!"  Why would RC screw their loyal customers lie that?
BTW-anyone know how to change their "pre-gold" status -I think I am at Emerald level (or is that a posting status?)

That is one of the caveats for repricing, the promotions align with the current pricing. If the OBC changes, the price drop may justify the adjustment, in other cases, like your example, the new price reduction does not cover the change in OBC. I always consider the net change when deciding to accept a price change. One note: if your OBC is from a NextCruise booking, it will remain in place if you reprice.

Not sure on how to bring in someones post here, so I'll see if clicking on quote is how it's done.
I've tracked cruises by writing down the pricing.  I don't think I've ever seen prices go down, if anything they seem to magically be the same price, whether it is 50% or 60% off the second passenger.   But I am stuck booking when the kids are off of school so maybe those prices just don't change OR perhaps I am not spending the time I need to to be checking out changes!
Like Wanna Cruise, I got the $300 OBC last week on a suite and now their new "sale" is the same price for the cabin as if I took the $300 OBC off the price.   I think I am going to have them adjust the price and get rid of the $300 OBC.  I have my Royal Caribbean card I can use towards additional payment and OBC. (I hope that's correct)   Glad I found this forum.  I'll need to learn how to get my posts done correctly when quoting others.
 

Go to Royal's site and do a mock booking.  i.e. go through the 'Search Cruises' button and select your cruise and room
You can get an idea of the standard price.  This wouldn't of course include any additional perks from your travel agent.

OP here...I did end up repricing last week.  Funny thing is, with the current price now...Royal dropped the price and the current price = my price minus OBC.
The games that they play with pricing/marketing...

We just got off. I expect that all issues have been resolved and everything will be “smooth sailing” from now on. I think we may have been just a tad late getting to port but everything went great with disembarkation.  I don’t recall Port Liberty having facial recognition last year but it was in place today and we breezed off the ship without even stopping.  It was really an easy disembark.  Everything on the ship operated normally. There seem to be zero issues related to last week’s problems. I would expect a normal boarding and cruise.
 
I wasn’t too thrilled with the 18 degree weather that greeted us but not much you can do about that in NJ in Feb !  Because it was so cold we decided to just grab a taxi to the airport rather than standing around outside in the cold waiting for an Uber to show up.  UUUGE mistake.  $73. Our Uber ride over was $18.80.  Now I see why nobody takes a taxi anymore. How do they even stay in business ?  I guess they catch the few country suckers like us !
 
 We had an awesome (even if abbreviated) cruise and we are SO glad we went.  It was basically a free cruise for us. They refunded waaay more to us than we expected (more than 50% of our cruise fare, for sure) and our FCC (also more than we expected)  has already been applied to our Oct 11 2020 Brilliance cruise. The reduced crowds (often a problem on Anthem) made walking on the Esplanade and waiting for elevators so much better. Our chance meetings with Yen made it especially enjoyable. 
 
Enjoy your cruise ! Anthem is awesome !

Our dog Rusty would prefer to come with us as well. He is a huge snuggler, and sometimes I feel that we are his “emotional support humans” It is hard to leave him with the boarders sometimes.

I mean, look at that face!

Animal Kingdom day! Woke up this morning breakfast burritos for breakfast then we had to go exchange our rental van (really just do new paper work as we booked the rest of the days using air miles) then off to animal kingdom. As soon as we got there it started pouring rain. Like we were all soaked. Off to Navi River journey thankfully this ride was indoors so we could stay out of the rain. then off to our first fast pass the festival of the lion king! Loved this show it was amazing!! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
next was another fast pass for Kilimanjaro safari. This was really well done too. My sister who has done a safari in Africa says this was really well done for Disney and even for North America. Got to see some cool animals!  
hippos 
 
baby zebra - it was so tiny
 
cheetah 
I will post more animal photos when I go through my camera photos. 
 
Then off to Starbucks we went, everyone was cold and wet still. Hot beverages for all and an animal kingdom Starbucks cup were bought. Then it was time to find lunch wow this was harder than I thought. I found there were less food stands in animal kingdom than in magic kingdom. Finally a hot dog was consumed by me than off to ride triceratops spin this was a fun children’s ride but i enjoyed it. Then off to dinosaur. This was my favourite ride of the day! It was amazing!! A thrill ride was enjoyed! Then time for a bugs life show. This was really well done and we all enjoyed it. It reminded me of the 4D rides at universal but those are better. Then it was time to make the long trek back to the car! 
 
then on to Florida Mall for the m &m store! Got to visit them all! Actually I have! Did some shopping got some new dress pants on sale boring but very useful! Then home for dinner of heart shaped pizza, salad wine and chocolate covered strawberries. All in all a good day! 
 
Final Disney thoughts: I enjoyed going to Disney and it was a fantastic experience! Magic kingdom was WAY better than animal kingdom! Part of it was the weather but I also enjoyed more rides at magic kingdom and more characters everywhere. As a whole next time I will do magic kingdom and universal studios! I think that’s my best fit!  
 
 
 
 
 

I don't remember specific drinks but we found the Bionic Bar fun. Our kids made up their own (non-alcoholic) drink too. We'll go there again on Anthem.

Preamble
Some of you know that we have tried to sail with Royal twice before. First, we were booked on the Adventure of the Seas out of San Juan when our sailing was cancelled due to an unscheduled dry dock. We tried to rebook with RC, but we weren't able to work something out with them when we wanted to go. We sailed on NCL and while we had a decent time, NCL didn't win us over. So, when we found a good deal on a sailing on the Navigator of the Seas for February '19, we figured we'd give RC a shot. That was supposed to be her first sailing after her amplification and, if you remember, it was cancelled a week out because she wasn't ready. Scrambling at the last minute because we needed to get away last winter, we found a sailing on Carnival out of New Orleans at the last minute. I went in not expecting much, but surprisingly, we had a great time on Carnival. So much so that my wife and I agreed if we only sailed on Carnival again, we'd be happy. In fact, we had already booked this trip prior to the last cancellation and afterwards, I was tempted to cancel on Royal - you know, because I'm mean spirited like that.
We kept the sailing and on February 2nd we finally boarded a Royal ship - the Liberty of the Seas to be exact. Full Spoiler Alert - we had a great time! I share that because I want you to know where I am coming from if I mention something I didn't care for or would change (it isn't much). In fact, I won't go as far as to say we are Royal exclusive, but we are Royal preferred. I'd sail on other lines again (and we've now sailed on the four major ones in the US Market [Disney, NCL, Carival and Royal]) but we'll look to Royal first. So much so that we've already booked our next cruise on the Symphony of the Seas for next January (shhh, that's a secret from our boys). I know at times I've been critical of RC on these boards, but I have to say that once we finally got onboard, the crew and the ship absolutely blew me away!
Pertinent Information
Crew: Myself, my better half (Julie) and my boys (George and Lucas [and yes, that is because I love Star Wars!]). Also joining us were my father-in-law and his wife (we all get along great - dad remarried after mom passed a few years ago and I have no idea what the correct term for your father-in-law's second wife that doesn't sound stupid. Loved having them along!)
Ship: Liberty of the Seas
Dates: February 2nd to 9th
Itinerary: Galveston - Sea Day - Sea Day - Roatan - Costa Maya - Cozumel - Sea Day - Sad Day (aka get off the boat day).
Other Notes: We're eating in the MDR (more on that) and Julie and I scored the $18 UBP mistake. 
Day One - Driving to Galveston - Friday, January 31st
As a family of four, flights can be pricey. Thus, whenever possible, we'll drive to vacation. If we can get there in two days drive, then it's load up the family truckster and head out. We got the boys off to school and began the ritual pre-vacation cleaning. I love coming home to a clean house after vacation so we make sure and allocate time to do it just before we leave. Julie had been sick for a few days and I didn't want to get denied boarding, so I sent her to the doctor (yay antibiotics) and I had one last work obligation to go to (as a pastor, I had to make a quick hospital visit to pray with someone). Got back and loaded up the car, ate the last of the leftovers for lunch and went to get the boys from school.

The plan was to leave home from just south of Des Moines, IA, and drive to Muskogee, OK. Google says it is about 7 hours so we hoped to be there by 8-ish after picking the boys up from school at 1 pm. We actually arrived a little after 9 pm with a stop for dinner in a little town in Missouri where I had the most amazing burger I've had in some time.
       
Made it the Comfort Inn or Suites or something ... we usually stay at a Choice Hotel because it includes a decent breakfast and they aren't horribly expensive. After a fitful night of sleep, we were up and at it early ... but that will have to wait for my next post.

Exited to follow along .  Symphony is amazing!

We learned about Lava Flows from this forum and it was our first drink on our first cruise, so it's our tradition to officially start each cruise with a Lava Flow.  And they are mighty refreshing also.

Exited to follow along .  Symphony is amazing!

Interesting thanks.  Only my next 2 cruises have entries showing in cruise planner but they all have fees for the specialty dining.
Good luck for those that got a great value. ?

Gotta be a glitch..will they honor or compensate it is the real question here......
 
As much as I am excited for the specialty restaurants..I really wish it had been the drink package...lol....but I wont complain and I will keep checking as well!

Adventure of the Seas Dec 28, 2020

Checked my Oasis June cruise. Just saved 355 and kept my OBC the same.

Previously adjusted
, with this current promotion, 3 of our future cruises saving a net average of over $100 a cruise. Took the additional $300 On Board Credit instead of our $275 Crown and Anchor discount. All were 7 night cruises.
Today booked a 7 night cruise sailing March 29, 2020 on the Harmony. Net saving was $150 taking the $300 On Board Credit instead of our $250 Crown and Anchor discount.

It appears that UK customers have to use the UK call centre and the agents seem to be more policy minded, I've even emailed them but still no joy.

Agree. Try calling again.  For each room, you should be able to move it as long as same category.  We did this both times with a guarantee room. Giot assigned a forward room and moved each to more central (different cruises).
So you should be able to move each...and if there happens to be 2 next to each other, or even closer in proximity of same category room, they should be able move the rooms.  But of course, this depends on availability.

Thanks for explaining.  Never experienced suite perks so wasn't sure the difference. ?
I just looked at the deck plan and see what you mean...how rooms on deck 17 are more isolated...so great for minimal traffic.  And can imagine the views of the 2 level lofts.  
Will be interested in your thoughts after you try the ATS.  They do look amazing and really spacious!  So hopefully you'll find it not as inconvenient as you are thinking and a great alternative room.