Pima1988

I have seen people already getting accepted, but most are interior to ocean view. 

If I try to do a fake booking for JS OVB the only offer is guaranteed...that gives me hope since it means no more pick your cabin.  Plus the guaranteed is @ 2700 less than we paid for ours.  

On top of that the ones we are bidding on now have 3 or 4 in each cat.  When we placed the bid a few weeks ago they only had 1 or 2 in each cat.  Guessing people are still lifting and shifting.

Granted we also have picked a good week.  It is a time when kids are in school.  

Sailing April 30th.  Have 3 bids all pending.  Anybody here yet get a bid accepted?

I know its a 3rd party company.  I am hoping upon hope that my cabin is one they would be happy to give me an upgrade so they can sell it especially since we have lifted and shifted it since 2020 at the same price that we paid in 2019 when we booked it.  JS ocean Balcony on the  hump, mid deck 9.  

They currently have at least 1 of each of our bids still available to book with 50 days to go.

My bad.  I was using myself as an example as I was @Pattycruise.  Her OVB jump to a JS was still be single points.  She will not get the double like have since we originally booked a JS , thus staying in the same category....suite to suite. 

Personally for me this is a personal issue on multiple levels.

1. Finance

How much more is the Key compared to Zoom only.

I like to unplug during our cruise.  Hubby, due to work issues must plug in.  Zoom we can purchase 1 device.  Key you must purchase for everyone  in the cabin.  Hence, you need both of you purchasing the Key

2. Perks

Will you use those private times for flow rider?  

Shows.  It is a nice perk, but I have found that for most shows, even on the bigger ships you can still get seats 30 mins out.  I believe Mariner is the same size as Adventure.  The only time we had a problem finding a good seat was at Quest.

3. Embarkation/Debarkation.

If having lunch in the MDR with the limited Chops menu is important compared to wind jammer (WJ) or Sorrento than that is a plus.

If having a special breakfast compared to going to WJ its a perk.  If you are okay with WJ than its not a perk.

Your time need for debarkating....if its very early to catch your flight than it is something to think about since just like embark action you get priority. 

4. Ship size

Anthem or Harmony is much different in size than Mariner.  They have limited amount of Key they sell.  

We have done both, but impo if I have a choice of the Key or getting Zoom and the unlimited dining package or Chefs table. I will take Zoom and pass on the Key.  I don't need the private time on the flow rider.  I am okay with showing up 30 mins prior to a show instead of 15.  I don't need the chocolate candy bar.  And as I said I unplug during the cruise, 1 device is fine.  FWIW, we did get the Key on our cruise in end of April, but again it came back to finance and debarkation.  We got the Key at 15 pp more than Zoom.  If we get our Royal Up bid we will drop the Key

On 3/9/2022 at 8:09 PM, Pattycruise said:

On 3/9/2022 at 6:59 AM, Vacation Crazy said:

We have an ocean view balcony stateroom for our May, 2022 Symphony sailing.   We just received our Royal Up. The starting bid for a Junior suite is $250/pp and a one bedroom Grand suite is $700/pp.  

We are sailing on SOS April 30th, I consider it a May cruuse.  We have a JS Ocean balcony on the hump deck 9.  We were able to place our bid 2 weeks ago. Placed 3 bids on different categories.  All say pending. GS 1 bdrm was the lowest.  Hubby wants that 1.  I want the crown loft.

Seeing what you are saying there is little chance we will get any of them.  At that time it was min bid to jump to 1 bdrm was 250 pp We put in 450 pp.  If they are saying 700 we will be SOL.  

We will be happy either way bc our location currently with the JS is ideal, both from a deck location, but also its on the hump giving us a larger balcony.  Plus, due to Covid we were able to keep it at our 2020 price.  We rebooked for 2021 and than had to shift to 2022.  kept the same cabin each time.

Our bid was mainly based on the perks offered for the higher level cabin.  Such as CK and Zoom.  If we get it than we will drop the unlimited dining and eat at CK.  Yes, I know we can TRY to get into CK as a JS on embark action day, but we would prefer to have our back up of the unlimited since it is usually cheaper to purchase prior to sailing than on embarkation.  The other was Zoom.  Removing both of those add ons equates to only a few hundred more for the upgrade.  

the other reasons we are okay with not winning it would be our points.  The JS gets double points for us right NIW since it is not a Royal Up.  The double points would bring us up to the next level.  Doing Royal Up we won't get double, so we will need to take one mire cruise to get to the next level with perks.  Hardship, I know...honey, we need to do another cruise if we win!  

Truth be known the only reason I truly want the upgrade on this is I want the availability to go to the suite pool deck and not fight with chair hogs.  

We're the week after you and received the same email last week.  We're not losing sleep over it.  Actually we were not shocked.  It just seems like they are slowly creating a new itinerary.   I wonder if they come back and put Labadee back in for the day we were suppose to be in OSJ.  

We have gone so far from OSJ-Labadee-St. Thomas - Coco Cay to OSJ-St.Maarten-St.Thomas I coco Cay .  And now we are at St.marten - St Thomas - Coco Cay leaving the possibility for them to add in a new port. 

One thing to realize about cancelling and rebooking at a lower price is between the time you cancel and rebook they may sell out.  We met a couple on our last cruise that lost their cabana doing that.  There are limited cabanas and there could be 5000 passengers on that day.  In essence if there are only 2 left, including the one you cancelled and 2 people book before you can rebook you are SOL.  No cabana for you.

What you should do is book the lower price under the name of someone in your cabin, I.e. your spouse/partner.  Than go back and cancel the one under your name. This way you are guaranteed you'll have the cabana.

As far as reserving the cabana location they don't allow that anymore even with a Genie.  We were told that your cabana assignment is linked to the number when you purchased. If you were the 5th to purchase you got cabana number 5.  

The reason they stopped allowing selection is you could have Anthem out of Cape Liberty start their cruise on Saturday expecting to be at Coco Cay on Tuesday.  They all pick their cabanas.  On Sunday Navigator leaves from Florida, will dock also on Tuesday.  The Navigator passengers get the leftovers.  Great for Anthem passengers, but pretty sure if you were sailing on Navigator, you would be ticked and saying how it already gone, I'm the 1st one here?   Response, well Anthem will be there too and they sailed yesterday so they picked first.

YouWe too have been to Coco Day 3 times. (Nov, May and July).  We have done no upgrade...I.e grab a lounger.  We have done beach bed and we have done cabana (Chill island).  Personally for me if it was just 2 of us I would grab the Coco Cay beach pass (we did that for our last cruise before we did the lift and shift....it was @49. Per person).  Granted we would not have that cabana experience, but since they only limit to 225 or so people, we didn't feel the need for the 2 of us to go nuts and worry about finding lounge chairs.   We want the food they offer.   Hubby is a beach person, I am a pool person, thus, this is the best of both worlds.

You need to realize that Coco Cay gets a GOOD breeze.  When we sailed 1st week of Nov.  I didn't take off my sweater until 11.  I didn't get into the water unti!l 1.  We lived in Anchorage Alaska for 3+ yrs.  I started wearing shorts by April, so I am not someone that shivers.  However, I will say when it is 78 degrees with a strong breeze, I'm not getting in the water. I'm willing to spend the beach pass, or on a beach bed.  

@Jonesy if you look on the planner it does say when you check out that it is not per person, but per cabana.  This is also true if you do a couples spa on the ship.

You place your name/reservation in.  It will up under your reservation on your planner.  The night prior to docking at Coco Cay they will drop off your directions/guidance.  When you get there they will have an attendant.  This is when if you have a cabana they will ask for everyone's name to be listed for your cabana.  it is when they will give you the wristband for entry.  You can't enter the area without the wristband.  

I love cabanas, but for me unless you have that discretionary funds, for 2 people I can't see 1600.  I would do Chill 1st at much lower price if I really wanted a cabana.  Than again we are doing the Beach Club day pass over a cabana/bed bc I am cheap and want exclusivity and the dining experience.  150 for 2 people...I have no problem looking for a lounge chair. 

Think about it, the day pass is probably the best bang for your buck excursion wise.  My cruise we will be there 7 hrs.  75 bucks.  In essences, $10 an HR.

We lifted and shifted our May 2021 to  22 several months ago, we did it back in October, but it may have been early November. so you can see they definitely are offering May sailings. 

The original sail date was May 15th for 7 nights on SoS.  We got the exact same cabin, but the sail date is May 1st.  The itinerary changed a bit.  It's no longer stopping at Labadee, but instead St. Martin.

Out of curiosity how many county inspections do you have to do? Trying to figure out for the de!ay time between each inspection.  IE we need 7 inspections by the county....survey, framing, grading-soil removal, plumbing, electrical, gunite, and fencing before we are allowed to do the water fill - can't get the water truck without the final inspection.

If you are using their shuttle to get to the port they will stop at every terminal.

The thing to realize is as the buses fill up, they will not open the doors.  They travel as a group.  So let's say they know they need 4 buses.  At terminal 1 the 1st 2 buses open their doors number 3 and 4 do not.  Bus 1 fills to capacity.  Number 2 doesn't.  Terminal 2 bus 2 and 3 open their doors, number 1 and 4 don't.  So on and so forth.  Thus, if you are hoping to ride the shuttle on the same bus that probably not going to happen.

Are you flying non-stop?  If not can you somehow meet the east coast people and fly all together.  IE when we flew to italy from NC, there was no direct flight.  We had the option of flying from Raleigh to Atlanta, Newark or JFK and then onto Italy.

We watched it Saturday and laughed at how 4 people missed the ship at their 1st port. We felt for them, but laughed because we felt like it was a PSA from RCL   They than made another hint at it when they docked late in Rome and if you decided not to use RCL for excursions the ship would not wait.

I too believe they are probably reducing the load by not selling cabins.  It may look like those cabins are sold when viewing on line, but in reality RCL just removed them from their inventory.    

Hope your cruise goes.  We were suppose to be on her May 15th, however, we did the lift and shift back in Nov.  Point being the cabin we had may have never gone back up for purchase, thus, reducing the load.  On another forum, I have seen many posters stating they did the lift and shift too for the week of my cruise, my guess would be 50% did what we did.  Our ship was 95% (guesstimate by doing a mock booking) sold out back in July.  If even 40% did the shift and RCL removed them they would be at 50%.

It is lookin good

I laughed about the very steep walk to Circular Quay.  2 years ago we stayed at the Intercontinental (located across the street from the botanical gardens) in Sydney and I can still remember walking down that hill to the Opera house wearing heels, I swear my husband still has bruises on his hand from my death grip.  I could not imagine dragging luggage.  Pretty sure I would have been just like your wife....add in some swear words.

We were there in May and from our hotel room I watched Ovation dock one morning.  All I thought was ... I am so jealous of the people getting on the ship.  I then said to myself if I ever go back to Australia we will do a cruise.  As an American east coast girl, that's not going to happen for at least a decade+ (retirement).  

Sydney to me is now tied as 1 of the best cities in the world. Tied with Venice. Edinburgh is behind them.  Than again, I am a huge Queen Victoria history buff and a true romantic so that be why it is at the top

30 minutes ago, Atlantix2000 said:

That's not what I pictured but it certainly matches your description.  I guess this would deter most younger kids but being able to reach around the pole would let me just walk up that fence!  Is that really the outside of your fence?  Every wooden fence I've ever seen puts the poles & horizontal supports on the inside leaving the outside totally flat (and therefore harder to climb in).  I just assumed it was code that the owner of the fence had to see the structure.  Interesting.

If you look at the photos, the supports for the fence are facing in towards their yard/house.

Other photos show (back side) show no poles or supports.  As a realtor that means the neighbor placed the fence up on their dime.  IE D's has 3 walls of his fence showing the poles/supports inside. 1 wall is flat bc the neighbor already did the frame.  NOW for them the gate to the backyard has to be flush with an alarm.  Hard to scale 

1 hour ago, melmar02 said:

Yes, they took 2 panels of our fence down to get in. That side of the house has a retaining wall that runs the length of our yard with the fence posts set into the wall. They cut the post between the two panels and will weld it back together when they put the panels back up in a couple months. The fence will stay down for most of the project. 

The excavation includes haul away for every company we spoke with, so there are a couple dump trucks taking turns getting filled and taking the dirt away. Excavation, closely followed by gunite, was the biggest part of the total bill. 

We didn't get a cover as we don't really winterize pools here. No sales guy has even mentioned one to us. We'll be able to swim without a heater from the beginning of May through the end of September, and we'll add a couple months to both sides of that with the heater. We had a cover for the pool I had growing up, and we hardly ever used it. We'll just skim the leaves and the the Polaris work its magic in December and January every year. 

Here's a better picture of where they took down the fence. It's starting to take shape. 

It looks lime they are already forming the Jacuzzi.  So jealous

L

47 minutes ago, melmar02 said:

@Pima1988 The builder we did not go with would have done either, but highly recommended chlorine due to the amount of stone. The salt would not be kind to all the stone and the appliances. The builder we went with doesn't do salt, so that decision was really made for us in the end. 

Yes, we'll have automation on the pool and spa. We stayed manual with the fire pit, and it will need a key to turn on the gas and be lit. We wanted to keep control of a fire element out of our 8 year old Evil Knievel's hands. 

We don't have the same requirements here.

1. No walkway is required all the way around the pool. The deck basically ends at the back wall on our design.

2. One fence is all we need here; however there must be an alarm on the gate(s), the latches are set higher so young kids can't open the gate, and there will be an angled piece of wood added to the horizontal supports on the fence panels that is supposed to help prevent someone from climbing it.

3. I'm not sure. Our original design only had the stairs and tanning ledge, not the bench under the back wall which wouldn't be an egress anyway since the wall is 18" above the water line. I don't know if we are only required to have 1 entrance, if the tanning ledge with the seat wrapped around it is so long that it counts as a second, or if the pool has to reach a certain depth to require the 2nd. Ours is only 6 feet at the deep end. We originally wanted deeper, but all the companies we spoke with said over 6 feet was considered a deep dig and would cost quite a bit more. 

I like your kitchen, we didn't really have room to add a bar with stools - looks like the perfect spot for a margarita machine.

So interesting.

1. As you can see that is why we have so much brushed concrete since it is required 36 inches for code around the entire perimeter..  

2. They use to allow just a gate at 6 ft., but now any new pool must have a metal fence at least 3 1/2 ft high surrounding the pool itself even if you have the privacy fence.  In our area with your design, it looks like you walk right out to the pool from your back door, you would have to get the automatic pool cover and door sensor on the house with an alarm company for insurance.  Virginia impo is a litigious state.  Everything is CYA. 

3. Our deep end is @ the same. But I think we are 6 1/2 feet.   Our tanning ledge is 18 inches  deep and it looks about the same size. 6 x 9 or 10 feet wide.   In VA there must be a 2nd egress on the opposite end of the 1st aka tanning ledge.  Bench is at 3 1/2 feet high.  This way now with county regs it is considered egress since it is only 3 ft from bench to patio.  

@melmar02

Embrace the memories you are creating.  

57 minutes ago, melmar02 said:

Gunite. We went with a medium blue. The plaster in pool we had growing up was really white. I'm not sure if that's what my parents picked or if it just faded, but it was too bright. Then they had major problems with the pump and it was a bit so lovely shade of dark green for a while. I wanted something in between. Pebble Sheen Blue Surf.

I'm sure I'll have a cousin Eddie crawl out of the woodwork come summer. That will probably be my brother in law. . We considered both, and we decided on chlorine. 

 

We have company this morning! 

57 minutes ago, melmar02 said:

We went with a dark grey quartz.  Again to make it look more like a pond than a pool.  As you can see by the rendering we have no trees, hence to get that pond look we needed a dark color. The rendering is showing the color with full sun. 

Guessing they took out part of your fence to get the bull dozer in!  Where are they putting all of the dirt?  Our contract is they will degrade the yard or we have to pay them to haul it away.  We are doing degrade due to the size of the yard. However,  if they had to take it away it was going to be some astronomical price of $250 per something cubic, thousands of additional dollars on top of the cost for the pool and fence.

Just curious to see how it works In other states.  

Which pool cover did you get?  We went with the Elephant.

@melmar02curious too on which you chose.  In our area the pool builders do 1or the other, but not both.  Thus, that is another factor when choosing your builder. We decided to go with chlorine, but took some of the design suggestions from the salt water pool people.

Are you doing the remote control panels that you can doing everything from your tablet...I.e. Change pool lights, turn the bubbles on, etc?  If so keep me updated on how you like it.  

I noticed from your renderings that you don't have a fence all the way around the pool.  In our area there are 3 must have mandates for county code approval.. 

1. Minimum 3 foot cement walk way around the entire pool.

2. Wrought iron fence around the entire perimeter of the pool.  In your design it looks like you can just walk out your back door to the pool area.  For us you would have to go through a 2nd gate.  Caveat you can get an exception to this if you get an automated electric pool cover with a time sensor and separate control panel.  Most people don't do this bc the cost is prohibitive compared to the fence.  For our pool (16x32) it would be 15k.  Wrought iron fence 26 by 42 around the pool plus the pool cover will be 8k.  

3.  We must have 2 egrresses.  Our design is like yours. But to the left of the waterfall we have a bench to sit on that juts out a bit. This counts as our 2nd egress.  By county code it had to jut out instead of staying flush with the waterfall to be counted as an egress.  Theory is that the person needs to grab onto the coping and the waterfall sits up higher, thus can't do it

This is our final design.  We went with chlorine too.  Our neighbor has salt and said unless you really stay on top of it, you can damage the tiles.  Plus, hubby had a chlorine pool growing up so he already was almost set on chlorine, just needed the neighbor with a salt water pool to say it and the deal was sealed.  

The pics include our pre existing patio, but the color is wrong.  It is actually blues, greys and browns.  With slate blue on the benches by the fireplace.

@melmar02curious too on which you chose.  In our area the pool builders do 1or the other, but not both.  Thus, that is another factor when choosing your builder. We decided to go with chlorine, but took some of the design suggestions from the salt water pool people.

Are you doing the remote control panels that you can doing everything from your tablet...I.e. Change pool lights, turn the bubbles on, etc?  If so keep me updated on how you like it.  

I noticed from your renderings that you don't have a fence all the way around the pool.  In our area there are 3 must have mandates for county code approval.. 

1. Minimum 3 foot cement walk way around the entire pool.

2. Wrought iron fence around the entire perimeter of the pool.  In your design it looks like you can just walk out your back door to the pool area.  For us you would have to go through a 2nd gate.  Caveat you can get an exception to this if you get an automated electric pool cover with a time sensor and separate control panel.  Most people don't do this bc the cost is prohibitive compared to the fence.  For our pool (16x32) it would be 15k.  Wrought iron fence 26 by 42 around the pool plus the pool cover will be 8k.  

3.  We must have 2 egrresses.  Our design is like yours. But to the left of the waterfall we have a bench to sit on that juts out a bit. This counts as our 2nd egress.  By county code it had to jut out instead of staying flush with the waterfall to be counted as an egress.  Theory is that the person needs to grab onto the coping and the waterfall sits up higher, thus can't do it

@melmar02 our home is 12 yrs old and we live on 10 acres so you need a specific type of survey.  Our design and colors are close to yours. Our coping is Pennsylvania blue to match our patio.  We have a tanning ledge and waterfal with a bubblerl, but we decided to for go the hot tub/Jacuzzi for heater...colder here.  this will be our 2nd backyard reno in 2 yrs.  Last yr we put in a blue flag stone patio with a tumbled stone (like yours in the pics) fireplace and sitting ledges.  

Are you doing gunite or concrete?  

I don't know about you, but I love the deeper color of blue than the traditional.  We wanted the water to look more like a pond than a pool.  No offense to anyone.

Best wishes on the construction

We signed our pool contract last week.  In Northern Virginia it takes about 8 months.  Right now the survey from the county is taking almost3 months because there are so many people putting in pools.  That and due to covid they have less workers actually in the office (distancing).  If all goes well for us we might have it by August.

@kittysoul  The Chill cabanas are quite close to the main dining area so you can always just walk over and bring back a plate to your cabana.  

I don't have one, but it is basically the snack shack menu, such as, chicken sandwiches, Portobello burgers, salads, funnel cake, etc.  

You can order as much as you want.  They will drop the menu off around 10 when they drop off the a.m. fruit platter.  They will deliver at the time you request.  There will be a p.m. fruit kebab delivery.