AshleyDillo

Harmony has the bar inside of the restaurant and you can order margaritas there without dining, including the specialty ones.

Kids are included in the count. Everyone will need a wristband to enjoy the South Beach Beach Club area that comes with cabana access. The overwater cabanas are a new thing, but they may even police entrance to the dock that leads to those cabanas, so it will only be limited to those with the cabana wristbands. We won't know all of the details until they are opened, but they previously did check for wristbands to enter South Beach from the interior of the island. They only had bungalows there really at the time. You could still walk along the beach and over to the South Beach area without a wristband, but with building the beach club and overwater cabanas, no clue how they will handle it now.

You will have access to your Cruise Planner to make reservations and purchases. No need to go through your travel agent to do so. Of course if you have any questions you can reach out to her and she will answer them!

Are you using a TA? If so, this is a great time for the TA to advocate on your behalf. Is your upcoming sailing on Oasis? There have been reports that this is happening due to the re-configuring of cabin capacity to accommodate the addition of the new cabins during the AMP.

No need to add any guests now. You will get the full number of wristbands that comes with your cabana.

The rep is pretty much right. I've found the state discounts to be inconsistent and sometimes they overlap other discounts and won't apply because of that or they are a reduced discount. So always check by clicking on "See if you qualify for exclusive rates" In this case I chose FLORIDA and it shows as a RES NO REF DEP discount:

@twangster took a photo of it, it's outside of Boleros (last photo). And of course he snagged a photo of the menu too for us! ?

I have zero clue about how hard it is to rebook. This is why I use my trusty MEI TA. She goes through her bookings when the sales are released and will automatically send out new invoices if she catches a price job. Amount of effort on my end is minimal. I'm still impatient and I check the sales myself and usually email her what I got before she gets to mine..but I don't have to call Royal ever. Kind of priceless to use a TA, especially for this kind of a situation. But for $130 I would get on the phone with Royal for sure. That's 20 minutes to save $130..good return on an investment of time to me! You could also consider hitting up MEI and getting your booking transferred to them and having them reprice it for you..but you have to hit it before the sale ends!

Inventory does not matter when it comes to RoyalUp. If someone bails on a room, that opens up the inventory and Royal can turn to the bids that have been placed and accept those over putting that room back on the open market if they feel it will be best to their bottom line. Remember if you are in an OS and you bid on something and get moved, that frees up that OS. For example, if you bid $500 to upgrade but someone bid $2000 for an OS...by accepting your bid and moving you, they can accept that OS bid now and effectively gain $2500 really easily! Then can then accept a bid for the room that whoever took your OS..it will be a snowball effect down the line. They don't have to try to sell these rooms at the last minute at a discount and instead they get to keep what they originally received from whoever canceled since it's past the final payment mark and then they get all this extra money from the snowball effect of all the RoyalUp bids. That could end up being more than what they could have resold the room for. It's a very complicated proprietary algorithm I am sure and I think it's a genius business idea.

As long as the cabin is the same category as yours it should be easy enough. Make sure that if you did book refundable that you are pricing it out as refundable. You have to step through entering the passenger names to get to the refundable option when pricing it.

Oddly enough the Thanksgiving sailing for Oasis this year isn't sold out..and prices are cheap! Very convenient to get a 7-day cruise for only 3 days taken off from work compared to the typical 5.

The daily gratuities is split between your dining staff crew and room steward crew for the most part. From what I understand this includes both the front of house staff that you interact with as well as the behind the scenes folks that you don't directly interact with. The room service attendants are likely part of that pool, so I would say they may get something in that way, but since there's no mandatory gratuitity with the complimentary breakfast room service there won't be an increased amount added to that pool. When crew members have publicly posted on social media outlets about their tips they seem to speak as though all the cash tips are put into a pool and split up as well. Whether that happens 100% of the time we truly will never know. I've never had it be scalding and I've never had it be lukewarm. It's always been drinkable nearly immediately after pouring without a cool down. Doesn't mean the extremes can't or won't happen. And this should no longer be the case. Gallery tours have stressed that they use real eggs in all cases now and no more substitute!

There's a Candlewood, Hyatt Regency, and Westin also in that immediate area..so some other options to research as far as brand preference, price, and amenities. The area was very clean and safe in the dark. You could see NYC across the river. I have found that I can get better prices using rideshares over hotel shuttles, so that's why we tend to opt to get to/from ports/airports that way. But taxis were also readily available all over.

I believe it will be closed on the ship but they do have an excursion desk on CocoCay that you can visit to purchase the waterpark admission and other CocoCay activities.

It's possible, but you will never know if you don't check...especially if your TA states it's going to be the lowest price you will see. That means he's probably not checking. The important thing is to make sure you are making and apples-to-apples comparison when doing the mock pricing..same stateroom category, deck, fwd/mid/aft location, refundable/nonrefundable, gratuities included, etc. to get that bottom line number to compare. Also keep in mind that the port fees/taxes (which should be separated out on all invoices) will typically stay locked in at the original booking price. I have seen the port fees vary by a bit (not a huge amount).

Here's a link to the Cruise Compass that has been referenced. You can browse through these and get an idea of what exactly there will be to do on the ship to occupy your time. If you want to splurge the Chef's Table is a very nice meal with lots of wine that you can purchase ahead of time in the Cruise Planner. Would be a nice anniversary celebration.

The only place that they don't care about reusing containers is at the Freestyle machines. You have to use the souvenir cup to activate the machine to dispense the sodas and flavored waters. You can use a normal cup to get plain water and ice from the machines.

Now you just need to book some more cruises to make sure you get your money's worth! ?

The ships with the RFID are also the ships with the WOW bands. I prefer using the card to the bands, though. I just use a lanyard that has a detachable sleeve for the RFID ships and had that over.

The only way to lock in a price is to make the purchase and let Royal Caribbean hold onto your money. If you see a lower price you can cancel and repurchase immediately through the Cruise Planner. Keep in mind that the new purchase may post before the refund does when you look at your credit card or bank account.

You can order milk with the room service. I always do just in case..but I also write CREAM on the order. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

On Harmony the drink package includes all drinks that are under $13. If you purchase a drink over $13 you will pay the difference in price +18% gratuity. This package includes alcoholic drinks, smoothies, specialty coffees, soda, etc. That $70 price is the onboard price. It is $70/per day per person. They will also charge an 18% gratuity on the total price of the package. When you purchase it you HAVE to purchase it for all days of the cruise. It also has to be purchased by each person over the age of 21 in the same cabin. $70 was the price on that particular cruise. That does NOT mean that will be the price on your cruise. I sailed at the beginning of September on Allure and the price was $82.99/day +18% gratuity. Chances are you will find the price to be better through the Cruise Planner online when you purchase ahead of time. You can purchase the package at the current price through the cruise planner and then cancel it and repurchase if the price drops.

The sleeves are a good investment if you are planning on cruising again as they are reusable.

We stayed at the Doubletree Suites in Jersey City before we left out of Cape Liberty. We just took Lyft/Uber to the hotel from Newark airport and also to the port. There was a lot within walking distance of the Doubletree including a PATH station to get into NYC. There was a grocery store a few blocks up and there was a CVS in the nearby mall to pick up anything you needed last minute before the cruise. I've stayed at the hotels near the Newark airport just didn't appreciate the location as much as there wasn't much in a safe walking distance so you were limited to what the hotel had onsite for restaurants. But if you had a flight that gets in really late they are reasonable options.

This made me chuckle..I just did a mock booking and repriced a 2020 sailing to Alaska that I have. It's about $500 cheaper on this sale iteration. I just got a price drop last week as well and this drops it even more. I think I'm about to drive my TA crazy here.