nate91

So I just called my travel agent about the new change from LOS to any other ship within a month with price protection. They didn't know about it, they called RC and they didn't know about it. Why don't people at RC know about everything that this blog knows about, and what's the best way to get this cruise switched over when they don't have all the info? (This seems to happen frequently where RC reps don't know things that have been posted on Royal Caribbean Blog.)

I have stayed in an Ocean View Panoramic, but not the suite. We stayed in one of the rooms on Explorer. Explorer is an older ship, and the Panoramic rooms were built in 2016, so it felt like we were staying on a brand new ship. The windows were incredible! Absolutely loved the panoramic glass view, highly recommend the rooms on the sides of the ship so that all you see is ocean and not the bow of the ship.

I just had a sailing on Majesty cancelled (May 23rd). Can I put the FCC towards my sailing on Grandeur (August 6th), which has final payment due in a couple weeks? Or does it have to be applied to a new booking, which would be tough because I have way too many booked at the moment? If I can apply it towards previous booking, do I have to wait for the FCC to process (they said mid-May), or can I call and get the money applied immediately? Would I still get the 25% bonus? Thank you all!

To update, I called in to Costco again, and was told, again, that those rates are with a 'Friends and Family' discount which is only available for new bookings. I said that that's not mentioned on the website, they said that they will have a supervisor call me back. Some curious things about it: - I found the Friends and Family Rate flyer here: http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Loyal_To_You/13032574_Travel_Agent_Friends_Family_Rates.pdf My cruise on Grandeur of the Seas is not listed. - I was told that I can upgrade by paying the current full price. While the price I saw and wanted for a balcony was $2349, they offered me a price of $3300, $1k more. This is WAY more than even the $2817.06 that is on Royal Caribbeans own website. I'm really confused with where that higher number came from, and why they would think I would be willing to pay $1000 more than the quoted price. Any advice for when the supervisor calls me back?

That's another reason I'm confused. I have repriced through Costco before, a few times. Usually it's easy, one time I got ahold of a Costco rep that called the wrong department at Royal, and they had to connect me to another rep who called another department at Royal that handled "group rates." So I'm not sure if this is one of those situations where the people I'm talking to just don't see the rate I'm talking about since they're not the right department.

Thanks for pointing that out. I did indeed make a mistake, I meant Costco instead of RC. Fixing now.

Since I booked it through Costco I can't even talk to Royal about the reservation, I have to go through Costco.

They mentioned that I could cancel and rebook. Basically, it would be around $500 for me to upgrade to a balcony, but $700 if I cancel and rebook, so I'm not too sold on that. At this point, I feel that it's a worthwhile upgrade at the $500 but not the $700, so I'm trying to understand Costco's rules and if there's any way around this. My bad, $2300 for a balcony on Costco, $2500 for a suite. So about a $400 upgrade for balcony, $600 for suite, not counting the cancellation fees if I were to rebook.

Hi All, I'm a little stumped here. I book all my RC cruises through Costco travel, and I'm having a strange issue with them. I have Grandeur OTS 9 day booked for August 6 (before final payment, non refundable deposit). I got a great deal on an Oceanview, but now I'm seeing that both balcony guarantee AND Suite Guarantee are WAY cheaper on the Costco Travel website than they are on RC's site (for balcony guarantee, roughly $2300 vs $2900. I have called Costco Travel, who can see the price on their website, but when they call Royal, Royal says that this rate is only for first time bookings. I could find that nowhere in the fine print on Costco Travel's website, fine print reads as follows: "This category can be booked for a special rate, guaranteed to you. Please note that the category is not associated at the time of booking with a specific stateroom, deck, bedding configuration or other particular settings. The assignment of an actual cabin will be performed during your check-in. The cabin can be anywhere on the ship." Does anyone know any way around this? I have had issues before where certain Costco Travel agents would call the wrong department at Royal that couldn't get group rates. Could this be something like that, or is this worth dropping completely? If so, how do I know which rates on either site (Costco Travel or RC) are available for reprice vs. which are just for new bookings? Thank you!

Never posted here before, but I find this incredibly funny, so thought I would share. My upcoming cruise got "upgraded." :D