CruiseManUK

I have been impacted by the cancellation. The original transatlantic was 15 nights including stops in Bahamas, Bermuda, Azores, Porto, La Coruna and finishing in the UK. We paid £2400 for two for a balcony. It was great as you never had more than 4 sea days in a row. The big attraction was the Bahamas and Bermuda stops. There are plenty other “European cruises from Miami” as I call transatlantics that don’t stop anywhere. The new transatlantic goes to Azores, Malaga, Cartagena and Valencia. So it’s a poor in comparison. Especially on an old ship. No real counter office or incentive to keep the booking. The current pricing (£1800 for a balcony) is ok for an old ship with a dull itinerary - those transatlantics always stay price stable / drop in price closer to the time so don’t see it increasing in price. The Odyssey transatlantic is a much better choice. Great stops. Newer ship, more to do. The price only increases - currently £2500 for two in a balcony. We would have moved over to this if we haven’t already done this route or if it was cheaper but it’s already been on sale for 8 months so is being snapped up

Just to reply as a fellow U.K. cruiser, travel agents here are nothing like in the US. They don’t know our names, they won’t check to see if cruises are cheaper, they won’t give us any gifts, they won’t inform us of any special offers, they won’t even get us a good deal, they won’t know about the ships and they’ll book you connecting flights with 20 hour connections. All they care about is taking their commission and moving onto the next sucker which is why many U.K. cruisers will book holidays directly as it actually gives us more power. But saying that - we therefore have to do all the research ourselves so we would know what is and isn’t included. I used the telephone team once and also had an issue with them but I escalated it to HQ via email and they were fantastic in resolving it. I tend to now only book nextcruise or via the website cutting out the telephone team. I have using MEI Travel on my to do list given that they will book cruises for those based in the U.K.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/06/26/all-about-the-royal-caribbean-shareholder-discount See the blog site page on this. Matt - it says that the discount is now combinable with other discounts post the change this year?

I just finished a cruise and had the USB photo package. If you go to the photo gallery after you board then they give you a code which allows you to download the photos whilst you are on the ship at photos.rccl.com on your own device. I think you need voom. The photos were updated each morning. Alternatively you enter your email address and you can then download them for a month after your cruise. They didn’t offer me a USB stick. Was very happy with the way they ran it and photos were all amazing.