Xtentions

Your available options would be in the email you received telling you of the port cancelation.  Generally when a single port is changed they will not refund the entire cruise but they sometimes will.

On Oasis in January they had a family friendly one on the promenade one evening

Every time I have seen the individual day prices it has be either 24.99 or 28.99 per day.  Always cheaper per day to get the package for the duration pre cruise.  Current price for my Dec cruise on Harmony is 18.99 per day if I were to book it now for the duration.

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I really do not get the issue people have with this.  If you are that messy you need the cabin cleaned twice a day maybe you need to do some self reflection.  You also likely do not get turn down service at home why expect it on the ship.

We do not even need once a day service.  We catch the steward out in the hall and swap towels on most days. 

The percent off on these offers rarely mean anything.  Look at the price per person instead.  Royal plays with the price to make that percent off deal look good when it usually with a dollar or two of the price.

We were on Oasis Jan 5th -15th it was at or very near capacity.  This was our first time on an Oasis class and I was concerned about crowding.

The windjammer was the only place where I think it got overly crowded.

He was on Oasis on our sailing jan 5 - 15.  We only saw him once in the smoking area on the pool deck at his roped off desk.  We were amused but left him alone.

We were also amused at the woman running around asking every crew member she saw if they knew who Super Mario was and that he was on board.  

We have done the Courtyard Downtown Brickell twice and it was decent.  They have a shuttle to the port for $10 each leaving the hotel hourly but you need to book it at check in.  Walking distance to Bayfront park if you are into that.  The ferris-wheel overlooking the bay was fun.

We used my Marriott points to book both times so was great value for us.

We used wifi calling and text on Oasis we were jus ton her Jan 5- 15th and no issues.  We do not use i-phone or anything Samsung though; too many prior issues even outside of cruising.

It is always advisable to fly into your departure port at least a day early.  In your case I would want to try to be in at least two days before departure.  With the way flights have been for the last year or so you never know what will happen.

just to be clear I am talking about the port of Galveston parking run by the port.  There are many other parking facilities there but I have never used any but the port of Galveston.  They are more convenient and have more shuttles.  Just doesn't make sense to me to inconvenience ourselves to save $5-10 over a week of parking.

It does seem that rates have almost doubled with the new terminal though.  I think we paid $85 for the last 7 day we took out of terminal B.

https://www.portofgalveston.com/9/Cruise

We've cruised out of Galveston 8 times the last was last December so before the new terminal.  Reservations make it faster to get parked and on your way because it is pre-paid and you just show your receipt get your hang tag and follow the directions as to where to park.  You also used to get a small discount for booking ahead.  There has been a separate line to pay once you are there and it just slows you down.

The vacs and test are not necessary anymore but we still had our vax cards in our passport booklet anyway.  We were asked to see them since the agent at check in saw them in our passport book.

Terminal G is also first come first serve.  We sailed on Grandeur in November and Terminal A was full according to signage and they were directing folks to Terminal G to park.  I believe there are shuttles between the two terminals. 

We almost always book ourselves and transfer to Beth at MEI.  We know what we want and we are 50/50 booking at the NextCruise desk anyway.  As stated it must be within 30 days of the booking to transfer. 

17 hours ago, Cactus527 said:

May I ask which travel insurance you use and which plan?

We use travelinsured but have never had to file a claim.  It seem like a bunch of folks use Alianz and if we ever have an issue with travelinsured we would give them a try.

we book non-refundable.  We have an Oasis 10 day on Jan 5th that was booked at the NextCruise desk with $200 deposit.  We have a B2B Alaska in 24 that was also booked at Nextcruise so $400 total deposit and then we have a December 2023 Harmony that was booked on website with a $500 deposit.  

Had we booked the Dec 2023  with a refundable it would have increased the cost by $350.

We buy third party travel insurance with cancel for any reason coverage.

Booking far out has some risk and you just need to manage that to us if we lose $200-500 because something came up that is risk we take and hope our insurance will get us something back.

On ships with freestyle machines there are a few flavored sparkling waters.  You will need the soda package to use the freestyle machines.

I've been watching the Deluxe Beverage Package on our Jan 5th 10 day sailing on Oasis since last December when I booked it.  In that time I have seen it fluctuate between $72.99 and $83.99 all claiming 20%, 30%, 40% BOGO 50% even during Black Friday/Cyber Monday.  Two days ago when our sailing hit 25 days to go it went to $67.99 PP/D which a 35% sale so the planner claims.

Do not ever look at the % off only look at the bottom line price per person per day.  The price is manipulated to fit whatever percent off they want to advertise.

1 hour ago, Katherine said:

I had drink packages at 20% off. I got notified it was now 30% off. I was able to cancel the original order and order new packages at the 30% off.

 

Normally the % off doesn't matter because they raise and lower the price so it always about the same.  In this case that is the lowest I have seen it for this sailing the year I've been watching at $67.99.

I keep a spreadsheet for everything I buy in the planner and check prices almost everyday and cancel rebook whenever I can save money.  I also track when I cancel and rebook and what the previous prices were so I can track savings.  The Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale week saved us over $400 on our planner purchases but as I said that deluxe beverage package price the lowest I've seen.  We only do the beverage package which we got for 19.99 during the The Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale.

We got the same email for our trip on Grandeur in November.  We knew ahead of boarding the ship was full you can see this by doing a mock booking.  Once we got on board there was a sign at guest services that stated there were no upgrades available.  We talked to a very nice agent anyway since they were not yet busy and were told that there would be no upgrades via RoyalUp or otherwise.  We received an email while at dinner that our Royal Up was not successful.

We had our bags in our room but made the decision not to unpack until we knew for sure if we would get the upgrade or not.  We went back after dinner and unpacked and made our first Junior Suite ours. 

She leaves out of Terminal G,  We were just on her first cruise back in Miami in November.

It sounds to me that expectations and limitations were not discussed with the travel agent.  Did you have a conversation with them?  I have used two different agents from MEI the first left the company during the pandemic and the one I am using now stepped in and got my refunds sorted from where they were dropped.  She has also been very timely when we have needed anything. 

The catch is we don't ask or need much from her we book our own cruises and then transfer them to her.  The only reason we use the TA is for when things go wrong or if we want to change something.  The TA can make these things happen and we don't end up staying on the phone for hours waiting on Royal.

We are going to use more of her services on our Alaska 24 B2B to help us with flights and car rental.  The cruises were booked on board and transferred to her and we will just need some help with the logistics of getting to and from Vancouver from wherever we are at that point.  We full time RV and do not yet know where we will leave the camper.

We were on Grandeur in Nov and wanted to change from my time to early dining we asked Beth to get it changed and she made it happen quick and easy.  We have a January on Oasis and want to make the same change but we did not get it transferred to Beth in time and my wife spent about 3 hours total on hold to make the same change.    

Beth also proactively repriced our Alaska cruises when they were transferred and save us some money.  

13 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

You can use Marriott points to book a cruise though.

You sure can and if you have the Bonvoy card you get a bonus in points I have seen it as high as 10 to 1 if you use the card and book through cruise-with-points.marriott.com .

App is working for what can be done in there.  Booked several excursions and canceled rebooked UDP and Refreshment package and a couple excursions for our Oasis in January.  Still need to cancel/rebook the key for that sailing but cannot find it in the app.

We've saved almost $400 with this sale love it