FionaMG

Maybe contact C&A? I don't know if it would help but it might be worth a try. If you prefer not to call, I've found them to be very responsive on FB messenger.

I received a notification through the app but since we don't drink alcohol I have no idea if the prices on my sailings are cheaper or not.

I saw a post over on CC saying that they open up on the 1st of month prior to the month of your sailing date. So for April sailings, they should open up next week, on the 1st of March. As I have an April sailing on Anthem I will be watching this and will try and remember to report back (not promising, mind ).

Today is apparently National Margarita Day so there appear to be some discounts on drinks packages if any of you are interested.

Could be. If you're not logged in when you click on it, it says this:

Really new. It wasn't there this morning (my time).

I spotted a new "My Offers" tab on Royal's website today. It looks like this: When I click on it, it tells me: Can't wait to see what offers might eventually show up (not holding my breath! )

It's probably Navigator. It looks like they let the famous intern load the prices for those sailings as there was a lot of buzz about it over on CC last week. They've fixed it in the meantime. Let's see if they honour the pricing for those who booked.

Still waiting for ours (our first!) from our Anthem sailing last September/October. We did check with the LA on board and he confirmed we were on our list and got us to check our address for him but I really have my doubts that they will ship it to us here in Custard Tart Land. We will be on Anthem again in April and my plan is to hound the LA (nicely) on board to see if there are any in stock so we can get it then.

Hi @DivaDeaconess, The likelihood of being assigned rooms with an obstructed view depends to some extent on the ship you're looking at. For example, Quantum class ships have a lot of obstructed balcony cabins on deck 6 because of where the lifeboats are carried on those ships and some of them are less obstructed than others. Generally, when booking a guarantee cabin, it's best to assume you'll get the least desirable rooms because the more desirable ones will have been snapped up by people booking specific rooms well in advance of their sailing. However, this is not necessarily always the case and you may be lucky, especially if someone who has a "good" room cancels around the time your room is assigned. Expect the worst and hope for the best is usually the safest philosophy here. There is no set time frame for assigning rooms. In fact, even if you book all three rooms together, they could conceivably not all be assigned at the same time, since each room has its own individual booking number. You could find that your rooms are assigned immediately on booking or you may not even find out until you get to the port to check in. After you check in online, you can use the "bar code trick" to try and find out your room assignment before receiving official notification. One thing to bear in mind when booking more than one GTY room is that you are never guaranteed they will be together or even vaguely in close proximity to each other. Again, you may be lucky and get all three in a row; or you may find that they are scattered as far as physically possible from each other while still actually being on the same ship. If you are booking in the North American market, once you find out your room assignment, you may be able to change it to another room that you prefer, but the alternative has to be in the exact same category as the one assigned and this close in to the sailing date your choices may be limited or non-existent. Hope this helps.

Your German coins (assuming you mean Deutsch Marks?) are not legal tender and haven’t been for many years; Germany uses the euro. You can use euro coins in the French Caribbean ports, i.e. the French side of Saint Martin, Guadeloupe and Martinique, as the euro is the official currency there. Otherwise I think your best bet would be to try and meet up with other cruisers for whom your coins are their home countries' currency and see if they might be willing to exchange them for you at the going rate or at least give you banknotes in place of the coins, which you would be able to exchange at your bank.

If by any chance you do get it, you must come back and let us know. Oh, and pics or it didn't happen!

Euros in Crete and Turkish lira in Turkey. In the touristy areas in Turkey you'll probably be fine with USD. In fact, a vendor selling Turkish delight boarded our bus at Ephesus and was selling in USD. This is because Turkey's own currency is weaker against western currencies like the dollar, euro and pound, so it's worth their while to make the trip to the bank to exchange them. I wouldn't count on that so much in Crete and other Greek ports, where the currency is strong and it's more trouble than it's worth to exchange. Best to take along some euros for smaller purchases, coffees, tips and the like and use a credit card for larger purchases. The majority of souvenir shops will take credit cards. Always insist on paying in the local currency and let your card provider handle the exchange as you'll get a better rate. Also note that tipping is not really a big thing here in Europe unless you're eating at a fancy restaurant or someone is going way above and beyond for you. Normally a few coins on the plate in a coffee shop or rounding up a taxi fare to the next or next again full number will suffice.

Yup. Of course, you may already have been informed of your assignment before then, in which case you won't need it this time round, but it's handy to know. I admit I haven't tried it myself yet but I have a GTY booking for early July that's still unassigned so perhaps this will be my chance.

More than half; I'm going to guess it's more like 3/4. But unless you're trying to get off the ship at the same time as the self-assist passengers it shouldn't affect you too much. Barcelona is very doable without an excursion. You can walk up to the Rambla in about 20 minutes or there's a port bus for a few euros that will drop you at the bottom end. There should also be taxis but with people disembarking they'll likely be a bit busy until past 9. For excursions you can try Barcelona Day Tours (we've used them for tranfers in the past) or Spain Day Tours. They both have good reviews and offer a range of excursions.

The "bar code trick". Once you've checked in you can use a bar code scanner to read the bar code on your setsail pass. The last 4 or 5 digits at the end after the hyphen correspond to your number. If it's not been assigned yet you'll see GTY. If you use Apple devices, adding your setsail pass to your wallet should also reveal the numbers.

Fingers are on fire today.

Glad to have helped. I did actually read a report from someone who experienced precisely this scenario. In the end they kicked up such a stink that they managed to get the cost of their bid refunded but the nice room that they'd got from their GTY booking was gone because the system had immediately reallocated it to someone else.

People do get the chance to participate even with GTY bookings but it's better not to bid until you have your room assignment because potentially your room assignment could be better than the room you bid on and then if you win your bid you'll be downgraded and get to pay for the privilege. Just to exemplify: say you have an inside GTY and you bid on an OV. In the meantime you get assigned a balcony cabin but forget or don't have time to cancel your RU bid, which you win, and suddenly you've paid extra for an OV cabin when you had a balcony at no extra cost.

The ultra spacious ocean view with large balcony is category 1A. If I am not mistaken, there are only 8 of them in total, 6 up on deck 11, port side, forward; and two down on deck seven, one on either side, right next to the rock walls. Take a look and see if you like those locations. If you do, I would absolutely put in a bid for that category. The chances of actually winning one are slim to none but it's far less of a shot in the dark than most other Royal Up opportunities precisely because there are so few of these cabins. I would not bid on a JS if you're happy with your current cabin. It's far more pot luck and, in my opinion, not worth the additional cost for a bit of extra real estate and a chance at CK.

@JasonOasis Celebrity are also leaving a ship in Europe this winter. You might want to take a look. They are doing the Canaries and Morocco in the early part of the season and then heading to Egypt. It's hard to imagine Royal not jumping on the bandwagon given that Anthem is way better suited to this type of itinerary than the ships Celebrity and NCL are using.

There's rumour (and tentative hopefulness on this side of the pond) that's she's going to be spending the winter season in Europe.

The Odyssey cruise out of NJ was part of the test load ahead of next week's release, so it'll have been taken back down now, which is likely why you can't see it. Watch out for it and the other new releases probably sometime from Tuesday to Thursday.

Right, yes that was exactly what happened to us during check-in on our last cruise and then the times opened up about 48 hours later.

Sounds like you're checking in on the website rather than the app. The app is where you can snag check-in times first and then go back and complete the rest at leisure. Note that to check in from the app, you should use click on the head & shoulders icon and then check-in from there, rather than just clicking on the check-in icon at the bottom of the screen. All that said, there was a recurring issue a while ago where people were getting precisely the message you mention. It was literally a case of checking back and in most cases the check-in times showed up within a few days.