FionaMG

It works, The Crown and Anchor society got back to me within a minute on Facebook to say yes it works. Very, very convenient. 

I don't know the answer but you could take screenshots as a back-up in case it doesn't work and then come back and let us know how it went. 🙂

Major bummer for me!  I was supposed to be getting on Icon in just a few days (Sept. 28th) and that sailing was just cancelled!  I was so looking forward to seeing this new ship!
As I already had airfare planned all the way from Alaska and leave time carefully scheduled off work, I did have some flexibility in that we were leaving for two weeks (one week cruise; one week visiting family).  I immediately worked with my wonderful MEI travel agent @michelle, and was able to re-book onto Adventure the following week, so just flipped and switched around my travel plans.  Fortunately, I was able to get things shuffled around without too much hassle.   At least I'll be able to get on a cruise ship for vacation!  Adventure is one I've not been on yet, so will get to add that one to my list, too.
THIS IS WHY I USE A TRAVEL AGENT!

While I was on Mardi Gras last week I got some awesome pics of Icon docked with us in Costa Maya.  We had rooms in the Havana section and Icon backed up to our balcony!

@Linda R, I wonder if you're getting mixed up. The distance between Venice and Ravenna is about 200 km (125 miles). There's no way that could be covered in an hour during normal daytime traffic.
Bologna, on the other hand, which many cruisers use as a gateway airport for Ravenna, is less than half that distance, so a drive time of an hour or so between them would certainly be feasible.

Effectively, you do just need to keep an eye on things. However, sooner or later they should post the flyer with the release dates here: https://loyaltoyoualways.com/deployment/
Just be aware that they do quite often change the dates after the first flyer is posted. Usually when that happens they update the flyer but often someone will spot it and post it on the boards anyway.
 

I would want it in by day 5 anyway just to ensure you get it back in time.

What my husband and I were told by our stateroom attendant was on a 7 night cruise we had to have our D+ free laundry bag sent out by day 5.  We've always filled out the form and we've never had an issue with any of our items not being returned. 

No worries. I will do that next time then. Thanksagain for the tip. 😊

We were told by our steward early in our D+ days the free bag was only on the wash and fold day, but have found that not to be correct.

Yes, we also fill out the form and note the number of items, as well.  @FionaMG, my apologies for leaving that part out !

I don't know if there was. If there was I was ahead of it. 😂 We had been travelling for 3 days before our cruise so by day 4 of the cruise I needed to get it done. I just used the bag that was in the wardrobe and left it on the bed when we went to breakfast. It was returned the following evening.

I also do the "D+ no charge $0" written on the bag, but I also fill out the number of items as well.  I think if you don't write the number of items yourself, they will on the way back just as a check/proof of what was washed.

We fill in the form ourselves and I take a quick photo of the form and the folded laundry before it goes in (yes, I fold the dirty laundry... you can get a LOT more in that way) as documentation of what was sent. It's rare but lost items do happen; we were able to show the cabin attendant what we were missing and she tracked the items down.

As far as I can tell, they write the number of pieces as sort of a self-audit to prove what they actually had to wash.

We do fill out that form though for our own sanity.

To a certain extent, I agree with you but I don't feel that they are being sufficiently transparent and I am inclined to believe this is probably a deliberate ploy to make the itineraries more attractive. How many more people are likely to book a cruise that goes to Venice and Athens than to Ravenna and Pireus?
All it would take would be to add the word "for" in the port line, e.g. Ravenna, *for* Venice, to alert people to the fact that they aren't actually porting in those well-known places. This would allow customers to make a more informed decision before they book rather than discover afterwards.

To a certain extent, I agree with you but I don't feel that they are being sufficiently transparent and I am inclined to believe this is probably a deliberate ploy to make the itineraries more attractive. How many more people are likely to book a cruise that goes to Venice and Athens than to Ravenna and Pireus?
All it would take would be to add the word "for" in the port line, e.g. Ravenna, *for* Venice, to alert people to the fact that they aren't actually porting in those well-known places. This would allow customers to make a more informed decision before they book rather than discover afterwards.

I love clootie dumpling. My mum used to make one every time someone in the family had a birthday. 😋

It's not exactly the same as buying OBC but the end result is effectively the same: cruise planner purchases that you cancel on board are initially "refunded" as refundable onboard credit.
To exemplify, I'm just off Anthem. I had two pre-purchased voom packages, one of which I didn't need. I didn't want to cancel it inside final payment for fear of that glitch with the payment systems. So I waited and got the voom person onboard to cancel it as soon as I boarded.
It shows up instantly in your account as refundable OBC. If I hadn't used it all, the remainder would have been refunded to the original form of payment after the cruise.
If you did want to do this as a way of "purchasing" OBC, the voom package is a good option as it doesn't block space in a restaurant or on an excursion for someone else who might want it and you don't need to be mindful of cancellation deadlines as long as you cancel it as soon as you board.

Hi Everyone
Thanks so much for taking the trouble to respond.
You are all correct, the £76 OBC was for the stateroom, not per person. 
I selected one person with 2 devices, used the OBC offered of £76 and paid the balance of around £40. Sorted.
tbh I'm glad it was only one OBC as it made the maths so much easier 😂
Thanks to Matt for clarifying the "pre-cruise" clarification

Some of you may have noticed that a restaurant (typically the Solarium Bistro) was closed for a private event for all of a recent sailing, or spotted a mention of a "Fresh Kosher Dining" package, and wondered what it was all about. My wife and I returned from the 8/18-25/24 sailing of Symphony of the Seas, our first-ever cruise, which we only took thanks to the Fresh Kosher Dining package, so I thought I would try to provide some general information about it.

First, the basics: "Kosher" refers to food which is prepared and served according to Jewish religious dietary laws. For restaurants, that includes sourcing specific ingredients, cooking and serving on pots and plates not used for non-kosher food, not serving food containing both meat (or chicken) and dairy products, and having a trained supervisor present in the kitchen and serving area to ensure that all the relevant rules are being followed. (This is a *major* simplification, and different Jews may have varying standards of how they keep kosher, but this covers the essentials.) The bottom line is that, for those who only eat kosher food, a standard ship's restaurant won't work, because even if the ingredients for a particular dish could be verified as kosher, the preparation and serving could not. 

Until recently, kosher-keeping travelers who wanted to cruise had two choices: eating pre-prepared meals brought onboard by the ship and served in disposable containers (think airplane meals but of course much better), or choosing one of the very few cruises where an outside Jewish organization has chartered part or all of a ship and shifted kitchens into kosher compliance (involving a *lot* of cleaning and other effort). The former option was affordable but less than optimal, since eating from containers while watching fellow passengers enjoy the abundance of food is really not part of the ideal cruise experience; the latter was both infrequent and much more expensive than a typical cruise fare.

Enter the (fairly) new Fresh Kosher Dining option offered directly by Royal Caribbean (and a few other lines, although Royal is the leader)--some travel agents catering to (no pun intended) the kosher consumer have specialized in promoting this option. (We booked through Sharon Leeds of Acko Travel, but you may be able to access the Fresh Kosher Option through any channel for cruise booking.) With this option, available on certain sailings (usually around vacation times and the so-called "Yeshiva Weeks" in mid-January when some Orthodox Jewish schools offer a week off instead of closing between Christmas and New Year's Eve) as part of the regular booking process, Royal works with an existing kosher supervision agency (currently Weberman Kosher Supervisors, based in Florida) to shift a single restaurant over to being fully kosher for the entire cruise.
The per-day, per-passenger cost for this option (it must be purchased in advance, for the entire cruise) is around $70-100, plus gratuities; there may be discounts for young children. The Weberman staff was present at each meal (identifying themselves with WKS-logo vests), although the front-of-house and wait staff were all regular (and excellent) Royal employees. For the price, each diner gets 3 buffet meals per day (with a specified dinner seating time as is common for the Main Dining Room), with a variety of choices for each meal including standard kid-friendly foods, entrees, sides, salads, desserts, and a number of Indian dishes at least on my recent cruise (probably due to the chef involved). Breakfasts are always dairy (i.e. no meat is served), dinners are meat (no dairy), and the lunches alternate. Those with drinks packages can utilize them during meals as they would with any other included restaurant; otherwise, there were water, ice, processed juices, unsweetened iced tea and hot tea and coffee available for every meal (with non-dairy creamer substituted for milk or half-and-half during meat meals). The food was almost universally tasty, well-prepared, and of course plentiful; I don't recall a single instance where any buffet item ran out during a meal. For shore excursions, one could request a boxed lunch, and Chill Grill on Perfect Day at Coco Cay had certified kosher cheese and tuna sandwiches on request.

For families like mine, the Fresh Kosher Dining package is a huge gamechanger; we never wanted to eat out of tins on a cruise, and nor did we want to spend two or three times the usual cruise fare for a specially chartered sailing. We wanted as typical a cruise experience as we could get, at as close to normal (or sale) pricing as we could find, and this new option made all the difference. We could not be more grateful to Royal Caribbean (and Weberman) for doing the work to make this happen, and we are already looking towards our likely next cruise on Odyssey from Cape Liberty in January 2026 (which will *probably* have the Fresh Kosher Dining option, given the embarkation point and scheduling; we're keeping an eye out.)

If you are not someone who keeps kosher, and are/were disappointed that the Solarium Bistro is unavailable when it is dedicated to this dining option, I am sorry. You can, though, take some comfort in the fact that the Solarium itself remains fully open, and that, while you may not be able to partake of the Solarium Bistro among your other choices during that sailing, there are hundreds of people onboard with you who are finally able to enjoy the full Royal Caribbean experience as described by Matt and his colleagues here, thanks to Royal's Fresh Kosher Dining option. {Jonathan Ezor}

Thanks so much, everyone! 😊 

Yes, true, I've seen it set out on the invoice like that too but the amount at the top of the screen, like in the OP's picture, has been the total, at least in my cases. Maybe different in others, of course.

Just wanted to check something with you. When you say "we both have", do you have two separate bookings/cabins? Because OBC like this is typically per booking/cabin and not per person, so if you're sharing a cabin it will only be onex£76.
In any case, if you want to buy Voom, it will definitely be cheaper to get it before the cruise than waiting until you board, so I would go ahead and book, paying part with the OBC and the rest with a CC, and then work the finances out between yourselves. That way you'll get more value from your OBC.

Just to add to what the other posters have said, be aware that if you booked with a non-refundable deposit and you cancel outright you would lose the entire deposit and not just the $100 pp change fee. For this reason, it's very important to make sure that whoever handles the switch for you fully understands that you are changing an existing booking as opposed to cancelling one and making a completely new one.