Jump to content

Biff215

Members
  • Posts

    237
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Biff215

  1. On 5/4/2021 at 8:26 AM, cruisellama said:

    Might be mistaken, didn't the Evian come delivered in glass bottles and Dasani is delivered in plastic?   Definitely preferred the Evian and would purchase the case on-board.

    When we got Evian it was always in plastic bottles. We never really cared for it and it would go to waste. Same think would likely happen with Dasani so I guess we might go without now. I’ll just miss having something readily accessible in the room. 

  2. Two fun bits of info for Adventure I haven’t seen posted yet...

    Kieron Cox is the pub performer. He’s been on Royal ships a bunch in recent years including longer stints on Harmony. Make sure you check him out if you like some great guitar and singing. He’s already on board (in quarantine) and goes live on Facebook every Monday.

    www.kieroncox.com

    Also, looks like Hugo Arenas is Adventure’s cruise director for the restart (per Kieron on the Ship Show tonight).

  3. I can’t comment on Quantum class, but we went from Harmony to Mariner back in 2019. While there is a significant difference in size between them, it wasn’t as disappointing as we had feared. Royal does a nice job designing ships around capacity so we’ve always found plenty to do without feeling too crowded. Our kids absolutely loved Harmony but even Mariner had its unique aspects that they may have even preferred in some cases. 

  4. 20 hours ago, idiaz said:

    I just tried checking in for my July 3rd cruise on the Adventure and was denied told that the check in options are closed right now.  I called and was given the normal COVID BS and wasn't told when it will reopen or if it will reopen.  Getting nervous now.  Any one else heard anything different?  I don't see anything with Nassau stating any issues currently.  If it is canceled this would be the 3rd cruise canceled on me during this time period.

    We’re also sailing July 3 and checkin has given us the same variety of messages and errors since we booked. As others have said, Royal is waiting as long as they can to fully lay out all the rules. You agree to most of these at checkin so it’s in their best interest (and ours) to wait. I’ll also feel a lot better once we can check in but don’t worry, it’s not a sign that it’s canceled. 

  5. The cruise planner fine print tells you to book for the total number of people in the party and pay for them as adults. Then they refund the kids to you as an OBC. Really dumb in my opinion and probably just bad website design that it requires that. You can try just booking the adults but you could run into problems with your first “courtesy” reservation.

    We enjoyed specialty dining with our kids on Mariner in January 2020 but it was a 3 night sailing so it was affordable and allowed us a different restaurant each night. 

  6. On 4/14/2021 at 10:51 AM, Jzx1103 said:

    So I saw that there's a $10 cover charge for kids 6-12 at specialty restaurants if the parents got the Ultimate dining package. My question is, what kind of food do the kids get. Do they get to order the same food from the same menu as the adults just in a smaller portion or do they get food from Windjammer or cafeteria food when its free elsewhere?

    We did this on Mariner in January 2020 and went to Jamie’s, Chops, and Izumi. They allowed our kids to order whatever they wanted off the regular menu, but if there is a kids menu, they can force them to order off of there. It seems it can vary from ship to ship. 

  7. 8 hours ago, HtownHolly said:

    Right, and we used it on Harmony for a Thanksgiving 2019 cruise. It was... laggy at best. Often messages were delayed on transmission by up to 2 hours.

    Agreed. We used it in August 2019 on Harmony. What we also found at the time though is iMessages would go through without us having the wifi package as long as we were connected through the app. I’m hoping this loophole still exists although I doubt it if they’re charging for it on Quantum. 

  8. 10 minutes ago, Ineedavaca said:

    So from everything I'm seeing at CocoCay all there is is beaches/swimming and water parks? I'm not a big beach person. Tia

    For a private island, there’s quite a bit of options, but most center around the beach, pool, and water park. There’s also the balloon and some other excursion type activities at an extra cost of course. There’s also complimentary food throughout the island that is worth the walk off the ship in my opinion. Worse come to worse, however, you can always just enjoy a fairly empty ship!

  9. 5 hours ago, dodgestang said:

    Since we change our cruise from Oasis out of Cape Liberty in late July to Adventure out of Nassau in early August we needed flights.  So I decide to try Air2Sea.....man that was not very as easy as it should have been (or my expectations/way of doing things make it waaay harder).

    We 'shifted' a fully paid off cruise.....which means Adventure is fully paid for and RC was going to issue refund for the difference.
    At the same time I added a 5th person.  And because of 'reasons' RC could not apply the refund to this new person because it is a different reservation number *even though staying in same room.  So I had given a $1000 depo. and planned to pay off prior to 90 day.

    So then I use air2sea website, pick out tickets, click buy/checkout, get email confirmations.  It never asked me for credit info so I assume RC has it on file.  Check in AA a couple days later to pick seats and it says "tickets not issued, call booking"...so I call AA....wait on hold for 1.5 hours to get a person....they say "Not us, you need to call royal"

    So call Royal...."we don't issue tickets until late June"....so I'm like "Well how am I guaranteed my seats then? and how are they paid for you never asked for a CC, I thought there was payment problem?"....oh no all the seats are completely paid for....for 4 of you....but the 5th one isn't paid for yet.....

    So the only thing that makes sense is Royal paid for the airfare out of the refund the owe me for the moved cruise and for my 5th passenger, they added the airfare cost to the final payment amount that was still due....all without clearly explaining of it.

     

    SIGH.

    We just used Air2Sea for the first time a couple weeks ago for our July Adventure cruise (just prior to final payment). I found it almost too easy to use at first, and was totally confused when it didn’t ask me for payment. Michelle from MEI quickly confirmed that the cost would be added to final payment, which we made about 10 days ago. I then checked my reservation on American Airlines site but it still said “ticket pending” and “call your travel agent”.

    I called AA and they said everything looked good on their side and we even had seats (automatically assigned). Michelle called Air2Sea and they told her the same thing. I called and got someone different who confirmed that our tickets “were never issued”. She took care of it and within an hour everything was fixed and we were able to finally adjust our seats.

    So in the end it was more complicated than it needed to be but it all worked out. Just glad I caught it as who knows what would have happened come July if not. Still happy we used Air2Sea as it saved about $100/person. 

  10. 2 hours ago, Oliver said:

    Originally they said the no sail order would stay until November and then they sail it might be possible to sail in July. 

     

    True, but that’s likely assuming that cruise companies are willing to jump through the hoops of the CSO (which it appears they aren’t).

    I think this is more political theater, they know bills like this won’t go anywhere. They’re just hoping that enough pressure will make the CDC cave. It’s likely to happen at some point, I just think the CDC is going to hold out as long as they can. One (unlikely) outbreak and everyone will be pointing at them again. 

  11. 4 hours ago, steverk said:

    Just my guess, I think they are proceeding because of the long lead time and high cancellation costs of postponing.  There are only so many ship yards and getting a reservation to build a ship is a big deal.  Therefore, postponing one, is also a big deal.

    In fact, I heard the reason the Freedom class ships were built is that the yard time was reserved for a project to stretch the Vision class ships.  However, the project was scrapped when Royal determined the stretching was not economic.  They couldn't just release the yard without a huge penalty, so they build the Freedom ships. I'm not sure if this story is true, but it shows just how tough it is to mess with the yard's schedule.

    That certainly sounds reasonable since Freedom class are really just stretched versions of Voyager class ships. Great decision Royal made there in my opinion. As cool as it sounds to lengthen existing ships (Original Enchantment was our first cruise), there’s nothing like a brand new ship.

    Although we love Oasis class, Icon should be a really nice size ship with the best existing features plus new innovations!

  12. 2 hours ago, dodgestang said:

    We are going to have a lot of firsts....first time flying as a family internationally (we have flown before though) and we are also taking my son's good friend with us.  He has a passport (14 yrs old) but it isn't clear what if any other documents we might need to take with us since we do not have same last name)

    Definitely make sure you have everything you need for the friend. Family members of ours took their grandchild on a cruise out of Florida (not on Royal). They were denied boarding and had to have paperwork sent down electronically and almost missed the cruise. I’d contact Royal directly about what they require. 

  13. 10 minutes ago, Reigert2008 said:

    and this is the crux of my concern.  We have a 12 year old who will cross over to 13 the week before our cruise ?  So i didn't want to get surprised by it!

    No one in our party will have Voom or anything.  It'll be so nice to be 100% disconnected for the first time since November 2019

    I agree, we purposely don’t purchase Voom for that reason. Harmony and some other ships had a beta feature where you could message others in your party through the Royal app without wifi. It was great when you needed to separate and check in with each other. My daughter will turn 13 two weeks after the cruise and I assume we can’t fake her birthdate since Royal obviously knows it. 

  14. 10 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

    We have always just used the app on my phone to check in because the kids have to be at least 13 to sign up for an account.  However, by our next cruise with our kids, they will be 13 and 15 so perhaps we will try to everyone use their own phone to check in just for fun.  It works either way. 

    Not sure how E-Muster factors into that though.

    We have a 12 year old with her own device who is none too happy that she can’t sign into the app herself. We were actually hoping she could in case they allowed the messaging option like they had on Harmony as we don’t plan to get a wifi package. Any suggestions for communicating with a preteen who might get a little more independence than in the past?

  15. I understand the concern about equating backyard barbecues and cruising, they’re certainly not the same. But let’s be honest, there are many who have been hosting and attending much bigger than that since the start of the pandemic. The cruise lines are simply using that date as the “return to (some) normalcy”. 

    Cruising is a choice, not all that different than most other vacations. If thousands can pack into a theme park every day, I believe that cruise lines should be afforded the same option to reopen. Just my opinion though. 

  16. 16 minutes ago, emmef said:

    @Reigert2008Can you screenshot the Set Sail Pass?  They have to scan the individual QR/bar codes from each pass.  It may just make it easier on you to have the others get their own accounts.  Plus, if the app is used for eMuster and contact tracing, like it has been in Singapore they are all going to need the app anyway.

    We’ve always used one device for everyone’s Set Sail Pass. You just swipe over as they scan each one, just like digital concert tickets.

    I assume we’ll hear more soon whether everyone will need their own device when it comes to e-muster and contact tracing. But since kids can sail, I’m sure there will be a plan for those without a device/app of their own. 

  17. 37 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

    It will be interesting to see how they do it.  There's really nothing complicated about these cruise terminals, but if nothing else they provide shelter

    Agreed. I also think about the massive amount of luggage they deal with both going on the ship and coming off. I wonder if there’s any chance we’ll be carrying it on and off. Wouldn’t be a huge issue for me as long as cabins were ready. 

    24 minutes ago, wordell1 said:

    Assuming we are fully checked in on the app, I expect that there will be a luggage drop off area, followed by a scan of your check in on your phone, a quick temp check, and then you will get on the ship.  I assume your key cards will be in the room, or issued at some point during boarding.

    That sounds about right. Check-in still isn’t available, right? My cruise planner says it is but directs me to the app, then the app says they’re still getting ready. I’m assuming it will be available closer to the 30 day mark. 

×
×
  • Create New...