Mathias

If you never been to Tallin before, I would recommend you just walk from the pier to the Old Town. It is close and really well preserved medieval town. The Old Town is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and you can easily walk around there a couple hours. Tallin is not that expensive, so you can grab a lunch and beer in town. No need for booking any Royal Caribbean excursions for this port.

One other recommendation would be to visit the Pub Scotland Yard which has a really interesting decor and atmosphere. For example, the toilets are shaped like electric chairs. It is a pub but they serve pretty good food there as well

I searched the board and found some discussions about the VAT (Value Added Tax) used in European cruises. To summarize, it looks like the VAT is based on the country you are sailing from. Most say that the VAT was 10 % when the ship sailed from a port in Spain. So the drinks will be $$ x 18 % x 10 % = expensive 

Thanks to @crabkitty for all the information.

I was booked on Harmony for a Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona this year but did a Lift and Shift to next year. That was a good decision, as I ended up on the new Wonder of The Seas!

The VAT-tax was new information for me. How much was that? Different European countries have different VAT % on different goods. The drinks will really be expensive if you have to pay a 18 % gratitude and maybe 20 % VAT on a 14 $ drink, that will be close to 20 $.

I also noted that many prices mentioned here were in euros. Is the onboard currency in euro and not in $?

Thanks to crabkitty or anyone else that has experience from cruising in Europe if they can tell how much the extra VAT tax will be and what the onboard currency is.

On 1/21/2021 at 2:17 AM, mrfri said:

Apparently, Quantum and Spectrum are the only ships cruising.   I am booked for the Quantum sailing from Tokyo in April.  ONly problem is that Tokyo visitors are required to quarantine 14 days when they arrive in country, from U.S.    Not sure how Royal is going to to make this work.   Shouldn't they cancel cruises for anyone flying in to Japan?  If we arrive, will the Japan gov't even allow us on a cruise ship?  RCC customer service wasn't very helpful or sure about the rules either.   

Just wondering how they are still selling cruises that people might not be able to get on.   China is not even issuing new visas.  I  think Royal might be @!#ing a lot of people.

I was booked on the same cruise from Tokyo April 15th. My travel agent informed me two days ago that the cruise was cancelled. No surprise considering the 14 day quarantine requirement. RCL didn't belive in the cruise them self because even with just 80 days to go there were no excursions to book and no online check-in. You can normaly check in 90 days before your sail date.

I'm sad because I had a JR-suite that would have earned me 40 C&A points for the 10 day cruise.

Yes, I sure hope for quadruple points. Have a Junior Suite booked next year for a 10 day sailing. Would really give a boost if we get 40 CAS-points for that. And maybe I put my wife in a cheep Inside Cabin and stay alone to get the solo points also, (10 + 10 + 10) x 2 = 60 points for one sailing! 

Hopefully @Matt will have some info on this soon. 

Thank you all very much for all the reply's. I will buy this in the Cruise Planner and will come back here to tell about the experience after the cruise.

Safest is to ask the croupier what is allowed. For example maybe I play my chips on Red or Black and my wife plays hers on Even or Odd and a third person in our party places her bets on Low or High. The casino still has the edge but if the promotional chips is enough for a few games then we should not come out empty-handed. 

Do anyone here have some experience buying and using the Learn To Play: Casino Table Games at Casino Royale?

In the Cruise Planner the description is the following: 

Quote

 

OVERVIEW

Get schooled at our most popular games and practice with the pros before Casino Royale opens, during our Learn to Play table game sessions. Get step-by-step instructions for either Blackjack, Roulette, Three Card Poker or Ultimate Texas Hold’em.

Then, put your skills to the test with $25 in FreePlay. Plus, enjoy two complimentary drinks — on us. Book before you sail to secure your spot!

 

Considering that the cost includes two complimentary drinks for less than the charge for two drinks the participation it is basically free of charge and on top of that you get to play in the casino for $25. I don't gamble but this sounds like a great deal to me and I'm considering purchasing this. 

In the fine print Royal Caribbean states the following:

Quote

Table game promotional chips are not allowed on contra betting on Roulette, Craps, and Baccarat games. 

What does this mean exactly? I understand that I can't go to the roulette table and bet on red, black and green at the same time with the promotional chips. However can me and my wife play roulette at the same time and I bet my promotional chips on red and she bets hers on black? And does anyone know what the minimum bet is at roulette if I want to play red or black?

I have done some zip-lining excursions in the Caribbean and elsewhere with my wife and I must say it is fun and exciting the first few times but the novelty wears off fast. My advice would be to not book several zip-line excursions during the same cruise.

@Traveler Thank you for answering. We will make sure to enjoy all the silverbenefits we can get.

@Traveler  Thanks for your travel blog, it was interesting. Me and my wife has a Japan cruise booked next April in a Junior Suite on Quantum of the Seas. It will be a 10 day cruise concentrating mostly on ports in Japan.

I have one question for you. Normally Junior Suite guest can go to the Coastal Kitchen if there is room enough for them but you said that only gold guests were allowed there. Is this correct? How is guests dividend between silver and gold status? Are Junior Suite silver and the real suites are gold?

Only guests of Grand Suite-level and above are allowed to the Suite Lounge but guests in Junior Suite can get inside to the Coastal Kitchen.

Therefor, seems no one is asking the important question here. 

Has anyone in a Junior Suite that gives access to the Coastal Kitchen (subject to availability) went to the Suite Lounge to get complimentary evening drinks? At least on Oasis they are located in the same place. Do they check you status at the bar?

@WAAAYTOOO The refund I was waiting for was for Cruise Planner Cancellations only. Every purchase I made for everyone in my group got refunded to my credit card along with the 250 $ compensation. The cruise itself we made a Lift & Shift on. 

@mike potts  It is always a good idea to pay with a credit card. In that way you have another option to get refund or money back if there is some problems. I waited about 3 months on my Cruise Planner Cancellations refunds but received them now after my travel agent helped me. I cancelled in end of April and got the refund in end of July. If this would not have worked out my next option would have been to contact my credit card company to get the refund thru them. I suspect Royal Caribbean has financial problems and want to hang on the our money as long as possible.

You can read about my adventure with Royal Caribbean's customer service at page 3 and 4 at this thread.  

Wanted to come back her and tell you I finally received my Cruise Planner Cancellation refunds. It was me who got told by Royal Caribbean on the phone to travel around the country to have every person on my several cabins bookings to individually call in to Royal Caribbean and request them to process the glitched refund as I who paid and bought the items very not allowed to do it.

Anyway, after that it got even more bizarre and my adventures with Royal Caribbean's customer service has more unexpected twists and turns than an Alfred Hitchcock (or if you prefer,  M. Night Shyamalan) movie. I won't bore you with to much details but here follows a small summary example of what happened.

This is over a period of a month or so. First, I tried calling them but soon switched over to emailing them to get proof of the correspondence (this proved to be important). These responses are from several persons, I believe I were in contact with at least 10 different persons at Royal Caribbean's customer service.

• Royal Caribbean claims I never had a booking with them. I stand my ground and after speaking to another person, they find my booking and they promise to get back to me about my refund, but they never did.
• Royal Caribbean claims I never cancelled my Cruise Planner items. I send them proof of the emails I received of Cruise Planner Cancellation Summary and they promise to get back to me, but did not.
• On my next contact suddenly Royal Caribbean confirms I had a booking with them and that I cancelled my Cruise Planner purchases. However, they claim the refund  already have been paid back to my credit card a long time ago. They promise to send proof of this to my email. This time they actually get back to me and send a refund summary of cancellations I made in May. I get back to them and says that this is not about the May cancellation, I want to know where the refund for my April cancellation is. They promise to get back to me, but never did.
• On my final contact, we enter the twilight zone. Royal Caribbean claims (and I have this in writing from them) that Royal Caribbean is not responsible for refunding Cruise Planner Cancellations made on Royal Caribbean's Cruise Planner. They write that the Cruise Planner Cancellations will be paid out in full to me from my travel agent. Because the refund will be paid to me from my travel agent, they can't assist me any further with my request.

I showed the last response to my travel agent and they take over the case. They contact the highest executive at Royal Caribbean they can get to and things start to move forward. The executive at Royal Caribbean says they will conduct necessary training with the involved customer service agents because in my case there was several opportunities for improved experience. The refund was escalated.

I have now received refunds for all my cancellations and they even paid me an 250 $ extra as an compensation for all the troubles I had. It really pays to have a good travel agent and I am happy they managed to get this resolved. Without my travel agents involvement,  I would probably still be waiting for my refund.

I finally took the bullet and called Royal Caribbean to get the delayed refund sorted out. Some background information first. I had several cabins booked for my family and relatives. I myself booked and paid for the cruise and for the Cruise Planner items for everyone. I am the only contact person on every reservation and everything is paid with only my information. The only place my family and relatives names are mentioned is under the guests names in the staterooms.

Well, it turns out the customer service at Royal Caribbean are just not Clowns, they are the entire Circus.

They confirmed that they made some mistakes and that they will now process the refund for my April 30th cancelled items, but only for my items. Therefore, everyone else in my family and relatives need to each individually call in to Royal Caribbean and demand that Royal Caribbean correct their mistake and process the refund for the items I paid for. This is crazy as I have e-mail proof of the Cruise Planner Cancellation Summary where they tell me "Your order has been cancelled. […] All monies will be credited or reimbursed based on your original form of payment."

I have no idea on how to proceed with this because my family consists of several generations of people so we have old persons who do not speak English and do not own a computer and never even seen the reservations I done. Moreover, we have children with us where the youngest is nine years old. I also made several surprise reservations (spa treatments, restaurants and excursions) that my family do not even know about. So now, everyone individually must call in to Royal Caribbean and demand that I get a refund for the items I ordered and paid for.

I tried to explain calmly the impracticality of every family member calling in to Royal Caribbean to demand that they will correct their mistake and process the refund. Not all speak English and we have children as young as nine. How would they manage this task when they do not even know what reservations I have made for them? The customer service person came up with the extraordinary idea that I could travel around the country in my spare time and visit each person of my family and relatives that were supposed to come cruising with me. There when I'm visiting I call Royal Caribbean and explain the situation and then hand over the phone to the other person and have them confirm that they want Royal Caribbean to correct their mistake and process the refund. So now I have my summer vacations plans worked out for me thanks to Royal Caribbean which is nice considering my summer cruise is cancelled.

As I said above, the customer service at Royal Caribbean are just not Clowns, they are the entire Circus.

15 hours ago, cookie10* said:

I cancelled on April 26 and i am still waiting!!!

Good to know that I'm not the only one wondering where my refund is. Thanks for all the reply's. What I don't understand is how inconsistent Royal Caribbean is with their refunds. After my April 30th Cruise Planner cancellation I have myself cancelled other items in May and June and also have had Royal Caribbean cancel my Cruise Planner items because of a Lift and Shift. They have all been refunded, the fastest was just under three weeks.

So I'm wondering how it can be that if I cancel something in June it is processed and refunded under three weeks when my April cancellation refund is nowhere to be seen.

Hope someone here can help. I cancelled my cruise planner items on April the 30th and got the Cruise Planner Cancellation Summary e-mail the same day. That's now nine weeks ago or about 45 business days and still no refund to my credit card. Have anyone here waited for a longer time to get a refund? Should I still sit quiet and wait for a refund or do I need to contact Royal Caribbean?

On 5/6/2020 at 4:48 AM, Yo2slick said:

Keep checking the prices on the cruise planner.  You can catch some good deals every now and then.  I dont drink at home at all and I got my moneys worth with the DBP.  Lava flows and margaritas go down real smooth in the middle of the ocean.

I never seen lava flows and margaritas on the menu. Do you order them outside the list? How much do they cost compared to cocktails on the list?

I once attended on the Allure but had to run out almost immediately. The sound was turned up so high that my head was about to explode. Holding my hands over my ears did nothing to help. Very strange, I never have problems with high sounds at movie theaters or concerts. This was like going to a concert and having the sound turned up x 2.

Shame, because I believe I would have enjoyed it. 

So you get one point per dollar you play, or is it one point per dollar you win? I go and play for 2.500 $ and I automatically generated a new cruise. Do I understand that correctly?