steverk

Thank you for explaining in detail. It brings your decision to life. It differs from my one and only Princess cruise, but I would probably be done with them after that as well! I'm glad that wasn't your first cruise and we're happy to have you sailing on Royal and participating in the Royal Caribbean Blog message board.

Let's try to answer these 1 at a time What happens with stuff you've paid for? If you booked through royal, then it refunded automatically. What about airfare? If booked through air2sea, it will be refunded. If booked some other way, you'll have to work with the airline. If you have travel insurance, it might help as well Does royal fairly compensate? This is handled on a case by case basis. Does this happen often and why? Not often, but most frequent cruisers have had it happen. There are many reasons. Sometimes there's mechanical or weather problems. Sometimes they redeploy the ship. Sometimes the ship is chartered. How far in advance does this happen? Depends on why it happens. Weather or mechanical issues will be days or weeks prior. Redeployment will be months or years in advance. I hope this is helpful

Not really. An insurance premium is paid in advance and is gone regardless of what happens. If you collect on the policy, it can be a good deal, but more often than not, you don't collect so the insurance company makes money and stays in business. A cruise deposit is a portion of the fare you pay in advance to show you are serious about the cruise. This is similar to earnest money on a real estate transaction. Just like earnest money, it may or may not be refunded if you back out of the deal. A "refundable deposit" rate is one where you are given the deposit back if you back out before final payment date. However, you pay a higher fare if you go through with the cruise. A similar thing has been happening with airfares for decades. Most people buy non-refundable airline tickets because they are much cheaper. But you can buy a much more expensive ticket that can be refunded if you change your mind. It isn't quite perfect, but it is a similar concept. Actually, you need 3. The amount of the deposit, the difference between the refundable and non-refundable fare (i.e. the delta) and the probability that you'll want to back out of the cruise before final payment date. Note, it is only relevant if you back out before final payment date since different rules apply after. The first two of these items is pretty easy to get. Do a mock booking with both refundable and non-refundable fares and you've got them. The probability is much more nebulous. It depends on personal circumstances at the time of booking. I assume most people booking a cruise and putting down a deposit expect to take it. Therefore, most people would put the odds at somewhere around 90% on any given cruise. I don't have one at the moment, but this thread inspires me to put one together. I'll see what I can do.

This has been an interesting thought experiment and I thank you for suggesting it. That said, I don’t think you’re looking at this correctly. This isn’t insurance, where you pay a premium and you may or may not get a return. Rather it is two different pricing structures, with 2 different expected costs. Further, the $500 is the deposit. I say this not to be picky, but to avoid confusion. It is referred to as a deposit by Royal and on the website. Since you mentioned a coin toss, let’s go with that for the odds of going on this cruise and the example cruise I priced this morning. If you booked the refundable deposit, you would expect to pay $5361.28 for the cruise if you go and $0 if you cancel before final payment date. If I remember my college statistics, that gives you an expected return of $2680.64 [ (cost of not going X probability of not going) + (cost of going X probability of going) which in this case is ($0 X .5) + ($5261.28 X 0.5) ]. Note, this isn’t what you expect to pay. Rather, if you were faced with this exact decision a bunch of times, it is what you would expect for the average cost across the whole dataset. If you booked non-refundable, you would give an expected return of $2613.64 [ ($500 X 0.5) + ($4727.28 X 0.5) ]. I’m ignoring the possibility of applying some of the non-refundable deposit on a later cruise for simplicity. As you can see, on this particular example you’d be better off, from a statistical perspective, to go non-refundable. In the real world, the pricing and refundable premium ($634 in this example) changes constantly. If we were considering a cruise with a $200 premium, then refundable would have worked out better. Further, the chances that you’ll cancel prior to final payment varies based on your ever changing circumstances. Therefore, this calculation will vary constantly. Further, people react emotionally to losing money for any reason. So, by all means, do what feels best to you. Like I said, it has been interesting. If I get a little bit of time, I’ll throw together a spreadsheet to make the calculation easy. Thanks again for bringing it up!

How/where to get the best deals is a recurring theme on this website. To sum up the info, book as early as possible and reprice often, get a good travel agent that doesn't charge extra, sail while school is in session and sail out of ports within driving distance of your home. I can't emphasize the book early point hard enough. I've saved thousands doing this!

Adventure is a great ship! Enjoy!

I think an example would help. Picking a cruise, more or less at random, let’s look at the 8 Night Caribbean & Perfect Day cruise departing June 21, 2024 from Orlando with a category 2N ocean view cabin on Adventure of the Seas. Non-refundable fare for this cabin, including all taxes and fees for 2 people is $4727.28. The non-refundable deposit is $500. Refundable fare for this cabin, including all taxes and fees for 2 people is $5361.28. The deposit is $500. As you can see, booking non-refundable does not reduce your deposit. However, the fare is $634 lower than the refundable fare. BTW: I really did pick this cruise at random. The difference between the fare is usually not that great.

I think I'm missing something in the math. It seems to me the real question is the reward (i.e. the reduced fare amount) vs. the cost (i.e. amount of the deposit you might lose) multiplied by the probability of cancelling. This may seem picky, but I don't see the amount of the reduced fare in the calculation. I've seen rare cases where there's no difference between refundable and non-refundable fares. That's a no brainer. Go with the refundable. I've also seen cases where the difference was over $1000. I haven't tried to quantify that, but it is hard to swallow spending an extra $1000 to protect a $500 deposit unless there's almost no chance of taking the cruise. Of course, why would you book the cruise if you didn't at least think it was a possibility? Most of the time, the fares are somewhere in the middle. Go NRD and you save $2-300. That's more debatable, especially if you're booking years in advance.

I agree about booking when cruises are announced. That's November/December for royal 2025 season. For August 2024, it's going to tough to find a good deal. Best I can find is rhapsody of the seas out of San Juan Puerto Rico.

Royal built a new terminal about a year ago. It's much nicer, but not really walkable from any hotel. That said, the Tremont and Harbour House are still the closest nice hotels. With that in mind, I'd recommend staying on the mainland in League City, Webster or Kemah. It'll be much cheaper.

I think you'll have to go to a true luxury line, like Silversea, to get away from the upcharges. Of course, you'll pay much more for one of those! I've sailed Royal, Celebrity, Carnival, NCL and Princess. All of them had upselling. The more "premium" brands of Celebrity and Princess had less, but still annoying.

There's really no way for us to definitively answer your questions. All I can say is Royal must feel ok about it or they would cancel or postpone the cruise.

I check my emails. I don't log in to my bank or enter my credit card numbers. If you're really concerned, they look at a VPN to encrypt your communications.

While I do see value in the offerings at PDCC, I don't see enough value to justify the current prices. If others do, then more power to them! Go for it! I will get off the ship in PDCC as it is still a fairly new experience for me. Not really a beach person, but it's hard to find a nicer, cleaner, easier beach than PDCC. A few more visits though, and I'll be right there with you on this one.

In my experience, tropicaltidbits.com is the best site for tracking storms. Spaghettimodels.com is good too.

You can't go wrong with either ship. Personally, I prefer the Freedom class over Oasis class, but that's just me. Both are great ships.

If the demand doesn't drop off, then you can and should expect Royal to build more facilities. More cabanas, expand the water park, build more private islands, etc.

I agree that charging for popcorn is silly. After all, if you fill up on popcorn, then you won't fill up on more expensive food. Therefore, it is in Royal's best interest to have you eat popcorn. Alas, they don't see it that way. As far as the towel charge, I always check my bill the morning on disembarkation and again just before departing the ship. One time, a towel charge appeared on that final check. It was very annoying, but I went to guest services and had it resolved very quickly. Lesson learned: you can never check your folio too many times!

According to Royal Caribbean's FAQ on the website, there is no hard limit on luggage: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/sgp/en/faq/questions/onboard-luggage-policy?country=SGP I did find a message on a website called "eurosender.com" that indicates a limit, but I'd trust Royal over that website.

I think the reason Royal asked about charging for Pizza (in formerly complimentary restaurants) was a recent change on Princess. You can get the details here: Princess Cruises hides new fees within expansion of all-inclusive packages - The Points Guy

Does it have a built-in rechargeable battery? If so, then it cannot be checked. It would need to be carried on. I don't see why it would have any trouble getting through TSA if it is in your carry on.

I did not know that. Thanks! If I'm ever in Baltimore, I'll have to check her out. Do they have tours?

Just make sure your c&a number is linked to your captains club an you'll be elite level. No free drinks, but free laundry and 1 free Gelato per day. A complete list of benefits is on the captains club website

This seems rather harsh. If you don't wish to pay for it, then don't. For better or worse, others will. As long as that's true, Royal or someone else, will be happy to take their money.

Perhaps they are restarting, at least for repositioning purposes. I'm booked on Radiance of the Seas Sept 27, 2024 "8 night Pacific Coastal Cruise," which is part of a reposition from Alaska to Tampa. It departs Vancouver and hits Victoria, Seattle, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Catalina Island and ends in Los Angeles.