steverk

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.

On a related note. I was on Allure recently and discovered a US plug under the bed. Very handy for charging your phone.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Kona can't dock cruise ships at all. It is a tender only port.

If we're going to speculate about Royal's direction, and we want to sound intelligent about it, we need to look at it from Royal's point of view. That means developing a list of requirements and working from there. For the requirements we need to know the mission of the new ship? Does it go to cold weather ports like Alaska and Norway? Does it need to transit the Panama and/or Suez Canal? Is it going to be used to open new markets or ports for Royal? A bigger ship has better economy of scale, but only if you can fill it. How big should it be? I'm sure there's much more to this, but you get the point. IMO, Royal needs a new class of ship that can go to cold weather ports and should be able to transit the Panama Canal. It will be as large as possible and still meet these requirements. That still gives it a decent, but not great, economy of scale. Not everyone agrees that Royal will build this. They very well could make yet another warm weather monster in the 300,000 GRT range, but I'm going with my theory! The requirement to transit the canal limits the size of the ship dramatically. The Celebrity Edge class ships can and do transit the new canal. They are about 130,000 GRT, so that's probably about the size of the new class. Since most of us are more familiar with Royal's ships, Voyager of the Seas is 137,276 GRT. Being a cold weather ship implies a thicker hull with thicker propellers. It also means an indoor pool would be a big nice to have. Norway has passed a law saying that all cruise ships going into the legendary fjords will need to be zero emissions. I expect the new ship will comply. Given that this is Royal, we can expect a bunch of new and creative bells and whistles on this ship. So there's my prediction for the next class of ship: 130,000+/- GRT neo-panamax Indoor pool Thicker hull and propellers to deal with chunks of floating sea ice "Zero" emissions. Lots of new clever toys on board. I'll even go one step farther. I predict the lead ship in this class will be sailing before the end of the decade.