Jump to content

Loyal to Royal

Members
  • Posts

    27
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Loyal to Royal

  1. We are cruising in about 60 days. I plan to book our next cruise onboard for Alaska 2024. There are no itineraries that avoid Canada. Husband has a DUI that was dropped down to a physical control. Rolling the dice on it, but realistically we plan to just not get off the boat for our 5 hour docking in Canada. Do we really think Royal is going to prevent us from going all together or would it just be an issue in port if we try to get off the boat?
  2. I currently have this booked for our September 2nd cruise and am considering canceling it. I've watched several Youtube reviews on it that are making me feel like it may be "ok" but not worth the price we paid. One Youtube review said he ordered a few different brands of beer while there and was brought out beer in a clear cup each time. When he walked past the bar he saw someone pouring the beer out of two liters with the labels ripped off. Sounds like the open bar options are beer and a small selection of mixed drinks. Food is not included (one video said chips and salsa was) but multiple reviews show that the food is very expensive and small portions. Also seeing reviews about the sargassum/seaweed being out of control currently. I've been searching the boards here hoping to get some insight before I cancel my reservation.
  3. I'm sure you will love it! Beautiful ship. My husband and I use the Next Cruise desk onboard reduced deposits each year to book our vacation for the next year - so I'm already planning our 2024 cruise. Very addicting. 68 days to go!
  4. I got an acceptance email on August 24th for a September 11th cruise. Had to call twice to get luggage tags generated and finally got them September 2nd. I bid the absolute minimum to move up from a neighborhood balcony to an ocean view balcony and was accepted
  5. We just got back from our cruise about a week and a half ago. Did Gatorland admission only. We loved it. We were late getting there due to an accident but the park was awesome. We missed most of the shows due to getting there late but the one we caught was good. There was enough to do/look at we could have spent the entire time in just the park and not felt like we missed out by skipping the buggy tour.... This is a comment I made on a different post about it: First - If you do any of the Orlando area excursions, with it being about a 45 minute bus ride each way, book through Royal directly. We were stuck in traffic for 2 hours behind an overturned oil rig. That shouldn't be a common occurrence and our tour guide told us that it wasn't - but to be safe I would absolutely book through them. There is only one real path to Orlando so if theres an accident or traffic theres no way to avoid it. They worked with us and made sure we got back to the boat in time but also did a great job communicating with the boat the entire day and making sure we were set. Financially we ended up getting 50% of our excursion back after speaking with guest services so it wasn't a bad deal. We did Gatorland and man was it awesome. That being said our experience was extremely short due to that accident, but it was still amazing. We both said we wish we had the full time there and were able to see all the shows. They have little bags of gator food you can get - I don't remember for certain but I think it was $6 for 2 bags. Based on where it was being sold at we thought it was just for this large gator boardwalk right by it but they told us you could actually feed literally any gator in the park with just 2 exceptions she pointed out to us. Knowing what we now know we would have bought more food because it was our favorite part of our time there. So cool to toss food in and see them try to be the first to get it.
  6. We just did Port Canaveral/Nassau/CocoCay on the Oasis September 11th. First - If you do any of the Orlando area excursions, with it being about a 45 minute bus ride each way, book through Royal directly. We were stuck in traffic for 2 hours behind an overturned oil rig. That shouldn't be a common occurrence and our tour guide told us that it wasn't - but to be safe I would absolutely book through them. There is only one real path to Orlando so if theres an accident or traffic theres no way to avoid it. They worked with us and made sure we got back to the boat in time but also did a great job communicating with the boat the entire day and making sure we were set. Financially we ended up getting 50% of our excursion back after speaking with guest services so it wasn't a bad deal. We did Gatorland and man was it awesome. That being said our experience was extremely short due to that accident, but it was still amazing. We both said we wish we had the full time there and were able to see all the shows. They have little bags of gator food you can get - I don't remember for certain but I think it was $6 for 2 bags. Based on where it was being sold at we thought it was just for this large gator boardwalk right by it but they told us you could actually feed literally any gator in the park with just 2 exceptions she pointed out to us. Knowing what we now know we would have bought more food because it was our favorite part of our time there. So cool to toss food in and see them try to be the first to get it. To "make up" for us only being at Gatorland for an hour and a half they transferred us to Icon Park. It was a waste of time. There were 2 rides closed - the one is probably permanently closed as its the one that teenager fell from and died on earlier this year. The aquarium was interesting as we both love aquariums but we asked an employee at gatorland and he told us it was a waste of money and more for small small children. We considered the wax museum but it was closed by the time we got there. Otherwise - the shops were all pretty lame. I would have probably preferred to be dropped off at a normal mall honestly. Our bus ride back was shared with the cruisers who had booked the Icon Park excursion that were not at Gatorland with us and a couple from the Icon Park only excursion told us it was very hard to pass the time being there exclusively and they had been ready to come back for hours. I felt that way and we were only there for a little over an hour. Nassau was super disappointing. Nearly a year ago we booked an all glass submarine tour and were very excited for it. Never heard anything about it and expected that to be what we did there. When we boarded we had no excursion tickets in our room for Nassau. We went to the excursion desk to inquire about it and they said that it had been canceled about a week before but again we had not been notified. They gave us a 20% discount on a different excursion so it was essentially about what we would have paid if we had booked it before the cruise, technically a little less for the one we picked, but their excursion selection was terrible. We couldn't settle on anything we both wanted to do so I let my husband pick a jeep tour. We booked onboard so the guy helping us from the excursions desk warned us that as a group of two we would be sharing a jeep. The entire group for our tour was seemingly unaware. I did see it in the fine print on the app but our whole group was shocked and upset. We ended up getting paired up with a very rude/annoying set of friends who refused to ride in the back due to car sickness. We were good sports about it but were very displeased. The port itself is under major construction and is expected to be done Q1 next year. We enjoyed walking around the port and shopping more than our actual excursion. Very expansive area of shops, restaurants, liquor stores, etc. CocoCay we did the jetskis like we normally do. No complaints there. The food on the island is complimentary as I'm sure you know so we ate lunch after our jetski tour and got back on the boat. In regards to Ports of Call this was my absolute least favorite itinerary out of all of the cruises I've been on. If you are into beach sitting and ocean activities it might be a great itinerary for you but my husband doesn't swim in oceans or actually at all really so most of the excursions available in Nassau were automatic "no"s for us. If I knew what I knew now I would have probably kept Nassau as an excursion free port and just spent the time walking around the shops.
  7. We didn't stop at these ports but have a similar complaint about the ports we did stop at on our cruise we just took (September 11th) as well as one we have booked for next year. I just started doing research today on our ports of call for the next trip to book outside of the ship. I normally never do that but am because our excursions were limited in the selection available - AND also were terrible! Something "went wrong" with each excursion we did to the point I had to speak to guest services. I'm usually not that person.
  8. Booked via the Next Cruise desk when we were on Oasis earlier this month. Anyone else booked for this one?
  9. Yes they do. And they did for us at Labadee on both excursions we did (Wave Runners and the Zipline)
  10. Yes - it shows in the app what ships are using the new app. Right now looking at my app it says Adventure, Allure, Anthem, Brilliance, Enchantment, Harmony, Independence, Liberty, Majesty, Mariner, Navigator, Oasis, Ovation, Quantum, Serenade, Spectrum, Symphony, and Vision. It looks like the list is at the bottom of this website too.... https://www.royalcaribbean.com/booked/royal-app
  11. We were on the Allure - one of the ships enhanced to work with the new app. We just used the free Royal Caribbean App's messenger and it worked great. The only thing we didn't like was that you have to be on the ship's wifi to use it - and unless you are paying for the surf or stream packages through the ship the app is the ONLY thing that will work once you turn their Wifi on. So when we first got on the boat in Florida we turned our WiFi on to connect to the app. Then we couldn't iMessage other's back home - because it uses the internet to send - without first turning our wifi back off. Then to see if we had messages on the Royal app we had to turn on the wifi again - now not knowing if we had anything sent to us on iMessage. It was a slight inconvenience and really wasn't important. Only impacted us on 2 days - one the embarkation day and the other when we were docked in Mexico as our cell plan includes Mexico.
  12. We just returned from a September sailing. I had just GTY until the "90 days before your sailing date". Then it updated me to have a category code but still no room assignment. Got my room assignment about a month before the sailing.
  13. Glad I saw this thread! Just gave me a good Christmas filler item idea for my parents ? (Yes I'm Christmas shopping in October. I started beginning of September actually haha)
  14. We just got off the Allure of the Seas in Ft Lauderdale last month. They began express self walk off at 7am. That means carrying your own luggage off the boat with you. We did this and were able to make it to our 9:45am flight - but we were told by multiple different Royal Caribbean staff members prior to our cruise that our flight was too early. We had family members traveling with us and they drove us to the airport after - but the cruise port transportation to the airport wasn't even available as an option to us until 9am.
  15. We parked at our port for the cruise we just returned from and had a similar experience - it really was the most convenient parking. But our parking for our Fort Lauderdale was $60 cheaper than what the Cape Liberty parking will be so I figured we would weigh the options. Guess we need to just start saving up some extra spending money to cover for it!
  16. FYI The coke freestyle stations will work to refill ice and water into any cup - not just the chipped pop cups they provide.
  17. Our most recent cruise we did the all inclusive digital package but the one before that we somehow bought only one photo and it was digital! Its shocking to hear that's not offered anymore. That was January 2018.
  18. I wish I had known that you can load money to your slot machine from your seapass card at no fee - then cash in the voucher for whatever you loaded to your card instead of using an ATM and paying a fee. We wanted just another $50 to spend ashore and didn't know that trick so ended up paying an ATM fee. My family member that was cruising with me showed me that trick after we left port and the casino reopened. Was kicking myself for that one even though it wasn't a huge deal.
  19. We didn't book ours in advance and it was $105 per person when we were there a few weeks ago. I would say the $10 ish isn't worth booking it in advanced if you want him to try the zipline on the boat first. Not too much of a price difference. I believe my "tickets" delivered to my stateroom on the first day for my other excursions stated on them we had to give 48 hours notice for a full refund.
  20. We just got back from Labadee and did the Dragon's Breath. I'm not sure if the Fire is the same way - but with the Dragon's Breath they had us do a smaller but still entertaining zipline in a tree area prior to taking us up for the main zipline. We wished we had done the Dragon's fire when we got done as the Fire was never very busy. The Dragon's Breath was always done in larger groups. Our group needed 2 vehicles to transport us all to the top and I believe the vehicles held about 12 -15 people.
  21. SIDE NOTE - do not pay the $8 locker rental when you do the wave runners! There is a compartment on the front of the jet ski and one on the back you can store things in. We had a rather large bag on us, a fanny pack, our tennis shoes - and everything fit perfectly fine. They did warn us that the compartments aren't water sealed but we had no issue. Everything was still dry.
  22. We just took a cruise that went to these exact same locations. When we were in Labadee - with it being a RCL island - the excursions included the pictures from the ships photo package. We had purchased the digital all inclusive photo package through the ship. We had 2-3 pictures taken on our wave runners and 2-3 taken after we finished ziplining while we still had our harnesses on. There were no pictures or videos during the excursion. Outside of the excursions they did have their photographers set up all over the island - not just your typical pier photos.
  23. My husband and I both smoke - but try to avoid the casino. We both feel rude smoking inside an area where there are clearly non smokers. We just returned from a cruise on the Allure though - and almost felt obligated to smoke in the casino. Most boats we have been on have a smokers section on a lower deck - for example just outside of the casino. When we did the Navigator cruise they had a door that exited the casino from the smoking section that led directly into a smoking section out on the deck. The allure only had smoking sections on the top 2 decks. It was hard to light our cigarettes with the wind, once we did get them lit the wind would either put them out or blow fire off of them, and the sections were always cram packed with standing room only. We had a family on a cruise and they were always locking down 3 or 4 whole tables. I think if they removed the smoking from the casino but allowed it directly outside of the casino how the navigator did it would be a strong compromise! Not as much wind as top deck and not in an interior area.
×
×
  • Create New...