Mturk

Has anyone else noticed that the drink/internet package isn’t always being offered? On our Holy Land cruise last month, this package was only offered sporadically and for our 3 night cruise next month I haven’t seen it being offered at all. 

I was able to check-in just after midnight last night on the app. 

We'll be staying at the Sheraton Four Points in November, 1800 S Federal Hwy, which is very close to both the airport and cruise port and is around the corner from the Embassy Suites and Holiday Inn Express. Prices are in the $180 range for that period and there is a free shuttle from the airport. I don't believe that breakfast is included however.

A question for the more knowledgeable people on this board regarding Diamond drinks. My wife and i just graduated to Diamond status and we usually always book the DBP but won't be doing that anymore. I know about the 4 drink vouchers each per person per day but what I'm not clear on are the discounts over and above the vouchers. Matt had posted the benefits per status tier earlier in the month and it shows for Diamond that in addition to the vouchers there are also available (2 coupons per sailing) 50% off for any glass of wine, beer or soda. Then there's another 20% off any glass of wine, beer or soda (this doesn't mention any limitation). So does all this mean that if on any given day when I've gone through the 4 vouchers and have used up the 2 50% coupons that any glass of wine afterwards is always 20% off?

That's not how it shows on my cruise receipt. It shows the cost of the room less "casino free" discount which brings the room cost to $0. Then it shows "casino upgrade" for $185 plus taxes, fees, and port expenses.

We recently came back from our Holy Land cruise and took advantage of a casino royale offer of an oceanview stateroom for a 3 night November sailing on Liberty. We contacted our travel agent and asked her to see about upgrading to a balcony room. We were charged a $185 upgrade fee but not sure if this because of a casino offer or if this would be the normal upgrade fee as our cruise receipt does show "Casino upgrade".

On our Odyssey cruise that ended this past Sunday, the details of the offer was listed in the Guest Ticket Booklet. We had a "Dinner for 2 Spa for 1" offer and we found the info on page 20 of 22 right before the luggage tags.

On 2/17/2022 at 11:22 AM, silentfaith said:

Looks like some are leaving from rome/civi to go on sept. holy land cruise and then back home on trans atlantic,,,,we are but want to stay in rome for

5 days prior, we are bonvoy members and know about the marriotts there but not keen on the rest of bonvoy hotel list there, any tips using bonvoy

points for a hotel stay other than marriott in rome?

We stayed at the Westin Excelsior, Rome back in 2018 and enjoyed the hotel very much. We were able to walk around Rome and see many of the tourist sites as they were not far at all. We were able to use my wife's points for that hotel. Checking the Bonvoy app, it does show that you can use your points there.

Our 12 night September Odyssey sailing out of Rome was cancelled and i was able to lift and shift to an 11 night sailing in May 2022. But I'm not sure if that was because our sailing was later than yours to start with.

That's definitely not Jewel.

We did the 12 night Mediterranean Venice cuise in 2014 on Serenade. We have 3 boys that ranged in age at that time from 12 - 17 and everyone had a great time. They still remember the cruise very fondly. One thing we did that was recommended to us was to hire an outside tour company. I don't know if this would be possible post-COVID but we used their services at 3 of our stops in Italy and it was wonderful. They pick you up from the ship in a Mercedes van that was air conditioned and more importantly for the kids had wifi! You had a private tour guide for the day and bring you back to the ship at the end of the day.

Thanks FionaMG! I emailed my TA and she wasn't even aware of the cancellation and was quite angry that RCCL hadn't notified her about it. I actually copied and pasted what you wrote above concerning the special version of Lift and Shift for Odyssey's inaugural season. Thanks again!

I did the same with my account after having noticed that Odyssey's sailings had been switched to Israel and sure enough my September cruise out of Rome has been cancelled too. Haven't received the email notification yet but just emailed my TA to see what options are available. We're very disappointed by this as it was the 12 night Holy Land cruise that we were very much looking forward to. 

In 2014 we used a private tour operator for each of these 3 stops and don't regret it one bit. In fact, i would highly recommend it! For the Rome segment, we were picked up somewhere between 7 and 8AM, don't remember exactly and we had a fun and very active day. We saw pretty much all of the main attractions in Rome, Pantheon, Coliseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain (which unfortunately was being renovated at the time) as well as a driving tour of the city. Our guide took us to a local restaurant that we had him recommend for lunch and we ended our day with a 2 hour tour of the Vatican which the tour company set us up with our own personal guide to show us around. We honestly think that these private tours really made that cruise a step above what it would have been had we done the ship's excursions.

And we made it back on time!

We sailed Freedom back in March and we boarded around 12:30PM. I think the idea behind the later check-in is to avoid everyone getting there at the same time. We did have to wait in a lineup for about a half hour before getting into the terminal.

We just booked on Adventure of the Seas for the February 29, 2020 sailing and I started looking at drink packages today. The prices are crazy! On a Canadian dollar basis they are asking $81.13 pp per day for a DBP and Voom one device before service charge. In March 2019, we paid $72.05 pp per day. Why have the prices skyrocketed? Does the number of days at sea have something to do with it?