Jump to content

WAAAYTOOO

Members
  • Posts

    14,655
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    214

Posts posted by WAAAYTOOO

  1. Welcome to the Blog !

    Yes, the ClubRoyaleOffers.com website is very limited.  It does a very GOOD job of detailing your offers and a very BAD job of providing any useful information about the offers.

    I recommend that you do NOT hit the “redeem” button (although I will fully admit that I have no idea what would happen if you did).  Call Club Royale (866-213-3116) and have them help you.  I did this last week for an offer I saw on the website and they sent me the list of the applicable cruises to which that offer applied.  It’s best to have the information you need first and then decide if the offer is something you’re interested in, or not.

  2. On 12/12/2019 at 10:33 AM, WAAAYTOOO said:

    The FCC is based on the base fare only.  IOW, the taxes, fees, gratuities etc do not count towards the FCC.  I don't think the fact that it is a casino comp factors in at all....from what I understand it it based wholly on the cruise fare that you paid.  Since our cruise fare was $6255.70, I would expect our FCC to be $1251.14 but our TA told us to expect in the neighborhood of $1100 so there must be some factor included (or excluded, in this case) that I am missing.  We all know how Royal uses "fuzzy math" and it looks like this is no exception.  I know from reading others' accounts, most people are consistently disappointed that their FCC is lower than they expected.  I'll join that group, I guess.

    Here's a bit of good news though....we found out that we will be able to combine this FCC with ANOTHER casino comp upgrade.  I'm using a free casino comp certificate (which I am upgrading) for a sailing on Liberty next September (Labor Day) and I will be able to apply this FCC to that casino comp upgrade.  So, you can combine a casino comp upgrade with an FCC which is great news.   As Twangster has explained to us a couple of times, the FCC can only be used to pay for base fare.  We cannot use it to cover taxes, fees, gratuities, etc.   Coincidentally, the FCC will almost exactly cover the cost of the upgraded fare, so this one will be almost "FREE".

    Update on the 20% FCC.  I will preface my story by saying that this is not yet final.  My TA is questioning the results but I will just say....boy, was I ever mistaken with my estimate of what our FCC would be !  In my previous post I had estimated that our FCC would be between $1100-$1200 based on the cruise fare of $6255.70.  Imagine my surprise when the FCC arrived on Tuesday in the amount of $464 - $232 each.  I was stunned, to say the least.  As I said, Michelle is looking into it today for me.  As I no doubt mentioned elsewhere in this thread, this cruise was an upgraded casino comp. It started as an interior room and I paid a casino discounted upgrade to Star Class, which, in the end, totaled $6255.70 before any taxes or port fees.   I feel sure that this is factoring into the unbelievably low FCC somehow.  I will withhold any further speculation about how the FCC was calculated until I hear back from Michelle. Just know that I am enormously disappointed at the moment.  I almost wish that the Genie hadn’t even offered the FCC. I neither asked for it nor expected it.  More, once I hear back from Guest Relations.
     

  3. 17 minutes ago, Jax said:

    None of favorite snacks were ever delivered.

    Wow !  I'm stunned.  I had to read this 3 times to make sure I was reading it correctly.  This is the first time I've EVER heard of anyone getting LESS food than they wanted.

    Did you ever mention snack food delivery to Andreas ?  I completely believe that he might not have read the pre-cruise questionnaire.  I think that thing is a total waste of time.  It's much too far in the future to be of any real help (at least, it seems that way to me).  ...but I would have thought that Andreas would have discussed this with you at the very beginning of the cruise.  He did not ?

    It is FAR more common to have waaaytoo much food delivered vs nothing at all !  We finally instructed Joyce to cease ALL afternoon random food deliveries and only bring food that we ordered directly.  The random afternoon food would just sit there on the table and get stale.  How many grapes can 2 people eat ?

  4. The one and only time that we strayed from our normal hotel (Best Western Plus), we stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Baltimore Downtown/Inner Harbor.   101 S. President Street Baltimore, MD  410-837-9500.  It is right across the street from Camden Yards.  I wasn't particularly impressed but it was close to a few good restaurants.

    Is Empress replacing Grandeur ?  I thought it was going to be Enchantment again.

  5. 29 minutes ago, foxrunner said:

    We have two rooms an oceanview and balcony what do you cruise savants do with the minibar? Empty it out and whom do you have to contact for said service. 

    Merry Christmas EVe! 

    Merry Christmas !

    The mini bars (for those cabins that have one) will be empty.  They had too many instances of people being charged erroneously for mini bar items so they now leave them empty. If you want mini bar items, you can ask to have them brought (there is a list (or used to be) in your room of what items can be stocked in the minibars).

  6. I would skip Epic. We sailed on Epic and really didn’t care for it at all.  First of all, it’s ugly.  Secondly, the balcony rooms (can’t speak for the other stateroom categories) have a split bathroom with the shower on 1 side and a tiny closet toilet on the other.  The bathroom sink is actually out in the stateroom.  It’s very odd.  I hated it.  The balconies are very narrow.  

  7. 7 minutes ago, preemieparentsof3 said:

    So even if I pay it all at once, I can rebook and they will refund the difference, with no change fees? (Newbie here)

    I would not recommend that you <ever> pay the entire balance.  Always leave a small balance until final payment.  If you book under US booking rules (USA or Canada) you can reprice the cruise as many times as you like (assuming the cruise fare goes down...unlikely, but possible) right up until final payment is due.  While technically you can do that even if you pay the cruise in full, it is always EASIER to reprice if you still owe a balance.  There are some things (such as transferring your booking to a Travel Agent) that become very much more difficult if you have paid your balance in full.

    You might also consider booking a refundable fare (as long as you're not in a Grand Suite or higher).  That way, you can change your mind and get a refund right up until final payment date.  The baseline price on a refundable fare is going to cost more but it gives you far more flexibility than a non-refundable fare does.

     

  8. 55 minutes ago, WannaCruise said:

    Our Room (JS)

    This cruise was just DH and I, but even when we book with our kids, we tend to book a promenade room (all of us in one room, or we had 2 connecting ones on Navigator), or a balcony room (regular/spacious or boardwalk), and we have 2 connecting virtual balcony rooms on our next cruise.  But we've never booked anything above a balcony.

    For this cruise, we started with a balcony, but then prices really dropped and we upgraded to a Junior Suite for the first time for only $100 more than we originally booked our balcony.  We know that the JS doesn't have the full suite privileges, but the room was still a big deal for us and we were excited for a bigger room (and we'll take the double points).

    Our room was 1640  (deck 10, a few rooms down from the aft elevators on port side).

    Location was perfect as it was only 1 deck away from Windjammer and pool deck.  It was also just 5 decks away from MDR (but correct side of the ship).  Very convenient and strangely, we don't typically book so high up, but may consider this going forward.  

    Room size for us, was great.  Wow, all that space and we didn't have to squeeze by each other.  And shelving...OMG...so much; especially with the walk in closet.  My only regret was I didn't bring more clothes as we had extra shelves (that I used to place extra compasses that I wanted to keep)...lol.  And it had a great large balcony.  Nice! 

    1276654157_IMG_2444(Medium).thumb.jpeg.ce1126a7c5beaae5b16a1d761e2465af.jpeg

     

    1137363726_IMG_2445(Medium).thumb.jpeg.32a5ce6b1b9cf8bc56155a735a3f044b.jpeg

    877405479_IMG_2447(Medium).thumb.jpeg.480902a984a79430c81c233bf72fdc6b.jpeg

    And walk in closet

    214709539_IMG_2489(Medium).thumb.jpeg.1eeaca114ab0dd7679d81af8762fd024.jpeg

    The bathroom includes a tub with the shower, and the sink area has 2 mirrored shelves (can't remember if other rooms have one or two).  It also came with shampoo and conditioner (I bring my own anyways, but DH used the provided ones) and shower gel.  The provided shampoo, etc, wasn't the octaine brand (spelling?) but it seemed nice enough.

    IMG_2453.thumb.JPG.5157111a0b9a3dff6ed95a92331bdd4a.JPG

    A few negatives

    Our room was categorized as aft, but it really wasn't that far aft.  Thus, one thing we were surprised with is that we felt the vibrations of the engine (which was really only noticed when you lie down to go to bed).  And we were surprised since we expect this at the full aft rooms but not this location.  It wasn't that bad, and by bed you are so tired, that it didn't keep us up, but was noticeable. 

    Just back luck:

    We had 2 technical issues with our room:

    • Toilet wouldn't flush at one point 
    • After a shower and I turned off the water and I noticed that the water was pouring out of the drain that was on the outside of the tub.  And it wasn't stopping.  Ummm...that didn't look right

    But both issues they resolved fairly quickly.  The shower one must have been a bit of a bigger issue.  The water did eventually stop pouring, but the next morning we returned to our room after breakfast and there was a worker lying on the floor (at eye level to the drain) and had taken off the whole side of the tub/panel.  But they fixed it and no issue going forward.  

    Room verdict

    We loved the room.  Only issue?  How do we go back to a small one again?  Not world problems and we'll manage, but I'm sure we'll notice the difference. ?

    I sense a burgeoning suites snob....  

     

    ?

  9. 22 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

     

    The challenge now becomes, "How many times can you eat it over the rest of this cruise?" lol

    It's so yummy, we tried hard to maximize our SC benefits here.  Let's just say I couldn't look at seafood for a while afterwards. ?

    Once was enough for us.  We even had a friend with  us to try and help eat it all but we failed miserably.  It's an inside joke now, between Dan and me.  I think everyone (if you eat seafood, of course) should try it but there is just no way we can eat all of it....even the small one.

  10. 20 minutes ago, amanuel2992 said:

    22 days to go! Hopefully this will fly by with Christmas and New Years. 
    Communication with Luciano has been excellent.

    I have let him know the activities we are wanting to do onboard and went ahead and gave a tentative dining schedule, we will probably change that around once onboard and plans change.

    Looking really forward to Giovanni’s! We aren’t big fans of Jamie’s so we are very thankful to have Giovanni’s onboard. That should be our anniversary celebration dinner.  
     

     

    I agree with you.  Not a fan of Jamie’s 

×
×
  • Create New...