WAAAYTOOO

Over the years we have found that walk-ups are actually a better option than trying to reschedule a reservation. Almost inevitably, if we try to rebook a reservation late in the cruise, we find it difficult; however, if we just walk up to the restaurant and ask to be seated, we usually have better results. Be prepared for a “no”, however. If you go during peak dining times (6-7), the restaurant could very well be booked. If you eat very early (as we do) or after 8:00 I don’t think you would have any trouble. We are often very surprised at how empty the restaurants are. Also, realize that if you do not use your dining package you will not be reimbursed so there is a risk to not making reservations.

Hey, Jim There is a great deal of discussion regarding this issue on other threads around the forum. The truth is, nobody can say for sure if it’s a permanent situation or not. The emails have been coming out around 1-2 weeks prior to the sailing stating that “due to the large number of high tier Crown & Anchor members on this sailing”, they are sending the D+ down to an “enhanced” Diamond Club (which means that they are opening up all or part of the Music Hall as an overflow venue during Happy Hour). Since this exact same email has been coming out for nearly every single US embarked ship recently (that still has a CL) I think we can all anticipate that this is Royal’s way of pushing the D+ out of the remaining Concierge Clubs, permanently....but they (Royal) have not admitted this to be the case. The fact that, despite our sailing going out with only a 60% capacity, they did not re-invite the D+ back into the CL for this sailing, says a lot, IMO. I cannot say for sure, but my prediction is, that your sailing will follow this current trend and the D+ will be restricted from going into the CL. Hopefully you can find a new stateroom more convenient to other venues. I find the CL to be very inconveniently located on Anthem. Even though we are permitted to go there on this sailing, we have been there exactly once and that was on day 0 to get Alex to help us with dinner reservations.

Welcome to the blog, sirdaniel ! I am with you on the long ride to Paris. We were in Le Havre only once and unfortunately it was a Sunday so much was closed. I do recall that we had a very nice day just walking around. It seems that there was a nice open market that we enjoyed. Skip the long ride to Paris and do that another time !

You can do Izumi takeout on Anthem. I saw it posted in the Compass today and I saw someone picking up takeout when we were there having dinner tonite. Of course, you would still e restricted to $35 PP ( or subject to additional charges) but you can do it on Anthem.

Guilty as charged ! Enabler and proud of it !

The full price for the DBP on Anthem this week was $74 PP/PD

We use the RCCL Visa and love it. For casino OBC it works the best, IMO. No annual fee.

Is that the second cake that Delaney has gotten ?

Thanks ! It seems that we have gotten all of the refunds now....dining pkg, refreshments pkg, gratuities, Beach Club excursion, port fees. Yesterday we had more than a $3K negative balance ($500 of that was a RCCL Visa redemption and had nothing to do with the cruise fare rebate). We took care of most of that with our first night casino visit ! The weather is awful today. Lots of wind, lots of waves. Lots of motion. Cold. Luckily, neither Dan nor I get seasick - thank goodness ! Still enjoying the trip though. There are a couple of C&A and suites events today which we will probably skip. We have not received our C&A welcome amenities. I suspect this is due to the delayed boarding. I’m thinking they waited until everyone boarded to avoid delivering gifts to rooms that were ultimately cancelled. If we don’t get them by the end of the day, we will pay the Loyalty Advisor a visit.

No need to worry. I am on Anthem now. Everything is great.

I meant to post this earlier and forgot. Yes, we got information earlier today that the ship is sailing at about 60% capacity. I haven’t noticed any lack of crowds or anything to make me feel like the ship is “empty”. The casino was bustling earlier tonite. Folks who ate in the MDR said they definitely could tell that there were people “missing”. They said their section of the dining room was completely empty except for them. I also wanted to comment on our cruise fare “rebate”. I was stunned when I saw our account this morning. The rebate was about 4X what I thought we would get, based on our rebate last month on Oasis. I’m now completely perplexed at how they calculate cruise fare rebates. There just doesn’t seem to be any commonality between what they gave us last month on Oasis and what they gave us yesterday on this cruise. I’m not complaining....just totally confused. Apparently they can rebate you anything they want to.

We decided to go to Spectra’s Cabaret tonite. We found our way to the upper deck of 270 and Dan sat down while I went to use restroom. On my way back to our seats I just happened to spot Yen waiting by the theater door. I said “hello” but kept on walking as I knew, from experience, that she was waiting for some Star Class pax to arrive. She stopped me and asked if we were here for the show; I said “yes, we’re sitting upstairs”. She asked me if we wanted to sit up front, downstairs, that she had some seats reserved that she was not going to use. I was very surprised and touched that she would invite us to sit in her SC reserved seats. I went up, got Dan and went back down to enjoy the show from the front row. She even offered to get us drinks but we declined. I would never, ever, ever ask her to do anything like that and was very flattered that she offered. She is a sweetie. We enjoyed the show very much, as we did twice last year.

Shoved off right on time at 3:00 on the dot. The Captain took us for a harbor tour around the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan. The weather completely sucked but it was still a really nice trip. I had heard that they did this from time-to-time, but had never been lucky enough to have it happen for us. Sorry....bad picture. I’m no a Twangster.

We always get the Refreshments Package and have never once used one of the plastic cups....so, yes. It’s easy to get a drink w/o hauling that cup around.

As a safety engineer, I can tell you the fastest way to get that taken care of is to throw the safety flag. They will have it taken care of ASAP. I do admire the redneck engineering fix though. Pretty impressive.

Your MIL looks like she is having a blast ! Such great fun.

This is entirely possible. Don’t know if moving would be worth the hassle, but maybe they will make somebody happy !

Lol. Goat cheese... ugh...sorry...but RVC, you betcha

We had a wonderful dinner at Chops. I was struck by how fresh everything tasted and it suddenly occurred to me that everything had to be fresh today....as it has been 3 days since the ship had had any “customers”. So EVERYTHING was freshly prepared. It really made a difference. The bread at Chops was really good as was the mushroom soup. Everything, really. We went to see The Royal Swedes in the Music Hall. Now we’re back in the suite, relaxing. Breakfast tomorrow at the CK. Yippee !

Interesting that you mention this. I mentioned something about this to Alex, the suites Concierge earlier and he said it was unlikely that any upgrades would be offered b/c they just don’t know which rooms are going to be vacant until we actually sail. It makes sense.

I don’t really know how they would do that at this point. When they announced that we were being delayed by 3 days, and offered complete refunds, they said that those who wanted to cancel didn’t have to do anything. If they no-show at the port, their entire cruise fare will be refunded, no questions asked. So, some have called and cancelled but some simply will not show up and will then, ultimately, be cancelled....so there’s really no way to estimate, I don’t think. I will say, the ship seems pretty quiet tonite. Maybe a bunch of folks will show up tomorrow. Either way, we’re gonna have a great time !

Thank you ! I got ‘em (the positive thoughts). We’re having a great night on the ship right here in port !

Both the 50% rebate (provided as OBC) and the 50% FCC is based solely on the cruise fare (top line in the cruise confirmation) of this cruise NOT some future cruise fare. There is some hokey math involved. They take the total cruise fare and reduce it by a “non-commissionable fee” and THEN calculate 50%. I don’t know if the non-commissionable fee is always the same or if it varies. In our case, on a recent cruise, that fee was $250 PP.

We were having dinner in Chops and lo and behold up sneaks Yen to say “hi”. She kind of startled me but it was great to see her. I have no idea how she managed to find us within hours of boarding but she did. Those Genie tracking skills are a bit on the creepy side. 🤭🤭 She said all of her SC guests were either onboard or on their way so it doesn’t seem like there have been nearly as many cancellations as I thought there might be. When were in the Concierge lounge earlier, Alex (Concierge host) said that, to his knowledge, only 5 suites has cancelled. The truth is, though, they won’t really know how many cancellations they have until boarding ends tomorrow afternoon. BTW, they are still excluding D+ from the CL even with the modified itin. On our way to 270 for the tech presentation. 😉😉

We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard in downtown Newark. The hotel itself was excellent. Absolutely no hesitation or concerns. The room was comfortable and clean and the mattress was very, very comfortable. The neighborhood.....(or maybe I should say”the ‘hood).....however, was very sketchy. We ventured out a couple times to eat but frankly, I was not comfortable (for one thing it was effing freezing) so we mostly stayed in the hotel. We kept having people come up and beg for money. We picked this location b/c, as I said in an earlier post, we were under extreme duress to find a place in a hurry. Likely we could have made a better choice, but it was well within the $200/day allowance that a Royal was reimbursing so we are happy, looking back.