WAAAYTOOO

No, items from the minibar are not covered in the packages but as @rjac suggested, a recent policy has been for the fridges to be emptied. You can request items to be added to the fridge, however.

All of the cabanas (regardless of where they are located) accommodate 6 people so you will be able to have everyone in 1 cabana. Good news ! Suite guests ARE permitted to have non-suite guests at the cabana (but they would not be permitted in Barefoot Beach without a cabana) so your non-suite guests will be welcome. Good news #2 ! There is a golf cart (known affectionately as the "limo") that will take you from the gate at Labadee to Barefoot Beach. Good news #3 ! I WISH the golf cart would pick you up at the ship as I find the walk on the Labadee pier to be very long, hot and exhausting but, alas, no vehicles of any kind are allowed on the pier. When your Concierge contacts you (usually about a week prior to the cruise) let him/her know that you are interested in a cabana. Since you are on Harmony, you will not be confirmed until after you get onboard b/c the Star Class guests have priority for cabanas but I am very confident that you will get a cabana if you request one early. You may not get your first choice but you will almost certainly get one. Remember that a number of the Barefoot Beach cabanas (most notably, the over-the-water ones) were damaged in the hurricane so there are fewer cabanas available, presently...but hopefully, by May of next year, they will have those rebuilt.

Not that I normally work while onboard but what would be the purpose of blocking a VPN ? I would be unable to work onboard if they are blocking VPNs. That is the way I connect to work sites. Just curious

I have done Stingray City at GC and while it was VERY crowded, there were no shortages of stingrays for everyone to enjoy. I agree that everyone should do it at least once. I will probably never do it again but it was quite an experience.

We just got off Allure and had purchased the 4 night specialty dining plan. They did not add any additional grats for any of our meals. I did not hear anyone talking about paying extra grats for their dining purchased onboard but that doesn't mean they weren't charging it.

No, as Tiny mentioned, there is only the interior climbing thing next to Sabor, not the netting system like Harmony has. To my knowledge, Harmony is the only ship that has this netting system.

No, not on this cruise. We are in a D1 “hump” balcony. You don’t need any kind of mattress topper when you’re in Star Class. The Duxiana mattresses in the Star Class suites are the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept on in my life ! i won’t lie though. I miss my Genie ! ??

Off topic a bit but wanted to report that we were allowed a $50/pp credit at Izumi on Allure this week. They started out telling us it was a $35/pp credit allowance but we insisted that we had always gotten a $50/pp allowance and they ultimately relented. Of course our entire bill only came to $71 so we didn’t use all of the $100 credit but I was happy that they acknowledged that the lower allowance was a bit arbitrary. I doubt they will allow this discretion forever but it worked for us this week !

If Star Class kids were able to ride the Flow Rider over and over without any wait then someone (staff monitoring the FR lines) was not doing their job. Yes, Star Class has a priority line but this does not permit Star Class pax to ride, endlessly. They should still have to allow non-priority pax to ride on an alternating basis (usually 3 non-priority to 1 priority). If Star Class are truly hogging the FR line, that’s a sure way for Star Class to lose this perk completely. I hope that’s not happening.

This week on Allure Giovanni’s was open for lunch on embark day. I was surprised. Didn’t go there but we saw lots of others going in.

On Allure this week the first hour (noon to 1 PM) on sea days the limit for most table games has been $5. At 1:00 it goes back up to $10. This (lower limit) doesn’t seem to apply on port days when the casino opens in the evenings after we leave port.

On Allure now. We asked for a mattress topper and to our great surprise, we did get a very nice egg shell foam topper plus an extra comforter. Very comfortable. I don’t know if Allure just happened to have left-over egg shell foam toppers or if RCI decided that the bad press they’ve been getting for the hard mattresses makes it worth using the toppers and discarding them after they get soiled. I’m betting on #2. Whatever the cause, we are delighted with our bed on Allure this week.

Marc I think you’re right

There is usually a time when the tables first open - maybe around noon - that the table limits will be lower. It depends which ship you’re on but it’s usually $5 on games like 3 card poker and blackjack

On Grandeur we usually do a 3 night package. As a rule we do 2 nights at Izumi and 1 night at Chops. I am in agreement that a 5 night plan would probably be too much food. When we have the ultimate dining with Star class it’s always too much. Plus we always eat at least 1 meal from the MDR - lamb shank so a paid meal that night would be wasted.

Nice analysis, Paul

Also, be SURE that you do NOT pack your passports in the luggage that is being taken onboard by the porters. You must have your passport with you at checkin.

Wow...all that time and money for Empress and then she slips back into the abyss from which she was resurrected. YIKES !

Well said, Tony. It is all voodoo and they really do not let anyone know what the truth about "points" is. That is why I ALWAYS say, the MOST important thing you can do is be noticed...regardless of how much money or how long you are there. As a rule, we have poorer playback results on the larger ships than we do on the smaller ships even though our playing habits are always the same. I feel positive that this is b/c there are so many more players on the big ships and they just don't notice or track you as closely as they do in the more intimate casinos. Being friendly with the management and tipping well will get you noticed. Sorry if that sounds crass, but I believe it to be the truth. Another thing that they do NOT advertise well is the fact that so many are eligible for casino rates. Most people have no idea that they are eligible for a casino rate. As @bobburd said, unless you get an email or some other kind of offer, you just would have no way of knowing. My advice to ANYone who EVER plays in the casino - big spenders or otherwise - is ALWAYS call Club Royale FIRST when you are thinking of booking a cruise. The worst that can happen is they tell you that there are no offers for you. You MAY be very pleasantly surprised, as we were, the first time we did this, that you are eligible for a very NICE casino discount. They have changed the way they calculate casino rates YET AGAIN but quite honestly, I think the "new" way is really the best. They now allow you to take EVERY discount to which you are entitled (C&A balcony, senior, state, military...whatever it happens to be PLUS whatever the current booking incentive is (BOGO 50% ,etc.)) and THEN they give you a casino discount on top of all of that. We are sailing on Allure next week (Thanksgiving week). We received an email offer (sounds like the same one @bobburd got) for a complimentary inside guarantee room (Z GTY) and had Michelle Cunningham, our MEI TA book it for us. All that we owed were taxes, port fees and grats (total of $415.96). After a number of weeks we were assigned an inside way up at the front of the ship. TERRIBLE location and I decided to see what we could do to upgrade. After a couple of days and MANY emails back and forth (and MUCH time on the phone for Michelle, no doubt), Michelle was able to upgrade us from that awful forward inside room to a D1 hump balcony for $278 !! This is what the discount looked like: $226 C&A balcony discount, $944 BOGO50, $251 Senior discount, $2299 casino discount. So, for a $3998 D1 cabin, we were discounted $3720 for a balance of only $278 (plus the original taxes, port fees and grats, which brought the TOTAL total to $693.96). I think this was a heck of a deal and the tribute ALL goes to Michelle and the Club Royale agent. I have no idea how they did it but it was a wonderful deal. This is even more amazing when you realize that this was basically a $-0- commission sale for Michelle. What a TA !

Now you ruined the whole thing ! LOL

I agree completely that if you are only looking for cash back then the BoA Visa card is not the best option. However, we like it b/c it generates direct OBC to the cruise of our choice. We have other CCs that we use for general cash back options but we find the BoA Visa to be our best option for generating shipboard OBC on RCI.

You too !!!

Yes, we use ours all the time. You should show an available onboard credit to use for purchasing goods and services prior to sailing. As with all things RCI, they are very inconsistent with how long prior to your cruise that OBC shows up. I think, for our upcoming Thanksgiving cruise, our RCI Visa OBC showed up about 1 week ago. The cruise is this coming Sunday. So it was about 2 weeks prior. Word of advice. Be sure and take a copy of the confirmation email that they sent you when you redeemed the points with you on the cruise (unless you spend everything before you get onboard !). If there is any discrepancy with the OBC, that confirmation email is the only thing they will accept as proof that they owe you the OBC. That’s only happened to us once but problems do occur from time to time.

Could she have been any vaguer ? Just spit it out, hon...

We'll be on Allure for Thanksgiving this year. First time for Thanksgiving.