WAAAYTOOO

Woohoo !

Congratulations on reaching Pinnacle ! That's quite an accomplishment. I will be on the Harmony TA. Hopefully that's where they will recognize you reaching Pinnacle.

They are still trying to get their act together on these suite changes. Yesterday I went to the Oasis sailing on 5 Nov 2016 and they were advertising the A4 (the smallest of these new GS-turned-AS) rooms as full-sized AS2 (600+ ft sq room and 600+ ft sq balcony) which of course, is completely WRONG and they had an A3 (12330) out in general inventory (GI) when these rooms are supposed to require 4 people to book. Needless to say, I snatched that A3 up before they could pull it back out of GI. Today, they have fixed the dimensions on the A4 category and no longer show any A3's available. I don't know if they had actually sold the other A3 (12730) or they had never had it out in GI where it didn't belong. So there are still some BIG issues with these changes. I paid a little less than $2K more for the GS-turned-A3 (even with my Club Royale discount) than I paid for a BIGGER GS cabin 1 deck below on the Allure in Feb 2016 so they have definitely adjusted the prices UP but not as much as they first had...so they are still figuring it all out. You would think that they would have thought all of this out FIRST before making these changes but it seems they are fumbling around making changes and more changes. It's quite humorous, actually.

I find it odd that some ships include the gratuities on their drink packages up front and some do not. I don't buy the drink packages anyway...I was checking for someone else in our group but it's very confusing and surprising that they would do it that way. You'd think they would be consistent - either charge for them up front or don't. Having 2 different prices show up when you're searching the different drink package options is unnecessarily confusing.

I believe that the layout is pretty standard for all of the ships except for the Q class (but I certainly cannot say that I have been on all of the ships - I have not !) where traditional dining will be on one floor and MTD will be on another (usually traditional downstairs and MTD upstairs, from my experience). As for whether or not you have a private table or a group table, that option is available to you up front where you can choose to have the private table option. As Doc suggests, if you choose to go "commando" and have no reservation at all, then you run the risk of having to compromise on the option for a private table OR face something of a wait until a private table becomes available. Depending upon the time that you choose to dine, that wait can be minimal or much longer if you choose to do the "walk up" option at 6PM. Going against the entire concept of MTD, I always make a reservation for the earliest possible dining time. I know that this seems to defeat the purpose of having MTD but b/c we always choose to have a private table, it seems that we have more options upstairs than downstairs. I guess I am a traditional diner at heart b/c I like having the same waiter and the same table every night BUT I want a private table, so I do MTD upstairs at 5:30 every night. Period. It's nice to have options !

I understand about the walk. It is quite a hike to get all the way aft. I completely understand ! I also think you have an excellent point about being right under the pool deck. Good choice !

Stephanie, I would like to chat with you about the cabana at Labadee. I am going to try and send you a message with my email address on it and ask you to please chat with me via email. I am not really familiar with all of this tech stuff so I hope it goes through.

Stephanie were you able to get your CR discount on the Blog cruise ? I noticed that the GS 14730 is still available.

WOOHOO !!

Re: gratuities - If you prepaid the grats in your original booking, then they remain at the old price. I was surprised by this. I thought for sure they would re-price everything and add the new, higher grats but they did not. We have 7 rooms in our group (Blog cruise, Feb 21 2016). 6 of the 7 received reduced fares as a result of the 30% promo and retained their original, lower grats and only 1 of the 7 (me, unfortunately !!) was not able to take advantage of the new promo (that's primarily b/c I booked on April 15 and did not pay any taxes or port fees. If I had repriced the booking I would have paid the taxes and port fees so the 30% sale didn't help me any).

Woohoo !

Yes she did ! ;)

So, as of today, June 1, 2015, "gone" is the old Buy One Get One Half Off (BOGOHO) and "here" is the new 30% discount promo. I know that Matt let us know this was coming...but it's here now !! It is my understanding that this is a June promo so presumably it will end on 30 June. I recommend that you look at the current prices of the cruises online and compare them to what you may have paid when you booked. Chances are, the fare has gone DOWN relative to what you paid, originally. The BOGOHO was essentially at 25% discount...the new promo is pretty much a straight 30% across-the-board discount. Good news - your Crown and Anchor discount is combinable with the 30% off promo ! That means, 30% off plus your C&A discount. That does NOT apply to a Club Royale discount, unfortunately. This is one of those situations where you have to be FAST to capture your fare reduction, if there is one. Often the cruise line will bump the base fare up to counteract any new discount that they are implementing. As of right this very moment, the cruise rates (for cruises that I have investigated anyway...I certainly cannot say that they are ALL the same) are the same as they were yesterday but that may not be the case for long. There are some cruises (2 of which I was booked on - on the Harmony) which are included in this 30% discount promo that were not originally discounted at ALL (except for my C&A balcony discount)...so for those cruises, this new promo was a huge windfall. I saved over $2500 on the 2 Harmony cruises I was booked on. I don't know how many other cruises are being discounted for the first time with this promo, but I suspect there are more. If you are booked WAY out or if you are booked on a brand new ship that did not previously have any discount applied, check them out ! They may be discounted now. If you booked your cruise yourself, call RCI. If you are booked through a TA, have them look into this for you. Do not let time elapse, however. My experience is that the base fares of your cruises is likely to increase and whatever is 30% today may not be the same savings tomorrow !

In case you haven't yet checked, the prices on the Feb 21 cruise are actually DOWN today...so what was a good price yesterday is even BETTER today. Even with the increase in gratuities the net fare is still reduced. So for any of you who are on the blog cruise, be sure to have the TA check and see if you can realize a reduction in price with the new discount. It definitely saved all of my group money.

Awesome ! Good luck !

You're welcome, Stephanie. Hopefully you will get there in time. One thing I was thinking....I don't think Club Royale is going to be able to make this change for you since you are booked through a TA. I think Michelle is going to have to makes this change for you.

Stephanie I paid $3822 ($1911 each) and b/c I booked on April 15 I paid no taxes or port fees. With prepaid gratuities it ended up being $4021.50. I think that's right...very close if not exact. So, if you have paid $3100 already it's less than $1K to upgrade to a GS ! If you are going to do this do it immediately b/c the last of the new GS discussed above is still available (14730 I think)...at least it was when I checked earlier today. Both the room and the deck are bigger than the other GS on the Allure. Considering all of the amenities that come with the GS I think it's a no-brainer for the difference in price...plus you're back with the Aqua Suites ! Good luck !

I know for certain that they are going up that much. This link takes you to the A4 category (which, by the way, is the SMALLEST of the new Aqua Suites and the only ones that you can book with just 2 people) for the Christmas, 2016 cruise on the Allure. This is how I found out about the change. The price for 14330 for this cruise (which is a 10 night cruise) is $14,527.38. http://www.royalcaribbean.com/booking/setCategory.do?stateroomCategoryChoice=Aquatheater+Suite+w%2fBalcony~~A4~~D~~A6~~A7598274~~false Now I realize that Christmas week is second only to New Year's week in high prices for a cruise...and that this is a 10 day vs 7 day cruise...but it's still almost 3X the amount that this same exact room is costing in Feb. 2016. The Christmas cruise on the Oasis (8 nights) for this same A4 room is $13,592.44 http://www.royalcaribbean.com/booking/setCategory.do?stateroomCategoryChoice=Aquatheater+Suite+w%2FBalcony~~A4~~D~~A6~~A7598274~~false You are absolutely correct, bdchili...these rooms are MUCH smaller than the other Aqua Suites categories AND they are only 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. How can they possibly justify requiring 4 people to book the new A3 rooms (decks 11 and 12) and require 4 people in a 1 BR, 1BA stateroom ? It seems like very bad planning to me. I completely understand that they are much larger than the other Grand Suites on the ship and that the balconies on these rooms are HUGE compared to the other Grand Suites. IMO they should reclassify them as a different category of GS and charge a little more for them than they do for the standard GS but to reclassify them as AS seems dubious, to me.

I did the Mystery Dinner Theatre a number of years ago. I believe it was on either the Liberty or the Freedom - can't remember for sure. I enjoyed it. My husband thought it was lame. I love dinner theater so I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am certain that I will NEVER get my husband to do it again. :) So, that's kind of a mixed review. The Mystery Dinner Theater will only occur once during your 7 day cruise so if you decide to do it, make sure that you know what night it will be and that you don't make conflicting reservations for dinner or for other entertainment options. The food is average for that kind of thing. It is not the greatest meal I ever ate on a RCI cruise but it's better than the average dinner theater meal.

Marianne, first of all, CONGRATULATIONS ! I have to say, you have picked the best possible honeymoon, IMO. The Oasis is SOOOO awesome. I do not know what your budget is, so this recommendation may not be practical for you, but my FAVE place to stay prior to a cruise out of FLL is the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. I absolutely love their rooms and being right upstairs from the casino floor is so convenient. There are LOTS of things to do at the Hard Rock Hollywood (NOT true for the Hard Rock Tampa property). I just love it there. We are staying there the day/night before the group cruise on the Allure in Feb. 2016 with a whole group of friends. Upsides: Awesome property, lots to do, beautiful accommodations Downsides: Expensive ($400+ a night usually), no shuttle to/from the airport or the port, I suspect they would charge you to leave your car parked there if they even allowed you to do that at all. So, I'm not sure this is a practical option if you are driving. We never have a car b/c we have to fly in so we don't have that problem to worry about. It's a fairly cheap cab fare to the port from the hotel so we just grab a cab and go. Good luck, Congratulations and enjoy your honeymoon on the Oasis !

Location, location, location. That's all this is about...

Small, small world... :)

Ugh. I know exactly what you are going through. I had the same thing happen to me a number of years ago. Fortunately for me, the Agent that had the booking very generously transferred the booking from her control to Royal Caribbean's control and that ended the blockade. You used to have to have letters and forms that went back and forth and it was all very tedious. Nowadays you can do the booking transfer online but if you have a TA that is unwilling to release the booking I'm not sure what you can do ! We do have a very knowledgeable and helpful TA on this site and I certainly hope she has some advice/suggestions on how to get the booking released. Of course, by now the drop dead date for making any changes to your July 2015 booking has probably already passed anyway...so I'm not sure that releasing the booking at this point would even help you but CERTAINLY from now on you should make SURE that when you do any kind of booking - on board or otherwise, that you make sure that it is NOT designated to the control of anyone but yourselves !

Head's up, everyone who is interested in booking one of the 6 newly added Grand Suites in the Aqua Theater area of the Oasis and Allure. These are the 6 new Grand Suites that were added to both of these ships during their most recent drydocks (this is where the "hidden balconies" were before renovation). The stateroom numbers are 11330, 11730, 12330, 12730, 14330 and 14730. These very LARGE Grand Suites are going to be redesignated as Aqua Theater Suites. The Allure will change these rooms from GS to AS June 5, 2016. The Oasis will make the change May 7, 2016. The 4 biggest ones (11330, 11730, 12330 and 12730) are going to be category A3 which require a minimum of 4 persons to book. The smaller ones (14330 and 41730) will be a new designation A4 and will be available to general inventory, which means that you can book with just 2 people. I found this out ONLY because I was planning on booking one of these Grand Suites for my Christmas 2016 cruise only to find that they will be designated as Aqua Suites by then. The Club Royale agent and I backtracked and determined that the change-over from GS to A3/A4 will occur in May and June of next year. So....if you want to take advantage of booking any of these 6 rooms while they are still Grand Suites, I suggest you do so very soon. Word WILL get out that their availability as GS is limited and they will all be gone - poof ! Needless to say, the price on these rooms skyrockets once they go from being GS to A3/A4. The room that will cost just over $5K on Feb. 21 will be upwards of $15K once it is redesignated. Of course, they are doing NOTHING to enhance these rooms at all...they are just taking advantage of the fact that they are bigger than all of the other GS on the boat and know that they can charge 3 times what they are currently getting for them. Typical, right ? Of course, they aren't telling ANYone about this...even the RC sales agents didn't know about it. We all found out together. So slimy.

Yeah, be safe. Things are pretty dicey down there. I have some friends named Hince in Texas. I know it's a big state... :) Retired Army...previously lived in Woodbridge, Virginia ???? I love the Navigator. We sailed on her last year and had one of the inside rooms with virtual balcony. It was awesome !