WAAAYTOOO

Thanks, Marc. The convenience fee is a big thing for us as we take a lot of cash at the tables. I'm not sure how quickly we would be able to accumulate 15K points. Sounds like a lot to me !!! I agree that they are much freer with their "free" cruises than Club Royale.

Matt, you are so cute ! Royal Caribbean - GIVE us something ! Are you kidding ?? No.

The only time I have never known of a remarkably lower C&A price was when Empress first came back. The C&A prices for those cruises, for just a few days, were really exceptional. Of course, that was followed immediately by 2 cancellations of that incredibly low cost cruise so needless to say, no low cost Empress cruise was ever realized. Other than that one time, I haven't noted any really special deals for C&A members.

I was given a "free" cruise on NCL after just 1 cruise with them, too. I went on the Dawn - an older ship, but it was going to Costa Maya so we went. Marc, do you know if NCL's program has a casino rate ? Do they waive the convenience fee ?

Hey, Group Cruisers. Is anyone interested in doing a slot pull on our 16 Sept. Harmony Group Cruise ? HEADLINE : I am not offering to organize this ! I wouldn't have a clue how to do that. I am just throwing this out to see if anyone is interested. Dan and I would love to do it.

I think what you are asking is....if I book now for just 1 of us and they change the rules to require both persons to purchase a package, will they honor the single drinks package that I purchase now ? We certainly can't say for certain but in most cases, Royal will honor the conditions under which you original purchase was made. So, I would say....yes, if you purchase 1 package now, even if they change the rules down the road, they NOT require both of you to purchase a package once onboard. This is only my opinion and is based purely on the fact that Royal has always honored the conditions under which a purchase is originally made, even if they rules change in the interim. I certainly hope that I am not proven wrong here, as it will be the first time ever....and I want to keep my record in tact... LOL

I'm pretty sure that Doc is correct and there isn't any C&A-related OBC involved with moving to the next C&A level. I also recall that Matt is correct that there may be additional balcony discounts for higher level C&A status. It was a long time ago (and we all know how things change with Royal Caribbean) but when this exact thing happened to me they automatically added an additional balcony discount (I think it was $25) to my reservation. I'm wouldn't hold my breath that this will happen for you but it did for me. My point is, I don't think you will have to rebook anything. It should happen automatically and if it does not, I would call them (or your TA if you used one) and I imagine they will take care of it. You should have have to rebook. Good luck !

Interesting. I wasn't aware that Vintages served any food outside of the few tapas. I guess I've been missing it !!

This is precisely what I do.

I believe there were some ventilation issues / limitations on Empress that were never fully resolved and they just couldn't deal with smoke in the casino on that ship.

Welcome, Laura ! 21 nights ! Very nice !

CVS and Walgreens also do passport photos

Welcome to our little family. So glad to have a "new addition".

Obviously, haven't been on Symphony yet but we have done a number of cruises on Allure/Oasis in Boardwalk balcony rooms. We love those rooms ! ...and as Matt said in the latest podcast, we have never really been bothered by ambient noise. Yes, there is some "street" noise when you are out on your balcony and you can hear the music from the aqua theater shows when they are going but once you seal your door the noise is really very minimal. We actually enjoy the hustle and bustle of the Boardwalk. There's always something going on down there and it's fun to watch from on high. It certainly can save you some money, and there are booking perks !

Well, if we all quit going to the casino completely, then we will lose even the casino discount benefit as we will lose our VIP rating (these days, you're only as good as your last casino rating). If it comes to that, I will be done cruising completely - or at a minimum, find another line where the casino benefits are better. I'm not sure that cruise line exists but I don't know anything at all about MSC's program, if they even have one. From what I understand (and I have NOT tried to book anything since all of this nonsense began), there will be NO combining the casino rate and certificate values. This makes the certificates absolutely useless to us as we are almost never interested in any of their "free" cruises.

UGH. Yep. Worst fear, confirmed. Not happy with this. Will have to see how it goes. I have always found the casino rates to be the best deal, too but was always able to top it off with the certificates. That's gone, I guess. In that case, I agree. The certificate is basically useless unless you want to cruise on one of their "free" cruises (which has only happened once for us). It certainly is becoming less and less attractive, that's for sure.

Yikes !

I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help with these questions as I have only ever visited Naples by land. I truly have no idea where the port is in relation to the city. All I can tell you is that Herculaneum and Pompeii are within 30-45 minutes' drive from most areas of the city. I have only ever done the Amalfi coast by rental car so I'm also not familiar with tour operators. Sorry. I will say, however, that since you are in port for 11 hours - yahoo ! It sounds like you will have plenty of time to spend there. I would say you do NOT have time (nor the energy it would take, IMO) to do all 3. I would say Herculaneum and maybe a drive to the coast. Pompeii is an all-day thing and as Tiny mentioned, it can be HOT depending upon the time of year. Because I am a big scardy-cat, I would probably only consider doing something so ambitious (combining Herculaneum and Amalfi Coast) in some kind of organized tour. That is a lot of real estate to cover and I would be so afraid of trying to do this on my own or having 2 separate trips. Hopefully others will have recommendations for tour operators.

To be honest, we weren't all that impressed with the thermal spa on Harmony. First off, it's co-ed (men and women use it together) whereas some of the other ship classes there is a men's TS and a women's TS. The ceramic beds are nice and the steam room is nice if you like the steam but the dry sauna was waaaytoo intense, IMO. I don't really do the "heat thing" that well to begin with and the one on Harmony seemed REALLY hot. There is no hot tub or pool area of any kind. Just the ceramic beds and the dry and steam rooms. It was ok for free (included in our package) but I would not pay extra for it.

It never really worked anyway...

The Grande

I would love to see that as well. NO chance that Royal would release that information voluntarily.

What news regarding Falmouth ?

I got an alert from the cruisefish this morning, saying that the 2 BR ATS was gone but when I went on the website today it was still there. Of course I cannot access it on the US website so who knows if it's really there or not.

Very interesting. I was reading on another site (sorry, Matt) that you can often get more reliable information about stateroom availability from the UK Royal Caribbean website than from the US site so I went to the UK site (www.royalcaribbean.co.uk/) to see what it would show me about this 2 BR ATS remaining. To my great surprise, it allowed me to select this stateroom (it's 10330, BTW) and showed me a price and everything even though I selected "2" for the number of people. Of course, the prices came out in Pounds and I have no idea how much that is in US dollars and I, of course, did not complete the booking, but it appears as though I could have booked this suite on the UK website if I had wanted to do that. I learned something today ! It's a good day !