CruzOnBye

We took our 7 yo son in March on Independence. It was his first cruise and he's had nothing to compare it to, but we could not get him away from Splashaway Bay! They did a GREAT job on that whole area, as echoed by others here. And he actually enjoyed the shows- specifically the juggler and family friendly comedy, he now wants to do magic tricks and tell jokes 24/7 LOL. The highlight was the ability to eat pizza and icecream cones whenever, he was living his best life. We booked Allure in Dec and Wonder next May so I'm sure he will be mind blown as I'm sure my hubby and I will be. We didn't do AO, our kiddo wanted to hang with us (duh, we're cool....and we will soak that up until he decides to think otherwise LOL). Your kiddo will enjoy every moment because you are giving them the best vacay and having them be part of it all. Have fun!!

On 4/1/2023 at 5:40 AM, InmyElement said:

If the zipline is not offered under excursions..are you able to book it on the ship or in person day of?

Thanks

From what I hear other people on the boards say, and folks we've met during our cruises, the ziplines are usually sold out in advance. When we booked ours, it sold out about a month before we set sail, but it happened during a Black Friday deal. I would just keep checking for openings, and then you can always visit the excursions desk while on board and see if anything came available due to cancellations. Hope it works out for you!

We got our son's when he was 6. He is 7 now and we took him on his first cruise last month. He was so proud to hand his passport to the folks in the terminal and tell them how we "tricked" him because we told him we were just staying in a hotel, but instead we surprised him with a 3 nighter cruise. He didn't "need" his passport for the cruise we went on, but like others have mentioned, it's a peace of mind and another form of ID for his future. 

Just wanted to share an update in case anyone finds themselves pondering a deck 2 OV room. We didn’t hate it. We (my husband, 7yo and me) were not in the room much to enjoy the view. We had cabin night lights with us as well so the additional window light didn’t mean much for us, but I understand that the additional natural light is a huge plus for some. It was very cool to see my son’s excitement though looking out the window, especially for his first cruise. Would I go out of my way to book OV? No. We were room 2675 if I recall correctly, it was the 3rd room in from the AFT. Other than a bit more vibration in the room, I don’t think I noticed much we were so low on the ship. Never heard neighbors or people above us. It was pretty quiet except for port day.
I will say, it was by far the least kept up room we have ever stayed in. The phone didn’t work, which normally we don’t care, never use it, but we were sailing with another party and the Royal App chat feature was not working at all, so it was frustrating for 4 adults with no internet package to try to communicate. Luckily we had walkie talkies which helped alot all over the ship except when we were all in our own rooms. Anyway, we told the room attendant about it twice but unfortunately it wasn’t fixed. The cabin lights didn’t work, they flickered like a haunted mansion so we had to keep them off…my son found it humorous. I guess that was the benefit of having a window to let light in lol! And a few other odds and ends were just falling apart,  it was sad to see the condition of things. We didn’t make a fuss over any of it, but we were disappointed in the overall “care”.
Funny enough the room wasn’t set up for 3 people either, the Pullman didn’t get pulled down until extremely late the first night when my hubby had to hunt someone down to get it unlocked for us lol. It was just a weird experience but we laughed it off and had a great time as always!
But in terms of staying on deck 2 or 3, I would do it again if it was the best bang for my buck. 

Confirmed- we sailed on Independence this past weekend and Fish and Ships had several complimentary items, they were poppin’ most of the time too. It was definitely nice to have a complimentary poolside snack available...other than the delicious Icecream cones lol. 

1 hour ago, Cactus527 said:

I think I read on here that when Independence came back from her dry dock, Fish & Ships now had complimentary items (though some still needed to be purchased). I'm thrilled by this - definitely looking forward to it!

That’s awesome!! It will be nice to have another complimentary option on this ship. 

On the app for my March sailing on Independence I noticed the menu changed and has a “on the house” section, where no fee is listed. And then a “Treat Yourself” section with fees listed. Is this new for them to offer fish and chips, chicken fingers and such at no cost? Or do they still charge and maybe I am misunderstanding what “on the house” means lol?

3 hours ago, FireFishII said:

To find out what your assigned room is, try this trick that @Atlantix2000mentioned in another post:

 if your documents included a barcode somewhere, try reading the value with a scanner app.  People report that the last 4 digits are the room number even if it hasn't been officially assigned to you.  This doesn't always work and it can change until it is officially assigned but many people use this trick to find out their room early.  Search for the "barcode trick" on these forums and you can find better info.

I hope you get a great room. Enjoy. 

That is amazing!! Thank you for the tip! I will def try that!

15 hours ago, teddy said:

I just asked my wife what she thought and we both agreed that we would have no problems with a cabin on a lower deck.  I quote, “A cruise in a lower deck cabin is still a cruise”

We’re currently on Anthem in an Interior that’s way way at the back on deck 9.  I would rather be in a centrally located Oceanview on 2 or 3 if I had the choice. My phone shows 3.6 miles walked on the sea day yesterday….and I didn’t have it with me after 7 pm. 

That's definitely alot of walkin' on a vacation! oof! Thanks for the feedback.

Here is the scoop. We'll be sailing on Independence in March and this will be our 7yo son's first cruise! (Shh! It's a surprise!) We booked this in mid-January which was super last minute for us planners, and they were sold out of interiors already that hold more than 2 guests, so our next option was OV GTY, which we snagged (P.s., the OV rooms also now show all sold out now on this sailing-Holy smokes Batman! Are we about to be at full capacity?!)

My hubby and I have only ever roomed interior- we are the couple that are never in our room unless to power nap/shower the sand outta our toes, so it never bothers us and we never choose our room, we go with the least expensive option that our TA finds-gotta save for that Drank Package. I've been excited over the thought of having an OV, especially for our kiddo's first trip (slightly jealous of my own kid since I never got such royal treatment my 1st cruise...on MAJESTY no less!), but I just read that OV is on decks 2&3. Apparently I was just born.

So, I know everyone has their own preference and some loathe low decks entirely and some don't mind- all personal preference. Even though we've never really chosen our rooms, we've always been pretty high on all our ships (like no lower than deck so I'm wondering what its like in a low deck like that, if any different. What are your thoughts on being on such a low deck? Anything that I should keep in mind? I've read some folks hear and feel the engine, some get seasick from watching the waves rise and crash (close your blinds?) and you have to keep your blinds closed when at ports so not to distract the workers...but 

They have not issued our room# yet, it sails early March, so I imagine any day now, or in true RCCL fashion- the day of lol. I'm excited either way, a room is a room on the best vacay ever! But just wanted to hear some general feedback from anyone who has sailed on Independence, or really any ship, on a low OV deck. Learn me somethin'!

Thanks!

3 hours ago, JohnK6404 said:

... and if you're by chance sailing on Wonder, they have the most common Starbucks items also available in the Cafe Promenade and they are included in the DBP.

We had Starbucks hot/iced coffees, lattes, cappuccinos, and frappuccinos throughout our cruise last month just because we could! LOL!  

This is also the case on Odyssey! We loved hitting up Starbucks in the WinnJammer or cafe. 

Thanks Matt! Appreciate you taking the time to upload that.

Does anyone by chance have a recent cruise compass for Odyssey? We're going on a 6 nighter next month and wanted to sneak a peak of what the daily activities/show times tend to look like. I haven't seen any recent uploads in the Cruise Compass section of the blog.

Perfect, thank you both for the feedback that helps.

We got the Voom Surf & Stream on sale this week for our Dec cruise. We've never had it before, figured now is the time to try it when it's this cheap. I see you can do texting on WhatsApps and it says Video Calls. Can you only use WhatApps (or similar app) for texting/calling? Or can I use my regular iphone iMessage text/calls when airplane mode is on and connected to ship wifi? We need to be able to touch base with some family at home so would like to know what is suggested for that. 

24 minutes ago, Mrs. Regular said:

Looks like the app is back up, I just scored my Bungalow on Labadee using it.

Thanks for sharing! I checked and I can book on the app now as well. I just scored my Dragon's Breath Zip Line for $97.98 total for two people versus the $178.98 total I had for my Dec Odyssey Cruise. Very happy! 

It says it's down for maintenance now. What a bummer!! I'm ready to spend some OBC!! Hopefully it's up soon. Good luck and happy purchasing everyone!

Our first cruise was on Majesty of the Seas (RIP) and we even got to see Coco Cay before it became "Perfect Day at Coco Cay" and we have been hooked ever since. Our highlights are-

1. Disconnecting from the outside world and stress.
2. Never bored- always something to do, and the option to just chill and relax if you want.
3. So many entertainment options, literally something for everyone! 
4. And we partake in the Deluxe Beverage Package and we love doing a little bar hop all over the ships and having "date nights" on the ship and eating at different places.
5. There is nothing I can do on land/theme park that I can't do on a cruise vacation. If you want fun on land, book an excursion at any of the ports to snorkel, ride roller coasters/zipline, charter fish, etc. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want.

We actually jumped from Majesty straight into Harmony of the Seas and now we're all about the Cruise life. We tried to do at least two a year until Covid. This December we are getting back into it with Odyssey and plan on at least 2-3 bookings in 2023. 

*Also in March this year we did a 5-day beach vacay at St Augustine and spent way more money and energy doing that than we would have if we done a cruise instead. And we had a lot of issues/hurdles during that trip that I never would have dealt with on a cruise. That trip solidified that for our family, it's cruise or bust.  

As of this morning, for my December Odyssey sailing, it allows you book RipCord by iFly for $29 pp. Showing you can reserve on day 2 and 6, both which are Sea days for me on this cruise. I read somewhere you can do a free test run in it for 60 seconds if you've never done it before, but I have no clue if that's true. This will be the first time I've seen it in person.

Update- Tonight my app just added allowing you to add iFly, Ultimate Flowrider Experience and NorthStar Extended Experience as a reservation in the app. The NorthStar shows sold out, which is odd since they just added this today, but maybe it means something else. This is for my Odyssey December sailing. None of these options were available this morning, only the option to add reservations to one show in TWO70 and the Zone Zero activity.

We’re on Odyssey in December and can now reserve The Book in Two70 and also the Zone Zero activity so that’s nice! 

20 minutes ago, Atlantix2000 said:

If you reserve Teppanyaki on its own through cruise planner, there is no surcharge because you are paying full price.

If you buy a 3 night dining package, you can't reserve the restaurants until you are on board, so there is no way for the cruise planner to know whether you will eat at Teppanyaki.  The $10 surcharge would therefore be on your bill at the end of the meal.  The surcharge exists because Teppanyaki is more expensive than the average specialty restaurant and the dining packages are based on the average price of the specialty restaurants.

Thank you so much! That is very helpful. Guess you convinced me....back to the planner I go.

If I just do a Teppanyaki cruise planner purchase by itself and not as a 3-night package, is there no $10 surcharge then? And Is everything on the menu included? Because the menu has pricing for appetizers but I assume that is just if you did a "walk in" and didn't buy as a cruise planner purchase? 

If I did include Teppanyaki as a 3 night dining- does the cruise planner go ahead and add the surcharge? Or do I have to wait and pay that extra $10 when we are on board? Silly questions I'm sure, first time with cruise planner credit and I'm carefully trying to plan

Can you use on board credit for Sugar Beach? I just found out I have alot of OBC hanging out from cancelled 2020 cruise and had no clue. We already paid for DBP for our Dec cruise so I'm not opposed to splurging in Sugar Beach haha

@Okgladgal Okay, I thought I saw 90 days somewhere- that is probably where I saw it as well. Silly apps