Pattycruise

Saw the launch from Odyssey today while docked in Port Canaveral. Finally saw as launch! Too bad for cloud cover. Still, quite exciting .

I tried to find the old thread and could not. Currently on an odyssey. Went to use my pinnacle vouchers for my remaining drinks and was told alcohol must be opened. If you want closed alcohol you must go to the Crown lounge (NOT Suite Lounge) during happy hour only to get closed alcohol drinks., there was a special today-in one of the bars- but 4 Truly get one free. The kicker-they all had to be popped open before they gave them to you.(as reported by a passenger on the Facebook group for this sailing) This rule was established last month after all the hoopla from the December roll out. Oddly I did not have any issue with this rule in January when I was on Brilliance or Enchantment. I tried 3 bars here and then spoke with the concierge in the suite lounge today who explained this “compromise“ i can’t imagine how crowded that diamond lounge must be. She mentioned it does get especially crowded now during happy hour due to this new rule

Odyssey today out of Bayonne. It’s a tad cold out and quite rainy.

The January sailings out of Bayonne have only been longer cruises now. What’s worse is they brought up Odyssey which does not have an indoor pool, just the solarium, so not a lot of room on those cold days out of NJ or when heading back.

This does not show the newest ships-which is fine because that doesn’t appear to be what you want. the lower classes-Vision and Radiance do not have promenades. While the centrum is nice, I prefer to have a promenade-another location to walk by and hang out. I also enjoy the promenade rooms (it’s considered an interior) if the price is decent. It’s a slightly larger room-or at least feels larger. i do sail the smaller ships, just got off of Enchantment. The interior cabin is very tight. I had to remove the bedside table and push the beds up against one wall so my MIL would have room to get into bef otherwise it was a few inches of room to squeeze between the foot of the bed and the vanity/tv on one side out to squeeze between the foot of the need and the chair on the other. Had it been hubby and I in the cabin I would have split the beds-no way late night to safely get to/from the bathroom and bed without banging your legs. Casino Enchantment was nice enough-decent choices-some seats are tight in the aisles, this happens a lot the smaller ships. The Voyager class on up seem a bit more roomy. I don’t remember what the casino or restaurant offerings were. Chops seems to be on every ship, usually it’s decent but I’ve had some questionable filet at lunch (temp not correct, stale pretzels bread, cold sides….nothing they can’t rectify-but I feel shouldn’t be screwed up in the first place. If CoCoCay can be one of your ports I highly recommend it. Royal has done a great job with their private island.

This will be one of those things you may not know till you board. Look at Puerto Rico and ships docking there (I should say not docking) . I doubt Royal can figure out what’s happening in Santorini for May.

Yep but sadly not all Quantum class ships are alike-IDK what Royal was thinking putting Odyssey up in NJ when Athhem could at least accommodate the kids during those cold days of sailing.

Oh wow. When I was bitten by something on Enchantment they searched and said no evidence of bed bugs but medical said I definitely had "bug bites" (google showed the bites to be what bed bug bites looked like) I was not offered another room-there was 1 or 2 nights left on my sailing. I insisted housekeeping change out all linens. and they did a lousy job as they left the mattress pad and the mattress topper-I know this because of the stains/marks on the linens. I had to call and get all of that redone. When they were done I stripped it all and I then rearranged that furniture and went over everything with a fine tooth comb=using my phone as a flash light. Needless to say I took action on my own to ensure I did not impact my home. Though I could not find any evidence of bugs. I retrieved large plastic bags from housekeeping and used a hairdryer on hot to apply heat to each item prior to dropping them into the bag. Thankfully I had driven and had large garbage bags in my car so I wrapped up my luggage. /When I got home I again applied heat to each item as I transferred it to a new garbage bag and then promptly washed and dried all clothing. I had almost considered dragging my luggage of clothing to a laundromat but after research I was comfortable with my method-as that would be sufficient to remove any little critter. I do not know the recourse you can take. Did you have travel insurance? Maybe that would help cover any doctor visit cost at home.

Before reading the comments I quickly logged on to see if that sale price was available on my cruise (where I paid $200pp) but sadly it was not. Sounds like a bargain! Hope you were able to book it!

Experienced cruisers realize that customer service is not necessarily able to understand nor fix things, nor provide correct information. Unfortunately I do try with them first and rarely do I find someone who is competent enough to understand AND explain the issue AND then fix the issue. Here’s my attempt explanation of a recent attempt to reach out to customer service. Unbeknownst to me THEY issued a refund-erroneously twice- Go figure. I have 10 cruises booked so now need to figure out if I was indeed refunded twice. Hours for Me to review bank statements and order histories because their refunds are not always in the format you purchased. Ex. A $100 total purchase can show up as a $100 refund or 4 separate $25 refunds!! This go around I questioned my owing $ on a fully paid cruise, turns out a friend who was on my reservation dropped herself off the reservation and that meant a cancellation of HER items that SHE had purchased. It also meant a refund of port fees and taxes but somehow they did not refund that full amount. Somehow THEY refunded both her and I for her food purchases. The next thing I know they are insisting they need to cancel MY reservations for those same 2 food purchases. This is not true, and MY purchases were made from a friend on a different reservation-so it is not even really related to me! So, AFTER I get off the phone, THEY cancelled my 2 food purchases-by going into the third friends reservation and modifying it to remove me. AND they issued ME a refund AND my friend who had previously cancelled off my cabin a refund as well. How in the world does that happen. Based on previous experience and having read about people asking to get their erroneously cancelled items back at the sale price they booked at I knew general customer service would do nothing. Anyhow I called back to see if there was still a balance due (lest they cancel my cruise) and now I owed even more $$, of which the agent could not figure out why. Of course it was from the double refund!! regardless of asking for the resolutions supervisor, which was refused to me, I knew they could not fix it. I sent a 5 page detailed letter to the CEO office explaining what transpired.-dates time etc. I had spent HOURS on the phone with them on a few different occasions trying to straighten this out PLUS HOURS of my own trying to track purchases and refunds not only across my credit card but my friends card as well. I insisted they *CEO office-listen to the recorded conversations because clearly the rep needed retraining. I doubt they did but I received the difference, to make my purchases at the higher price without a financial loss to me, in OBC, plus a tad extra-at their discretion. Sadly, this exact same thing happened to me last year during the Black Friday cancellation and repurchase of items at cheaper prices. Mind you I had to go through 10 cruises booked to look at order/cancel history plus bank statements. This is not a "5 minute phone call" with customer service. When you get them on the phone to resolve something it can be multiple calls, hold times for each call, incorrect answers and more frustrating BS. I don't blame @Pooch for reaching out directly to a contact she has, it likely saves them a ton of time AND it is not tying up a customer service rep for extended periods of time, causing back logs.

Anthem had the indoor pool kids could use. Odyssey does not-just the solarium-adults only

I just got finished getting extra OBC from them for a different sailing, different reason. The price was full price today. I’ll just stay onboard again. No worries. I’m growing tired of the Royal nonsense.

Are you looking to redeem rewards to buy the rooms? Did you want to put onboard credit on your room? Contact the rewards company to explain what you want to do.(888) 305-4626

A friend recommended a site called shore excursions group. I looked at them today. Yes they had some identical excursions to the ship selections and then had some others. another site to try is trip advisor or Viatour whoever you choose to book with be aware of their cancellation policies and refund policies.

I did a google search and found the items in the picture hope that helps

Usually I don’t book an excursion for Nassau and enjoy the quiet of the ship. This go around I thought I’d change it up. Found a sale, excursion is short enough to still enjoy relative quiet on the ship and the price seemed “reasonable”. $48on sale but when u click to reserve the price is $65 (rounded prices).-The regular price. When I went to check out it still showed the regular price . Needless to say I’ll check the price again tomorrow and if it’s still on sale and I still have the same booking issue I’ll call royal to see if they can book it at the sale price.

Here is a link to some of those conversations if it’s not working use the search feature with that title

Prime was not allowed to book most summer sailings, signature had exclusions if I recall correctly as well. I had wanted to book 3 cabins for my family of 6 and was going to use our annuals for 2 but I was unsure. So glad I did not.

I recently received a late night email in regards to what appeared to be a change in a cabin category (downgrade). When I called the casino line regarding this comp I actually had an experienced agent (shocker) who said “it sounds like your GTY cabin has been assigned let me reach out to the revenue department”. I cut her off and said, no, the cabin has been downgraded. (Cut her off because I’m so used to incompetent agents-surely she was wrong!) She insisted it was assigned, contacted the revenue department and sure enough my cabin has been assigned-she sent me the new booking confirmation. I’ve never heard of a revenue department at Royal-one would think it deals with our purchases and refunds. Well, I would wish that. Then I’d know who to ask for when they screw up!

I’ve created many an account for my adult children to help them out. I use one of my spare emails. If they ever want the password I’d be happy to share it with them.

None of the agents have been able to tell me if I’m entering it incorrectly-I’ve not yet tried the European way--they agree my birthday IS my birthday though!

Sounds like a plan. Also those extra port fees and taxes get refunded for the no show.

Just received my GTY balcony for an August sailing on Voyager.

“Break out your crisp elegant attire” sure does sound like the second “formal/dress your best”. I’ve never seen it listed this way. Maybe it’s an icon thing.

I sail almost every month and sadly I pick up something each time. The one time I had a bad cough only at night I needed treatment via a tele-health as I was out of state from my regular health care. I suspect it was beginning of pneumonia as I could not catch my breath. Antibiotic, steroid and some cough prescriptions were necessary. I recommend you seek treatment rather than ride it out. My next step would have been an ER, and possible hospitalization has I waited any longer. feel better