Dad2Cue

A Panama canal crossing from LA was by far our most memorable cruise in North America. We were unable to go ashore in Cabo because of rough water. My next best cruise was a close second and it departed from NY to Quebec City and back to NY. Outside of North America, a TransAtlantic to Barcelona and beyond was fantastic. A TransPacific to Austrailia is coming up in October ... we are departing from Honolulu for that one. I believe there is a cruise out of LA to Japan that is tempting. You are right ... those short cruises that don't go very far are losing their luster at the current prices. I like cruising because it limits my airtime ... on a plane that is. I can't do too much about the flights from Iowa to go on a cruise. However, my wife wants to do a river cruise sometime. I would like to go to South America sometime too.

"In addition, should you need to cancel for "any other reason" you may be eligible for credit toward a future cruise - up to 90% of the non-refundable, prepaid cruise vacation cost." ---------------------- Aside from the vague language ... the cost for this travel protection seems better than paying the extra cost for booking a refundable cruise. The cost of booking a refundable cruise is prohibitive. I would like to hear what others think.

Put your kids in the adjoining room with the other party. Tell the other party that your kids are rowdy and need to be supervised. The other party might gladly switch rooms if you are in the middle to buffer the noise. Sometimes an adjoining room costs more so maybe offer to compensate the other party. I know that I would agree but I'm not sure if Royal would.

I have put SYD for the airport code many times. I need to work on spelling the city name correctly. Thanks for the correction. There are many towns in the USA that are spelled SIdney including one my state.

You can get bottled water if you wish. Sometimes they gave us a couple of bottles when we only had one voucher left at the end of the day. We also tip so that might explain why they are so generous.

I only get annoyed when I try to reprice a cruise. Sometimes I'm looking at the online price while I call to reprice. Most of the time the rep verifies what I see and my cruise is repriced. Other times the rep says on their end the price is different and claims that "prices change all the time." I have to hang up but when I look online again the price hasn't changed. --- or maybe it "changed back" to what I saw originally. It just makes me call again to see what price another rep says it is. Occasionally the rep sees a lower price than what I see online. It never annoys me when the price is lower.

The USD and AUD are certainly different. We will be on the Anthem TransPacific cruise to Sidney in October 2025. I'm in the process of reserving some things that are listed in AUD and I get a price shock. It looks better when converted to USD but still pricey. As for huge price jumps for cruises in general that is the same in USD. I'm priced out of the cruise market because of a fixed income and the price of a cruise now is a big hit on the retirement savings. I don't see any price decreases happening anytime soon. A senior and/or military discount used to be available more than it is now. Those discounts are never available anymore. I'm glad we booked the Anthem cruise when we did. It was in the neighborhood of $4,000 for 2 people when we booked but the same room type currently goes for almost $10,000. I was looking online for a tour of the Sidney Opera House. It was a non-accessible tour because of many steps. However, I could call or email the Opera House directly to reserve an accessible tour. I noticed the accessible tour was listed for a higher price than the non-accessible. Both tours were 1 hour so I'm not sure why the accessible tour cost more.

Nothing is standard when it comes to Royal pricing. I have noticed the listed onboard price for internet is a bit higher. The sale prices seem the same or maybe a bit lower. I have $17.99 per day on a couple of future cruises. Some other cruises are $22.99 per day on sale. The only standard price on anything I have seen used to be the coffee card for $31 and never on sale. Now that has changed and it goes on sale for $27.99 with a $35 onboard price.

I have considered an accessible room but my rollator is collapsible and fits through the door. I sit in my rollator so it looks like a wheelchair sometimes. I can still walk just not very far. My room attendant has suggested an accessible room to me and let me look at one during a cruise. I have to admit it was tempting. My room attendant said depending on the cruise sometimes the accessible room goes unused. I have checked and unchecked the accessible box and I don't notice the price changing for the same type of room. It might change at the end when I pay the deposit but I have only done a mock booking of an accessible room.

I just checked the coffee cards on our B2B. On the first cruise it was $35 which was a surprise because I have never seen it above the $31 level in the past. The second cruise was a surprise too. Indeed it was $27.99 and I have never seen it below the $31 level in the past.

Weather is better in Florida during Januray to March when we cruise. I would rather cruise out of Florida during the winter. MIA or FLL are better than MCO for the distance to the port. We like St Augustine so we fly from JAX sometimes too.

Our 2026 TransAtlantic on Odyssey is out of New York (Bayonne, NJ). Those Florida ports are NOT close when you live in Iowa. It doesn't matter which port we sail from --- all of them are unholy. It used to cost as much to get to the cruise port and return home as it did for a week or two on a cruise. Now a cruise probably costs more so the current cruise prices are unholy too,

Good answer ... it is more about the convenience than being a crime. I'm not connected to any device 95% of the time. Rarely do I even carry my cell phone. When we are at a port there isn't any inconvience. Our phones can be a hotspot on T-Mobile and we never use very much hotspot cellular data. We rarely stream anything during a cruise except for some music occasionally. I think we will cancel our single device plan and rely on our free days and T-mobile. Our upcoming cruise is a 4-day and 5 Day B2B. I think we will survive without internet or use our free days when we are at sea. I wonder how much money Royal makes with thousands of guests paying for individual devices while sharing the same network. Now that might be a crime. I will just use my free days and T-Mobile for now on. I might reconsider this when we do a TransPacific cruise later this year. With only 4 port stops in 17 days it may be more difficult. I don't even know if T-mobile covers those Pacific Islands. They had the Atlantic islands covered during our TransAtlntic.

We have T-Mobile too ... it's nice for internet access on planes too. I usually use a travel router in our room as our "one device" but we use multiple devices inside our room. I get a one device internet package on cruise planner before the cruise. The router is always on and nobody kicks someone else off. Sometimes The router gets disconnected ... I'm not sure why. Are we going to find our travel router confiscated someday when we return to our room because of the policy change? You are right T-Mobile is good in port. We don't use internet too much outside our room on sea days We use our phones only on sea days, and only outside our room. I usually give my free days to my wife and they are dedicated to her phone. I thought D+ free days had to be separated from the 1 device internet package that we purchase on cruise planner in this scenario. I don't really mind paying for a one device internet package for the entire cruise so nobody has to compete for internet access.

Is this discount on a one device package for internet service that can be purchased onboard for the remainder of the cruise? We like the D+ internet benefit. We usually activate it on a daily basis but that is sometimes a hassle because the person at the internet desk isn't always there.

Especially for a short cruise even when taxes and fees are included. A 7-Night cruise at the very least is a must for me. Getting to the port is costly so we need a longer cruise to make it all worthwhile. We are doing a 4-Night B2B with a 5-Night in January for this reason except we end up with mostly days at sea. We can't count a return to the departure port as going anywhere but it is nice when everyone gets off ship and we stay on. I like days at sea simply because we usually spend less at sea. I think pay more and get less is the way it is these days.

What shuttle is this? We have the MIA airport transfer that we booked on the cruise planner for $22.99 pp at 10 a.m. We liked the departure time but now I don't like the price. I think we have the same shuttle where the pick-up wasn't easy to find and the drop-off was at a "designated area" at MIA and didn't stop at the car rental center. We don't have any time constraints and we already have a car rental from MIA for 3 weeks while we make the rounds in Florida. We fly out of MIA after we make our rounds.

Our experience with renting a car after our flight arrival at MIA was interesting. I wouldn't say it was a hassle but we must have walked miles through a maze of hallways without many signs directing us to the rental car center. We got very tired reading the signs that read "pardon our modernization" at every turn into a new hallway. If we ever do that again, I sure hope the people movers are working and modernized because they were removed as part of the construction. Once we got to the rental car center it was okay. Sounds like you won't be flying into or from MIA so you may not encounter the construction. We have done a shuttle from the cruise port to MIA in order to rent a car. Seems like it wasn't easy to find the rental car center that time either. We had no idea where they let us off other than the "designated area" and it wasn't close to where we wanted to be dropped off. We had some interesting chats with some airport employees who agreed it was the worst design ever for people wanting to find the rental car center. Maybe the modernization is completed by now ... I sure hope it is! We will be renting another car at MIA after a cruise in January. We do seem to get cheaper flights and rental cars at MIA but we like FLL better.

I called Royal to reprice a cruise. I asked whether or not my cruise in January was still paid in full. The rep was happy to check for me but started to tell me all about the problems that were happening with Black Friday CP purchases. He said some people were receiving double refunds so I confessed that maybe I was refunded twice but I just wanted to verify that my cruise was still paid in full. He put me on a brief hold and verified that I received a double refund. I agreed to repay one of the refunds and received an updated invoice. When I reviewed the invoice, it actually showed an overpayment on my cruise but at least I didn't owe anything. Now I'm worried that Royal might refund the overpayment!

Mine is like this too. Now I probably will owe them money because they refunded my CP purchases twice. However, I can't make the payment due for my cruise because my payment status is "completed." As long as it stays this way I won't complain! I wonder if I cancel another CP purchase now what would happen? My other CP swabs were on the the first day of the BF sale. Is it safe to just cancel something now and not repurchase anything? I wouldn't want to blow up Royal's computer by confusing it even more. I'm willing to give something back if they won't send me another notice of balance due.

Was the refund a small or large amount. One rep told me large refunds take longer to process! Funny how purchases are processed instantaneously.

Wow! I was told my refund would be "expedited" in 7-10 days. Maybe I should have agreed to a regular refund.

I checked on my expedited refund after waiting the number of business days they said it would take for the expedited refund. They reassured me that my refund had already been expedited but they would expedite it again. They said the date for the expedited refund should be tomorrow November 19th. It was unclear if that was when the refund will show up on my credit card or if the was when their expedited process would be completed. This refund was for a refundable cruise that I canceled before the final payment date. The balance due for another fully paid cruise shows it has been paid in full again. They issued a refund of my Black Friday cruise planner swaps to my credit card instead of the what I paid for my cruise. The refund went to a different credit card and not to the original form of payment. At least there was a refund and my cruise seems to be fully paid again. I think they refunded the refund. I'm not sure what they did but all is well ... I think.

I'm retired so it gives me something to do. It isn't that entertaining though. I pity Royal's accountants. Royal math amazes me too. I'm more amazed that I always get my pre-paid cruise planner purchases. That seems miraculous to me.

This is exactly what happens. I just called Royal and said that I was getting balance due notifications. The customer service rep knew exactly what the problem was and he explained it to me. I was assured the problem was corrected after he put me on hold for a few minutes. Hopefully the problem is fixed and now I can go back to checking every morning for my refunds to materialize on my credit card account. The exact same thing happened last year during Black Friday Sales. It has only taken them a year to realize there is a glitch but they don't seem to know how to prevent the glitch from recurring.