cruisinnewbie

5 hours ago, Pima1988 said:

I am actually shocked that excursions have already popped up. 

My May 2021 cruise on Symphony did not have any excursions pop up until about 400 days out.  We jumped on the Coco beach pass the day it came up.  It is only 2 of us, so that was the best option for us, we too are like @Ogilthorpe, usually like Chill Island cabana when in a group.  When we purchased the pass in late April, the only other Coco Cay excursion on the planner was the beach bed.  Mid May the over water and Chill cabana came on line.  It was only a week or two ago that Thrill came on line.  Oasis cabanas came on line that day too.

If I knew I was going in a group I would jump on that price, especially with children since the cabanas have a water slide attached.  I could see doing the water park since you are on Anthem.  If you said to me you were on Oasis, I probably would have said that the water park is not worth it since the ship has water slides.  I get Thrill has a bigger slide, but to me, even when I was a kid, a large slide like on the ship is a large slide.  The only thing that would sway me is the fact that I am a beach girl and love jumping waves.  I could live all day in a wave pool.

FWIW, if you do not know this, if the cabana price drops (I highly doubt since that is such a low price), purchase the new cabana at the lower price and than go back and cancel the higher price one.  There are limited numbers of cabanas, however, unlimited number of people looking on the planner.  They could have only 1 left.  By the time you cancel and come back to rebook at the lower price it can sell out.  I have seen this occur multiple times.

~ The way my husband and I have done this is:  1st purchase would be under his name.  2nd purchase (re-pricing) would go under my name.  Went back in and cancelled his purchase. We do this so we don't mistakenly cancel the cheaper cabana.  

 

 

Yeah, it’s weird. There are very few excursions up but this was one of them. It almost seemed like a glitch. I bought it and I hope RC honors that even if it’s there by accident! Thanks for the tip on how to safely rebook if the price goes down. 

3 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Welcome to the Blog and congratulations on the Star Class suite.  If you have a choice I recommend 8724 or 8324.  Stay away from the corner GLS if possible.

While it will be expensive to do what you suggest (which you obviously already recognize), I think it would work.  I have never gone to the water park so I cannot comment on that, but I do think the cabana is worth the money if you are looking for a place to use as a home base.  Since you will have a Genie, you can have him/her help you with arrangements.  While the Genies can no longer reserve specific cabanas for you, I believe they do have some leverage in getting you what you want.  I recommend that you reserve the cabana ASAP so that you will be a higher priority (earliest booking) for cabana assignment.

I love SC on the Q ships even though the suites aren’t as nice as the O class SC suites (IMO).  There are many activities onboard where the Genie can be particularly helpful - especially for the kids.  Lots of fun things to do.  Congratulations again.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome! We are in 8724, because I read some of the posts here before booking. This site is a great resource. I appreciate all of the advice and expertise. I’m sure I’ll come up with lots of questions over the next 22 months!

59 minutes ago, Ogilthorpe said:

I've not booked the waterpark or overwater yet, we usually go to Chill Island.  There is transportation that runs around the island that is hop on hop off that would take you between the two. $1049 for overwater is the lowest I've seen price wise, i.would be tempted to book for that price. For comparison, we paid $899 for a standard club cabana for feb 2021 and that was a good deal

Oh wow! Ok I booked it figuring I can always cancel if I change my mind. I have almost  two years to think about it, lol. 

Hello all! We now have two FCCS (or will whenever they process) - a 100% FCC from our canceled March 2020 cruise that we had applied toward an August 2020 cruise (we canceled and took the FCC a week before all ships were stopped and we could have gotten 125%, oh well) and a 125% FCC from our now-canceled August 2020 cruise. The original FCC from March had a use by/sail by date of 12/31/21. The new FCC has a use by 12/21 and sail by 4/22. The email I got from RC about the August cruise being canceled contained the following statement:

And, if you previously used a Future Cruise Certificate, you’ll receive a new Future Cruise Certificate. This will be for 125% of any new monies paid on this sailing, plus the reactivated value of your original certificate at 100% of its value, with an expiration date of December 31, 2021 and a sail by date of April 30, 2022.

We take this to mean that as long as we apply the FCC by 12/21, we can use it on a March 2022 cruise (that we've now booked). I spent 5 hours repeatedly getting disconnected from the call center trying to confirm this. The first two people I spoke to said the March FCC can't be used for a 2022 cruise. The third person I spoke to said it could. I feel like the language above is really clear that I can sail by April 2022 with my old FCC that I had applied to this August cruise. I'd love to hear if others are in a similar position and if I'm correct that as long as I apply the old FCC by 12/21 I can sail by 4/22. Sorry if this was confusing, my brain hurts a little from all of it! Thanks in advance for any insight!

Hello all - I'm new around here but I've read a lot of great advice so far for our first RC experience! We've been inching up in luxury as our cruises continue to get canceled. We started with a great deal on a grand suite on Anthem for March 2020, obviously a no go. Then we went to a 1-bedroom aquatheatre suite on Oasis for August 2020. Bye to that one, too. We decided to rebook as far out as our FCCs will allow- late March 2022, and we're back on Anthem in a Grand Loft Suite! So, of course planning right now is ridiculous but I'm excited and bored, lol. Here's my question: I really, really want to do an overwater cabana at cococay, and since I have 22 months to pay it off, it's actually a possibility (same reasoning for us bumping up to Star Class). However, I have two kids who will definitely want to check out the water park. I hate water parks, and I don't want to do a cabana there and get zero beach time on an island! SO, all of this build-up is to ask how insane it would be to get the beach club overwater cabana for the day, and also get admission for my kids and husband to spend an hour or two at the water park? Can you do the water park justice in the opening couple of hours? Is it hard to get between the water park and the beach club? I know we're talking about a lot of money (the cabana is $1049 right now for my cruise), and I can talk myself in or out of it based on price alone, but I'm wondering just how feasible it would be as an experience to try to have the best of both worlds on our day. Thank you in advance for your advice!