dswallow

The percentage off is not a gimmick. The sale is not fake. At least with the older Cruise Planner system, sale prices would begin adjusting the late afternoon/evening BEFORE the sale start date. When these prices adjust, the percent-off banners do NOT adjust automatically. This is where Royal IT gets a lot of bad-mouthing and well-deserved disrespect. Over the next day the percent-off banners change.

So someone looking the day before a sale can see the updated price, but the old percent-off banner. Then on the sale day, they look again, and see the same price but now with the correct percent-off banner. And then go out and tell everyone everywhere how Royal Caribbean raises prices to fake sales. 

It's an inept IT department that created a mechanism to update product prices independent of the system displaying percent-off banners with those prices. It *may* be somewhat better in the newer My Royal Shop setup which they're moving to.

Upload your proof of vaccination on the Royal App under check-in; they're validating those so you'll get some actual feedback if something is acceptable or not before you get to the terminal.

6 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

That only works if you book direct with RC. You also can't even browse flights if you want to fly in prior to departure day.

(1) You can browse without a reservation.

(2) At the top of the page when you're browsing flights, with or without a reservation, you can change the dates.

 

(3) If you use a travel agent, why would you use a travel agent that isn't able to handle your flights as well, via Air2Sea or otherwise?

 

You no longer access Air2Sea/ChoiceAir directly; you go through the menu at royalcaribbean.com. See it under "Manage My Cruise" then "Book a Flight".

It takes you to: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/flights/bookFlights
 

On 11/3/2021 at 11:11 AM, AspiringCruisePlanner said:

@dswallow where are you getting these charts from? Just curious because I'm a data lover.

I capture the data myself and can generate them.

On 10/2/2021 at 6:57 PM, Atlantix2000 said:

Out of curiosity, are your graphs showing the price for a specific class of room (like Jr Suite) or just what Royal's website shows for the broad category (Deluxe)?  I'm wondering if the deluxe prices really fluctuate like that or if the lower prices are when a Jr Suite is available and the higher prices are when a Grand Suite or higher is the cheapest available room.

It's the broad category, which means especially with suites, when Junior Suites become unavailable, the price jumps considerably because most other suite types are far more expensive; and when they become available again the equivalent drop gets shown. But as a general guide, it's pretty useful to see trends.

2 hours ago, twangster said:

The system isn't broken, it's just the way it is right now.  Not everything in a pandemic can't be made to function perfectly.  It's not ignorance on Royal's part. 

In the past it was nothing for people to sit in a packed terminal waiting area until boarding commenced.  That may have been a 30 minute, 60 minute or longer wait.  Packing people into a crowded waiting area doesn't work in a pandemic.

Carnival whale tail ships used to out number Royal yet they have long enforced arrival times - for many years.  If you are early you wait outside.  That's on you for arriving early regardless if you flew, drove, walked or crawled to the ship.  Arriving early meant creating an ugly experience for yourself.  If you did, that was on you.

Many of the frequent cruisers I know who live at or very near the port were not the types to try to board early.  More often that not they would show up well after the noon to 1pm peak was long over so would have no lines and cabins were ready.  They've cruised a lot.  Being on the ship first simply isn't important.  Arriving at 2:30pm was the ideal time for them.  The peak was over by then.  They aren't the problem.  There is no fix for stupid.  People arriving before their time is the problem.

Royal cruisers need to adapt to the times and protocols.  If Carnival cruisers can manage to do it Royal cruisers can too.  Perhaps Royal's only mistake was not enforcing arrival times before the pandemic started.  Royal cruisers need to change and change is difficult for people, but that's on the people, not on Royal.

Perhaps expecting people to arrive on time may have been ignorant on Royal's part.  Who knew people couldn't help themselves but would chose to ignore the process?

As it is today, it is quite broken. That's evidenced by the continuing mess they face at the pier for some sailings. They're failing to do something well, for sure.

They could find someplace outside for people who need to wait, or even simply try to appear to be accommodating of those who really, truly don't have some place to go sit and wait it out. It's ignorance on Royal Caribbean's part to pretend it's somehow OK to send repeated emails about not arriving at the pier exactly at their scheduled check-in, because what immediately comes up in people's mind is something akin to "OK, so what the f*** do you expect me to do then?".

One way to start would be to actually remind people they can drop their luggage off anytime but after they do that they should go somewhere else until closer to their check-in time.

Or they could provide some ability to register for automatic notifications if/when they could come to the pier earlier. Much like beepers in restaurants, except perhaps acknowledging we all have smartphones and to use them for helpful things instead of aa crappy app that fails to impart timely information well, if at all, onboard.

In other words, they could start by simply communicating more than the classic line from the song "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here".

And let's go another step into this... exactly what's left to do at the pier anyway? Up in NJ for many years, check-in has been a minor step in the process, handled by folks with tablets throughout the area, not just at counters. If the ship is open for boarding, you're barely ever considering more than a few minutes of processing once you are through the security check, unless you've failed to do something in advance that you could've done. The ship is truly the best place to "wait" right? So the entire process should streamline getting onto the ship. Compare that to airlines; you can check in anytime beginning some 5-8 hours beforehand; that restriction being based on not being able to check luggage, mostly. But there's no check-in time except a final "check in before X" time. The only waiting is when the aircraft is finally at the gate ready to be boarded. So everyone who checks in is free to go anywhere they want, as long as they get to the gate by boarding time. Do that. Do something close to that. 

Sure, it'll take some time to reconsider the design of physical spaces to perhaps provide for larger space indoors for waiting pre-boarding. There's plenty of approaches, not all of which require tearing down a big box building and starting new. And they've manage to come up with this mess.

16 hours ago, AlohaLivin said:

We are on Symphony 11/6 and Allure 11/4 - our next two up. We have another in April 2022, on the August 2022 and the one booked for Dec 2022. Partsay through all 0d that we will pass Diamond and reach d+. it may be somewhere along the line those cruise Rakestraw, the first two definitely won’t since those were left in shifts over to larger ships/

 I just wanted to give you some general price history on those sailings... maybe it'll make you feel less upset over it if this shows you got a decent price overall anyway. Of course, it could show you booked at a peak price.

53 minutes ago, AlohaLivin said:

And @dswallow

That is what I had understood, so the SOL applies It is just a great deal of cash, cumulatively, down the drain so while we were on the topic I thought I would clardiy (maybe hoping for a miracle ). Thanks for verifying the info though

What ship and sail dates did you have booked?

1 hour ago, AlohaLivin said:

I have had so many answers to this question that I’m not sure what the truth is – what about those of us who have booked ahead quite a distance and then become diamond (and Diamond plus) Will Royal add that discount or are we just SOL?

Up until final payment date you can always call and have a booking repriced using current rates/discounts/promotions, including the Balcony/Suite discount from your Crown & Anchor tier. So anytime your booking would price out less than you previously paid you can do this. But they can't simply adjust a discount already set on your booking as discounts are based upon remaining balances after applicable discounts get applied in a certain order, so everything changes.

Now some countries don't allow this, like UK-bookings have never been repriceable like this; they had to cancel subject to non-refundable deposits and rebook to get current rates -- though at least during the Cruise With Confidence period, everyone has had benefit of repricing, even up through 48 hours before sailing.

Problem is Royal Caribbean is acting like it's possible to get to the terminal doors +/- 5 minutes of a specific time, without providing any means to wait anywhere around them. Some people fly into JFK or LGA, or other airports, too; some may stay in NYC hotels and face a drive of indeterminate time. Even people "local" could be driving from West Virginia, and the further away you are, the more you're gonna need to leave some extra time to account for traffic problems, or getting lost, or other issues along the way. It's like airlines saying to arrive 3 hours before your flight these days. Arrive exactly where?

Sure, undoubtedly, some people aren't even trying to match up with their check-in time. But people who try still can reasonably end up much earlier or much later than that check-in time. And frankly it's just a really ignorant attempt at "scheduling" on Royal Caribbean's part, in denial of the real world. Previously it was "unenforced" scheduling, which spread people out, in general, reasonably well. Enforced scheduling leaves people stuck in crazy, impractical ways. Well, actually it leaves them blocking traffic at the terminal in places like Cape Liberty, since all traffic is routed to the same place and there's no separation of traffic until you're right on top of the terminal.

45 minutes ago, Reigert2008 said:

We cruised from Miami in August and they had lines of people based on boarding times.  There were people there 3 hours before their time and it did clog up the front of the terminal.  
 

I understand that even with the best planning you may arrive early,but 3 hours means you just didn’t follow then protocol.

 

we actually arrived about 30 minutes before our boarding time. We had a party of 7 staying at a hotel on Hollywood Beach, and scheduled a transfer with Larry’s Limo service. The service arrived a little early and then there was like zero traffic to the port and we were there early.  Not much we could do about that. It’s a hard game to try and schedule your ride so you’re there on time and don’t miss your window.

I can't fault the people there. The cruise line check-in process really does need to be cognizant of just how people arrive to sail. Except for locals, there's very little control people have over their arrival time; it'll be based on a flight arrival time or based upon a hotel checkout time. Because when you've got your luggage, and don't have your own transportation, what exactly does a cruise line expect you to do?

Now I'm local to Cape Liberty, NJ, so technically I'm pretty flexible or could be, at least, on my check-in time. But it's also my trip, so I'm gonna pick the earliest time I can to maximize it. Now someone flying in may not have many choices but to arrive well before the first check-in time they could possibly get. And all things considered, shouldn't it be those facing no alternatives who get some level of check-in time priority?

So while Royal Caribbean may think of this methodology as functional; it's not going to scale at full occupancy well, because too many people will have no other place to go to wait for their check-in time. There needs to be some additional work done on the flow of people through check-in and boarding that can better adapt to the real world timetables people follow on their trip.

2 hours ago, Pookie45 said:

The thing that is confusing (at least on my invoice) is that the TBZ5 line item is actually the 25% bonus part of your FCC, but the full FCC amount is still shown on the invoice under “FCC applied”. So you have to subtract the TBZ5 line from the total FCC to figure out the amount of FCC that has been included in the “Amount Paid”.

Every technical change is vetted through Royal Caribbean's' Technical Confusion Mandate Enforcement Department before it goes into production to ensure it gets implemented in the way that presents the most confusion for anyone to figure out what it means.

2 hours ago, teddy said:

I’m getting info second hand from my wife who’s been reading it on Facebook, so I’m kinda making educated guesses based on this. 
 

So…with that being said, I think the cruises starting in Florida are a big part of the reason.  Less hoops to jump through and easier travel to the embarkation ports.  Also, no concerns with requirements for reentry to the US.  
 

I remember something about people saying that not having to show proof of vaccination was a reason for changing cruises, but that’s kinda moot now. 
 

Something else I read here recently mentioned that this is traditionally a slower time of year anyway what with schools starting back up.  

I believe @dswallow is currently on Adventure and might have more definitive information  

 

 

I'm not on Adventure until Saturday, then am on the last two sailings out of Nassau on her.

But yeah, I'm sure that the prospect of US sailings restarting is what kept people booking the later sailings on Adventure, and undoubtedly is involved in any number of people who chose to cancel and rebook on a US sailing. And I'd add one step further is when the masking protocols essentially became similar/identical to the same protocols on US sailings, exactly what was the benefit of not moving the booking to a US sailing, and avoiding the flight?

Some US sailings, like a few on Odyssey sort of are affected in similar ways. Sailings from a different ship were moved to Odyssey, and bookings were never reopened for those sailings, so there wasn't even opportunity for growth in occupancy.

Considering nobody's has started a cruise line from scratch to sailing 26 ships in just a few months, it's understandable it's not going to be a snap-your-fingers and every ship sails at the maximum capacity they've decided to have initially. It's a unique opportunity right now to sail very, very inexpensively, with a high crew-to-passenger ratio, and pretty much still have every amenity available onboard that's there on full sailings. Take advantage, if you can!

Whenever the marketing message is confusing, and even when you think it isn't, refer to the Terms & Conditions.

Cancel Your Cruise Up to 48 Hrs Before Sailing: Cruise with Confidence | Royal Caribbean Cruises

47 minutes ago, teddy said:

Interesting link.  Thank you for posting it.

 

Those price ranges are out comprehension much less league.

Apparently it also left you a bit tongue tied.

Adventure of the Seas
Allure of the Seas
Anthem of the Seas

?

Just go in and buy it on the last day of the segment; they'll just hand it over. If you buy it before then they'll hold it and deliver, and there's always a chance they'll notice you're on a B2B and will hold it till the last day of your final segment, which is what the policy says they will do, even iif in practice it just goes to your cabin on the last day of the current segment most of the time.

I should've stayed on the ship 2 or 3 more weeks back in June when I was on Adventure for 3 weeks. It'd have been nice to have had more experience of the good protocols. The only reason I didn't consider then it was the significant hassle of addressing the change of flight home. 

47 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

OK that's much better. But why even go through that trouble? Will your documents have changed in the previous 7 days?

 

Man RC really needs to read what they write before they publish it

 

 

My general belief is that they need to get a copy of all the documents into the system related to your current sailing and simply aren't able to make that happen automatically and/or prefer the added benefit of a separately obtained additional copy. And in the case of proof of vaccination, may also have general benefit should someone be use falsified credentials. Much like submitting a photo is also something done for each checkin, which becomes the photo used for identification during the sailing. Their backend systems just aren';t designed in a way to make recording that data and associating it with multiple bookings as easy as we all may believe it should be.

Word from the executive offices is now to ignore this email and a new one is being put together.

10 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

So this is something new, right ?  It hasn't been like this before....I don't think ?

It always was the case that you might need to leave the ship to re-clear US Customs/Immigration, as it was based on staffing levels whether or not they would come aboard to clear B2B'ers aboard the ship. You also usually were given a card identifying you as an in-transit passenger to be able to stay off the ship and be able to return freely anytime before all-aboard time, if you wanted.

But you never had to pack up and actually take all your luggage and belongings off the ship, and then only come back at some pre-scheduled time window.

Talk about disengaging the brain before thinking through a policy change.