GKMCruising

On 10/23/2022 at 3:35 PM, JohnK6404 said:

I'm waiting for the all access/bridge tour to come back... have always wanted to do that!

I'm pretty sure I saw it back on our Harmony sailing last month. We did it on our honeymoon, it was really neat - a little pricey, obviously, but still cool.

1 hour ago, Susie said:

LOL!!!Yah!!! Still looking. Getting FOMO for sure.

Same, but have to keep telling myself all the reasons it's better to wait. That said - @Matt or anyone else have thoughts on future sailings past the current April 2025 dates? Do we expect Icon to remain in Miami for all of 2025 as well, or is it likely to head to Europe for the last half of the year?

37 minutes ago, Susie said:

I mean if I want to book the family cabin that can sleep 5 people? Look like cannot book online correct? 

 

Getting FOMO, are we?

17 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

 I noticed the reservation system doesn't ask for ages of kids anymore

I noticed that too - gotta wonder why. I know before they could technically put 2 adults + an infant into a 2 person room because the infant would be in a crib and wouldn't require an additional bed, but if the age of the kid was over 2, they had to be in a 3 person room.

31 minutes ago, twangster said:

Canada for example has been known to deny entry to certain criminal offenders regardless how they arrive including cruise ship travel.  

Just made the news recently, oddly enough. A performer had to cancel a planned concert because one of the members of their stage crew had an old conviction and was denied entry by CBP.

13 minutes ago, Mike6453 said:

The prices are high, new class new ship....and high demand. the biggest price differences are in the suites. prices for inside rooms compared to the same time cruise on WOS seem to be about 100 to 300 more per average person for the lowest priced room while for example a grand suite priced for 15k as opposed to the same time on WOS for 7500.

Ill wait for it to be more affordable, it looks great but my budget can bring me more on other ships. 

Yeah, if you're not doing a suite I think it'll be worth the money by Fall 2024 or 2025. Suites, however... not sure when those prices will drop to sane levels.

36 minutes ago, BrianB said:

I booked this morning. I was able to get a Sky Junior Suite for a b2b the last week in September and the first week in October. I’m sailing solo and I didn’t think that the price was ‘outrageous’…just borderline high. I was lucky to be able to get the same suite for both sailings, so no changing midway through.
When I checked a few hours later, there was only one Sky Junior left on one of the sailings and the price had increased by over 30% to the ‘outrageous’ level.
Supply and demand at work.

If I wanted something other than the inaugural, there were definitely some "high but reasonable" options. That said, it's honestly for the best since my daughter can't do the slides yet, so we'll likely wait until Fall 2025 when we can guarantee she'll be tall enough to ride everything she wants to.

Thanks as always, Royal IT.

Gonna be waiting here too. My daughter's still gonna be too short to do most of the water slides, so there's no sense in paying 4k for a sailing on the inaugural where we're not all going to be able to enjoy the full experience. We'll wait a year or two, let the price come down and let her get taller.

25 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

The registered trademarks are always fun for speculation.

https://uspto.report/company/Royal-Caribbean-Cruises-L-T-D

Here's hoping that milkshake bar is gonna be replacing Johnny Rockets.

29 minutes ago, JuanF said:

Also, I was told that for the inagural cruise you only have 7 days after making the reservation and paying the deposit to pay off the reservation amount so I discarded that one, I guess it only applies to the very first itinerary right?

Definitely had *not* heard this before - definitely not how it played out for Wonder. @Matt

1 hour ago, Avatar133 said:

We booked a 7 night oceanview on Allure on deck 3 and are concerned about the noise. Seeing everything above on deck 4, it might be noisy at night. Has anyone had that experience? All oceanview balconies are sold out, so we had to go with oceanview.

We were in an inside down on 3 on Harmony, right under the Casino. Honestly one of the quietest rooms I think we've ever been in.

50 minutes ago, PG Cruiser said:

The prices for the Wonder maiden voyage weren't really astronomically high.  But that was during the time when COVID was still a main issue.  Royal was trying to get people back to cruising back then.  Now with all of that (seemingly) behind, Royal might place higher prices for the Icon.  I am hoping with you that it doesn't.

Yeah, Wonder was fairly reasonable. We shall all see on Monday, I suppose.

4 hours ago, twangster said:

I don't see Royal Caribbean International ever going backwards to smaller ships.  It's not their thing.  RCI is a mass market cruise line.  

Smaller ships with less thrills-based activities is Celebrity's target market under the umbrella of Royal Caribbean Group fleet and ships.  

All they need to do is better share loyalty programs between brands and you've got no reason not to sail X when you seek smaller ships with fewer thrills on board.  At least they recognize loyalty members from within the family of brands.  Carnival doesn't do any sort of loyalty recognition between their brands.  

If you renamed Celebrity Edge to Royal Caribbean Edge and they operated it under the RCI brand you've got the newer smaller ship that can do the canal minus the water slides and zip lines.  They are unlikely to do that so for those guests seeking newer but smaller ships look towards Celebrity.  

My only thought would be for existing routes, especially Alaska - would they just stop running those routes and/or turn them over to a Celebrity ship?

1 hour ago, KenCP said:

Looks like Dec. 16, 2023 is the first sailing.

I see that there, but the official release said January, so who knows. Doing the first revenue sailing over the holidays seems like a *terrible* idea, IMO.

6 hours ago, Jjohnb said:

They refer to The Hideaway as “brag worthy” in a few places, I wonder if they plan to charge to access this area, possibly day passes?  Same for Category 6?

They've said there's no plans to charge for any of the onboard pools / waterslides.

28 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

This one doesn't mention st kitts

 

 

Missing the second page.

53 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

I bought an open booking on our recent Anthem cruise... I think it may not be "open" for very long. 

Mildly kicking myself for not buying an open booking while we were on Harmony last month, I legitimately didn't expect it to open for booking before the end of the year.

21 minutes ago, CGTLH said:

Ref: https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Icon/Icon_Categorization_Grid.pdf

Star: 9, Sky: 100, Sea: 70

Yikes. All interior cabins are now double occupancy only, so the *minimum* for families is going to be a spacious interior...

18 minutes ago, Firefly said:

Looks absolutely incredible, especially for families who are looking for lots of thrills and activities to entertain the kids. That said, I highly doubt our family will sail Icon as we prefer the more relaxed smaller and midsized ships. Oasis class, and now Icon, are just way too big for us - too many people, lines and crowds. We cruise to relax, chill and enjoy the culture of ports, but I know many cruise for the ship. Icon will no doubt be a hit with families. 

Yup. They could practically do 7 sea days on this ship and I don't think you'd have any complaints.

Does anywhere have a list of actual room types yet? Deck plans don't have codes or anything on them yet as far as I've seen.

1 hour ago, FireFishII said:

I am confused that it is taking this long to setup its inaugural cruise.  The other royality line has a new class of ship coming out in Feb 2024 and they have already released the first three cruises for bookings.  When does RCL usually open the bookings for new cruise ships?  

As stated above, it's likely they're running into supply issues. The inaugural for Wonder was in April of this year and went on sale in September 2021, so 7ish months lead time? And that was after the last-minute pivot to a US homeport from Asia.

On 9/23/2022 at 2:10 PM, KenCP said:

Will Crown and Anchor members get a chance to book before it is open to the general public? 

I don't remember them offering something like that for Wonder, so I'd be shocked if they did for Icon. Then again, it *is* a new class, so maybe?

On 8/7/2022 at 1:46 PM, Steve PF said:

Hi there. I am wondering what finally happened. Did you ever get the refund?

Yes, thankfully I did get a reimbursement from them without having to escalate, but I was fully expecting to need to get their supervisors and my bank involved.

28 minutes ago, twangster said:

I looked for some on another ship and only saw a Florida version that wasn't enough of a draw to get me to bite.  I figure I can get a FL Starbucks mug at a Starbucks in FL rather than hauling one home in luggage coming off a ship.  

Yup. They had a Florida one and a Miami one when we were onboard this week. You'd think they'd either have a special RCL version, or at least one for the Caribbean/Bahamas.