GKMCruising

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Crew members no longer are required to wear masks

 

https://crew-center.com/masks-are-not-required-anymore-rci-and-celebrity-cruises-crew

Yup. Confirmed by top brass during the top tier event on Harmony this past week. I told our CD that it's just a shame you can't have a fire onboard, crew should have a massive mask bonfire on the helipad.

Latest sale has some decent repricing potential. We spent an extra $80 but went from a Promenade interior to a guarantee balcony - I'll consider that a win, as we're still under $2k total for myself, my wife, and our 3-year-old.

On 5/3/2022 at 1:47 PM, whitsmom said:

This makes me smile!  Did any have tags/notes attached?  I might do some for our Harmony cruise as the grands will be with us (even though they are 14 & 16) I think they would get a kick out of hiding them.  I may ask them before ordering any. 

Yes, they all had a tag or sticker telling who hid them / where they were from.

Our 2 1/2 year old daughter had a blast duck hunting on Wonder - I began to wonder if there were more ducks than passengers onboard at one point.

This was the final haul once we got home - planning on taking some to hide on our next cruise in September.

5 hours ago, CrimsonCruiser said:

That's honestly so cool...

now I want one...just for keeps

Looks like there's a handful on eBay for fairly reasonable prices. 

Permanent.

When my prescription meds run out, I always try to hang on to an empty bottle to use for travel. I put however many pills I need for the trip in that bottle and leave the rest at home in the other bottle. That way I don't have *all my meds with me in case of a theft or lost bag, but I still have the bottle to prove what they are and that they're mine just in case.

3 hours ago, BrianB said:

I just saw Voices and it was Amazing! Loved it! 
@GKMCruising…sorry, but I just saw your post now. While waiting for the show to start in the theater, they displayed the names, photos and backgrounds of all the singers and dancers on the two side screens. One at a time.
However, I’m on a back to back and will definitely see it again! If you’d like…while I’m waiting for the show to start, I’ll take a photo of each performer’s bio (I think you want just the singers?) and send them to you..

That'd be awesome, if you could! Much appreciated.

22 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

The best way to get hold of them is not phone or email, it's actually through social media (their official Facebook or Twitter pages - by direct messaging them).  They typically answer within a few hours.  I've never had them not answer in 2 hours.

I feel like this is the case with a *lot* of companies these days, frankly.

Having never been to or sailed out of the UK - if I decided to try and make the inaugural work, what's the best (cheapest) airport to fly into?

1 hour ago, Eddy said:

With the complimentary dining venues on board such as MDR, Coastal Kitchen ( I book suites)  ,Johnny Rockets (breakfast) , Sorrentos,  Mexican, Windjammer etc,,.... I have a tough time justifying an extra $400 to eat.  Unless you are a real fussy foodie,  ( and I can be)  the main dining room is sufficient for me and I always ask for special requests to which they are very accommodating .    Being Canadian, that $400 US price tag becomes $500!   Nope. Not gonna do it.   I'll spend that on the casino instead...lol 

 

We normally don't do specialty dining either, but since we weren't planning to do any excursions on that sailing, we used the money for the dining package instead. I agree, with all the free options, it's not something I typically find necessary, but it was a nice change of pace for one sailing.

9 hours ago, jay1021 said:

WOW, just for fun, we looked at our tickets from ATL to SEA, that we purchased in November 2021, and it has gone up by over $1,000.00.  Man, I'm glad we purchased as soon as Southwest opened up their May flights.  Now, I just hope nothing goes wrong with it.  Went from >$700.00 for two to >$1,800.00.  

Oof. Yeah, flight cost to SEA is part of why we're waiting to take another Alaska trip. Cruise was cheap, flights not so much.

1 hour ago, HillaryG said:

Anyone have any advice joining a cruise at a port of call because they missed the ship at the original port? (Currently waiting in San Juan for symphony to port here). 
 

Other than retaking all of our Covid tests, the people at Royal just told us to show up at the port.  My son is 3 years old and will need a Covid test day of embarkation as well I guess. 
 

If you join late, do you reimbursed on anything? (We opted not to get travel insurance since we had cruise with confidence and we booked flights through royal).  This experience will probably make us starting getting it.

If you booked flights through Royal I would expect at least some compensation, but I wouldn't guarantee anything. Would love an update once y'all find out more.

27 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Can't cancel one DX if there are 2 or more 21+ in the room.

Ah, yeah, I forgot about that. Could still cancel the dining and Coco Cay stuff though, I'd think.

20 minutes ago, Kris816 said:

I am going to have a no show in my cabin coming up in 3 weeks. We’ve already purchased drink packages, dining packages and Coco Cay excursions. Will the purchases made for the no show be refunded? 

I believe so, but if you already know they're going to be a no-show, why not go on and cancel the purchases now?

12 minutes ago, Eddy said:

So Ive been aware of the discounts available on the cruise planner.  Up to 55% off , the highest is of course for unlimited dining.  I think you can do better by going to any individual  restaurant once boarded ( probably boarding day)  and speak to a rep/manager of that particular restaurant you want.  From my discussions in the past, they can go as high as 35% .  As long as it suits their schedule.   Any comments?

If it's a cruise during off-peak season and you only want to eat at one restaurant... maybe worth the gamble? But we did unlimited for $200/pp on Wonder and it gave us a way better deal than if we'd somehow gotten 35% off at every restaurant every time.

11 hours ago, twangster said:

It's better to be mobile and take in Endicott Arm from many different areas of the ship.  Stop in and rest for a few minutes on a balcony if you have one, but you will miss something if you plant yourself in any one spot on the ship for more than a few minutes.  Get to a lower outside deck and see the bergy bits of chunks of ice that calved off the glacier recently floating by the ship then pop into Two70 for a few minutes, then pop into the Solarium for a spell, then...

I think anyone who parks themselves on their balcony will see a lot and enjoy it, but they will be missing things you can only experience by moving around the ship and seeing it from different perspectives.   

Yup. I definitely roamed all over the ship while we were at the glacier on Ovation. Definitely saw different things from different angles in every location.

Traveling this weekend for a race and booked a hotel using StayForLong a couple months back via a referral on Kayak.com. Got here tonight and while they had our reservation in the system, thankfully, the "virtual card" provided by StayForLong wouldn't work. I hunted around on their website, finally found a phone number, and called their customer support line only to be told that they'd have to contact their supplier and would call me back in 15 - 30 minutes. At one point they  called the hotel and spoke with them, but couldn't get it working either. When I still hadn't heard from them, the hotel called them back, got the runaround again, and when they finally called me back, they basically said it was a system error on their end and for me to just pay for tonight (despite the fact that I'd fully paid them months ago) and they'd straighten it out with the hotel in the morning and give me a refund. Their system wouldn't let me just pay for tonight, so I wound up having to pay the full amount for the stay (again) with promises from StayForLong that I'd get refunded by them. I'm not holding my breath, especially after reading some of the other online reviews/horror stories - I'm just lucky they even had my reservation, apparently. Needless to say I'll be calling my bank and disputing charges if I haven't gotten a refund by the time I get home on Sunday evening.

12 hours ago, cruisinnewbie said:

After dinner we saw Frankie and the Dreamers, starring the guy who played Frankie Valli in the first run of the show Jersey Boys.

Is this the current headliner, or one of the new staple shows? We did Anthem a few years back and I definitely don't remember that one. Sad to hear you'll miss "We Will Rock You" - definitely one of my favorite shows I've seen onboard.

2 hours ago, SaveTheSharks said:

I don't get it either. I'm getting the same (albeit CA$879). Maybe I'm not understanding the promo.. Here's a sample of pricing something out on RC's website

 

For some reason, Royal isn't putting the KSF as a separate line item when you view the pricing, but it's included in the 30% off every guest. It breaks it out better on the final invoice you receive after booking.

On 3/27/2022 at 2:43 PM, Pooch said:

There aren’t enough chemicals in the world to get me in a cruise ship hot tub

I've only gotten in once or twice, and only when it was at odd times and the wife and I were the only ones in it. Not a chance I'd get in with anyone else on board.

2 hours ago, spacexdragon said:

So they're expecting toddlers to wear masks? How can they possibly expect them to do so? There's no way I can see us being able to force our 3 year old to wear a mask especially when almost everyone else will not be. Is this something actually enforced?

Not once did anyone ask us to have our 2.5 year old put a mask on. You'll be fine.

8 minutes ago, jay1021 said:

I'm guessing that if there are two ships at CocoCay on the same day, they allocate X amount of tickets to the water park based upon the capacity of the ships and the number of children/young adults are on them.  So, one may be sold out and the other is still selling tickets.  Which tells me that if the ship that has tickets to sell don't, they may become available to the cruise ship that is sold out.  Just my guess, of course.

That'd be my guess as well.

14 hours ago, Luly said:

I’ve done Alaska cruises on both radiance and ovation. As another poster said, on Radiance you can get much closer to glaciers and do a full turn so both sides of the ship can enjoy listening to the creaking glaciers. On ovation I was SO disappointed how far away we were and the lack of time spent at the glacier; the ship was just too large to get any closer safely. However, also as others have said, the venues on Ovation, like the shows and the cafe in Two70 are amazing, as well as iFly, and the Seaplex. We spent many many hours hiking the Alaska wilderness while in port (hiking upper Dewey lake is the hardest hike I’ve ever done and I live in the mountains of Utah) and found that there was still plenty of time to explore and enjoy the ship venues on sea days. Some day I’d like to take my 4 kids and personally will be choosing ovation or quantum when we go. 

Upper Dewey is on my list for when we go back to Alaska. I did the AB trail but had to turn back before I reached the actual summit because the fog at the top was too thick and I kept losing sight of the blazes. Still a gorgeous but ridiculously hard hike.

2 hours ago, Akeka said:

Can cruises booked with a non-refundable deposit be repriced under the cruise with confidence program?  TIA.

Yes.