WhoCruiser

On wonder right now with my group of about 75 or so. Most of us, about 50, all coordinated to ask for 11:30 arrival times facilitated by our 10:30 departure time from our group hotel with GoPort, and everything went off without a hitch. I and everyone else with me agreed that it was the fastest and smoothest onboarding our group has ever experienced in 23 previous voyages spanning 35 years on assorted lines.

I currently have a group of about 75 on wonder as we speak. For our own reasons within the group, we needed to have seven different tables so we could rotate some guests of honor to a different table each successive night, so we needed to have seven tables that all seated 10 or 12. They were very accommodating and pushed together combinations of rectangular fours sixes and twos so that all of our tables totaled out to the required amounts. As long as you set it up ahead of time I don't see it being much of a problem, but if you try to do it on the fly without warning them it would probably be too much to accomplish because it would not be possible to move those tables around if other people are already assigned to them.

On board now and having a great time! A bit over 13 months until we do it again with our specialized celebrity/fan group, with a smaller ship, but a longer & more varied itinerary. This is us next year, just updated the web site accordingly yesterday.... 

On 9/5/2023 at 8:56 PM, WhoCruiser said:

Scottish, eh? You JUST missed us with the celebrity/fan group from Doctor Who getting on the ship the same day you get off, with fellow Scots Frazer Hines and Sylvester McCoy on board with us, among others. Take good care of Wonder of the Seas for us and we will gladly do the same the following week! 

On board now and having a great time! A bit over 13 months until we do it again with our specialized celebrity/fan group, with a smaller ship, but a longer & more varied itinerary. This is us next year, just updated the web site accordingly yesterday.... 

Misposted...

10 hours ago, bobroo said:

A related question, do FL residents/ frequent cruisers feel that port offerings are redundant? ‘Cause let’s face it, if you are sailing from FL on Royal, it is really likely you are going to Nassau and Coco Cay.

Really only true of the shorter 3, 4, or even 5 night cruises, as you can only sail so far in the allotted time. With a week or longer, the potential itineraries really open up a lot.

Based on past history I thought they might go as little as a week, and certainly not more than a month, before they had the first incident of hitting a pedestrian or a vehicle. Ended up being less than 1 day, as a pedestrian was hit in Delray Beach by a bright Line train today, uffff! Sometimes I really hate being right... 

After all the gaslighting, and all the crap we went through, now this?! Nope, happier where we are now on Explorer on 5 - 15 December, better itinerary, better pricing, almost as nice a ship. If they now turn around and say that Explorer is gonna dissapear into that same phantom zone drydock hell, that'd be it, I'd be off to Carnival or somewhere else instead at this point...

Don't forget, online check-in opens tonight, right after midnight...

On 9/3/2023 at 2:17 AM, Morganno said:

Ahoy fellow cruisers just booked this cruise last night. We are empty nesters our son is going to off to college in September and we will definitely need to cheer ourselves up after that so we are heading to the States and decided to go on this cruise.

We are currently at 63 C&A points and this will take us to the 70 mark. I joined the FB groups we usually prefer smaller ships like voyager or Radiance class as we like meeting people and find the larger ships fun but impersonal and harder to make friends.

This is why I'm posting here hoping this smaller group of posters might be interested in a meet up. We are Scottish / Irish but living in Belgium for the last 27 years. Anyway I hope everyone has a great cruise. It's our first time visiting St Thomas and St Maarten. So looking for any tips on these locations as well. 

Scottish, eh? You JUST missed us with the celebrity/fan group from Doctor Who getting on the ship the same day you get off, with fellow Scots Frazer Hines and Sylvester McCoy on board with us, among others. Take good care of Wonder of the Seas for us and we will gladly do the same the following week! 

You will most likely be able to book shore tours on board either through your cabin TV or through a paper you can fill out and drop off with the shore tour people instead of having to wait in a long line to do it face to face at the desk. I might be wrong about this but I don't think I am, of course those who have to make some sort of special Arrangement might still need to talk face to face.

For a minute there I got really scared cuz I thought you meant Gordon Ramsay was on board filming an actual episode for TV! That would be a true nightmare if that ever happened on wonder of the Seas hahaha!

12 hours ago, SemperMom said:

We are all checked in and ready to go too! 

The earliest arrival time time that I saw was 10:30 and I checked in at 12:05 am on the day check in opened. You should have pretty good luck if you stay up to check in within minutes of check in opening up. 

Interestingly enough the app is telling some of our people that check in opens on the 7th and is telling others of our people that are opens on the 6th I can only assume those of us who are being told the 6th are getting that because we're Crown and Anchor members and the people being told the 7th are not in either case I know it starts at 1 minute after midnight.

12 hours ago, Melbae9 said:

Hi friends!

We're on Symphony in December for a Southern Caribbean itinerary. I'm having trouble finding something we want to do (two 30 somethings ) in Aruba and Curaçao. What are some of the unique excursion you've done? We've been to both islands but not in several years and are willing to do it on our own.  

Thanks! 

I wouldn't necessarily call it unique, but if you can get the sunset catamaran harbor cruise that's run by the local operator Red Sail (and yes they do contract with the cruise line through the ship's tour office normally) it is probably the best booze cruise of its kind that I've ever done. Every time our group goes back to Aruba we try to book it, we have done it three times in the last 5 years, one of the few that runs a complete full open bar, not just a jug of rum punch and some ice cubes, hahaha.

On 8/28/2023 at 7:07 PM, Hope said:

41 days, checked in and very excited for this vacation!

What was the earliest available check-in time you saw, and how far after the 45-day window opened were you looking, if you don't mind my asking? We're exactly two weeks after you and I'm looking to get 11:30 check in for as many of my people as I can to smoothly coordinate with our scheduled hotel to pier transportation.

I really don't care one way or the other because all in all it's pretty crappy Pizza. The only reason I have EVER eaten it is because at the time there was nothing else to choose from instead. My opinion of course, and yours may well vary... 

1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said:

Quick port stop at Gallifrey on the way.

I definitely resemble this remark, LOL! 

5 hours ago, USFFrank said:

And if it is the Twilight Zone, better get out of that elevator quick, or else you'll become a permanent resident.

Not quite The Twilight Zone, but we'll have plenty of Doctor Who on our Wonder sailing pre-Halloween, LOL! 

You miss us by 2 weeks. Same itinerary but we're also schmoozing it up with cast & crew members from the famous BBC-TV show Doctor Who on board for an awesome celebrity/fan adventure. Take good care of Wonder until we get our turn on her. And if you don't mind a smaller & older ship sailing to much more off the beaten path ports, consider joining our NEXT celebrity/fan voyage with the Who Crew in early December of 2024 on Explorer Of The Seas. 

51 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

@WhoCruiser, how were the prices on EX compared to what you had on FR ?  

It was kind of a mixed bag price wise, as the outside cabins came in at almost the same price or actually a few dollars less, even though it's a 10 night cruise and the original one we were looking at was an eight nighter, so that's quite an improvement. The inside cabins came in at more than $100 less, so an even better improvement. The balconies however seem to be a little bit higher, which is understandable because on that class of ship there are fewer of them. So price wise overall it's a wash, but I'm extremely happy that the itinerary is, in my opinion, much better, and overall will make up for staying with the smaller older ship rather than the larger newer one.

 I am glad that they finally came clean and admitted they were doing what myself, and a number of other astute observers here on the discussion forums had already figured out they were doing two months ago or more. Throughout this entire time, every time my travel agent has inquired they have repeatedly reassured him that it was a clerical error on the website and the ship would sail as planned. Once it showed up on the Harbor Master's registry in Funchal on route to Spain in the middle of November the jig was up, and rather than be caught in the lurch now when they finally announced things publicly and thousands of people are madly running to rebook, I had my travel agent open a fresh group of 50 cabins for us last month on another sailing that suited us, so all he has to do now is let Royal Caribbean know that WE already did the work for them, and they can just cancel that original Freedom booking, and we will keep the new one we're holding on Explorer out of Miami 2 days sooner, which is the ONLY other Royal sailing that works for our needs & our dates, and it's a damn good thing I did this because it is NOT among the few selected alternate sailings. While I have been very much looking forward to doing Freedom class we are quite familiar with the Explorer having taken our group on it twice before for a Pacific Coastal in 2018 and a deep southern Caribbean in 2019 so we will be quite happy to be on her again and other than being on a smaller ship I must say that the overall Port of Call line up on Explorer for the 5th of December is far better and does also include St Lucia for those who were specifically looking for it. I'm also very happy that the call at San Juan actually occurs during the hours that El Morro Fortress is open as I have specifically made a point for many years now to never book a cruise with a San Juan Port call that arrives later than 3:00 in the afternoon with 5:00 p.m. closing at The Fortress. Did that once many years ago and will not fall for that again, being forced to simply walk by outside the biggest and best attraction on the entire Island and wish we could go inside for the tour, hahaha! Now that I finally have confirmation of this I can start to try and make up for the two months of time I lost in not being able to notify my celebrity guest invites for December 2024 of exactly what ship and itinerary and date we would be on. Half a dozen of them have been patiently awaiting that information so I can now start working on firming that up for them so I will have them ready to announce to my current year cruisers when they arrive on wonder of the Seas in October.

3 hours ago, FionaMG said:

Cancellation e-mail just came in. Very coincidentally (or not) I had just asked my lovely MEI TA @michelle yesterday to see if she could find anything out.

They are offering several alternatives with price protection so for those of you have back-up cruises booked, check to see if any of them are on the list. @WhoCruiser, the Explorer December 5th sailing is NOT one of them, unfortunately.

Copy of the e-mail below, just in case it doesn't filter through to everyone:

Dear Guest,

We’re continuously working to improve our ships and the many amenities they have to offer. We’re taking Freedom of the Seas into dry dock for routine maintenance and exciting improvements. Unfortunately, this means your upcoming December 7^th, 2024 cruise has been cancelled.

The time and effort you took to plan your cruise is important to us, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Every aspect of your time with us should be enjoyable, so we’ve put together some alternate options that we hope will work for you and those in your party.

Option 1: Re-book one of the following 2024 or 2025 itineraries departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

Freedom of the Seas:

• October 20^th, 2024 | 7-Night Western Caribbean & Perfect Day | sailing to:
  • Perfect Day at CocoCay | Labadee, Haiti| Falmouth, Jamaica | and George Town, Grand Cayman
• October 27^th, 2024 | 7-Night Western Caribbean & Perfect Day | sailing to:
  • Perfect Day at CocoCay | San Juan, Puerto Rico| and Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• February 16^th, 2025 | 7-Night Eastern Caribbean | sailing to:
  • Nassau, Bahamas | Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas | and St. Johns, Antigua

Oasis of the Seas:

• November 16^th & December 14^th in 2024 or January 11^th in 2025 | 8-Night Eastern Caribbean & Perfect Day | sailing to:
  • Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis | Philipsburg, St. Maarten | Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas | and Perfect Day at CocoCay
• November 30^th & December 28^th in 2024 or January 25^th in 2025 | 8-Night Southern Caribbean & Perfect Day |sailing to:
  • Oranjestad, Aruba | Willemstad, Curacao | and Perfect Day at CocoCay

What you’ll receive:

• Your original stateroom category price will either be protected at your original cruise fare rate or reduced to the current cruise fare rate (whichever is lower). This excludes taxes, fees, gratuities, and other non-cruise fare items.
  • If your booking was already paid in full and your cruise fare rate decreases, we’ll provide you with a refund for the difference. You can expect to receive your refund to your original form of payment within 14 business days after we move you. Kindly note, refund times may vary depending on your financial institution.
• And, you’ll also be reimbursed for non-refundable, pre-purchased transportation change fees incurred (such as a flight, train ticket, or rental car).
  • We’ll cover up to $200 USD per guest for Domestic changes, or up to $400 USD per guest for International changes.
  • Please email your receipts and booking information to RoyalGuestRelations@rccl.com for review and reimbursement.

Option 2: Re-book any other Royal Caribbean International sailing

• If you prefer to re-book another sailing not included in Option 1, we’ll waive any non-refundable deposit change fees.
• Please know, you’ll be responsible for any difference in pricing for your cruise fare, taxes, fees, gratuities, and other non-cruise fare items.
  • If your booking was already paid in full and your cruise fare rate decreases, we’ll provide you with a refund for the difference. You can expect to receive your refund to your original form of payment within 14 business days after we move you. Kindly note, refund times may vary depending on your financial institution.
• And, you’ll also be reimbursed for non-refundable, pre-purchased transportation change fees incurred (such as a flight, train ticket, or rental car).
  • We’ll cover up to $200 USD per guest for Domestic changes, or up to $400 USD per guest for International changes.
  • Please email your receipts and booking information to RoyalGuestRelations@rccl.com for review and reimbursement.

Option 3: If you can’t find a new itinerary that works for you and choose to cancel, we’ll be sad to see you go. You’ll receive:

• A full refund of any paid portion of your cruise fare (including non-refundable deposits) and any pre-paid amenities to the original form of payment, within 14 business days – some international banking and financial institutions may have a processing time of approximately 30 business days.
  • If you used a Future Cruise Credit on this sailing, and you request a refund instead, we’ll refund any NEW funds paid above the certificate amount, and we’ll reinstate your original certificate.  
• If you booked your airfare through Royal Caribbean International, it will be automatically refunded to you. However, if you booked on your own, please contact the service provider directly for your options with them.
• Please note, if you choose this option, we will not provide additional compensation.

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to rebooking all guests, so we ask for your patience as we work to make this process as easy as possible for you. All moves will be completed by July 12^th, 2023, and we’ll send an updated reservation confirmation with your revised details to the email address on file as soon as your reservation has been completely updated with the pricing fully adjusted. If you decide to go with Option 1 or 2, please call us at 888-281-9344 or contact your Travel Advisor by July 12^th, 2023 And know, hold times may be longer than usual. If we haven’t heard from you by July 12^th, your reservation will be cancelled.

If you have any questions, please contact your Travel Advisor immediately or contact us at: 

• 1 888 281 9344 in the U.S.
• 1800 754 500 in Australia / 0800 102 123 in New Zealand
• In the UK only, by using our webchat service or by calling 0344 493 4005
• All other countries, please visit http://www.royalcaribbean.com/contactus for your local Royal Caribbean International office phone number.

Thank you for understanding, and we hope you find another cruise with us. Whether you are celebrating a special occasion or looking to explore, relax, and recharge, we have no doubt your time with us will be nothing short of amazing.

Sincerely,

Aurora Yera-Rodriguez
AVP | Guest Experience
Royal Caribbean International

Right Fiona - I am glad that they finally came clean and admitted they were doing what you, myself, and a number of other astute observers here on the discussion forums had already figured out they were doing two months ago or more. Throughout this entire time, every time my travel agent has inquired they have repeatedly reassured him that it was a clerical error on the website and the ship would sail as planned. Once it showed up on the Harbor Master's registry in Funchal on route to Spain in the middle of November the jig was up, and rather than be caught in the lurch now when they finally announced things publicly and thousands of people are madly running to rebook, I had my travel agent open a fresh group of 50 cabins for us last month on another sailing that suited us, so all he has to do now is let Royal Caribbean know that WE already did the work for them, and they can just cancel that original Freedom booking, and we will keep the new one we're holding on Explorer out of Miami 2 days sooner, which is the ONLY other Royal sailing that works for our needs & our dates, and it's a damn good thing I did this because, as you have noted, it is NOT among the few selected alternate sailings. While I have been very much looking forward to doing Freedom class we are quite familiar with the Explorer having taken our group on it twice before for a Pacific Coastal in 2018 and a deep southern Caribbean in 2019 so we will be quite happy to be on her again and other than being on a smaller ship I must say that the overall Port of Call line up on Explorer for the 5th of December is far better and does also include St Lucia for those who were specifically looking for it. I'm also very happy that the call at San Juan actually occurs during the hours that El Morro Fortress is open as I have specifically made a point for many years now to never book a cruise with a San Juan Port call that arrives later than 3:00 in the afternoon with 5:00 p.m. closing at The Fortress. Did that once many years ago and will not fall for that again, being forced to simply walk by outside the biggest and best attraction on the entire Island and wish we could go inside for the tour, hahaha! Now that I finally have confirmation of this I can start to try and make up for the two months of time I lost in not being able to notify my celebrity guest invites for December 2024 of exactly what ship and itinerary and date we would be on. Half a dozen of them have been patiently awaiting that information so I can now start working on firming that up for them so I will have them ready to announce to my current year cruisers when they arrive on wonder of the Seas in October.

My group is holding a group reservation for a block of 50 cabins on the sailing on freedom for December 7th 2024 but because of this idiotic situation we are also now holding a group of the same size on Explorer Of The Seas leaving 2 days earlier and until they decide what the f*** they're doing we're going to keep both of them open and dump the one that doesn't exist anymore when they finally admit that it doesn't exist. The ONLY reason I haven't dumped it yet is the EXCEEDINGLY small possibility that they MIGHT move another ship to cover for those six weeks, unlikely as it is. In the meantime I am if you'll pardon the pun dead in the water on making any kind of promotional advertising or even invitations toward my celebrity talent for this group until I can tell them definitively which damned Voyage we're on really bad way to run things Royal has me seriously looking at moving to Carnival where this sort of thing does not seem to happen celebration and Mardi Gras are looking real real good to me now...

Much discussion on this subject and the cruise line's extremely annoying silence on the issue on at least two other discussion threads. Apparently it was originally supposed to be dry docked for several weeks during January and February (which is just about the 5-year statutory mark since it was last dry docked, so that made a hell of a lot of sense) and that's why no dates were announced during that time period when the schedules for that late 2024 early 2025 winter schedule became public. Then a couple of months ago the mid-november through late December dates suddenly disappeared with no explanation, and the ship showed up with a scheduled port call on the Harbor Master's public register in Funchal, Madiera, midway across the ocean on its way to Europe in mid-november. Those of us who know the business well enough have already figured out that they switched the dry dock period to an earlier time, but they have NOT bothered to cancel or even inform those booked on the November and December voyages of even the possibility that they may be $#!t out of luck now, nor have they reannounced new dates in January and February for the time that it will probably be available now. My travel agent has specifically inquired on this issue with his contacts at the cruise line and has been repeatedly told that it is a simple clerical error on the website, which is obviously bull$#!t because if that were true it would have been corrected long ago, and would certainly not have caused the ship to suddenly show up on a port register halfway across the ocean on its way to dry dock in Spain, hahaha how dumb do they think we are? Hell of a way to run a cruise line.

To paraphrase a classic Seinfeld episode, "The ocean called, they want you to take your iPad back..."