Done

I will bid this forum continued success.  I do not belong here.

Royal Caribbean enabled the increase in the number of higher tier cruisers with their Crown And Anchor double points bonus promotion.  Now they have to figure out how to live with it. 

On 11/20/2022 at 7:42 PM, twangster said:

The reality of Royal is that they embrace technology in their entertainment and for some on board experiences but they absolutely suck at technology for their land based pre-cruise resources.  I'm pretty sure Royal is one of those companies that only views technology in IT as a waste of money, a cost center that can't possibly generate revenue and the concept of leveraging technology to make more money is lost on them. 

Their original accounting office was in a trailer in a parking lot behind the corporate office.  In many ways not much has changed except for the ships.  

This is a Royal Caribbean Group IT culture issue.  Celebrity hold times are no better. 

What I find especially bad is Royal Caribbean and Celebrity SHARE the same authorization servers.  I have logins on each cruise website and use the same user name for both.  They must have the same password.  If I change Royal's password I have use that password to login into Celebrity.  Of concern is if someone hacks the Royal Caribbean database and steals sensitive information does that imply a person who has only sailed on Celebrity, never on Royal,  has had their data compromised as well?

On 11/26/2022 at 10:03 AM, USFFrank said:

In-port time at 2:40PM? I know that late is rare, but Ouch! And they say, don't book a flight out after your cruise till after 12:00PM. You would be lucky if you made a 4:30PM flight out today from TPA.

We experienced Tampa Bay closed due to fog quite a few years ago while on the ship (Jewel).  The captain announced, "I have bad news and good news.  The bad news is Tampa Bay is closed to ship traffic due to fog.  No time estimate as to when it might clear.  The good news we are first in line to enter the Bay when it re-opens!"  He also warned us we were at least 2 1/2 hours from being docked once Tampa Bay was cleared for traffic. 

We were out of cell phone range and ship WiFi didn't exist so we no had way to work with our airline to reschedule a later flight.  We were not docked until close to 4:00 pm and we were able to get on the last flight out of Tampa to Chicago.   The terminal was a nightmare with 2.2K+ passengers getting off and 2K+ passengers waiting to board.

And so it continues......

After the customer service person updated our sailing, they sent an updated invoice.  It did not show any of the discounts we originally had, no On Board Credit (OBC) we had before so I gave it a few days after the Thanksgiving holiday in hopes the IT systems needed to process transactions done in the holiday week.  No such luck so after 40 minutes on hold it was all straightened out and the new invoice had all the items it did before.  One thing I noticed was the OBC was allocated between us differently than before but it added up to the correct amount including the $400 added offered for the inconvenience of the change.

I made the realization this new cruise would include Easter 2024 (March 31, 2024) which might explain the larger selection of corner Sunset Sky Suites available.  Oh well.

We decided to book a specialty restaurant for Easter and when I logged on the Celebrity website to do that I noticed our balance of the OBC changed and it was $800 MORE than it should be.  Now the ethical question.  I have this feeling we should get this corrected as it will come back to hurt us in some form. 

I did make the specialty reservation but we will make sure not to consume more OBC then we should be entitled to. 

15 minutes ago, twangster said:

Likely they did but that is being saved for the inevitable lawsuit which is also why he isn't saying how it happened. 

"I climbed up the railing" kills any chance of a lawsuit.  "I mysteriously ended up in the water" leaves the door open to seek an out of court settlement or else this could continue in the public court of opinion or into into actual courtroom.

If that is the case the captain/crew on the ship have terrible ethics.  According to the news reports, they conducted a ship wide search for him before reporting him as a possible overboard passenger to the Coast Guard.  If they had video of the event and STILL delayed to notify the CG while conducting a search they knew was futile, that would be just BAD!

13 hours ago, Mturk said:

We also booked our first ever junior suite on Odyssey in August for a 12 night cruise. No 1/2 bath only the full bath but great size room. Highlight for us was ability to use Coastal Kitchen for dinners. Aside from the specialty restaurants, we ate once in MDR and the food in CK was far superior, so much so, that we never went back to MDR. Also, much to our surprise, CK was never full, never had a problem getting a reservation. 

We have never been on Odyssey but have enjoyed 1/2 and full bath in a JS on Anthem and Ovation.  In our case cabins 10210 on Anthem and 10612 on Ovation.

On 11/14/2022 at 9:37 AM, whitsmom said:

We are going with family to Alaska (Ovation) in June 2024 and we decided to book Jr Suites (4) for all 8 of us.  My Son-n-Law thinks vacation needs to be at the beach so it took some talking to convince him that he will love Alaska.  After showing the family pictures and videos  from our Radiance cruise in 2018 they all are excited now!!! 

If you have a J1/J2 JS on the Quantum class (as Ovation is) then you will surprised to find you have a half bath and a full bath.  It is nice to have two commodes. 

15 hours ago, BB1 said:

It's hard to say what the fair thing to do is. I always tip on these drinks. If you give cash to the waiter, is that fair to the bartender and other support staff?  

I'm not sure about the servers but if I tip a bartender they all put the cash in a common bucket and I make the assumption it is shared by all the bartenders.

23 hours ago, twangster said:

Until you convince all cruise lines to go along none will volunteer to have the appearance of having higher prices.

May be time for some legislation.  Until then it is what it is but I don't disagree with you. 

My concern is cruise line pricing going the way of some of the airlines where any service provided beyond an economy seat on a plane is fee based.  

It is time to roll the increases in salaries into the cruise fare and NOT add on fees.  The marketeers know the low cruise fare is the click bait.

11 hours ago, Reigert2008 said:

Here’s the link from Royal’s site.

 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/notices/travel-updates

To all of those who have asked, "Is my flight home too early?"  This post is for you.  This is a rare occurrence but ships arriving later than planned does happen.  In this extreme case any flight home on Sunday is mute.  On the bright side, given the surge of travelers on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, it might be a blessing.

Another Update:

My optimism for switching to the reposition cruise was unfounded.

We received a call from Celebrity on Tuesday afternoon (11/22) this week telling us our Southern Caribbean cruise had been cancelled and were offered a range of dates we could switch to, all on Silhouette in January - April 8, 2024.  The current pricing and promotions we had booked would be honored as well as an additional $400 OBC for the inconvenience.  I told the caller we couldn't decide right then and we needed to talk it over.  I was told we had until this Friday 11/25 to make the switch with no change fees and they were not working on Thanksgiving.

Our original cabin was Retreat class in a corner aft cabin on Deck 7.  We called back yesterday and were able to move to the March 25, 2024 sailing in a Retreat class corner aft cabin on deck 9.

We are retired so date switch is really no big deal.

27 minutes ago, Mike6453 said:

I try to book on deck 10 or 11 this gives a great view and its not to far  down to the esplanade or up to the pool deck/solarium. I avoid anything near a life boat, just my humble opinion.

We also avoid cabins directly above or below a public space.  We booked directly under the pool deck a few years back and were awakened several time by sounds of deck chairs being dragged above us.  I have read of others whose cabins were directly above or below a nightclub venue and the thumping of the sub-woofers were brutal.

More to add:

I called Celebrity and used their automated system to get a confirmation of our booked sailing sent to us.  I was curious what it would say after logging in finding no information about the current booked cruise.

It now shows this cruise as a 13 Night Western Europe Transatlantic voyage.  We embark on the same date, 4/22/24, from Ft Lauderdale and there are 3 ports of call, all daytime stops, at Bermuda, The Azores and  Cobh, Ireland.  Our final destination is Amsterdam.  There are 9 sea days mixed in.  It shows we are in the same Retreat suite with same price as the original 10 day voyage including all the perks and $800 OBC.  I am intrigued, my wife not so much.  My biggest concern is the weather and temperatures we would encounter in late April into early May in the Atlantic ocean.

A decision to keep it is yet to be made.......   

I read on another forum a posting by an upset passenger that their booking for a Southern Caribbean cruise 4/22/2024 had been changed to repositioning without any notice from Celebrity.  They were able to switch to the earlier April, 2024 Silhouette sailing with the same itinerary.  They we received no notice of the change

We are booked on that same cruise and we have not received any notice either.   I logged in to Celebrity and my reservation ID still exists but there is no cruise details or itinerary shown.  We had booked a Retreat aft Sunset Sky Suite for a great price with an $800 OBC.  It is doubtful we will be able to duplicate that.  When I booked it I had a feeling it was too good to be true...

3 hours ago, PL8SWPR said:

 

Going on our 4th (Jan) and 5th (Oct) cruises in 2023 and first since 2018.  We've never gotten anything beyond the soda package, but are buying the DBP for at least the next one then seeing if we think it's worth it for us before buying for the one after that.

Question is, do the drinks still show up on the stateroom account (but with a $0 charge obviously) to track consumption vs cost of the package?

No they don't give you an itemized list of transactions, just a  summary of charges and credits (like refundable OBC's).  You might inquire what data is presented on a copy of your folio.  If you look at your past cruises on the web it states "Folio available by request at
royalguestrelations@rccl.com
or call 800-256-6649.

"After 7 years, past folios
become unavailable."

I have 1 or maybe 2 questions:

1) Are the drinks included when booking in The Retreat class the same as Premium drink package?

2) If so, the Premium package bottles of wine are offered at a 20% discount plus a 18% gratuity.  Is the gratuity based on the full price for the bottle or on the price of the bottle after the discount? 

TIA

1 hour ago, cruisellama said:

You can make them embarkation day.   Luminae will be open for lunch.   Just tell the maitre'd when you go for lunch.   (Or give him/her a card with your preferences (incl stateroom) when you enter).  We used to make reservations, then found it easier to just float.  Never had an issue getting in.

good to know  Thanks!

We have a cruise on Silhouette in a Retreat class suite.  Do we make reservations for dinner at Luminae after we board or can we make them before the cruise?

3 hours ago, GatorCruiser said:

Solarium bistro was closed my entire march cruise on symphony. I dealt with it. It wasnt soul crushing for me like this allure solarium closure has been for you. I will pray for peace in your heart over this fiasco. 

I hesitate to speak for CanHardlyWait but for me, which venue closed is not the point.  RC advertises and provides photos of all the things to do on their cruise ships.  We pay our money for those things, board their ships then find some are not available.   I will not ask for my money back.  But, the old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you!  Fool me twice, shame on me!" comes to mind.

With that said, I'll find other ways to spend my retirement nest egg.

17 hours ago, Firephotog51 said:

We earned our Diamond status at the end of the first half of our b2b on Mariner. I spoke to the C&A rep on board to verify that we would have our Diamond benefits at the beginning of the 2nd half of the b2b. Our benefits were ready for us as we began the 2nd half of the cruise. Diamond is so much fun w/4 free drinks and the Diamond Lounge.  Enjoy your Diamond benefits. Sail On!

We did the same.  Earned Diamond+ status after cruise 1 of a B2B and the C&A rep gave us new Sea Pass cards on day 1 of 2nd cruise showing our D+ status and the Diamond+ bennies activated.

46 minutes ago, Carlos A. said:

Couldn't agree more

Absolutely agree!  We are NOT the lucky ones.  RC is lucky we choose them over the myriad of other entertainment offerings! 

On 10/28/2022 at 9:30 AM, Sharla said:

The 48 hours thing I don't understand, but that's not what the Best Price Guarantee exactly was- that was after final payment you'd get OBC. That is gone. Price drops still happen all the time, though as the price of cruising gets higher the drops are less and less, but they happen a lot.

I really thought the best prices guarantee was part of the discontinued Cruise With Confidence program. Then we are presented with the 48 hour best price statement when booking.  Yet many folks say repricing is still an option.  I really do not know what to believe!

One of the things that surprises me is the number of guests that settle their on-board account at the end of the cruise with cash.  I am sure there are good reasons for doing so.  I guess I've led a sheltered life.