Peter D

Yes It worked out as I expected. I used the pre-booked reservations to get my spot and then adjusted the pricing when I got on the ship. These days, I've heard there is more functionality available with booking through UDP, so maybe this method is no longer needed.

I always had difficulty getting pricing for Enterprise for a single day use one way rental from MCO to Mullet Road. I have seen it allowed if you are booking for two days.

I have no experience with Bayonne access, but maybe you can reach out to royal caribbean special needs https://www.royalcaribbean.com/resources/guest-special-needs and work out a different means of getting your scooter sooner, or getting a wheelchair usage until rooms are available.

This popped up recently on our Mar 20th Explorer 10 night cruise on day 8. The price was $95.

I think technically you can, but it might have the optics of you sharing your drink package with another. I do not know how Royal keeps track of the drink package drinks to know if someone is sharing it. You might want to get a receipt for every Diamond voucher drink, to prove it was used and not abusing drink package. I plan on do this very thing in May, so it would be good to know if anyone has first hand experience with this.

Yes, you can rent in Orlando and drop off the vehicle at port Canaveral. Several of the rental companies (Budget, Avis and Hertz) are just outside of the port and run shuttles to and from the port from their rental locations. It is also an easy walk with plenty of sidewalks and crosswalks across Astronaut BLVD. When I do it, I drop off my travel party at the port and return the car to Budget. Then I just walk the 1.5 miles back to the cruise terminal. FYI, from a walking perspective, Hertz is the closest but you have to walk past it to the crosswalk to cross over and back track a bit. This all works in reverse as well if you are renting a car from the port to return to MCO (or FLL which I did). FYI If you are renting post cruise, don't tell the rental company that you just got off a cruise if/when they ask. They will try to add a fee to the rental for it. Hope this helps.

Most of those crown and anchor status discounts are applied when purchased while onboard and are discounts off the prevailing onboard pricing. I think most of the time, pre purchasing things on planner is almost always better and/or equivalent to C&A discounts.

yes. Complete the RCL form first, then wait for Royal Caribbean to send you an email from [email protected] stating the request was processed. At that point, you would contact Costco Travel and they will import it into their system, and associated with you membership. FWIW, depending how much effort you (as member) wants to do, if you are traveling with friends and family that do not have Costco membership, they can still transfer the reservation to Costco and you could manage those reservations within your membership account. I do this all the time for my kids and I just 'buy' the Costco Card from them.

You can transfer a Royal Caribbean booking to a travel advisor (i.e. Costco Travel) up to 30 days after creation provide it is outside of final payment and not paid in full. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/direct-booking-transfer . The form you fill out to transfer requires certain Travel agent information. For Costco, you can find that info here. https://costco-travel-us-mbr.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8307/~/transfer-your-cruise-to-costco-travel#RCI The Royal Caribbean side of the transfer takes place quickly. Once you get the confirmation from Royal Caribbean that the transfer is complete, you probably want to contact Costco Travel to have them import it into your membership travel account. You will get the Costco reward card once it is transferred.

At Trunk Bay, there are beach chairs that can be rented from the rental shack (same place that snorkeling equipment is available). I did not use them, so I don't know the costs. There is a food shack and a bar shack that served sandwiches and snacks. Food was good, but kind of expensive. The facilities (bathrooms and showers) were clean and well maintained.

We have done the "St John On Your Own" excursion twice in October and November. In both cases, it is very easy to get on a group taxi from the pier that will take you to Trunk Bay and back. For two of us, the taxi was $9 each (cash only) round trip ($20 incl. a $2 tip) and $5 each (credit only) ($10 total) to enter Trunk Bay. So on top of the 'on your own' cost ~$40-50 pp, which is basically just a ferry ride, you still have to plan for ~$15 pp more to get to Trunk Bay. As for the visit to Trunk bay, October was not crowded , but November (Thanksgiving cruise) was crowded, but very manageable. I am not sure it would be easy to get a private taxi that will take you to Trunk Bay and then Cinnamon Bay, because I think they want to operate as group taxis. Also keep in mind also that you generally only have about ~2 hours on St John under this excursion, which was about 1.5 hours at Trunk Bay. Going to two beaches is probably not feasible, and I think Cinnamon Bay is further away from pier giving you less actual beach time.

Yes We used our Oct Icon card on a Nov Utopia cruise. Further, when we bought a new card for our November Freedom cruise, the cafe crew member giving it to us specifically told us we could use unused coffees on a future cruise.

It is two days value that can be used on an internet package purchase 1 device or multi device. It can be purchased onboard using the app and you do not need to speak to any desk-based representative. All you have to do is log into the wifi from your device. It will prompt you to create a username and password. Then it will prompt what you want to do for a purchase. If you choose 'whole voyage', it will deduct your Diamond + 2 day value off the package price. It prorates as the week goes on so, for example, on a 7 night cruise, if you were to purchase it as soon as you board, it would be 7 day voyage less two days value (net 5 days). If you wait until midnight each day, it goes to next day, 6 day (net 4), 5 day (net 3) etc. until the last two days are free. Note: I do not think you can stack multiple D+ on a single purchase (at least I haven't figured out how).

With very few exceptions, I always wait to buy my single device voom onboard using the 2 free day discount. I use cellular service until departure, go without internet until midnight, and then I purchase after midnight. So in the case of a 3 day cruise, wait until midnight and two free days will cover 'the whole trip'. This approach usually works up to 7 night cruises. Longer ones, YMMV.

Back when Royal attempted Dynamic Dining on Quantum of the Seas, they attempted to do everyday formal with 'The Grande'. It did require a jacket to go there and it didn't last. Years ago, a head waiter told my father 'see you tomorrow evening'. When my father told him that he wasn't coming to dinner due to not dressing up, head waiter told him 'nonsense, come to the dining room, this is your vacation, and dress as you like'. I don't see Royal walking back any of these 'formal' requirements for MDR. On formal or 'dress your best' nights ,I enjoy seeing others that are dressed up. They all look great, I am not really interested in it myself. We did dress up for Empire Supper Club, and I will do it again for something like that. On all other evenings, I pay zero attention to what others are wearing.

When a Royal Caribbean courtesy hold is put on a cruise, RCL system generates a placeholder reservation number with your name on it. You have ~5 days to pay a deposit to finalize the reservation, otherwise the hold expires. If you did not give this travel agent any payment information toward a deposit, you can ignore her and move on. You could create your own separate 'courtesy hold' on a cruise and the hold thing will repeat. If you have a Royal Caribbean web account, you can see courtesy holds as well.

Correct. $2000 per transaction for a maximum of $10000 per calendar day. Unfortunately, it seems that 'subject to change without notice' has just kicked in..... links are no longer showing 20% or 10% discounts....

Good point, they could make up the difference tomorrow in all future cruise fares pricing, if they wanted. Makes it all the better to apply the GC to current bookings, I'd guess. It's too bad they limited me to one discounted GC only. I was prepared to spend $8000 for $10000 in GC.

I did two different credit cards and two different emails. I am pretty certain now we are using nate91 link and that might be why it throttled the purchasing... It is actually kind of irritating that we didn't all get the crown and anchor email notice.

I don't really think the C&A number matters. Though we may have all been buying them all under @nate91 C&A number . The system never asked me for my C&A number. It's $10000 limit purchases per calendar day, but they only allow you to buy a maximum of $2000 per GC.

You can purchase one $2000 GC for $1600 per person. I tried to buy a second, and the system told me I already used the promotion. My wife also bought another $2000 GC for $1600 using her credit card. So if you were to do that, $4000 for $3200 plus an additional $400. $4400 for $3600.

I wonder if they are refundable if you apply them to a cruise and have to cancel your cruise before Final Payment date. The discount might be troublesome in this case. No mention of it in FAQs. Edit after fact. I did go ahead and buy one and apply to future cruise. Travel Agent told me to keep the gift card and if cancellation were to occur, the value would be placed back onto the same gift card.

We had a Jr Suite during mid November cruise on Utopia and the chairs were not zip tied, but the following Thanksgiving cruise on Freedom did have zip ties. I wonder it if also depends on the balcony sizes. The Jr suite balcony was much larger than the Freedom balcony.

Sheesh. it is if you were sitting right next to us on Freedom last week. We had the same experience. Kumar would start the circle of tables around us... and he would swoop in in the same way. one visit to the table became two every night (" Bon Appetit ... I'll come back later") it was a race to finish dinner and escape before he came back..... Easily the worst part of the whole experience.

I was really hoping for an Iceland eclipse itinerary similar to the Celebrity one. Oh well.