Al Miller

On 9/15/2023 at 9:00 PM, Jill said:

Be very careful Royal because a lot of people who swore they were “Loyal to Royal” are starting to raise eyebrows and considering the competitors who will match status. 

Yeah it might be a real smart move for the other big lines to institute a status match program for a few months while Royal keeps pushing loyalists away. Interesting times...

Being a theme park person originally, The Gift and Spectra's impress me as just higher production value theme park revue shows. (Not higher than Disney's, I would imagine) I get it if people think they want to get what the "Story" is in The Gift. And it IS just an excuse to perform pop songs and use neat stage props. I loved it as a performance and really don't care about the "Story." It's not that kind of show.

We Will Rock You is easy enough to understand, but is leagues more "Silly" and nonsensical than any other show on the ship. But people have less problems accepting it I guess.

People's insistence that they cant follow Spectra's "story" mystifies and annoys me. It has "Cabaret" in the title. a Cabaret show is just a series of singing, dancing and sometimes comedy or variety acts usually hosted by a performer who may also sing or dance. There is NO story. There usually is not even a theme. Folks are spending so much effort to follow a story that is not there.

I feel like they need to change the sign on the screens during the pre-show to "Spectra's Cabaret: There is no story line. Please stop stressing about it and enjoy the performances."

15 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

Because it was originally touted as included.

Thank you Mr Liberty! I expected nothing less.

Honestly, I barely see the draw here. Other than cool cabanas, which you have to pay extra for anyway, why would you voluntarily pay extra for this?

56 minutes ago, CanHardlyWait said:

I gotta say $40 is the going rate for real good themed escape rooms on land these days.

The Royal ones previewed online look like they'd be fun, but not nearly as elaborate as what I've participated in on land. $20 seemed fair. But at $40 you've opened yourself to a land value comparisons. Anyone whose done both, feel free to correct me, but while the Royal ones look nice, they don't quite seem to be on the same level as a $40 land based escape room.

It's pretty cheap to park at the terminal relative to Bayonne or New York. $15/day.

Just noticed this. What a crock or you know what. Just one more way they will not be getting my money. I really hope Mr. Liberty enjoys his short term success in getting in the black. Cause overall, in the next few years he is getting thousands less of my money. I have three sailings booked with RC right now and I am pretty sure that other than 5 or 6 beers during a week, they will be getting zero on-board spend from me. I used to spend a couple of hundred bucks up to a thousand on-board per sailing. But now they get none. No Casino... nothing.

I've seen this before. My TA Told me it was because they had very specific promotions with restrictions like "No solo bookings." I'm on Oasis next month with one of those deals. Booked it a year ago. Inside cabin. $1900 solo total. $1400 total for two. And I'll get a little over $200 back in port fees and taxes.

I really love quantum class ships. for me the Seaplex, Northstar, IFly and 270 are awesome.

Wrong! It's comical at this point.

https://www.cruisehive.com/new-charge-spotted-for-cookies-on-celebrity-cruises-ship/109334

On 8/21/2023 at 5:37 PM, smokeybandit said:

You're not missing much. By far the most overhyped thing about cruise dining.

Yeah, it's terrible quality, minuscule lobster tails. For included, it is okay. But for $16 it's WAAAY overpriced. I can get better tails from my local Acme for $8-$12 right now.

On 8/22/2023 at 10:25 PM, AJSteele said:

I am disappointed it isn’t offered every night.

Get used to that feeling.

I wonder if Mr. Bailey is self aware enough to realize that the outrage was not purely driven by this survey question, but was a symptom of the growing negative perception of his brand in the last 9 or 10 months by its most ardent supporters. It was simply the straw that threatened to break the camels back. There was a time not that long ago when this survey question would not be given much credence by the faithful on the boards here. "Ehh... It's just a survey question. Don't freak out" is what I'm sure most would have said. But at this point in time, we have been conditioned to absolutely not give them any benefit of the doubt when it comes to price hikes and service reductions. That trust seems mostly gone. They've squandered it. And once their balance sheets look a little better in a few years, they may have trouble getting that trust back.

That's a great rate. You are not booking anywhere near that on a Quantum ship out of NJ right now. More like 4 grand. And it gets worse once Odyssey comes in '25. So for equivalent experience, prices are way, way up. And that's not even accounting for nearly all Coco Cay fees skyrocketing. Speciality dining and dining packages higher than ever. The value is just not there right now IMO. You obviously feel differently. But they are not getting any more of my money for now. Well see how things shake out over the next 6 months.

15 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

You do not get to be "wealthy" to sail Royal Caribbean but you do need to look for different ships and not the newest ships that's all. NCL is much more expensive that Royal Caribbean these days. 

Maybe our definition of wealthy is different. But if I have to downgrade to a 20-30 year old ship in order to pay the same or more as an Excel class ship on Carnival, then the value proposition does not hold up for me. I've always been willing to pay a little more for what I feel is a better experience than the other lines. Especially on ships less than 10 years old. But not double or triple. Royal is damaging their reputation as the happy medium between value and quality IMO.

Royal is definitely NOT the place for "Good Deals" with current leadership in place. Lately, when friends ask me about cruising, I tell them to avoid Royal for the time being unless they are wealthy. Never thought it would come to this but here we are.

2 hours ago, Carlos A. said:

This is exactly like the Disney's Bob Chapek debacle...

How is it, that even with that huge example right in front of their face, they refuse to see they are going down the same road? SMH... As good as their product may or may not still be, it still mainly survives by the good will of the customers. And they just do not seem to value us anymore.

It used to seem like "How can we make our experience so good, that they will want to choose us over the competition? Even if it costs a little more." Lately it comes across as more like "We've got them on the hook. Now how can we milk them for the most dollars possible?"

Of the big 3 lines Royal already has the absolute poorest non MDR/Buffet complementary offerings. And that is WITH Sorrentos. What would they be trying to prove by taking that away? That their cruisers are the dumbest at sea and will put up with anything? They make me feel dumber all the time when this stuff keeps happening.

1 hour ago, teddy said:

Charging for Sorrento’s pizza would be a relatively small thing I guess..

I agree. Problem is it would be one more thing in the litany of service cuts, price increases, and general degradation of the cruise product over a short amount of time.

37 minutes ago, fireclan said:

Wow. I mean, we're only talking about "okay" pizza.

I know right? They already took the Anti-Pasti away. Scaled the WJ way back. Gutted the MDR menu. Rolled back cleaning service. Doubled or tripled nearly every fee on Coco Cay. That mostly all happened the first month after Fain stepped down. I could have understood this stuff more when the restart first happened and they were actually just barely getting by. But it seemed like Fain was trying to protect the product. Now, it seems nothing is off limits and they are testing the waters to see how much they can get away with. It's a slippery slope.

Record earnings! Best quarter ever! You hear this and you think "Whew!" Maybe now they can stop the death by a thousand cuts that is killing my desire to book anything new. Nope! Let's see how fast and how far they can gut the core experience.

This company under Mr. Liberty has me very much questioning my loyalty to cruising in general. They are going to keep pushing this and in five years they are going to wonder why all the repeat business has dried up.

On 8/6/2023 at 8:25 AM, smokeybandit said:

Casting just requires two devices to be on the same wifi network

Depends on the type of cast tech being used. Miracast, which is what most of the TV's I've dealt with use, does not require either device to be on a Wifi network. ( https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/miracast )It uses the old Wi-Di tech that Microsoft bought from intel. It's currently baked into windows 10 onward and most android devices support it in a limited capacity. I cant speak to Apple devices.

13 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

You cannot watch anything that streams without wifi purchased through the ship. Unless you are a millionaire and will pay to use cellular at sea. The TV channels are free.

They may be considering playing back downloaded movies. That would not need Internet and most of the streamers have some sort of download option these days.

If you still live nearby the county where she was born, you can usually buy an official, raised seal copy of her birth certificate. Walk in, walk out. At least you can in Maryland.

My brother forgot and left his carry on bag in Sorrentos on embarkation day. We stopped at Sorrentos first thing. Then did our muster and ate at the WJ. Got a beer at the pub. As we were making our way to the cabin for the first time, it struck my brother that he left his carry on somewhere. He was going to go back to Sorrentos and/or guest services after we went to our room. But lo and behold, there was his carry-on on the bed. Since it had a luggage tag on it, the crew just delivered it to our room. He had a laptop, passport and some cash in there and it all arrived just fine. Really great service.

One of the things that drew me to cruising is that modularity that Matt mentioned. You can make your vacation as "Fancy" and expensive as you want to/can afford too. Of course that only goes so far. There are still cheaper vacations out there. But for what you get for your dollar, it's still hard to beat cruising. And I have found that the thrill I get when I find a super great deal and book it to be very satisfying.