jbrinkm

Yep - this was what I was reading about checking the balance, LOL!

We're on Allure although your comment definitely makes me want to lean towards cancel the planner credits and (maybe after we check it out) book on the ship!

Has anyone had experience recently with the arcade, and using credits? I've been reading stories on the boards that are all over the place with regards to: having problems with credits, having problems checking the balance, having problems with spending limits at the arcade, etc. I pre-purchased the sale credits in the Planner for my teens ($40 for $50 worth of credit). I also see the most recent C&A onboard offer for teens is 'buy $50 worth of arcade credit and get $25 back' so that seems like a better deal if it is easily redeemed and maybe I should cancel my planner purchase. Has anyone successfully used this C&A deal? Did you get the credit, either applied to balance or refunded back to card at the end of the cruise? I'm also wondering if minors can still override daily spending limits on their cards by purchasing at the arcade? Any recent experience with this? And current practice for checking arcade credit balance?

You are absolutely correct and I apologize. I misread it. I just somehow skipped over the word "not". I went back and edited my statement (thank goodness for the edit button!!). It is in lieu of testing in some situations...

I've never flown on Spirit but have extensive experience with Frontier, and I can tell you that this is new on Frontier. Maybe they are trying to align with Spirit policies as part of the merger. We've ALWAYS had a 50lb limit on our checked bags for the past 4-5 years we've flown almost exclusively on Frontier. And, it says "new" right on my email (see above...) Frontier also always has charged for phone bookings but we've gotten our boarding passes at the gate before (we had them on our phones but I guess they wanted us to have paper copies?...) with no charge. I'm not as certain about that one because we almost always check in ahead of time, but we've also freely used the gate agents with no thought of being charged. I don't remember ever seeing this message on any of my prior confirmed flight emails.

Royal is allowing a "Certificate of Recovery" - limited - for people who are not vaccinated but have proof of having had the virus from 11-90 days before cruising. Not debating what immunity means, just making sure people know this exists. (but boarding with a Certificate of Recovery does not allow for disembarkation at some ports due to local laws) https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/if-recovered-from-covid-19-need-to-be-vaccinated-or-take-a-test-to-sail (I MISREAD THE POLICY - I APOLOGIZE AND AM CROSSING THIS OUT DUE TO MY ERROR! The policy refers to testing, not vaccination.) And - if you do a search for whether the vaccines reduce/lower the spread, you will find information from many reputable sources (universities, health organizations, etc. - (I won't name/link them all here but the information is widely available). It is different than stopping the spread, as you say, but reduction of spread may still be a goal the ships want to try achieve.

Back to complain about Frontier again... I just looked through our new flight confirmation email and there are two new pieces of information that really stink. First, it looks like they are set to charge people for USING AN AGENT AT THE AIRPORT. They happily confirm that I have "No Pre-Purchased Airport Agent Assistance" for checking my luggage. Talk about nickel-and-diming! And, secondly, they are limiting checked bags to 40lbs. Neither of those things were true when I bought my ticket but I'm really glad I decided to buy the bundle that gives us each a checked AND a carry on bag this time. I anticipate that we'll be using more carry on bags than we intended to make up for the lost weight in the checked bags...

OK, @smokeybandit, you and I are in the same boat. I DEFINITELY shouldn't have said anything good about Frontier earlier and tempted the flight gods. DH and I just spent an agonizing 6 hours yesterday trying to get on the phone with Frontier to fix our flight. We booked a non-stop and I just checked the app to see our exact flight time and it was switched to a connecting flight that would not have gotten us there in time for the cruise. They eliminated the direct flight and put us on a connecting one WITHOUT TELLING US. Luckily we have another airport within 30 minutes of us and there was still a direct flight there that worked for us, but getting a representative on the phone was extremely difficult and frustrating. I think we could have switched to a flight the day before from the same airport by going online without a fee but we would have had to leave at 5am the day before and added a hotel cost. (Please don't tell me the reasons not to fly on the day of the cruise. I know the arguments & risk but we made the best decision we could with our circumstances). Since we needed to switch airports, we called customer service. On hold 45 minutes (not bad actually, I thought it would be longer!). Told the rep my problem but before I could tell him the solution I had already discovered, he quickly said he would put me on hold to look into it. Thirty minutes later, I started getting announcements in Spanish (I don't speak Spanish well, just a few survival phrases). Then 10 minutes after that, someone answered the phone again, but in Spanish. I told her I'm sorry but I don't speak Spanish and she asked in English how she could help me. I told her that I've actually been on hold for a different representative who was helping me but I'm not sure what happened to him. She said OK and hung up on me. So I went through the process again, waited a while, got hung up on as soon as they answered. My husband and I BOTH then called again to get on hold to double our chances. He got connected - I kept getting busy signals or nonstop ringing - and he got hung up on when they put him on hold to check on flights. I finally got through and he got through again - both of us were on hold, his picked up first and he was able to actually make the change this time, although it took almost an hour (I was still on hold this whole time) and they wanted to charge us the flight difference to change airports and we had to tell them that we shouldn't be charged when Frontier made the change without notifying us. They had to transfer us to a different department at that point and we just white-knuckled our way through the hold music, hoping we wouldn't get disconnected again. It worked out this time, we were able to make the switch (whew) but have kind of lousy seats now. I know that is a small thing, but irritates me because I booked our flights early the first time and paid for seats and got really, really good seats at the front where we could get off quickly. Now we're split up towards the back.

This! I tend to also put the life jackets under the bed - I shove the suitcases way under, towards the back, and put the life jackets right on the edge for easy access - and use the shelves in the closet for clothes. (I put the life jackets back at the end of the cruise.) Attached is what our closet ends up looking like.

Our process is not very exciting... We still have kids in school, so we first look at Royal cruises sailing during one of their breaks. We like Royal with kids, although we cruised Princess, Celebrity and Carnival before we had them. Then we try to price the whole thing out to start comparing - including flights. We like to go from Ft. Lauderdale and Miami because of (usually) lower cost flights and more options, but we'll also check out alternate ports, just in case. We're within easy driving distance of the NY/NJ/Baltimore ports but tend to not like those because we want to spend more time in warm sun when we've on vacation. If we find more than one that fits our date & price criteria, we think about the itinerary and what we want to do during the vacation, and choose between them. Et voila! For our upcoming cruise, we first booked on a Radiance Class ship because the Oasis class ship we were eyeing was just too expensive. I had some small concern about the level of activities on the ship but it was a port-heavy cruise and I thought we wouldn't be on the ship enough for the kids to get bored if there weren't many other teens to hang out with or activities to do onboard. But then I started seeing all of the problems with island ports - this was back in January - and got really nervous that we'd be stuck on a ship that the kids would hate and took another look at our first option. I guess I got really lucky because the price on that one had come WAY down and we were able to get two connecting balcony rooms for the same price on the Oasis class as we paid for the two connecting balcony rooms on the Radiance Class (although the Radiance Class would have been for two additional days of cruising) and the ports on that one were not cancelling/changing at all. So it was an easy switch to make and I'm sure my teens will be very happy on our first Oasis class cruise! We also alternate vacations - we usually only cruise every 3-4 years, when we want to go to the Caribbean, and take other vacations . We've done Disney/Universal and other places in the U.S., as well as land-based Europe trips, so the Caribbean cruise stops haven't gotten overdone for us and we're pretty much open to most cruises that fit the timing/pricing criteria.

My favorite of the reef safe sunscreens for body is ThinkSport brand. It seems to spread better than some of the other zinc-based ones. I use the Environmental Working Group ("EWG") ratings to research safety - the same group that does the "dirty dozen" and "clean fifteen" food lists (i.e. pesticides). I've used a LOT of different brands of zinc-based, safe sunscreen on my kids because I was pretty nervous about putting nanoparticle technology on them when they were young - which is what many of the mainstream brands use now - before there was much research on it. For my face, which is very sensitive, the ONLY sunscreen I can use without irritation is Juice Beauty (says tinted, but you can get sheer). It is expensive so I only use it on my face. Might be good for those of you who are sensitive on upper chest/lower neck too! I will sometimes use Neutrogena ultra-sheer dry touch for myself (not my face) because I'm very, very fair skinned and it is easier to reapply if I've already been in the water or I'm near sand. I do prefer and try to use physical means to block sun whenever possible - tents/umbrellas, hats, SPF coverings. Also, someone on another thread recommended this site: https://savethereef.org/about-reef-save-sunscreen.html Some of the sunscreens I'm seeing people recommend on here as "reef safe" have chemicals that are very much NOT reef safe, so please double check. The term "reef safe" is not regulated here and some of these might be rejected on one of the islands.

Check on room service once you're on the ship, as well. Some sailings have been offering the full American breakfast with no room service charge (just whatever you'd tip) to reduce crowding in Windjammer. It varies ship to ship, sailing to sailing.

I noticed that it seemed to be getting harder and harder to schedule at a pharmacy (CVS & Walgreens included) locally near me, as well as fewer public clinics. I was hoping to use the free option for my April cruise, but as soon as my fake "bookings" started showing no days/times available, I went ahead and ordered the tests through the Royal link. The cost difference does really stink, even if I get reimbursed from insurance for the $12 we're supposed to get back - plus having to go through the paperwork to submit it.

I know Boardwalk Donuts has them for free on Allure but I read that they are only available in the mornings for as long as they have them (when they're gone, they're gone). I plan to send the family member who rises early to go pick some up for us once or twice on our April cruise...

An update - my check in went smoothly with no problems. I was able to check all of us in at the same time using the app!

As of right now, looks like full American breakfast will still be complimentary on my April Allure sailing...

I fell in love with snorkeling the first time I was in Cozumel. In Costa Maya, our whole family loved (and were a bit scared by, in a good way) the water/zipline park - Maya, The Lost Kingdom. It is currently closed but maybe will be open by May...

Although... I found a Social Feed (teen newsletter) from Oasis - October 2021 - that shows teens as 13-17 https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/oasis-of-the-seas/sun-10242021-0000 Not sure if this indicates the club age or is totally separate... What ship are you thinking about (or booked on)? Maybe someone on that particular ship can check for you?

Most are 12, but I believe that there are some ships where is is 13 (I can't remember which class...). We're sailing Allure in April and I know it starts at 12, so Oasis class are probably all 12.

Following!

I have no idea & cannot answer your question, but I am very amused at the description!

Wait - when do you get your SeaPass card? Don't you get it when you check in? I can't remember anything from when we last cruised in 2017...

@SpeedNoodles is awesome! Sorry I can't help answer the question about the emails, although you made me curious about whether or not I got confirmation emails. We've purchased two things, and only got a confirmation for one of them (the coffee card...). I did NOT get a confirmation for the VOOM packages. And it isn't super easy to print the confirmation from the website - they don't give you a typical receipt or invoice or PDF. I just took a screenshot of the screen and then added that picture to my folder.

When I looked back at older Cruise Compasses for Allure, they had both a family comedy show one night (regular ship comedians just doing a "clean" show in the main theater) AND a special entertainer that was a sort of juggler/comedian that was family friendly. I was hoping for at least just one of those. My 12 year old son is not going to want to sit through Mamma Mia vs other stuff on the ship and we'll see if we can get him to either the ice or the aqua show (aqua might be possible...).

Heard back from my TA - she did it for us when she booked but didn't mention it. She just assumed (accurately) that we (parents) wanted the beds together and the kids wanted them separate. She also said that she would put in the request for extra blankets but don't count on it and just ask the attendant if we don't have them.