Marc

Getting a price adjustment doesn't require canceling and rebooking. You should be able to call and get the new price applied to your booking. Note that you can only do this as long as you are before your final payment date. However, if you had any promotions that went with the original price, you might lose them in the process if they're not currently being offered. It's worth giving them a call and asking.

I guess they didn't want to allocate the days necessary to sail down to one of the "ABC" islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao) which would be necessary to transport passengers legally from one US port to another (otherwise in violation of the Passenger Vessel Services Act) before heading up to New Jersey. Instead, they can go empty in just a few days between the ports and start the normal itineraries from Cape Liberty.

Usually the promotional onboard credit from a sale is not compatible with the "NextCruise" (or whatever they're calling them these days) onboard credit. What is generally combinable is: NextCruise onboard credit Crown & Anchor balcony discount or pricing savings Residency/senior/fire/emt/etc. rates Other things are generally not combinable and would require declining something.

Same here. We had traditionally bought one or two NextCruise bookings to keep on hand for future use, but once they dropped the onboard credit, it became far less valuable. We're currently using up our stash of open bookings. I think we have one left. After that, since we tend to book inside cabins, I'll look into the shareholder benefit instead since that still gives $100 in onboard credit for a 7-night cruise.

I've been busy considering cruises since the schedules were released and have added these two to my upcoming list: October 9, 2016 (Liberty of the Seas) March 4, 2017 (Freedom of the Seas)

I just checked Cruise Planner for my upcoming reservation, and it does say "Get up to 30% onboard credit...", the key being "up to". I'd like to say that I'm surprised that they're not providing the details of this onboard credit promotion, but the truth is that things like this don't really surprise me any longer.

If you book 3 restaurants in advance, you get 20% back in onboard credit. 4 restaurant bookings get you 25%. 5 or more specialty dining bookings get you 30%.

I've been in there twice. We enjoyed it. I made a two years ago. The decorations of the cabin are very cute, and the free ice cream is a real treat. What's really nice is access to the Concierge and the "Cowcierge" Lounge. It's a nice place to relax before dinner with a drink, plus it's great meeting others in the lounge and chatting with them during the week. People have commented that there is frequent, loud noise from a nearby crew door. We didn't notice it two years ago, but last month, we did finally figure out what people were talking about. It's a service door in the Ben & Jerry's shop. We could hear it, but it wasn't loud enough to disturb us. I thought it was actually quieter than hearing an adjacent cabin door close.

You're right. $12 for a Bloody Mary doesn't make sense, especially when you compare it to a Long Island Iced Tea that I had last month which was $10.

The Coca-Cola logo is for the soda package only. Since you said "drinks", I'm assuming you bought one of the more inclusive packages. Those are only represented by stickers.

Non-alcoholic drinks should be much cheaper than $12. From what I saw on Independence of the Seas last month, most of the menu for alcoholic drinks were $10-12 each (depending on the particular bar menu I was looking at), but I seem to recall that the listed fancy, non-alcoholic drinks (think "mocktails") were $7.

With the single exception of the one time one of our bags was held in the "naughty room" because it had a bottle of wine in it that needed to be verified that it was, indeed, wine, our bags have been delivered to the cabin by 4:30 PM. Now, that said, the official promise for delivery is 8 PM. The main dining room doesn't enforce their dress suggestion on the first night because they do expect that some people may not have received their luggage in time. Of course, it is just a "dress suggestion", so it's not enforced on other nights either. :)

There is a slight advantage to purchasing the soda package in advance. Instead of getting a sticker on your card, you'll have the Coca-Cola logo printed in the corner of the card. This is beneficial in that it won't accidentally get washed off if you get the SeaPass wet (like swimming with it in your pocket). Also, if you need to get a replacement SeaPass, the Coca-Cola logo will be printed on it again automatically, so you won't need to get a replacement sticker to show that you've got the package.

I passed by three casinos when walking along the entire Front Street. One was Rouge et Noir Casino, and another was nearly across the street from it. These two were somewhat in the middle of the length of the street, going to the left after getting off the water taxi. The third was way down at the far end (closest to the cruise ship piers).

Yes, as long as you own at least 100 shares you can, but... followed by a whole long list of exceptions. The details are listed on this page. The shareholder onboard credit benefit is not combinable with pretty much anything else Royal Caribbean might give you including NextCruise (onboard booking) onboard credit or Crown & Anchor balcony or general savings discounts. The benefit gives you: If you find that the onboard credit benefit is more than what you're getting from Royal Caribbean elsewhere, it should be possible to decline the booking benefit and take the shareholder onboard credit instead.

Most ships have completely abandoned the midnight buffet. I have seen it in the past few years on Majesty of the Seas as we sailed out of Nassau, and it's possible that Enchantment of the Seas might do it, too, since they have very similar itineraries. The rest of the fleet, however, doesn't typically have a midnight buffet.

It's my understanding that the rebate part of the program will continue until sometime in March 2016. So, I'm expecting a rebate from this cruise that would be theoretically in addition to the "free" cruise that I "won".

I miss the old drink menus. I don't like the new menus that only have one page of drink suggestions and there are no longer prices listed on the menus. (Some menus did have prices listed, but they were replacing them during my cruise last week with new menus that had the prices removed.) Base prices for most of the listed drinks were $10, and in some venues, they had a different list of drinks and those were $12.

I agree with you. I sailed with NCL once thanks to a local casino's free cruise offer with NCL, and from that cruise, I earned a comped cruise in a balcony cabin that I'm using on the new Norwegian Escape next year. Plus, NCL's current promotion is also giving us free beverage packages so we can get free drinks anywhere on the ship! With Royal Caribbean's Club Royale, only once did I have a rebate high enough to pay for a cruise. Most of the time, it's just a few hundred dollars.

I'm also a Club Royale member, and I just returned from a cruise on Independence of the Seas. The new program appears to be trickling out already. Toward the end of the cruise, I was approached by the casino host who told me that I had "won" (a poor choice of words) a free cruise due to my play that week. On the last night, I picked up the certificate and I was quite disappointed. It's not a good offer, in my opinion. It has a list of about thirty cruises (mostly 3/4-night cruises on Majesty or Enchantment and a few on Adventure or Jewel out of San Juan) over the next three months from which to choose (or $700 toward any other cruise of my choice in that same period). This "free" (pay taxes, gratuities, etc.) cruise must be booked within just two weeks of receiving the certificate. Although the extant Club Royale program has its benefits, I believe that NCL's Casinos at Sea program is better geared toward the casino cruiser.

You may want to browse the Cruise Compasses that Matt has on this site to get a rough idea of what kinds of things are included and what's extra charge. The extra charge items will be listed with ($) in the description. Specifically relevant to Anthem of the Seas, North Star, Ripcord by iFly, and bumper cars should all be available for free to some degree, however you may be able to pay for extra time or private sessions.

As I discovered on my last cruise, Giovanni's Table doesn't accept reservations for lunch. My group of 20+ people descended on Giovanni's Table immediately after boarding to get in line early so we could sit together. They put together a couple large tables for us.

From what's been said above, it seems that Royal Caribbean does all onboard charging in US dollars. Your onboard account will be shown in US dollars. When you fill out your SetSail Pass (as part of your online checkin), there is a checkbox whether Royal Caribbean will convert your onboard account's balance to your domestic currency or charge you in US dollars and let your bank handle the conversion.

Thank you very much for saying this. I've wondered about that. Do you find that there is much of an impediment to local cruisers to have their onboard expenses in a foreign currency in terms of either handling it through their banks (probably not) or otherwise understanding the cost after applying their exchange rate?

It looks as though it's Jerome Sueur.