NoobCruise

14 hours ago, BennyandBo said:

I have straps that connect multiple bags together by handles so I can pull on wheels 2 large bags at once. 

Thanks for the info and that is a good idea about the bag straps.

This reminds me. Has anyone used the "My Vegas Slots" app for any royal caribbean discounts.? It appears you can fairly easilly earn a 10% discount.

also Foxboro Forever!

The first cruise I booked I think I received $50 OBC with no travel agent. The next cruise with a travel agent it will be $75 OBC.  While waiting to book on NEXT CRUISE onboard might not always be a good idea since you can miss sales and early discounts you WILL get more OBC. So I think I will be taking that approach moving forward.

31 minutes ago, BennyandBo said:

11:30 isn't too bad, but I wouldn't stop for breakfast. When are you traveling and how many adults, children in party?

It's a wonder cruise starting Feb 26th. We have 1 five year older and 1 overpacking wife. I plan on Ubering because I want to arrive when I want to arrive on embarkation day but I am scared with disembarkation. I spent 45 minutes standing on a curb waiting for an uber on our first cruise when we got off in NJ.  We did got off the ship as late as possible and didn't have a flight to catch.

6 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

I would suggest no earlier than 12pm. 

 

This is horrible news as we have an 11:30am flight. I guess we will skipping breakfast and self disembarking as early as possible.

I went on Oasis in May of 2022 and never saw Pickle Ball in the daily briefing. There definetly aren't pickelall courts but I would assume they re-perpose basketball courts as tennis and pickle ball courts. I never saw it but I would assume that has changed since there has been a seachange in pickleball interest. 

We are excited to have booked all our entertainment for for our upcoming Wonder of the Seas cruise in about 45 days. I think I remember watching a Ben and David video about the show "Voices" and they kind of panned the show for being a little tone deaf. All of that aside is this appropreaite for a 5 year old to watch. I think they mentioned not liking stock footage of famon or droughts. I certainly don't want to shelter my child but I also don't want to have to explain why I sat him down to watch the news on a cruise vacation.

Once your cruise is paid for and final payment has been made (without pre-paying gratuities) can you pay them before you sail? I am not seeing the option to pay them in the "plan my cruise" section of the website.

Has anyone taken an Uber or Lyft after a Sunday morning disembarking at Orlando port Canaveral recently. Our last cruise ended Sunday morning at Cape liberty NJ and getting an Uber was nothing short of a disaster. Multiple Uber cancelations. 45+ minutes waiting for anyone to show up. The Uber driver that finally did pick us up explained that not a lot of drivers want to work Sunday morning hence the shortage of drivers. We weren't in a rush anywhere so it wasn't a problem but in Orlando we are flying that day and a hour long wait for an Uber would certainly be more problematic. Thanks for any recent experiences.

Thanks for the response. Another question is the $20 al la carte per person or per state room. So if my wife and I went to playmakers and I only ordered wings & whatever for less than $20. Would she be able to go to another al la carte restaurant for lunch and order her $20?

Does the 20$ per venue reflect the new changes to the unlimited dining package?

Can we have $20 early lunch at playmakers and then a $20 late lunch at mason jar or port side bbq?

Any hotel suggestions for Orlando?  We are flying in on a Saturday and setting sail on Sunday. This is next year not this weekend

Thank you all for your feedback. Very helpful. My takeaways...

If your cruise is cancelled or there is another global pandemic having a trustworthly and hardworking TA can be very helpful. In my 30 years of adulting I have never changed a flight or changed a vacation once. I have had flights cancelled on me and it stands to reason that having a cruise cancelled is a lot more problemeatic than a flight because when flights are callencelled it usulally means you are leaving later that day or the next morning. I certainly don't need to gel with a TA when I already know the exact date, ship, itinerary, and cabin number of the next cruise I want to go on. Maybe if I ever stop enjoying researching ships, and destinations this could be very helpful. Alerting me to when sales begin and end and how often they happen could be very helpful. Explaing to me the difference between balcony room type 1D or 3D could be very helpful. I still don't know that.  Customer service is important. When I used Cruises online last time and I tried to change my dining time from 8pm to 5:30. I called cruises, got someone on the phone without much effort and changed it to 5:30pm EXCEPT when we got on the ship it was still 8pm!  Turns out we liked 8pm better but if we didn't that would have stunk because when we tried to change in on the ship they couldn't do it unless we wanted a different table every night.

If the price changes and you don't check the prices some TA will do it for you but most big ones won't. Thanks Wordell1 for letting me know that MEI will do it automatically. That is huge. This seems like the most important TA attribute to me.  With that said I do check the prices of drinkpackages, dining packages, etc almost everyday already myself but pricing out cruises is a lot more difficult. I only did it a few times on our first cruise. 

I learned that all the prices displayed online have to be the same as RCL, unless group bookings. Two things I didn't know before this post. Thanks.

And thank you devils advocate Crimson Cruiser (Roll Tide!) for letting me know about cruisesnmore. That is great a great extra. Turns out last cruise using Cruises I only got $50 OBC (although I thought it was more) and a $50 virtual gift card which I only noticed this week when I started researching this topic. A tentative booking with Harr will give me with $75 OBC and it looks like Cruisesnmore with give me $270. Not a small difference.

I don't want this to be a best travel agent flame war but I am pricing out a Wonder of the Seas cruise in Feb 2023. Traditionaly I have never used travel agents because I thought they would cost money or certainly not save money. We went on our first cruise this year on Oasis of the seas and loved it. I priced it out on Royal Carridean site and one or two other sites online and ended up buying it on cruises dot com becuase it had more extras like on board credit.  Is it known that certain travel agents or travel agents websites tend to off better extras, since the prices tend to be the same, like more on board credits?

I know you can't buy the drink package just for the last couple sea days of a cruise, but that is exactly my plan with the wifi. I have free international data on my phone so I expect to be connected for 2 of the 3 ports on my upcoming Oasis 7 day cruise. But the last two days are sea days which I won't be connected.

Can I buy the WiFi package on day 5? 

Why does it appear there are no pre cruise sales on spa treatments?

Are there ways to get discounts?

The prices say per day but is it per night?

Are you paying 8 days for a 7 night cruise?