monorailmedic

Apple Watches, WOW bands...you just like wrist decorations.

As everyone has mentioned - pretty much everywhere, but there can be exceptions. If you run into an exception, know that it may very well be the case, be polite and understanding, but I wouldn't hesitate to question it. For example, on Freedom we were initially told that only one or two of the Sabor margaritas were included with the package - until Annette was kind enough to speak with management and explain that most of us had been to Sabor on other ships, and the margaritias were always covered. Suddently the rules changed. I always default to the explanation in the beverage package documentation (though who knows what the latest and greatest is) where it said that all alcoholic drinks were covered up to $12 ($13 on some ships) and that you'd simply pay the difference (w/ Premium or Ultimate at the time, now Deluxe) if you wanted something that cost more. We did this with several scotches.

Based on Murphy's Law, I'd saw that itineraries I'm looking for will come out February 27th, when I can no longer book them abord our Navigator group cruise. This is why I always book extra sailings while on board.

The bands DCL uses appear to be identical to the Magic Bands used in WDW. I'd very much like to get ahold of one and tie it to my WDW Annual Pass. Alas, they don't sell them, and look at you strangely when you ask.

If the bands have only NFC they need to be too close to transponders to know who is in what areas of the ship. I'm not sure the technology behind them. In Walt Disney World for example, Magic Bands have both NFC and longer range transponders (like toll systems use), and I'm confident they do watch crowd movements in that way. As far as MOB uses go, these technologies wouldn't be able to locate someone in that way. The basic idea with these systems is that if a given transponder is within range of a given station that is all it knows (in other words, your band is in the MDR because the MDR station sees it.

Unless something has changed in the last day or so, Kayla is correct. I'm not aware of any immidiate plans to expand the use of WOW Bands. I'm sure it will happen at some point, but haven't heard rumors of plans or testing.

As far as I know anything that you book before your sailing is charged ahead of time and thus not applied towards any OBC you may have. Perhaps there is some exception I'm not aware of. Do you have enough OBC that you don't think it will be used up? If you haven't prepaid gratuities that can go towards your OBC, as well as drinks purchased on board (if you didn't get a drink package ahead of time), shore excursions, merchandise onboard, etc.

Quite easily, it should only take a couple of minutes. They'll generally provide maps on teh ship if you want them, but they're also available in the port building you walk through as you enter the city. Further there are many friendly police officers that will be glad to point you in the right direction.

This did indeed occur at the South Pointe Park Pier, which is the jetty you see on the port side as you sail out of Port of Miami.

Absolutely, check the link below: http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/bahamas/british-colonial-hilton-nassau-NASHIHH/attractions/cruiseship-info.html

We started cruising DCL because we love Disney parks and films. Plain and simple. We'd cruised many other criuse lines before (and continue to), but DCL was a blast. I think we've done it 7 or 8 times now but the price just became too high recently. RCCL is a good bargain for my money, not the only cruise line out there, but a good value and great experience.

If you booked through a travel agent he or she may be able to take care of it for you. The back-end is the same, but if just the user interface is borked they'll be able to take care of it.

As Jerel mentioned, on the Allure there were several agents from MEI, including Annette who is the Operations Manager for MEI. While it isn't yet clear which agents will be on board the Harmony group cruise, what I can tell you is that your agent (in this case, John) will handle the details for your booking. A bit before the sailing you'll likely get something from MEI, possibly Annette, confirming certain details. Prior to the sailing, while you correspond with John for any needs you have, Annette and others on the team will ensure that dining arrangements are made, group activities are organized, etc. The agent(s) onboard the sailing have everyone's booking info and are there to help with any issues, special arrangements, etc - and of course help organize any group activities. I hope this clarifies things a bit. Let me know if you have any other questions. It really is a team effort, and MEI works hard to make it easy.

We had these drink package adverts/menus on Freedom, though the R Bar, Oilve or Twist, Boleros, and the Bull & Bear still had their classic menus in addition to the new ones.

I failed to keep a copy of the disembarkation literature from last week's sailing, but perhaps someone else has it. If I recall the earliest departue time was about 0700. Keep in mind however that customs and weather delays can delay this, so I'd be hesitant to book a flight based on this. Also note that the backup at customs was significant (though perhaps being off early would make this less of an issue). You can bypass much of the line by hiring a porter.

They used dollar signs in all the pricing... "Cost: from $55/day" Now it doesn't say "USD" so it could in theory be a different dollar, but GBPs would be represented as £, and Euros (which the UK has never used) as €.

You saw that on a list other than the one on this thread?

Fair enough. Not sure which reference you're making to WaaayTooo but I can imagine. I certainly shouldn't celebrate before reaching the endzone, but they never even mentioned those scotches anywhere on their site before so I'll take any little bit of hope I can get :-) https://www.google.com/search?q=%22laphroaig%22+site%3Aroyalcaribbean.com&oq=%22laphroaig%22+site%3Aroyalcaribbean.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.12548j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22laphroaig%22+site%3Aroyalcaribbean.co.uk&oq=%22laphroaig%22+site%3Aroyalcaribbean.co.uk&gs_l=serp.3...899.2121.0.2297.4.4.0.0.0.0.161.553.0j4.4.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..0.0.0.r_CvHD5L9Rg

First thought was that I was surprised they didn't change to the way X handles packages. Then I noticed the list of options which was way larger, and found this under scotches! Laphroaig 10 yr Talisker 10 yr Lagavullin 16 yr Adberg 10 yr So, no idea if this is for UK sailings only or anything like that (but it's in USD, soooo?) but thrilled to see these scotches on the list.

Seems odd, as we had fine coverage in the Western Carribean on Allure, and plenty of others have based on their scopes. Hmm. I wonder if the gains seen on that ship with the older tech are because of un-throttling whatever was being done previously.

Like I said, when something isn't working right, that's one thing. It strikes me that even when ships aren't seeing the more common (and very fast) Voom speeds, they're still seeing speeds that are much greater than pre-Voom days. For example, when Ken Jarvis was on Liberty last week his speeds were obviously not adequate for Periscope, but said he was able to stream video, and his speed tests, if I recall, were roughly 1mb down and 2mb up. Was anyone seeing that speed pre-Voom? Maybe I'm wrong, but while some things on some ships aren't in place, it still seems better than a year ago Now, all of that in mind, I totally agree that RCCL needs to at least clear up the marketing of all of this and come clean. There are materially different experiences on some ships that don't yet have things working well, and on itineraries where you're outside of O3B's coverage.

Hoping someone with first hand experience can chime in for you, but something to keep in mind from reading accounts, is that with the exception of where there are issues with the service, all ships should have 'new' Voom IF they're in a part of the world that has coverage. In other words, it works great on Allure, but put Allure in the North Atlantic and you're back to slower speeds. Also remember that you can pre-pay for the discount, and if it isn't to your satification, I don't think you'd have much trouble at all getting a refund from guest services. My friend did this when Empress was having some connectivity issues.

I look at the impact rather than the rule or whether or not anyone would get caught. Am I giving someone a taste so they can try something? Well that's probably not taking the place of them paying money for a drink. In fact, it the opposite could happen. I could give my friend a taste and he or she, based on that taste could decide to go purchase a drink. Playing devil's advocate, I could argue that my friend might have paid for a drink to try it, and decided he/she didn't like it after a taste. The issue here is that at most bars (on land and sea), bartenders will replace your drink with something else if you didn't like it. We don't often do this as it makes some people feel uncomfortable, but it's no skin off the barkeep's back, and helps ensure a happy customer, which is a profitable customer. Maybe the swallow or two isnt to try it, but to wash something down, or quench a very minor thirst. Would they have bought something for this purpose instead, or would they have perhaps just got a free glass of water? If they'd have gone for the water, then once again, no sale has been prevented, no revenue has been lost. In short, I don't think it's an issue if someone takes a sip from your drink, though I will admit that if someone sees you do this right as you walk from the bar they might be inclined to think otherwise - but I wouldn't sweat that to much. Just my thoughts.

Guarantees are sometimes assigned out just a couple days before sailing, but I've seen them assigned weeks out as well. Some lines (though I don't know this to be the case w/ RCCL) will sometimes put a stateroom number there, but it could change before sailing depending on availability. I find it unlikely that a guarantee would be assigned months out, but it could happen, if past final payment and the sailing is full. That in mind, I wouldn't consider that room to be set it stone.

Five times? Did you get one stateroom for each of you, and another for your luggage?