RoyalGreg

Thanks everyone for sharing their experiences.

I did cancel the UDP, and all of the restaurant reservations were immediately canceled as Ryan79 said.

After adding the UDP to the cart, I was actually given the opportunity to book all of the restaurant reservations before checking out. It was much easier than the previous method where you had to go into your orders and then modify the UDP and add each reservation separately. So kudos to Royal IT for making that interface easier.

We booked 2 packages at 310 + tax = $731 total.

The new price will be 286 + tax = $675

So a savings of about $55 total.

The cruise is a 9 nighter, and embarks in July. Entertainment isn't available to book yet, so I suppose we'll still probably need to move reservations around anyway. I'll try to check on the current availability of restaurant reservations to see if anything is completely booked up.

Thanks for the advice!

Does anyone have experience canceling the UDP (to rebuy at a better price) after making reservations?

Do you lose all of the reservations? 

The UDP on our cruise has dropped ~$25, and I'm trying to figure out if it's worth repricing and taking the risk that we may lose our reservations.

Thanks for your help!

Believe it or not, if you want to see Six on a cruise ship, you're actually too late. The licensed Broadway production was actually on a couple NCL ships. Unfortunately, they've also been cutting down on their entertainment, and I think they removed the show in '23 and early '24.

NCL has recently (last year or so) removed other Broadway and West End productions as well. However they put Broadway musicals on their two newest ships, Summer (Prima) and Beetlejuice (Viva).

6 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

I've done it before. If they're too busy they won't take walk-up orders so definitely make a reservation for the # of UDP alottments you will be using so they can allocate the kitchen time. It will be ship/host dependent. I did it on Symphony, but that was in 2018 so things may have changed.

Thanks for the advice!

I guess the plan will be to try to make the reservations, talk with the host, and then hope for the best! We're good at rolling with punches (or maybe I should say waves?).

Also thanks for sharing your adventure on the group cruise!

2 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

It will be ship/host dependent. Some ships will allow you to place to-go orders because they have to-go containers, usually the bigger classes do. We did to-go Izumi's on Allure and Oasis........however this was not sushi (apps and Udon). Considering there are special rules for sushi, they may or may not allow this. I would inquire early on, just in case you have to make reservations. 

When you were able to do "take out," did you make reservations for that time first, or were you able to just walk up during operating hours?

Also love hearing about all the shenanigans from your live blogs

It definitely sounds like you've found a good compromise.... However, if your teen is really looking for the quintessential cruise experience, then you should go on a night when they're offering french onion soup and escargots. 

Wondering what your current experiences are when trying to order Izumi sushi to go with the UDP.

In particular, we would love the ability to pick up some sushi during the lunch time hours to save for an early evening snack. We'd prefer not to have to make a reservation and sit down if possible.

Is this currently allowed? Is it ship/host dependent? Can we just walk up and order sushi to go? Should we make reservations, and then just ask the host to put in the order to go? Or will we have to sit down?

We will be on the Symphony (not referring to Sushi in the Park).

I just want to put out a little positivity and write about a great experience that I had with a shoreside C&A rep. Feel free to share your own positive experience 

I emailed C&A because our status wasn't showing on our Set Sail Pass for an upcoming cruise. I knew the response time wouldn't be immediate, and I have no qualms with the 4 business day turnaround. Thankfully they were able to fix the issue right away, and our status is showing properly.

Not only were they able to fix my problem, but they also identified another problem. It seems that my birth year was incorrect for this booking, and so they alerted me to this issue and advised me to contact my TA. Identifying this error now, instead of at the port, likely save me a lot of time.

They also correctly pointed out that my wife has 2 C&A numbers assigned (one was auto-generated when she signed up for C&A before her first cruise, and the second # was assigned to her after her first cruise).  The rep was able to identify the correct C&A number that actually has her point total, and use that one for our upcoming cruise.

Of course I thanked the C&A rep directly, and offered to fill out a survey, and suggested that they can pass my thanks on to their manager.

22 minutes ago, TheMaxRebo said:

 

Maybe just as we are family of 5 but I checked Treasure for same week we are going on Icon, just a year out (so 2024 for Icon vs 2025 for Treasure) and my all in for a family infinite balcony on Icon was under $8k. For the Treasure the starting point indicates was $11,154 (and that is before on sale)

Maybe Disney discounts kids/passengers 3-5 less than other lines?

You certainly don't have to do the work, but I'm curious to know the pricing of your (similar) Icon sailing in 2025 for 5 in an infinite balcony. I'll bet your sailing in 2024 is nearing a sell out, so the current pricing of your cruise is probably crazy.

@TheMaxRebo Seeing your new edits now. Thanks for the info. The conclusion is that current pricing is CRAAAAAAZY! Enjoy your sailing on the Icon in 2024, looks like you got a steal!

Just for fun, I took the same Feb 1, 2026 date that I captured earlier. Here's the pricing for 4 in an infinite balcony (I was unable to choose 5 pax):

1 hour ago, TheMaxRebo said:

Well, to make me feel better about the Icon pricing I took a look at the Disney Treasure .... yowsas

Actually...... Icon appears to be worse:

Disney pricing is for 2 guests including taxes and fees:

Royal pricing is based on double occupancy, and then you have to add taxes and fees. That interior becomes $4,782.30 for 2 adults:

Going out to 2026 (Disney hasn't scheduled that far) the same Icon sailing (leaving Jan 31) is $4,471.60 for 2 in the basic inside.

The inaugural Treasure sailing is exorbitantly priced. I figured comparing non-holiday sail dates would be the most fair method.

17 hours ago, Irvy said:

It still shows 75 dollars 

 @Irvy The DBP can be priced differently for each ship and each sail date. So for your sailing it may be $75, but for my sailing it came down to $70 with this current sale.

If you keep watching, hopefully yours will drop too.

Thank you all for reassuring us. We've been going back and forth on getting the dbp for our cruise. The pricing has been fluctuating between $80 (20% off) and $75 (bogo), and it finally came down to $70 (30% off with the Labor Day sale). We decided to pull the trigger, and will still have a potential black friday sale to watch out for as well.

We just got worried after seeing all the cocktail prices hiked up only on the Anthem. Thank you all for reassuring us that the cocktails will be included (and the pricing will likely match the rest of the fleet when she returns to Cape Liberty).

32 minutes ago, Mike6453 said:

if you have the deluxe drink package i would not worry about it. The only time i have paid above was for glasses of wine. Anthem is also homeporting in the UK which could have different rules. I do feel they raise per drink allowance recently 

I think they raised the package from $13 to $14 recently. Hopefully the pricing is UK specific (I'll be boarding in New Jersey).

27 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

It's a UK thing. All the drinks you see at $15 will be covered by the DBP. No need to worry.

Normally I wouldn't give it a second thought, but with all the recent changes in the cruise industry, RC Group most definitely included, I feel like it's getting tougher and tougher to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Just noticed that all of the cocktails are listed at $15 on the Anthem currently. I'm not onboard, but have a cruise scheduled in a few months. 

Can anyone confirm whether they're actually charging $15 now? Will these be included in the drink package? Will they charge the $1+tax overage?

It's clear that the drink package is intended to include all the standard cocktails, but this pricing seems to be above the limit.

I took a look at the pricing on the Odyssey (also quantum class, and also sailing in Europe), but all the cocktails are priced at the expected $14.

Here are screen shots from the app: Schooner bar, Pool bar, and Boleros.

My wife is in the Facebook group, and we've signed up for the slot pull... Didn't realize there were two planned (I'll ask her about it).

Unfortunately, when cruising with a kid, we've learned that it's hard to make many plans in advance, and we've found that we've missed meetups that we had intended to attend. But one of the reasons we fell in love with cruising was meeting new people and making new friends. 

1 hour ago, letscruise said:

What brewery(ies) do you plan to visit?  I would love to hit at least one...I read on the FB group for our cruise there is a brewery close to the port area, but the poster didn't remember the name, so I may try to find that one on the way back from our excursion.  

Congratulations on reaching your 10 year anniversary!  What a great (and unplanned!) way to spend your special day!!  

Thanks for the well wishes! Cruising has a special place in our hearts, because I actually proposed on a cruise a little more than 11 years ago. Then life happened, and then life paused for a while, and finally we took our first cruise since then (this time with our son) just this past fall. 

Garrison Brewery is right in the harbor walk area, and Alexander Keith (originally from the 1800s, I think) is just a bit further away.

There are a few other good options up around the citadel: Propeller and 2 Crows.

Turns out this will be an anniversary cruise for my wife and I. We actually have another, longer "anniversary" cruise that we booked more than a year ago for later this summer. We've been planning that one for a while. However when we found out schools were getting out earlier than expected (no snow days), we booked this one for ourselves and our 7 year old son. Funny thing is that Friday night (the second sea day) will be the actual date of our 10th anniversary. We reserved chef's table for that night, and DS will definitely be in the kid's club.

Between the included wine at chef's table, the 2 bottles that we'll bring onboard, and doing some beer tasting at one (or more) of the breweries in Halifax, we figure we'll be ok just paying per drink.

In Halifax we plan to rent a car to drive out to Peggy's Cove or Lunenburg. Possibly we'll also travel over to the East side and visit Fisherman's Cove. We'll drop the car off before hitting the breweries.

Just to update, our room assignment is now official. The room was assigned on 5/20 or 5/21. I can also confirm that the room assigned is the same room that showed up using the barcode reader on the SetSail pass.

Hope you all are doing well.

I believe that people have reported purchasing $1000 worth of On Board Credit (before the cruise) will trigger the bonus. Since the OBC is refundable, you can simply get the $ returned at the end of the cruise.

14 hours ago, sleepy425 said:

When bidding opened up I did low bids for the one and two bedroom  grand suites.  We can't normally try Royal Up because I have 4 kids and book two rooms.  I figured since I'm only bringing two kids this time, I may as well take a gamble and see what happens.  Anyone else put a bid in?

We're just interior guarantee, so the best room we were given to bid on was a standard balcony (no suites).

We did put in bids on the spacious interior and spacious ocean views (basically at the minimum).

25 minutes ago, letscruise said:

I just tried again, and I'm still getting the - GTY.  I'm booked for GTY balcony, so maybe there is still enough movement with RoyalUp that some rooms are still in flux.  Oh well, I should know within the next 42 days!   Good luck on the Grand Suite bids!!  Let us know if you are successful.  

Our SetSail pass still just says "GTY," however, the bar code scanner translated the barcode on the setsail pass to a string of numbers. Supposedly the last 4 digits will be the room number.

Certainly it will show up on your account sooner or later as well. Patience is a virtue :⁠-⁠)

35 minutes ago, letscruise said:

I Googled the trick and mine still says -GTY, but I'll continue checking.  Did yours come up with a number yet?  

There's a lot of info in the RC blog. I think you can either add the setsail pass to an Apple Wallet (if you're an iphone user), or you can scan the barcode of the setsail pass with a QR code reader app.

We scanned our setsail with a QR reader, and the last four digits of the bar code does correspond to an internal room on the Liberty (we did book an internal guarantee). So assuming that will be our room, we didn't get an upgrade, but at least I think we're in a decent location on deck 9 near the forward elevators.

Good luck!

On 5/4/2023 at 8:09 PM, letscruise said:

Hi fellow cruisers!  We're getting closer and closer!  Are you ready?  We did a guarantee room, so still waiting for our cabin assignment.  Check-in is this weekend.....exciting!  

Did you check in? Have you tried the bar code trick with your setsail pass to see your (probable) room assignment? How'd you do?

My family of 3 just hopped on this itinerary! We'll be in an interior guarantee, oh boy! It will be the first time in an interior room for us. We figured the 4 day sailing would would be a good chance for us to see if we can survive in an interior.

We're pretty excited to be heading up to Halifax. This will be our first Canadian cruise.

55 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

C'mon who else is going to buy this for the apology OBC when it's canceled?

I'm in for another $50 OBC