happy cruisers 2

Our next cruise will be as Diamond members and we're looking forward to the 4 complimentary drink vouchers daily. Could you more experienced members tell me if I'm thinking about this correctly? Could I choose to use 3 vouchers one day and 5 the following day? (Or even 2 one day and 6 the following day?)

Ah, yes. Snow and all those trees make it feel more like Christmas. Beautiful scene!

We were able to score some nice price drops on DBPs for all of our 2024 cruises. Had been debating whether or not to cancel some of them, but now we'll probably keep them. One came down to $51.99, and that's for our longest cruise!

A very nice photo! Hope you're all having a wonderful day of celebration together.

Greetings, Plasticbrain, and all the best to you and your family in the next few days! That's so exciting for you to look forward to two cruises! We have found that the ship experience is always wonderful no matter what excursions or "extras" one might choose to add on. Enjoy looking forward to those cruises! Happy Holidays to you.

We're considering doing our second Alaska cruise. The first one was years ago and we liked it very much. This time we want to add a land tour, as we didn't do that the first time, however my search of reviews for places RC would have us stay (especially in Seward and Talkeetna) are very disappointing. Perhaps they're the nicest available? Granted, the idea of the land portion is to experience the scenery, etc. but I feel that some of the accommodations and meals would be quite a huge let-down after the cruise experience. Any thoughts or advice from those of you who have done one of the RC cruise/landtour packages will be appreciated. Thanks.

Just as people are all so different, I think expectations must be all over the place too. For a ship to feed thousands of people, I personally feel it's unrealistic to expect 5 star food quality in every meal. Local restaurants certainly vary too. If the great majority of MDR meals onboard are better than we typically eat at home, or even in a local restaurant, we're quite pleased. If we paid extra for a specialty dining experience, I would then have a higher expectation. Overall, we have been happy with MDR meals -- even when we occasionally get something that isn't quite what we expected. Our attitude is that we are fortunate to be able to cruise and have a decent variety of choices in different foods that we maybe don't normally have at home. If we don't like something, we might eat more of what we do like. We never go hungry. Maybe we're too easy to please.

Thanks, Leroyr55 !! This is like a holiday gift from you! I had just rebooked drink packages for multiple cruises yesterday for a nice savings. Now I just did it again! I hope I can keep track of the credit card accounting. CRAZY, but I'm liking it. THANK YOU !!

We tried the Rising Tide bar a couple of times, just for the novelty of it. For us, Boleros was a go-to place each evening for excellent latin dance music and drinks, at least during the cruise we were on. If the weather is nice, sitting outside anywhere in Central Park and enjoying a drink is great. You'll love Allure! Lots to experience!

WAAAYTOOO, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you! You always have such helpful advice!! We have the cruise that involved a switch from Grandeur to Jewel (dates and itinerary remaining the same) and ALL of our purchases were cancelled by RC when the new cabin on Jewel was assigned. I had the thinking that RC would automatically transfer our dining times, drink package, internet, excursions, etc. to the new ship/cruise, but you advised that we rebook at the prevailing rates. We did so, as much as possible. Some excursions remained the same (but at a lower cost) while others, so far, do not appear in the cruise planner at this time. Had we not rebooked the purchases during the recent sale, I know that we would have paid more and been very unhappy about that. So thanks again for your helpful advice. It was greatly appreciated! (Also, the credits finally showed up on our credit card statement. I mistakenly thought that would happen much sooner, but read that it is something the bank controls.)

Thanks, WAAAYTOOO, for your advice. You are always so helpful. Yes, I figured we could talk with the maitre 'd and possibly get an earlier time or else arrive early and see what happens.

That's what I figured. I wonder what the chances are of changing the MTD time (same time, every night of the cruise) the day we board. Has anyone had experience with doing that?

But do you know how to change it? Once we have a reserved time, I don't find any way to go back and see if anything earlier has opened up.

Does anyone know if a MTD time selection can be changed on the web site after the initial reservation is made? The earliest time available for a future cruise was 7:30, so we begrudgingly reserved that for each night of the cruise. Ideally, we would rather have something like 6:45pm. When going back into the MTD booking area, I don't find a way to see if an earlier option ever opens up. Maybe I need to cancel and then start over?

Thanks, Riley, for your excellent report. Not a lot of touristy "Stuff" sounds great! For us, this cruise will be about the culture and scenery. It would even add to the trip if RC had a naturalist on board to give some educational talks. We'll do some reading and research before we go also. Walking will be nice, and a coffee shop or grocery store would be interesting to experience. We've been debating about the small boat tours and will consider that. Thanks, also, for the info on money and credit cards. You've given some very helpful information! Any others who have been to these ports, please feel free to share your input. Thanks!

You're so right. I think we'll like it. We're not big foodies, and are usually quite easily pleased when it comes to Italian. We got lunch for $12.99 each, so I think that sounds like a good deal.

Wow. Some like Jamie's, others don't seem too happy with it. We booked it for lunch on Mariner in May. Now I might need to reconsider.

My guess is English, no matter what you meant. We were in Cartagena recently and I can say English was what we heard most by everyone we encountered on the cruise and during the excursion within the city.

So, I've gotta ask this. You mean by her, by you, by the officials in port, by the ship crew, by the majority of passengers?? What do you mean?

If you have been to these Greenland ports I would love to hear your thoughts. Most interested in what you did while there, what you liked or disliked, etc. I do realize these places are small and don't have a very established tourism infrastructure. Thanks!

I figured the ship size has to have something to do with it. Sure wish there were more long sailings out of Galveston -- like 10 to 14 days.

Any ideas why Royal doesn't offer more varied routes than this? We have family members who are "loyal to Carnival" and they get much more exciting cruises out of Galveston than we do on Royal Caribbean. Recently they had a 14-night cruise that went to places such as Grand Turk, St. Kitts, St. Maarten and St. Croix, leaving from and returning to Galveston.

WAAAYTOOO, I think your advice seems the correct way to proceed. Thanks for your helpful input. I haven't seen any RC credits show up on our credit card account yet, which is perplexing. Usually, if I cancel any RC purchase a credit appears very quickly -- in this case, there is none so far. The swap of ships was the only thing to change. Dates and itinerary are the same. It seemed odd to me that our dining times, excursions, internet, drink package, everything, was cancelled by Royal on the same day that the replacement ship and cabin number finally showed up in our list of upcoming cruises. In thinking about this, I can totally see that it would be highly inappropriate for Royal to basically add new charges to our credit card account without our permission, so I think it makes sense that we should start over with booking everything again. (But why have no credits shown up on the credit card??) Some excursions we had chosen, as well as VOOM, are actually lower in cost now than when we originally bought them.

The main dining room will impress you, I think. Try it, or the buffet, and see if you think you've missed out on anything. For a short cruise, I think you will be very happy that you didn't spend extra for other options.

The notification sent by RC said "We'll automatically move you to the Jewel of the Seas sailing departing on the same day as your original cruise. So, there's nothing for you to do!" They did not say that all reservations would be cancelled and we would need to rebook. I sometimes think that communications from RC could be handled better. I called them today and the person on the other end could not tell me if RC would rebook our reservations or if we need to take care of it ourselves. He admitted that he could not tell me for certain what I should do. He suggested I wait a few days and see what happens on the RC end. Meanwhile, I will wait (and hope that prices do not increase while I wait). Can't RC better communicate with guests and give instructions as to what should be done? Now I can see why almost everyone suggests using a travel agent. I could let the TA deal with these changes.