jticarruthers

The "rules" read wine only no other alcoholic beverages ... our experience has been that they tend to glance at the wine bottles more to see that they are sealed than necessarily validating that they are wine. My buddy and I recently found a Liefmanns beer that comes in 750ml bottles and looks just like wine ... we will be attempting to carry on two bottles each at Thanksgiving. If it works great, if it does not we are out $20 each no big deal :)

Going to vote with the masses here, generally speaking Indy is the superior ship in pretty much every way. IIRC Brilliance has the onboard pool tables which is very cool if you enjoy playing a round of pool, but apart from that cant think of anything she offers that Indy does not. Enjoyed our time on her sister Jewel and would not say there is any reason not to cruise on her but assuming money is roughly equal would take Indy out for another run :)

Emails from RCI has always been a crapshoot ... often see emails that others that have received that I would have liked to have seen and have received emails related to sailings I was never even booked on ...

Also, have had the situation with seeing a great deal over the weekend and TA not bring open. I just book it and then call my TA on Monday to straighten it all out. (Cancel the old deal and move my new deal to the old room, apply the perks to the old reservation, etc.) Costs me a second deposit for a day or two ... no big deal.

I know when I asked about 4-5 years ago it was made clear that Royal in particular does not allow anyone to post a lower rate for the cruise than Royal lists on their website. However, the devil is in the details. TA's are allowed to offer kickbacks like On Board Credit, drinks packages, free gratuities,etc. which in essence are discounts on the price of the cruise but they cant just knock the $ off the price. The only exception I know of is to do with group rates but generally speaking you are going to see the same rates everywhere you look, what you need to be looking at is what the "perks" are that are being offered. My upcoming trip for example was booked at standard RCI rate at the time with a $100 OBC from RCI plus $175 OBC from my TA so in essence $175 cheaper than booking direct through RCI. My TA and I know each other well after booking about 15 cruises together so she no longer tries to give me the "free specialty dinner" plus "prepaid gratuities" she just gives me an OBC amount and I can book it or not.

Personally I use my TA's website since it lists all available rooms in each category. I have also heard that using the UK version of RCI's website does the same thing but I have not felt the need to test that hypothesis.

Same answer but different reason. I always use a TA because she always saves me money and the service is ok. I always get additional OBC in addition to whatever the cruiseline is offering.

First tip .... its not one of the bigger ships ... Sailed Vision on a 4 night run to Cozumel, enjoyed our time on board but not sure I have any real tips and tricks for you. Look for the pool tables towards the back between the Schooner bar and the lounge at the stern, think it was Deck 5 but I might be off a deck.

With all the port days plus 3 drinks a night there is no way I could break even on a package on Adventure this Thanksgiving. Agree with Doc above though that if they offered me a substantial discount taking into account that I get 3 drinks a night and its a ton of port days I would buy for the convenience though.

I will have to return the favor by buying you one later in the cruise then :) Final payment is next week for me I think ... flights are booked, hotel booked, probably no need to start packing yet though ...

First cruise as Diamond coming up in November, looking forward to it :)

Echoing Doc and Matt. Under US rules you can cancel and rebook, so book now and if the price/perks/deal is the same when you are onboard then you can rebook and add the On Board OBC benefit to the deal. If the deal with the On Board OBC is not better then you are ahead by booking now. RCI does not offer "special deals" on board just the onboard bonus, however, if you work with a TA that gives you perks as well then the TA will get the reservation when you get back and should still give you their perks as well.

Believe deposit is about $250 per person, I typically book 7 nights cant remember if it less for shorter cruises. If booking under US rules then the deposit is fully refundable. Final payment typically around 90 days from sail date. Combining with a NextCruise certificate that you haven't purchased yet .... I think no. I believe that it would be treated as a cancel/rebook to apply it in the future at which point you would lose the current pricing/perks in favor of the pricing/perks at the time but I could be wrong.

Which port are you cruising out of? Any guarantee on direct flight vs. "just getting you there". From years of business travel, generally speaking its tough to find anything from Heathrow to US that isn't a "morning flight" getting in here during the afternoon, especially if you are direct. Could be anything from 8am to noon though. If you add in connecting options it get a lot more complicated. Cant speak to RCI specific booking practices though, sorry.

I would say over the last 3-4 years I have been consistently booking as early as possible and have not seen a single sale in that time frame that has given me a price drop after booking. (Note: I don't include prices after final payment date)

Generally prefer Voyager class but there are some cool features on the Jewel as well. Love the pool tables for example and there is so much glass you really "see" the sea all the time ... if you like that. With the Adventure refurb late this year there will clearly be more "to do" on Adventure though ... water slides, etc.

For us we thought it would be fun to try it as we had not ever done a Brazilian steakhouse, if that isn't something "different" for you to try then I would say skip it.

Not sure on the time but on the TA question no, if a TA has your room the TA has to call in to make any changes to the room, You can book excursions, drink packages,etc. but any change to the room itself will get referred to the TA.

Did it on Allure a couple of years back and would rate it as "ok". Out of the four of us the two wives felt there was too much food in general and too much meat clearly and didn't care for it. I enjoyed it but didn't think it was super special and the other husband foolishly ate the salmon off the "appetizer buffet" and dealt with a minor case of food poisoning for the rest of the evening :( I have not tried a land based version to compare to directly but based on conversations think it is a notch below. Not a crazy price though so still worth considering as an alternative to MDR ... just avoid the fish, its a steakhouse !!

Our first day on Allure a few years back we settled in for a first round of Corona's to start the cruise .... and they all had lemons instead of limes. We were informed that there was a global lime shortage ... first of many "shortages" on board Allure that turned us off but we researched it when we got back and there actually was something to do with Mexico plowing under all their lime "groves" for more drug growing space that had caused a huge spike in Lime costs. Note: not a shortage per se, just made them very expensive at the time.

I have used TMobile in a bunch of ports and countries, it is noticeably slower than US LTE service but for facebook/web surfing its not bad. Posted batches of about 40 photos at a time to Facebook off my Nexus 6P at each port of call in Europe last week and had no issues ... a minute or two to upload them all.

I use an agency that I found through the internet. Used the "cruise compete" website a few times and they consistently came out lowest, used the same agent there for about 5 years now. I would say I don't have any proactive service from them/her, but they answer my questions, take care of my issues and give me about 7-8% back on every cruise I book which has added up to a free cruise or two already.

Plus you get the same pricing as RCI plus some level of "incentive" from the TA so it is ALWAYS cheaper to book through a TA (every cruise of mine at least, if someone has gotten a better price direct would love to hear about it)

All the cruises for spring 2018 are out (with the possible exception of some exotic/foreign destinations but I think even those are all published). The next schedule rollout will be Feb/Mar on 2017 at which point they will roll out the rest of 2018 and the spring of 2019. There might be changes for redeployments of ships / sale of ships / purchase of ships but this is basically the lineup for spring 2018 in place. There is a way to filter on dates in the RCI website / search engine by selecting sail before / sail after dates but it never works quite right for me. I usually research on Travel Agent / Travelocity websites to find the cruise I want and then look at the RCI website to get more info.

Generally speaking they don't let the parents past the registration "gate" once they are in full operation, might make an exception for a child having an issue for example but they usually make me wait at the gate if I am picking up/dropping off.