jticarruthers

They seem to believe in no contact or overwhelming contact, not much in between. As noted though if you just show up when you want you will get through the process at your pace.

So sleuthed out the itineraries I was waiting for and not impressed. Looking to book Thanksgiving 2017 ... discarded the O class ships already as being overly priced for bad itineraries. Q class not considered and flying to Galveston is out for Liberty. So the last three options are ... Freedom ... 6 night out of Lauderdale to Grand Cayman, Costa Maya and Cozumel Indy .... 5 night out of Lauderdale to Costa Maya and Cozumel (Returning to Lauderdale on Thanksgiving day) Navigator ... 5 night out of Miami to Costa Maya and Cozumel Looks like it will be Freedom assuming the pricing isn't insane when it gets released later this week ...

Conceptually I prefer the traditional dining approach, just off NCL Escape and although there was nothing wrong with the "freestyle" dining concept and it worked out well, there is something about traditional MDR that I missed.

Generally fairly strict but if you ask politely (and not in the middle of the scrum when trying to get every kid registered) you have a decent shot at getting an exception made.

Definitely prefer the RCI price structure but just to chime in with an alternate example, booked Vista last April and just made the final payment yesterday. In the year since ... 22 (not a typo that's two two's) reprices and about $800 in total savings later. On the one hand you could just say they screwed up their pricing and should have given me a better price a year ago but at least I was able to take advantage of it. Deposit was $200 per person so $600 deposit at risk has paid off so far.

They pushed back the schedule a week so the next Caribbean rollout is now schedule for next "week" .... ridiculous but so it goes :)

Woosh, quick drive by and off to china ...

Not WAAYTOO but chiming in with what I think I know. Having "paid" for the cruise in full does not mean you are not still eligible for a refund if the price drops again, being paid in full vs deposit only just affects how much money you have on the game, the refunds due to you if you cancel,rebook, etc. are governed by the cancellation policy. In regards to price drops after final payment, my understanding is the Royal will only give you an upgrade, no OBC option but I think Carnival offers the OBC option for example so it is dependent on the line as well as the situation. Royal is actively trying to limit the price drop after final payment scenario, I know I saw a dramatic drop on my NCL cruise recently so I think that also varies by line.

I have tracked "regularly" the pricing on each cruise I have booked over the last few years. On the ones from years ago there was a steady upward trend but if you watched closely there were good deals to be had when different sales would kick off and I would say I probably repriced once or twice on each cruise I took. Since the BOGO "deal" kicked off 2 years ago every cruise I have booked/tracked (approx. 6 I would guess) has trended steadily up, on occasion when the terms of the BOGO have switched from one "deal" to a different one I have seen a decline but typically on the order of $10, haven't repriced a single RCI cruise since BOGO began except for the the first week of the first BOGO when every cruise I had a deposit on was significantly cheaper before RCI caught on that you raise the price and then offer the special to make it look like a deal when it really isn't. With that said there definitely is seasonality where cruises in summer start at a higher price than cruises at other times of the year and now RCI has caught on to holiday prices (Thanksgiving just got added to the list this year, may be the end of the RCI thanksgiving cruise tradition for my family) and starts the holiday cruises off at the outrageous price level instead of letting it build up to that level based on bookings.

Matt back away from the ledge, life would still be worth living for Sabor if you did lose Izumi ;)

So basically add Chops, a flowrider and some more cabins.

I don't think room service provides alcoholic beverages, I have never tried it but pretty sure its not included.

Booked on her for Thanksgiving 2016 so hopefully the dry dock adds some goodies. My understanding is no Chops on her at the moment but good likelihood of it being added in drydock ... Navigator (sister) and Liberty (half-sister) both seem to have gotten nice upgrades in drydock, fingers crossed they do something good for Adventure. The core of the ship is basically the same as Navigator/Indy/Liberty/Freedom that we have sailed before but it would be nice to get some pleasant surprises to go along with the island hopping at Thanksgiving :)

You may have something said on formal night, but should fine the rest of the time. As Todd noted they have a rule, in practice they almost never follow it though.

IIRC when Quantum launched the entire room service menu was at a cost, not sure if that holds true on Anthem though.

Meh, wouldn't mind stopping in Cuba, not going to break the bank picking out a cruise that does. Hopefully it adds competition and drives down costs for the consumer but somehow I suspect the opposite, it will be used as a reason to charge more to "see cuba before it changes".

We celebrated birthdays and anniversaries on our Thanksgiving cruise ... My wife and I share a date with my parents for an anniversary and three of us are November babies. They did not do anything automatically but we informed the wait staff and on the last formal night they brought out 2 "anniversary" deserts and 3 "birthday" deserts .... not huge cakes or anything might have actually been the standard desert of the night but they had each one with a little frosted message and a candle.

I think their "default" setting is if in doubt pull the bag and send it to the naughty room for the passenger to pick up in person. Would they catch every bottle camouflaged in a metal tube almost certainly not, but i am sure there is a % of bottles they flat out miss as well.

You can do it, it is a sore subject because it is felt that many people who remove the automatic tips are doing so for the purpose of not tipping at all rather than tipping in cash and controlling the tipping directly. It is allowed though (at least as of last time i heard someone trying it)

Sounds like they realized they screwed up the pricing and dropped a block on all the remaining suites. Big question will be if they honor the rates already booked or void them and have you rebook.

Doing the Adventure this Thanksgiving and although the prices are comparatively better they are still significantly higher than this year and for the exact same itinerary again. Nothing on the current offering is really working for me ... It looks RCI decided to implement super-premium pricing for Thanksgiving week as every cruise for that week is significantly higher than the surrounding weeks. I am sure they will still fill the ships and sail happy but It doesn't work for me, especially if I am trying to convince 20-30 family members to do it.

So to complete the comparison, if for some reason I had wanted a balcony on HOTS that would run me $4400 .... seems to be overly inflated. Did look at Oasis but the itinerary is bad ... stops in Puerto Rico for Thanksgiving day which (from experience two years ago) sucks because EVERYTHING is closed for the day. Guess I am waiting to see the itineraries for the rest of the fleet ... AOTS looked slightly interesting on the cheap suites but its the identical ship/itinerary to this Thanksgiving and still a lot more expensive than this year.

Its something I have considered, don't think I could ever afford it though and my wife probably wouldn't go for it .... so maybe that's worth considering strongly ;)

I will consider Oasis along with the other options but frankly the only thing that had me considering Harmony was the upgraded options over Oasis and Allure, $3000 for an Oceanview on Oasis is still extremely high. Seems like most of the fleet is still not rolled forward to Thanksgiving week so we shall see what is out there but RCI is making it harder and harder to stay loyal.

I have been booking as far out as possible for several years now ... pricing on my cruise for this Thanksgiving (8+ months away still) is over double what it was when i booked a year ago for example. Of course having woken up and looked at the Harmony Thanksgiving price this morning ..... holy %^$#&^ Time to switch to plan B .... not sure what that plan is yet but i am sure it is going to involve typing things like NCL and Carnival into my browser later today in addition to taking a look at the rest of the fleets plans for that week. Some context: Thanksgiving 2014 - IOTS, 8 night in a balcony $2830 for 3 Thanksgiving 2015 - FOTS, 7 night in a balcony $2665 for 3 Thanksgiving 2016 - AOTS, 7 night in a balcony $2375 for 3 Thanksgiving 2017 - HOTS, 7 night in an OCEANVIEW - $3795 for 3 !!! Didnt care for Allure all that much, no way in heck i am paying that much to "try" Harmony 18 months after launch.