jticarruthers

Its weird ... personally I think they are in the "process" of making changes and the IT side is flubbing it as usual. For my 2016 reservation for a premium plan it says ... $57.28 per day and if you click on the terms and conditions that it DOES NOT include 18% gratuity If you add it to the cart though it moves over to the cart as $49 plus 18% gratuity = $57.82 per day For my 2017 reservation for a premium plan it says ... $57 per day and if you click on the terms and conditions that it DOES include the gratuity If you add it to the cart though it moves over to the cart as $57 plus no gratuity = $57.00 per day My guess is they are updating it to show "about the same price" of $57 per day but then the new price is excluding the gratuity while the old price was including gratuity and the systems are in an "in-between" mode at the moment ??

As you say the food wasn't anything amazing (but it at least seemed to be prepared to order so it was hot and fresh) but I too would vote Seaview as one of my favorite "snack spots".

I think I got both a couple of years back but pretty sure they have been not allowing the combination since the BOGO BS started early last year .... or was that the year before ?

Generally they should be identical in price unless ... 1) There is a price increase between when you would have booked and paid for the package before the cruise and when you are on the cruise ... 2) Some ports (I have heard but don't know this for a fact) might charge tax on a purchase made in port before the ship sales ... I have been told by some people that is not the case and by others that they were charged tax, haven't been in any of the ports that do it (Texas and Europe are ones I have heard) so i have no firsthand knowledge but listing it as a potential concern. 3) Noticed a thread on Cruise Critic recently (but didn't follow it all the way through) that seemed to imply on some cruises that the price on board ship was higher than the pre-purchase price, sounded like it might have been a round of "experimentation" that RCI was running. RCI seems to have started running random experiments on different ships in regards to "new options" ... drives me crazy as it means the cruise line known for being predictably unpredictable in enforcing its own policies is now making it even worse by unpredictably applying random new policies as well :)

Some ships/cruiselines have phones available that you can use onboard. Allure had them when we were on board for about $30 per phone to rent them. Lots of caveats; they didn't work well, there was a large liability if you lost/broke it, etc. but they were a way to keep in touch. We have tried walkie talkies and found they were a mess with so many people trying the same thing it was hard to know who was talking. Generally we just set meet points and expectations ... we are going to the pool will be there for a while and then headed to lunch at windjammer, find us before 2pm at one of those places for example.

Basically the same benefits at platinum and emerald as at gold ... I think some of the %'s change from 10% to 15% for example but nothing radical. The big "jumps" are: 1 - Adding the balcony discount at Platinum (no longer a big deal since it is not combinable with the OBC offers that RCI keeps running and the OBC is usually better than the balcony discount) 2 - Getting free drinks at Diamond level

Freedom class usually show the games at the "on air" bar down by the ice rink and then the big screen by the pool if its a "big" game. Selection is limited but they typically have the "night" games and the "game of the week" on Sunday afternoon at the least.

Any reason to believe there will be new January offers as opposed to the never ending BOGO ?

Your Chops experience sounds a lot like our last few experience, not bad, just ok.

Probably need another ship for China ;)

That's a tough one .... especially when you did everything right, booked way in advance, etc. Your leverage (as you know) is limited, so really it comes down to whether you are irritated enough to just cancel it or take their best offer and move on. Sometimes very minor things can be enough to pull the trigger and say enough is enough, other times pretty major sounds issues may not be a big deal. I haven't done Norway but picturing it I would tend to think the view would be a major part of that cruise (coastlines, etc.) in which case I would be inclined to dig in a little harder, for most cruises though I would roll with the room that is a similar size and not stress it to much since I don't spend a lot of time in the room.

Not a big specialty booker but I believe I have heard others say that the different restauants can become available at different times, makes no sense but its RCI so that's normal.

Did it on Allure a couple of years ago now, so information may not be quite the same for Oasis / out of date. Phones were about $30 to rent for the week. They were available through the "card room" up on one of the upper decks on embarkation day, I believe they said they would be available through Guest Services later if any were left (no way that would happen). You could rent as many as you want but there were not a lot available. IIRC we boarded around noon and went straight there, about 15 minutes later they were turning people away because there would not be enough phones for them to get one by the time they made it through the line. Personally we would not rent them again, the "Fee" if you lost/broke it was outrageous and the phones did not work well as we moved around the ship, but if you want them, go straight there. They were talking about "letting the system die" wondering if it would make sense to replace them with something using Wi-Fi calling now that they have the Voom deal onboard, would seem like that would give better coverage, etc.

We enjoy the MDR experience and find the food acceptable (generally). Freedom at Thanksgiving was actually solid across the board. We enjoy the longer dinner as long as it is moving at pace, the last couple of cruises it has felt like we were "waiting" for the waiter a lot and the dining time was pushing two hours not 1.5. Freedom for example had a 530 dinner with a lot of "activities" scheduled for 7 or 715 and not once were we able to get out of the dining room before 715.

Reduced deposit is a nice to have but ultimately doesn't matter to me, real savings would make me a whole lot more likely to book.

Then I have a bone to pick with the NextCruise staff as I was very specific in asking for exactly that choice and he repeatedly told me that it was not a choice. That was my thinking was to book a random cruise to pick up the reduced deposit and the OBC and then switch the booking once the schedule rolled, he was in agreement that that was a great plan but was insistent that the OBC had to be on the current cruise. Even to the point of pulling up each of our accounts to try and figure out how much of the OBC was refundable so that we might be able to get that money back instead of losing it if we didn't want to go spend it. Grrrrr, I forgot RCI rule 1. If you don't like the answer you get keep asking other people until you find someone to give you the answer you want.

If you book the "open" future cruise, the OBC is so tiny as to be not worth it. If you book the "next" cruise option, the OBC is applied to your current cruise immediately (No option to defer it to the future cruise itself) so unless you are going to use the OBC now then you lose the OBC and essentially get no benefit. In our case we had plenty of OBC, didn't really do any excursions due to weather so we were all at basically zero bills to start with, getting minimally more OBC for this cruise wasn't worth the hassle of doing a booking and then changing a booking. EDIT: And Balcony Discounts are not combinable with the (better) OBC being offered for bookings under the current sales so the Balcony Discount doesn't have any value either :(

I had a family group with me and they expressed interest in doing a Thanksgiving 2017 cruise .. knowing the schedule doesn't go that far yet I figured I would spend a few minutes to see if there were any options. The future cruise had no real benefits and is non-refundable so that didn't seem worth it and the NextCruise only offered the OBC on the current cruise which all of us would have forfeited at that point so that seemed worthless too. The strategy obviously works for RCI, just not for me as a consumer :)

monctonguy, you are correct there are only 2 benefits to booking on board. 1. Reduced deposit (occasionally matched by the RCI sale going on off the ship but very rarely). 2. Instant OBC equal to the amount of the deposit you put down. In all other respects all you are offered is the same sale price as is currently available to everyone at home.

The Margaritaville was ok. Very crowded with everyone packing in due to the rain, drinks were ok, food was crazy expensive ($20 nachos IIRC). The pool/hottub look like they would be fun if the weather was decent and the place wasn't packed. The Falmouth area is not great (IMO) from a shore excursion standpoint which is why we were interested in the Margaritaville excursion. We did a tour a few years ago that took you to a local school, local plantation, etc. that was educational and interesting, don't think it is offered anymore. Have heard that the river tubing can be hit or miss, great if it rained recently and the river is running, terrible if its been dry and they have to haul you from puddle to puddle. Be careful looking at tours as a lot of them involve a substantial bus ride to either Ocho Rios or Montego Bay.

Especially if you have no need for OBC. Walked off Freedom owing them $18 ... visited NextCruise and he kept selling me that in addition to the $300 OBC on the future cruise I would get $100 right now on this cruise .... nonrefundable so I would have to buy an extra $80 of stuff I don't want in order to use it up .... Not a real strong offering there :)

The compass usually lists the "name" of the menu but not the menu itself. (At least I am pretty sure I have seen it)

The $300 on the future cruise was the standard offer in place from RCI. The $100 on the current cruise was the Nextcruise benefits. The Nextcruise benefit is a greatly reduced deposit and an OBC on your current cruise equal to the amount of the deposit. Just off Freedom last week and sat with Nextcruise desk to see what the options were, nothing worth doing :(

The standard menus are available online, I don't have a link handy but if you google something like "Royal Caribbean MDR Menus" you should be able to find them ... they go by names like Saffron, Basil, etc. named after the signature spice for that days menu. Second step is if you can find a set of the compasses for Brilliance you will be able to see the "menu" used for each night referred to in the compass. I don't know if Matt has a recent Brilliance 5 night in the archive but if not that's what you are needing to find.

Well, I can state that the walk to the Catamaran was pleasant (they took us out through a side gate to a small Marina right next to the dock), the walk back from the Catamaran to Margaritaville was also pleasant. However, cant comment on anything else since the captain cancelled the excursion due to inclement weather just as we arrived at the Catamaran. Full refunds given and one free drink at Margaritaville provided to everyone. I would certainly be willing to book it again next time as the Catamaran looked to be in good shape and the excursion sounded fun, but unfortunately no details to share with you all :(