jticarruthers

The technology all sounds impressive, none of it really excites me though. For the most part I cruise to get away from technology not to bring it all with me :) I would imagine that much like Disney does with their magicbands that once you complete all the online paperwork they mail them to you in advance so you would already have your bands and just need to do the passport check before boarding? Might even be able to setup a pre-check or "Repeat" passenger check for that too though. App on board would be interesting as long as there is an intranet so I don't have to pay an internet charge to use it. Given the poor implementation of most things IT for RCI and the poor coverage of the onboard phones on Allure I am glad that other people will be trying it all first though !

I am pretty certain the answer is no at the moment, however, I have seen discussions that it will be getting one after its drydock in January 2015. Not sure if that is speculation or fact though. (Drydock is fact, not sure about the show)

Yes news broke back in March or so when they released all the itineraries and had to backtrack on prior statements. Quantum to NJ for this winter then off to China. Anthem to do next summer (2015) in UK, then to NJ for the winter to replace Quantum. Anthem is "expected" to go back to UK for Summer 2016 as far as I know although the schedule hasn't been released that far out so its speculation. No idea on Quantum 3 :)

Back to the OP - I have a couple of cabins booked on the Indy Thanksgiving cruise you mentioned so I have been watching prices on that one for a while. They came down a TON last week. Oceanview for 4 passengers was over $4500 on 8/11, looks like about $3000 at the moment if they have any left.

Sometimes the site suffers from glitches ??? LOL ... I love cruising RCI but their entire Website/IT system is a glitch

Also used the plastic sleeves on our last couple of cruises and they are well worth the $10 or so that we paid, less concern over the tags ripping off ,etc. for a minimal investment

Just saw your second question, I know you have the option of activating and deactivating cards for individuals and I believe you can set spending limits on them (may depend on the ship as to how sophisticated they are). Never really tried it though to know exactly how granular you can get, remember if you lock out all the cards though then no-one can buy anything on board which might make for an awkward cruise.

From memory they typically play 3 or maybe 4 rounds of Bingo in each session. For about $25 you get a set of three cards that you play in all the rounds For about $55 you get the same cards plus a machine that plays something like 20 sets of cards for you We usually end up playing once or twice on most cruises, our son gets a kick out of it and it isn't a lot of money if you only do it once or twice, twice a day every day would add up in a hurry though :)

Worth checking on. All my future plans came down a little from last week but still up from when we booked.

Our kids were doing "virgin" frozen drinks last cruise, in particular they seemed to like the Strawberry Daiquiri, I think just about any frozen drink could be made "virgin" if you were near a bar.

Think it varies by ship, just off Vision of the Seas (older Vision class) and they seemed to be very strict. Got called to the naughty room to sign over my powerstrip that I have taken on all 14 cruises before without a problem. Sidenote - Got to listen to the jackass from one of the Suites abusing the poor security guard for 20 minutes because he wouldn't let him take his iron, he wanted the ships captain personally to come down to security and explain to him who was going to iron his tux for him before he would step aside and let the rest of us do our thing. (Eventually we all kind of pushed around him so we could sign over our stuff and get going). Don't recall seeing any bags pulled for hair straighteners but there was a large pile for powerstrips, several for irons, etc. My advice would be to bring it, if they do take it from you they give it back at the end of the cruise and if they don't then you have it. Just don't be a jackass if they do take it from you :)

Ditto with Vision of the Seas this past weekend. Sea days were untracked, Cozumel had the towels on Deck 2 at the gangway and you had to check-in/check-out, painless since you walked right by the table both ways anyway.

Seen many options on carrying the card. Kids club hands out lanyards and our son always wears his on the lanyard. Wife and I just stick them in our pockets. Have seen lanyards for sale that can be clipped to the card as well as ones that have a plastic sleeve that the card goes in. Generally, however you are most comfortable :)

Just set up a cruise for my boss in a very similar manner and as Tylor indicated it was no problem to get an extra key card from Guest Services. Basically she and her husband could access both rooms, the kids only the one coded for on their card. Little bit of a pain to carry two cards but not a big deal.

Just carry it on with you. I have seen the "case of water balanced on the shoulder" approach through to people with small luggage carts (not sure exactly how to describe them but a metal frame with wheels) and the water strapped on the cart. Never tried it myself. We have a nice carryon wine carrier that fits two bottles and use that for the wine.

As you said there are a lot of options especially when you take into account all the different ships and their designs as well. Do you have a ship/itinerary picked out yet? Once I pick my ship, I usually spend a few minutes flipping back and forth through the deck plans checking on the locations of the night clubs in particular (had a bad experience on Disney being upgraded to the balcony room directly above the night club ... it was fairly obvious the club opened at 10pm when all of our stuff lifted into orbit as the bass kicked in). Feel free to post your options here and I am sure you will get some location feedback, its very hard to tell you the best balcony though as opinions differ :)

Havent heard anything either way, but I would think at this stage if they haven't done it there has too be some logistical restrictions that keep them from doing it,

3 Day cruises were recently added.

For a first cruise I would recommend against buying the package until you get a feel for how much drinking you will be doing onboard. The drinks can get pretty pricey though so if you find yourself enjoying your beverages at a steady rate, it might make sense to buy the package mid-cruise (not sure how long of a cruise you are going on). Lots of threads have debated the value of the package, we (my wife actually) tried it on our last cruise and I think she about broke even financially but was much happier about not having to worry about her bill and trying "different" drinks. It was a ship intensive cruise though (few port days and one of them was an RCL private island so the package still applied). On a port intensive cruise I think we will pass on the packages. Ultimately every person gets different mileage out of the package and there is no easy one answer fits all.

You have to buy it for at least the last 4 days of your cruise (or the whole cruise on a 3 day/4 day cruise). You cannot buy it for a couple of days and then stop it, once you buy it is for the rest of the cruise. They put a sticker on your card showing what package you purchased. Sharing the drink package is against the rules, whether you want to risk getting caught, etc. is a personal decision.

The pricing bounced up again on my block during May, not worth repricing on again at this point but I check periodically :)

Yeah there was definitely some price raising in order to then discount on some cruises but there are also some good deals. Had 6 cabins booked for Thanksgiving 2015 and they all came down about $300, also had a cruise booked for Mar 2015 though that went up about $200 so it seems some good deals some not.

Anything with an asterisk next to it is excluded from the packages

Just posted a list of beers and prices from my March cruise on Allure in the other drink package thread if you want to check there.

From the Allure back in March I have the following: Amstel Light $4.75 Bud Light $5.25 Budweiser $5.25 Coors Light $4.25 Corona Extra $4.75 Dos Equis $4.75 Fosters Oil Can - Not include in packages $6.95 Grolsch Premium Lager $6.75 Heineken $4.75 Heineken Light $4.75 Kirin Light $4.75 Michelob Ultra $5.25 Miller Genuine Draft $4.25 Miller Lite $4.25 Peroni $4.75 Red Stripe $4.75 Beck's $4.75 Carlsberg $4.75 Harp Lager $5.75 Pilsner Urquell $4.75 Sam Adams $4.75 Spaten $5.25 Stella Artois $4.75 Bass Ale $5.75 Boddington Pub Ale - Not included in packages $5.95 Redhook Long Hammer IPA - Not included in packages $6.25 Sierra Nevada $5.75 Widmer Hefeweizen - Not included in packages $6.25 Guiness Draft - Not included in packages $5.95 Murphy's Stout - Not included in packages $5.95 Newcastle Brown Ale $5.75 Sam Adams Double Bock - Not included in packages $6.50 Blue Moon $4.75 Chimay Blue - Not included in packages $19.95 Hoegarden $5.75 Leffe $5.75 Sam Adams Imperial white - Not included in packages $6.50 Smirnoff Ice $4.75 Strongbow $5.75 Buckler $4.25 O'Douls $4.25 The exclusions annoy me, you have some beers that cost $6.75 that are included and others that cost $5.95 that aren't. I guess its too try and limit how much of the "rarer" stuff people go through but it annoys me that I can drink all the Grolsch I want that would normally cost $6.75 but I cant get a Sam Adams White at all (just to try it).