JLMoran

@Matt, is that true yet on Harmony for Wonderland? Last I heard, only Symphony's Wonderland had a kids' menu.

I'm curious if the ship's primary sailing locations also play a part in decisions about what will go into a given refurbishment, at least for major new features like water slides or some of the dining venue concepts. Adventure spends a good part of each year away from the Caribbean and Bahamas, and while it's not all of the year I can see where it could play a part. If the weather won't accommodate use of fancy new water slides for 2 or 3 months of the year, it becomes an expensive add-on that's just sitting unused while getting beaten up by the weather and incurring maintenance costs. And while a Playmakers type venue would work fine in just about any part of the world, a tiki bar might seem oddly out of place outside of the Caribbean or South Pacific.

Cash tipping is totally permissible, and several of us here do it for two main purposes: Extra tip for the cabin steward and wait staff at the end of the cruise for exemplary service A dollar passed with our SeaPass card when ordering a beverage and we have a beverage package of some sort; some just pass a 5 or 10 on the first time and then leave it at that, all depends on whether you're going to stick with one bar or float around If you're asking a favor of the head waiter or matre'd so your wife's birthday is extra-special, it's absolutely fine to tip them whatever you think is appropriate in thanks. Key thing with cash tips is that the person receiving it gets to keep it for themselves, unlike the daily gratuities that are distributed to all of the crew members involved with your cabin location and dining section.

Something that extreme is pretty rare, yes. But I'll give an example that happened to me and was something that could be a lot more frequent. I was on Anthem last October, and found after looking at my SeaPass charges on night three that I was being charged daily gratuities. I had pre-paid my grats about two months before sail date, so this should just not have been happening. Went to Guest Services the next morning, and they couldn't explain why this was happening when I had an email receipt on my phone showing they were paid. So I emailed my TA (from MEI) and let her know the situation. She did the work of digging into that while I went and enjoyed the afternoon showing of We Will Rock You (and my drink package). Got out of the show and had an email from her that Royal said the charge never went through. Well, I replied that indeed it did, because I'd just gotten my latest statement and I could see the charge there, plain as day. She continued to follow up and eventually got it all resolved for me, while I was able to continue enjoying my vacation without spending hours at Guest Services or on the phone with headquarters, and without having to think about following up on that when I got back home. If time is money, and stress is a withdrawal on your "cash on hand", she saved me a pretty good bit there on top of the double-charged tips. Agents also save you time before boarding by doing the work of checking every new promotion to see if it saves you money, so depending on how "type A" you are, that's another thing to keep in mind. You just get to enjoy planning excursions and what drink you'll enjoy at sailaway, while your agent is going the "drudge work" of price checking at least once a week for you and every other client he or she has.

Hey, @BrewerJoe, welcome to the forums! As a rule, prices are at their lowest when the itineraries are first announced and only go up from there. Sometimes a particular sailing, or cabin class within the sailing, will go down briefly if the cabins are filling up fast enough or there are still some unsold close to sail date, but it's the exception rather than the rule. If you're approaching your threshold for the trip getting too expensive, and it's definitely one you want to take, best to pull the trigger soon. One thing to note -- if you're looking at the prices on Royal's web site, you're going to be seeing the non-refundable deposit pricing. Given the sailing is in July, there's probably no reason to not go with a non-refundable deposit at this point since final payment date is so close. But if you want to make a refundable booking just in case, that will cost a bit more. You can see how much more by starting a mock booking and going most of the way through the process -- select cabins and enter traveler info (feel free to make up most of it, just keep your state accurate on the off chance there's an offer available for residents of your state) -- then get to the screen after traveler info. Here you see the extra cost to buy insurance with Royal, pre-pay your gratuities... and book with a refundable deposit. Check that option and you'll see the adjusted price. Usually, there's also a reduction in any OBC or instant savings offered. As @rjac noted, it's really best to go with a regular travel agency, rather than one of the internet resellers. I've also used MEI and will recommend them. Besides keeping an eye out for you with price reductions, you'll have someone who will go to bat for you with Royal should anything really bad happen between now and cruise date. (like, say, Royal deciding abruptly to cancel a cruise because the ship suddenly got chartered at the last minute -- yes, this really happened to someone here, and without their travel agent getting into the ring with Royal, there would have been a much less satisfactory ending)

Hi @Metphan714, welcome to the forums! You may want to try calling Royal and seeing if they can do it over the phone for you. It's basically the inverse of the more-common "both in one room but one can't drink" scenario.

@alamode123, I am sooo jealous right now. Can't believe you got to meet the cast of Stranger Things! Was Winona Ryder there, too?? Yeah, totally fan-boi-ing right now. ?

Really nice pics, @Jaymac Radio!

@Mljstr, very sorry to hear about your current situation. Hoping for the best and that no surgery will be needed! Definitely read the policy terms very carefully for any "pre-existing condition" clauses. I know that when I've bought insurance in the past, whether Royal's or another's, there is a clause that states pre-existing conditions that are present for some time period before purchase (I've typically seen 6 months, but it could vary) will automatically exclude coverage unless the insurance was bought within a short time window from booking (usually 2 two weeks). Some policies allow you to separately purchase a waiver for pre-existing conditions if you buy the policy outside this window. You'll need to find a policy that either has no pre-existing condition clause (which is probably going to be rare as hen's teeth and exorbitantly expensive), or that allows you buy the waiver so you can be guaranteed coverage should surgery prove necessary. This is absolutely going to be considered a pre-existing condition by any policy issuer since you learned about it prior to purchase, and your doctor would almost certainly be obligated to state as much if asked during an insurance claim audit.

If you speak to your head waiter or maitre'd on the first night, you should be able to have the waiters for your table come over and sing "happy birthday" and give a slice of cake or other sweet. Easier if you have traditional dining, but I'm sure it can also be arranged with My Time Dining.

Man, someone doubled up on his snark pills today... ?

Nice, but stubborn. ?

This was actually discussed over in "the other place" a fair bit for the same service with Celebrity. There's a pretty big "gotcha" with choosing to pay later -- while you have a reservation for the flight are guaranteed a seat, you are not ticketed with the airline and cannot select your seat(s) until you have paid for the flight. So you're taking a gamble by paying later that any group you're flying with could be split up or that you'll be sitting in some undesirable location on the plane. It was further explained on the thread that taking the "pay later" option is basically selecting a refundable with no change fee ticket, whereas paying right away is non-refundable. There was also some speculation (without confirmation) that the fare price could be subject to change based on the prevailing rate if you don't lock in the fare by paying right away. I got confirmation that Flights By Celebrity fares are cheapest when first offered and then only go up from there as the available seats fill up, so it's definitely something to keep in mind. Seems to me that if you're going to use this service, just use it "the old-fashioned way" and pay for your tickets at time of booking. Especially if it's any kind of group flight where you don't want to be split up, or if you have needs like an exit row seat for legroom or absolutely have to be in a window seat and not in the middle of the plane.

Well, that 9-night Pacific Coast itinerary you proposed back on page 1 does sound interesting. But then I'm dealing with the same pain and expense for flying that you're dealing with right now coming to the east coast. And with the premium pricing that O-class still commands, that becomes an expensive ticket even for 2 in an inside cabin! Not saying I'd never do it, but if it were announced as a reality even in the next couple of years I'd have to say no just because of finances. Part of what lets me book the sailings I've got booked for this year and next is that I'm spending nothing on flights to get to Cape Liberty.

Well, I could have gotten away with 10 on that cruise due to the kids' school schedule, but not 14. And being a cruise noob at the time, I didn't know B2B was a thing. ? Sorry to hijack the original thread. Back to "ship-class-I'll-deny-until-I-don't" #6.

I think that's the first time I've ever heard YIMBY -- YES in my back yard!! Might be the American "classic", but it sure ain't my ideal for how long a vacation should be. Nothing frustrated me more when looking for our first cruise booking than seeing how few were over 7 days. I felt a little gipped when I had to "settle" for an 8-night itinerary instead of 10. ?

Hi @JoanneSJ, welcome to the forums! Yup, it's really as simple as that. Unlike the drink packages, Royal doesn't really care if you're sharing your access code with someone else. That's mainly because the network tracks the devices that log in with each unique code, and as soon as there's a new device trying to log on that goes over the number of devices you paid for, that device will get a notice that one of the other devices has to be logged off first. Since Royal can actually enforce the limits (unlike with a human sharing his or her drink package), they don't have to put in any annoying policies about everyone in a stateroom buying wifi if one person buys it. ?

Ah, I missed the part about BOGO. Sorry about that! If your 9 year old is into seafood and doesn't mind food that looks different from the usual way it's prepared, Wonderland will be no problem. Symphony also added a children's menu to Wonderland that isn't yet available on the other ships, so that can be an option if nothing on the main menu seems appealing.

Hi @Kwevans, welcome to the forums! And congratulations on booking your first cruise, you're in for a great time. ? Figure that early dining will have more young children present, since parents may not want them staying up too late even on vacation. If you want your son to have a chance at some table mates his own age to talk with, you might have better chances in this time slot. The down side of this time slot, based on what I've read from others who've posted about it, is that it seems the level of service and the quality of the food served has gone down a lot due to servers and the kitchen having a lot of passengers to manage in both traditional and My Time Dining at this hour. Reports of slow service, cold or incorrectly prepared food, and wait staff that never seemed to get to know you seem far more common in this time slot. With later dining, which is what I did with my family, you won't be as likely to see that many pre-teens and younger. I wasn't really looking for them when we were there, but I honestly can't recall seeing any; and we ate in the main dining room every night. Plenty of teens and twenty-somethings, but not any kids clearly under 12 that I'm remembering. The plus side of this dining slot, at least based on my experience and anecdotally from a few others, is that the level of service and quality of the food are in line with what people remember "from back when". Our food was always hot and well-prepared, our servers remembered our drink preferences and were always attentive, we even got some extra staff helping to deliver drink orders more promptly after the first night. Hope this helps!

The one specialty dining option that I've both heard and personally experienced to regularly run 3 hours or longer is Chef's Table. It's a very sedately paced meal, and with five courses you are not getting through that quickly. The time I had it on Freedom we all met at 6 and didn't leave the dining room until after 9:30; nearly all the late-seating diners were either wrapping up their meal or already gone. Definitely don't book that for any night you have a show to catch!

It does seem that they default to refundable, rather than NRD, when selecting multiple rooms for a reservation. When I book a single room, the screen shows me both the NRD and refundable options side-by-side after picking the room, with nothing defaulted. I select which one I want to do and then go from there. The lack of perks on refundable is something unique to transatlantic and repositioning cruises. When I spoke with a rep at Celebrity, she made no reference to NRD booking as an option and told me up front that those types of cruises don't get perks offered with other sailings. And I just confirmed that "regular" sailings do get the perks on refundable by doing another mock booking, this time for a 2020 Bermuda and Newport, RI sailing (a Verandah cabin to match my earlier mock booking). After picking the cabin, the refundable deposit option showed both "$20 refundable deposit no risk" and choice of 2 complimentary perks; the NRD option showed "deposit with fees*" and all 3 perks, the same as my TA booking. Looks like for the TA / repositioning cruise, those in the know and who can commit to the sailing get a silent option to go NRD if they want the perks, but it's not publicized at all by X's reps and they continue to go with refundable as the standard.

Hi @Fulo, welcome to the boards! If you click the "Cruise Compass" link at the very top of the page, you can search for past cruise compasses that people have uploaded. If you find a recent one for your specific itinerary on Freedom, you'll get a pretty good idea of what kind of events will be happening on board. I sailed Freedom back in April of last year, and they did have the 70s party late in the sailing. I'd imagine they still do that, as it seems to be a staple of the Freedom and Voyager class ships. That's the only one that I remember, and only a small portion of the passengers got dressed up in any way.

Haven't forgotten. That's why airlines invented the redeye. ?

I'm telling you, @Lovetocruise2002, Greenland and Iceland are calling you! ?