JLMoran

"Elite" may refer to your Captain's Club level in Celebrity, which you get automatically when you hit Diamond in C&A. Here's the page describing Captains Club: https://www.celebritycruises.com/captains-club/tiers-and-benefits. That page also makes note of discounts at MGM Resorts, so I have a feeling this is what the email was about.

Interesting. I was wondering if it was painted to look like a golf ball for safety / awareness reasons, like to make sure any approaching med-evac helicopters have a clear sense of where the things are located / sized as they approach, instead of just seeing a plain white disc with no clear contours.

I beg to differ, and not just because I'm the Oasis Denier. If the OP's sisters have never cruised before, Oasis class could be overwhelming. I'm going to second the vote for Mariner, since that is already doing 4-night sailings, or one of the Freedom-class ships that have been AMPED. Freedom is plenty big for a first-timer (I should know! And seems @Ray's wife feels that way, too ?), with more than enough to do and enjoy.

Happy birthday, @Ray!! Thanks for taking point in the "Turning 50" brigade! ? ?

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

Site's behaving normally this morning, so I guess the hamsters settled their feed quality strike and have gotten back on their wheels.

Couples spa pass can only be purchased onboard. Go to the spa on embarkation day, and don’t wait long after you board. There are a limited number of passes available and they go pretty quickly. Escape room is also only bookable on board, afaik. You’ll need to visit Guest Services for that.

Welcome, Krissi!

To clarify -- the prices listed for dining packages before adding them to your cart already have gratuity included. Drink packages, on the other hand, only show the base per-day rate without any gratuity until after you add them to your cart; when you go to check out, the gratuity is then calculated and the final total for those package purchases is shown before you give your credit card info. I don't really get why Royal doesn't just show the drink package price with the gratuity tacked on up front like they do for the dining packages. Yes, the price you see before throwing it in your cart will be higher, but at least when you go to check out you won't have that head-scratching moment wondering why the price suddenly jacked up by maybe a hundred dollars, depending on how many packages you bought.

Oh, and I already tried the trick of using an Incognito window as well as a regular one. Seeing this in Firefox and Safari on my work computer, and Safari on my iPhone as well.

So I went to check pricing today and see if there were any random price drops, and after selecting my itinerary and then saying 1 cabin for 2 people, I get this message after about 10 or 15 seconds: Changing the sailing date to any other option produces the same result, so it's definitely some kind of bug with the system and not anything worrying, like the ship being chartered or the like. Given that the message says to call to speak to a Royal Caribbean accessibility specialist, I'm guessing the system is mistakenly thinking I'm searching for accessible rooms instead of regular rooms, even though I don't have that checkbox checked. Checking the box, searching, then unchecking and searching again has no effect, always the same message. Anyone else seeing this today for their sailing? Or did Anthem Bermuda sailings win the website hamster battle royale lottery today?

Hey, if we're going with that vibe, then there has to be a stuffed ostrich you sit on while strapped to the bungee cords! ?

Another take on this -- With my Bermuda sailing last October, Anthem had a bunch of suites (including Junior Suites) unfilled at final payment date. If these emails are going out shortly after final payment dates (which it seems they are), then it could also be a way for Royal to quickly fill those unsold suites without having to do a ton of sudden "Guarantee Rate" offers on suites all the way up to sail date, which is what I observed happening as I kept watching to see if I could maybe snag an upgrade from JS to GS for a reasonable bump. For sure, I'd be happy to put in a bid from balcony to JS on my 2019 return to Bermuda, if it meant I could catch not just someone fully canceling their JS booking, but someone getting their own upgrade to a full suite from their existing JS. This is definitely copying what Norwegian has been doing for a while; it must be working there, or Royal wouldn't have adopted it.

IIRC, all of these options -- loungers, beach bed, bungalow, and cabana -- are based on one person buying them and then indicating who else in his/her party will be using it. So if you need a total of four then you only need two people to buy them, total cost $90. That said, I still think that with a party of four or more, going the bungalow or cabana route is much better in spite of the higher cost. You have guaranteed shade, the cabanas actually have a ceiling fan installed to keep you cool on a hot day, and the attendant taking care of you just makes it a nicely indulgent beach day. Now, if you think you'll spend 90% of your time away from the place and hanging out in the water or doing other things, then the loungers may be more than enough.

Does that price include the 18% gratuity? You're right that when you just multiply $24 by 7 you get only $168, but multiply that by 1.18 and you just shy of $199 – $198.24 to be exact.

@mattymay, I had asked my TA this same question about Celebrity in general a while back. She said that the line as a whole isn't really set up with activities or other things meant to appeal to teenagers. If your kids have more eclectic tastes, especially if they're foodies, they can still find ways to enjoy the trip, but they won't have things like a rock wall or other "high energy" activities. On a separate tack, when I was first looking at different cruise lines I had asked my friends on Facebook if they'd sailed Celebrity and seen kids / teens there. Responses were very few, but uniformly said they never saw more than a few. So finding people to hang out with might be another issue, although I'll throw in the caveats that I don't know when those people took their cruises (may have been during school time) and that I'd hardly consider my sample response size representative.

What band was Rookie doing a cover of?

Same. Still there on my Anthem cruise next October. The weird thing for me is that I see all the individual restaurants, but not one package offer. No UDP, no BOGO, no 3/4/5-night packages.

See, this is what's confusing me. If I'm paying $500, what about the $500 in chips is "free play"? Am I completely misunderstanding how this works? I thought this offer was that if I buy $500 in regular chips up front, they're giving me $25 in "free play" chips, and that only $25 is actually "free" and wouldn't count towards Club Royale status. Is it that I'm buying $500 in real chips up front, so they're giving me that $500 in chips plus $500 in additional "free play" chips, and then the $25 bonus chips on top of that for a total of $1,025 in chips? I can't imagine this is remotely correct, because then the house is giving away a lot of zero-real-value chips and giving me plenty of reason to bet only those; if I have a crap night with them and lose them all, I can cash out the chips I paid real money for and be out zero (apart from having no status points for that night). At that point, the house has effectively lost, at least as far as that day is concerned. And if I come out ahead, they lose more because any chips I lost in the course of a final net gain were zero-value to begin with. Of course, I'm assuming that everyone bets like me and just goes minimum bet / no side bets (or no double-downs or splits, if Blackjack is your game); I guess if you get $500 in free chips and decide to bet it all on black at the roulette table, then the casino wouldn't really care so much.

Related question -- you go to the casino and have the credit (both "free play" and base dollar amount you bought to get them) applied to your SeaPass card on day one, if I read the product description right. So when you step up to a table, you just tell the pit boss or whoever, "I'm using my on-card play credit"? And then they'll scan your card and see you have credit applied, just give you the chips at that point in whatever denomination you want (yes! I really want my $500 in chips in 5's, thank you!) I'm just remembering everyone's horror tales about casino managers having no clue about the new program when it rolled out; imagine if someone spends $2,000 up front for the free play, then hands over their card and the clueless casino worker just gives you $2,000 in chips instead of that plus the expected "free play" chips, all while charging your card and hitting you with the 5% convenience fee! ?

Fourth vote for using the port parking. Used it in October, super convenient and the staff were all friendly and helpful. Plus, it's got full security / cameras / etc. so you've got peace of mind your car won't have been vandalized while you were away.

Hi there, @Chrispy560, welcome to the boards! I haven't personally done this, but just from what I know about how checked luggage is piled up in massive carts or bins with dozens or even hundreds of other pieces, so that any given piece could have several hundred pounds of other stuff on top of it, I'd strongly recommend you bring both the stroller and car seat as carry-on items.

Unfortunately no, Anthem only has the sushi option.

No, the shuttles that go to Horseshoe Bay from the dockyard are actually just regular vans, not even buses at all. Five rows of seats, 3 or 4 passengers to a row. You definitely learn what a sardine feels like in the can if you ride one of these, as they don't like to travel less than full. In this photo, the shuttles actually are parked in the mini parking lot just below the red dot / triangle you can see in between the two ships. If you want a transit pass, the booth for that was located right next to that red dot / triangle (or maybe IS the dot / triangle), on the stretch of dock closer to the upper ship in the photo. From what I was told by someone who took the Pink Bus, it's more than a little bit -- that drops you off at the official bus stop on the main road, and from there you have to walk down the road to Horseshoe Bay, which is a fairly steep hill road, on a wooden walkway next to the road. It was described as a somewhat long and slightly strenuous walk, between a quarter and a half mile if I had to SWAG the distance. The shuttles actually go down that hill road and drop you off / pick you up right at the entrance to the beach area. So depending on whether you have any mobility limits like I do, or you have any smaller kids in your group who might not appreciate a decent hike down and then back uphill to get to the bus, I'd argue it's worth the extra $2 per person to take the shuttle. I certainly didn't mind paying it. ?

@2Beeze, that's really awful about the big price difference. Unfortunately, it does look like the folks who booked in July did indeed get the advantage of timing their purchase before the conversion to full suite benefits was announced. You noted that other person booked in July, but @Matt's post about Royal announcing the update is dated September 20 of this year, about two months after the other person booked. Royal doesn't usually jack up the prices (e.g., with fully refurbished ships) until after the date of the update kicks in, or at least the date the update will begin is officially announced -- see the current Oasis prices, which are still lower relative to other Oasis class ships since her official drydock date for AMPlification hasn't been announced, only the fact it's happening next year. It's never fun to find out you could have saved a bundle, but I do think this is a case where it's just that the timing worked out very well for that other family. If you still feel that you're being price-gouged (and if I'm being honest, $2k per person for a room that doesn't even have a balcony strikes me as very much on the gouging side EDIT -- Just saw @Lovetocruise2002's comment that this is a holiday booking, so I'm withdrawing my statement about gouging at least until I have a reference point on non-holiday but regular peak season pricing), you'd be well within your rights to cancel if you just don't feel like it's worth the price, or if you just think you'll have that thought hanging over you the whole trip.