JLMoran

Not showing for me on my Oct 13 sailing. ? Then again, I'm also still unable to make reservations for Coastal Kitchen, even though it's reappeared and Anthem has historically allowed that for JS bookings; and I'm still not seeing iFly or North Star. So hopefully in the coming days or weeks for my sailing.

@Neaxan, thanks for that post! As I've been looking at possible future itineraries for Europe, I keep coming back to Med (Eastern being first choice for the Adriatic Coast and Greece, then Western for the Italian and French ports) or Norway. Glad to know from your personal history that my instincts were picking two of the best options. Now I just have to wait for schedules and finances and budgetary stars all to align.

Awesome news! Fingers crossed that you get the price matching, and maybe Sharla can work some extra voodoo on Royal so you get extra OBC or something else to ease the sting a little more. I do hope your girls come around, at least by the time you actually fly down and sail out. They deserve to enjoy that trip without any metaphorical clouds hanging over them. With luck, 8 months will be enough time that they can start watching new YouTube videos and reading new reviews and find some excitement and anticipation coming back.

Only a junior suite (STILL a surprise for the missus!), but I know Anthem is the one (only?) ship where as a JS guest I can still make dinner reservations for CK online instead of having to wait until we board. I went through this nonsense from 150-120 days out, but I assumed at this point (based on feedback from others here) that I should be able to actually make the reservations now that I'm inside the 90-day window. Hopefully tomorrow or by the weekend.

Great photos of Gibraltar. From the two pics you posted of the siege tunnels, I have to agree that they're pretty impressive!

Coastal Kitchen has finally reappeared for me under Dining. BUT... it still says I can't make the reservations! Sincerely hoping that clears up in a day or two, especially now that I've got my show reservations worked out and I know exactly what dinner times to avoid those nights...

May want to plan on flying in two days before, maybe three, so you have a chance to adjust to the time zone change. Southampton is 5 hours ahead; while Barcelona, Civitavecchia (Rome), and Venice are all 6 hours ahead. Same with Copenhagen or Amsterdam and neighboring cities in Denmark, where you'll depart for most Scandinavian trips.

Well worded letter @alamode123, and one that clearly conveys your frustrations, the poor "service" you've been offered so far, and the fact you're fine to make a deal if they'll just bend a bit for you. Hopefully you'll get a response, and it will be a lot better than a polite "take what we've offered you or go pound sand."

FWIW, it does seem that Royal's website has some maintenance windows in the early part of the workday morning. I tried doing online checkin today around 7:30 AM and got notifications that my reservation was being modified and to check back later. Also couldn't access Cruise Planner, it said there was an issue locking my reservation. Came back at 9:00 AM and had no issues accessing the Online Checkin screen in my usual Safari browser, non-private mode.

I have to stop reading so literally. Read that and initially pictured this:

Keep in mind these aren't the only drinks not fully covered by the package. Go to Vintages and check out the wine list, you will find many a wine there sold by the glass that isn't fully covered and can range from a mere $1 or $2 over to tens of dollars over! And there is certainly no extra labor involved there, those are just old vintages or wines considered ultra-high-end by whoever judges these things. I'd also love it if the package covered absolutely everything under the sun, but I can also see how with something like the Vintages offerings they would then find everyone with a package ordering glasses of the $60/glass wine, tasting it and leaving the glass on the bar just to say they tasted $60 a glass wine; and now Royal is out a lot of money (even allowing for the absolutely ridiculous markup they charge compared to land prices). As a wine drinker, it's what I absolutely loved the most about the Chef's Table experience: I found a wine I liked at that event that I discovered was $30 a glass at Vintages. Having paid for the meal, it didn't matter if I had the drink package or not; I could (and did!) have four glasses of that wine, on top of all the other wines I had that evening that were also moderately to well above the drink package limit, enjoyed every drop of them, and that's all money Royal had to leave on the table, whether they liked it or not.

Holy cow! Best hopes and wishes for your husband!

I hear you on that. I may try and convince my wife (aka SWMBO -- She Who Must Be Obeyed) to switch to the later showing of We Will Rock You for the same reason. But she wanted the earlier showing on that day, so that's what I booked. ? I'll keep you posted.

For everyone who's booked on the Oct 13 Anthem sailing to Bermuda, the stage shows (The Gift, We Will Rock You, and Spectra's Cabaret) are now visible for reservations in Cruise Planner under Entertainment. Grab your reservation while you can! For those who want to see the shows and would be interested in making a sort of "mini group cruise event" out of one or more of them, I've booked Spectra's Cabaret for Day 2 (sea day) at 7:30 PM, and We Will Rock You for Day 5 (Sea Day) at the 2:30 PM matinee showing. Still waiting for North Star and iFly reservations to show up, not sure why they aren't made available the same day.

I have Izumi sushi available in my cruise planner for Anthem, but for a while there it wasn't visible at all. So you may just need to give it time to show up.

If you choose to self-disembark, you should be able to get on line to leave the ship at 6:00 or 6:30 AM, and actually disembark around 7:00 AM; instructions will be provided along with your luggage tags two nights before disembarkation. If you do choose to self-disembark, you won't use those luggage tags and you will keep all suitcases in your room with you until you disembark. This is definitely the fastest way off the ship and you can be sure you'll be out to meet your transport well in advance. If you are OK with doing normal disembarkation and picking up your bags in the port terminal after you get off the ship, then you'll want to check those luggage tags to see which disembarkation group you've been assigned, as well as the sheet that came with them which says what time each group is allowed to disembark. If you find that you've been assigned to a group that leaves later than you're comfortable with, you can go to Guest Services the day before disembarkation and request new tags with an earlier departure time. Just be aware that crowds form very quickly the later you disembark, and the total time to get off the ship. Going this route does give you a chance to hit the Windjammer for a quick breakfast before you leave, even if you get off at 7:30 or 8:00.

Sound business practice in this case. People are already flustered and crazed over the storm's unexpected impact on their return travel plans and, depending on where they live, possibly worried about what state they'll find their home in when they return. Royal doing this ensures that when those stressors come to a peak, the people will be telling their friends, "I'm so glad that Royal stepped up and covered all of those changes for us! It was such a huge relief not to have to deal with those added expenses on top what hit us because of the storm!" Those friends now have positive feelings about Royal, and when considering a cruise will probably think of them first. Imagine if Royal stiffed everyone and said, "Not our problem!" Those people would be bad-mouthing Royal all over the place, including their local TV stations, and the bad press would haunt them for months, if not years. They have a hard enough time when the news goes on another "Look what ship got Norovirus THIS time!" story; why compound things like that with bad press about treating guests hammered by the hurricanes badly?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!! ????

@Matt, any chance you can pin Joe01's specific post with the spreadsheet link, or maybe copy it into a new pinned post on the People Connect board? That will make it easier for folks to find and update it as they get info.

I'm curious if the guided tours to Hobbiton and the other LOTR set areas are something that could be done on a cruise ship stay. Looks like the Hobbiton set is pretty far off from Auckland, close to Matamata; I'm guessing that's much too far away to be able to do something like that if you're not on a land vacation with a few days to spend on the island?

OP was asking specifically about Refreshment Package (no alcohol), which is a lot less (at least in the US). The lowest anyone has seen recently in the US for the Refreshment package is 18 USD/day, and that price usually shows up around sales like Fourth of July or Labor Day. A price of 32 USD (43.20 AUD) per day seems pretty high for the non-alcoholic package, but I checked and saw that Australia can charge a VAT; this could be having an effect on the overall price, if VAT has to be paid for all of the beverage packages. I tend to agree with @Neaxan and @Adriana; if your budget lets you buy it now, go ahead and do so as long as you have the option later on to cancel and re-purchase if a better sale price comes along.

For sure everyone in those two pics looks like they're happy and having a good time together!

Thanks for the live blog, @ellcee! There's a lot to be said for just relaxing, especially when you're fighting off a cold or whatever. Glad you were still able to have a fun and enjoyable vacation. Drink package on Anthem is back down to $42/day for the current sale, doesn't seem like it's going any lower than this. So you'll need to decide if that price ($247.80 total after auto-gratuities) is worth taking the gamble on how much you'll be drinking and how many coffees you'll have each morning. Considering that all places in Bermuda except bars and restaurants close at 5 PM, you may still find some value in it even with the two full days we have there. Depends on whether you think you'll be bar-hopping around Bermuda that one night.

As long as the beverage is made with espresso and not regular coffee, it will be covered. Because of this, I'm not 100% sure about the frapuccino-style beverages; at least with my local Starbucks, those are made with coffee, not espresso (unless you ask to add a shot), but the ships may prepare them with espresso instead. I'd recommend asking one of the workers there first before ordering, just to be safe.

And on top of that, Quantum Class ships were designed up front for cold weather and can offer far more on-board amenities regardless of the outside temperature. That enclosed Solarium will be killer on the sea days, with the panoramic views for everyone as they relax in the half-submerged loungers and the hot tubs. Never mind features like the Sea Plex. I find Bliss intriguing (see my thread about NCL vs. Royal), but I don't see how even that ship could make the go karts appealing on a day that's in the 40s and raining nonstop.