Katiel53

If I can't sail in a balcony, I won't cruise, so 1 cruise in a balcony rather than 2 insides. To me, an inside cabin is like being in a walk in closet for a week. I did it for my first cruise, but will never do it again. I'd stay home before I would go in an inside.

I think the prices have risen far more than they should are based on a few reasons. I do believe the cruise line is trying to make up for their $18 snafu. They didn't void the purchases because it would have been a PR nightmare, but no doubt they are going to make up the money one way or another. Secondly, I think there are many cruisers who may or may not have cruised other lines where there was a 15 drink max per day and heard about the unlimited packages on RC, so they are booked and are darned sure going to get their monies worth. I have seen that posted so many times on another site that it's kind of like a given now. Thirdly, I think so many people have posted to watch for sales and if the price is lower than what you paid, cancel and rebook. The prices are lower than one line who gives free drinks but charges gratuities that amount to a much higher price than RC. Lastly, the cruise line has new ships on the line and needs to make the money to pay for them and the alcohol package is a great way to do so. At some point the cruisers will decide the price is too high, but until then, the price will go up. JMO.

I would be a happy camper if the casinos became non-smoking. Unfortunately, I have a son who smokes and he and his wife (non-smoker) were playing machines in the smoking area that were not available in the non-smoking area. They were doing well on those machines and asked me to join them. I did and I won some, but the smell was enough for me. I went into the casino one day when we were perhaps in Labadee or some place where the casino was open during the day but it wasn't a sea day. There were very few in there and I thought it would be a good time to go play the machines my son and daughter-in-law found lucky. I could not believe the number of cigarettes overflowing the ashtrays in there. Some people must have felt it necessary to go to the casino before leaving the ship and the smell was so bad, I had to leave the area. I do have to say that on Allure, and I think on Harmony, that when I first walked down the couple of stairs into the casino, the smell of smoke was horrendous. After walking a few steps to the left, I couldn't smell the smoke at all. I don't know if my sinuses were burned out from the initial smell or if the air circulation was really good and I didn't smell smoke. I thought the non-smoking side of the casino didn't smell, but some of the "good machines" weren't on that side. I wish the whole casino were non-smoking and if they can't/won't do that, have the same machines on both sides. I know there is a good chance that the casinos will become non-smoking and I do believe there are enough of us to keep it in business.

I have a lot of cotton clothes on a cruise. They get ironed or sent to the dry cleaner/laundry before the cruise. Either way, I hang my clothes by outfits and cover them with dry cleaner bags. They go in as the last items in my suitcase. I do the same with my husband's dress pants etc. They aren't wrinkled when we board the ship even when packed a few days before the cruise. Having the items on hangers makes for easy unpacking. If I have unworn clothes, which is usually the case, it makes for easy packing to take home and the clothes don't touch the dirty clothes in the suitcase on the way home. Easy peasy and I've done this for at least 10 years and it works every time.

I am not from the UK, but I have seen others question that they had the Deluxe drink package as it wasn't shown on the Cruise Planner. Many have contacted Royal Caribbean and have found out that it was on their records. It just didn't show there as it would if it were purchased. I wish we had that here in the US, but I do understand that we may pay less than you do, so I guess all is good. Enjoy!

I think a lot of a cruise is dependent upon how many cruises you have sailed and what is important to you. I say that because our last few cruises we have used the Ultimate/Unlimited dining plan. We enjoy the ambiance of the specialty restaurants as well as the better service we get in the specialty restaurants. I feel the food in the MDR sounds good, but lacks flavor other than salt. Our last several cruises as well as our future cruises booked are on Oasis class ships and there are quite a few specialty restaurants. We tend to go to Chops several times on a cruise as well as to Giovanni's on Allure and Jamie's on Harmony. When we went to Chops the first time, we loved the waiter we had so we requested him every time we dined there. The same with Jamie's or Giovanni's. I love breakfast in the MDR, but with using the UDP, we don't eat breakfast on sea days as we get to have lunch in a specialty restaurant and there is no way we could eat a big lunch and dinner. To us, because we have cruised many times, port excursions are not important any longer so the specialty restaurants are our excursions. I realize not everyone feels as we do and that's great as there are choices for everyone.

When you board and get the Cruise Compass, be sure to check the time shown on the Compass against the times shows on the app. We have found some last minute changes, for whatever reasons, were not updated on the app so times for events were changed. It was only for a couple of things, but if they are things that are important to you, it could make a huge difference.

You can try to change your show times in that there are some reservation spaces that can be booked onboard. If you arrive at the port early, my suggestion is to go to where the shows are being reserved and see if/what you can do. There are shows that take walk-ins if all the seats are not filled by those with reservations so that is something you may consider, but I wouldn't count on getting two or more seats together at all of them. With MTD you can walk up early and see if you can get an earlier time. You will have to wait to see when you can be seated, but there are many who don't make reservations and still get to dine in the MDR. If you'd rather, you can go to the dining room onboard right after you take care of the show reservations and see if you can make reservations for early dining or for a seat in the MTD restaurant earlier. Show reservations usually 90 days before the cruise so when you booked, it appears you were very limited in your choices which, I am sure you realize, is one disadvantage of booking close(r) to sailing. If a show is really important to you, and you can't change the day/time, you might consider eating in the WJ that night. Reports have been that the food is good and many even prefer to have dinner there. Good luck and enjoy the cruise.

We have enjoyed the specialty restaurants we have visited. We are steak fans and loved the steak in Chops and have dinner there a couple of nights per cruise. I love the truffle pasta at Jamies and totally enjoyed the salmon there as well. The burgers at lunch are huge and really good. Hibachi is a fun place and even though we have Hibachi restaurants near our home, none of them serve steak and lobster or steak and scallops or scallops and lobster. That's one of the reasons we go there for dinner. We only did 150 once and it was a fail but that's because the Lobster Thermidor was overcooked, dry and was one tiny lobster tail. The tail was the same size as that served in the dining room. I have seen that on other ships when the Thermidor was ordered, it wasn't dry and there were 2 tails. I did have a taste of the tenderloin for 2, even though it was ordered for one and was not sliced table side, it was quite good, so I will consider going there again on our next Harmony cruise. We have done Sabor for lunch and dinner. I would not consider it for dinner again as I don't think it's worth the price. One of our lunches took forever as the restaurant was very busy and when the food came out, it wasn't what I ordered for me, but I tasted it because I didn't want to have to wait longer for them to correct the order. I had ordered a steak quesadilla and got a chicken taco instead. Big difference! The taco was more like a pancake in that it was thick and the size of a pancake from IHOP. The chicken was stringy and in some broth and it wasn't something I enjoyed. I couldn't get anyone to go to Wonderland as the food is a bit out there and my family is more into regular food. When we go on Harmony again, we will get the UDP again but even without having breakfast and ordering burgers or a salad for lunch, and then having a dinner, there was too much food. We ended up skipping a couple of the lunches because the food was too heavy and we went to lunch at Noon, dinner at 7:30, we still weren't hungry at dinner.

My granddaughter has used the teen club on Allure and I am guessing it's pretty much the same on other Oasis class ships. The 12-14 year olds are in the same area as the 15-17 year olds, but are divided up in some cases by scheduled programs. There are ice skating sessions for each age group, basketball games, a prom and I think several other events. It is important to the kids to go to the club night 1 at 8PM so they get to meet the others. I think it is a distinct disadvantage to them if they don't go to that event. It may be different for you having two kids in there, but if not it is important.

As far as I have seen that is the ongoing policy because there are too many people purchasing the key to fit into Chops. It is not a large restaurant and there seems to be no way to seat everyone. The lines for it before moving the lunch to the dining room were long and too many posted comments about how they felt they weren't getting what they paid for. Another reason, and I have not seen this posted anywhere, there are people who have UDP and wanted to have embarkation day lunch in Chops and weren't able to do so as well as others paying for a lunch in Chops on embarkation. This now appears to accommodate everyone, albeit not those with the key having the meal IN Chops but they are giving Chops food for those in the dining room which is not open to anyone else.

Now that anyone/everyone can cruise, it is no longer the style of some of us. On most nights, having dinner in the dining room, shorts are fine as they are considered dress shorts, which to me is an oxymoron, along with a polo shirt. Now will you see people who feel the shorts with underwaear hanging out with a tee shirt saying whatever, sure. Is that going to ruin your dinner? For specialty restaurants, many are casual such as Jamies or Giovanni's. Chops is mixed in the here again, the dress shorts and polo shirts are fine. On formal night most people do get dressed up at least in pants for men with a dress shirt with or without a tie. Most women wear dresses or pants with a dressier top. I noticed in Jan on Allure when we went to 150 people were more dressed up that in other specialty restaurants. Most men had on dress shirts with long pants and many had on jackets. It was NOT a formal night, but maybe it's just a higher class restaurant. I don't care what people wear, although, I probably do make comments to my traveling companions, but if the cruise line allows you to look like you just came from the gym or you just woke up, what's it to me?

The prices on Oasis class ships are higher than other ships. I guess I have a hard time having people understand when reading the price, it says DISCOUNT IS ALREADY APPLIED or words to that effect. The cruise line uses the onboard price, as you could pay whatever the going rate is onboard and it's usually higher, so the discount applies to that. I know the price onboard can vary depending upon how well the sales are going. OP if the price were the 50% BOGO off the onboard price and RC didn't discount each person 25% which is what the discount amounts to if you take the time to figure it out, you would be paying the same for 2 people as it comes up on the pricing, but the 3rd person would pay the full rate because there is no 2nd person to discount. Think about it and you can see that even though the price is high, and may not be for you, it's not false advertising, bait and switch or whatever you choose to call it. I think it is fair to have the discount of 25% per person work as for those who purchase it for one can benefit as well as 3 people who would have the 3rd person pay more. Not everything about the cruise line is out to get you.

There are passengers, mostly first timers, that think they want to give their stewards something as an extra. There is a running joke for years about someone's giving his steward a key chain with a John Deere tractor on it and thinking the steward was really happy with it. I have to say the crew is very polite, and will act like they love whatever is given to them. Their quarters are very small, so where would they put all the things given to them? If your boss gave you magnet from your/his home town instead of a bonus, would you be happy? Common sense is not always common. Having said that, we give extra cash to whomever we feel deserves it. I did give our extra cash to our steward on one cruise and wrapped it in KitKat bars. I thought he could eat them, share them, or throw them away and it would't matter to me. He said he loved them and I thought, yeah, and I knew that's what he would say as he was a very kind person. Later that night, I saw the empty wrappers on his cart, so maybe he really did like them, lol? I believe most of the crew have their paychecks sent home to feed, care for their families. I also believe that the cash they receive allows them to buy some things they may want/need. It's not up to me to decide what they need, so, for us, cash is king.

I guess I am confused by the first part of the OP's comments. If the towels were returned, why were they charged $200? Believe me, I don't agree with chair hogs and I do understand the removal of items, but if the towels were picked up by the pool attendants, why would the passenger be billed? If I did leave things and go off and hog the chair, I might have questions for the cruise line as to why I am being billed if they removed the towels. Either I don't understand, which is possible as I don't use the pools, or something is wrong with this post. Please explain it to me. Thanks.

You don't even need to have your cup with you as your Sail & Sign card should have a sticker or code that indicates you have the soda package so the bartender can see it and not charge.

I think it depends on how well the alcohol sales are going if the 10 drink card becomes available. I have seen it in the Cruise Compass on Tuesday night, which is for Wednesday on a cruise that started on Sunday. It was not available before then. I have cruised on Allure and Harmony since the cards have become available, and only two of my cruises have had it available. They were both Allure in Jan of 2017 and 2018. In June and July the card was not available. On Harmony in Jan 2019 it was not available but there was a large group onboard so I don't know if that made a difference.

Thanks for the info, but I won't be flying back into the country until my family goes to England and Scotland a year from this summer. I may have to see if I can talk my family into taking a trip to get the Global Entry between now and then.

I have Pre-check and I would have Global Entry if I didn't have to drive 2 hours each way to get it. I do wish there were more locations available, On my last cruise, which was Harmony in January, there was no line for the mobile app, which I also have. I am guessing it's because we were off the ship right after 6:30AM and were not with tons of people. I am hoping that in June on Allure it will be close to the same thing as once again, I have an early flight.

I have sailed on Allure several times and I have had flights from FLL at 10:15 most of those cruises. I do self assist and have done an early breakfast and then right off the ship. I have arrived at the airport shortly after 7, so it's been plenty of time for the check-in for my flight. I won't recommend what I did a couple of weeks ago, but I sailed on Harmony. I had an 8:30AM flight home. We got in line about 6AM and were off the ship shortly after 6:30 and at the airport before 7AM. There were no lines for check in and I was at my gate about 7:10 or so. I did have a back-up plan and that was a flight at 5PM, but I didn't want to sit around all day waiting to go home. I felt badly for my sister who was traveling with me as her flight home didn't leave until 10:30 so she was at the airport for quite a while.

I have not used the companies you mentioned, but I have used others and have had claims. I have used Roam Right and my husband developed pneumonia and we had to cancel a couple of weeks before the cruise and our refund arrived a couple of weeks after we sent in a doctor's letter. Another time I had Nationwide and had a fall on a cruise where I had a broken arm and a couple of hematomas which resulted in medical care from the ship. Although the cruise line did not charge me for their medical care, I was sent by ambulance from the ship to Tulane Medical Center in NOLA. Fortunately, the fall happened on the next to the last night on the ship. I now use insurance that is primary as I want to be sure that I don't have to submit anything to my medical insurance and get a rejection (Medicare supplement which does not cover me outside the USA) I don't expect anything to happen, but who knows? My biggest concern is medical evacuation insurance and even though my credit cards cover some things, they don't cover that. I think it's kind of funny that when I was a lot younger, my husband and I got insurance because we were concerned about something happening to our parents, now it's because something could happen to me.

The cost of Johnny Rockets is $9.95 plus 18% gratuity making it close to $12.00. RC has decided that the specialty restaurants (JR is one, lol) that are booked onboard will have the 18% added to the charge. Previously, the gratuity was included, I guess as it was the $6.95.

Last cruise on Allure I purchased the alcohol package, but I won't be doing it again in all likelihood. I sailed with my sister and she is Diamond and I am Diamond Plus. I purchased the package online at 20% off even though if I did so onboard, it would have been 30% off, but it wasn't worth it to me to have to stand in line at guest services. I really didn't use the package enough for it to be worth it to me. We went to the DL and I had a couple of drinks nightly, and then had wine with dinner. I could have used my 3 free drinks at dinner as we used the Specialty restaurants all week and had dinner at 6:30 nightly. Rarely did I have a drink during the day. I did get a few bottles of water daily and could have gotten soda, which I don't drink with the package. I probably averaged a drink per night in the casino. Now, my next cruise is with my son and his family and they have only cruised once on Royal Caribbean. It may be worth more this cruise as I won't be going to the DL at all. I have to think it through and decide if it's worth my while or not. I know I won't be bringing bottles of water on the ship with me, so I will have to decide soon. I do like the flavored waters on the ship, but am too lazy to have to hunt down the machines that have them.

I have sailed on Allure without getting the cabin key on embarkation. I didn't have any problem at all as the key that is outside is in a sealed envelope/package. The other key(s) are inside the cabin. If anyone wanted to purchase something on the ship before the cabins are available, such as soda package or a drink, the Set Sail Pass has the info the cruise line needs to assess the charges to the correct account. Last cruise on Allure, I had the alcohol package and ordered a Bloody Mary while waiting for the cabin to be available. The bartender had to write down the info and said it would be input into the computer later that day and it was done correctly and I wasn't billed for my drink. As far as the Mobile Passport is concerned, I've been able to use it twice on Allure, but the last cruise it wasn't up and running for some reason. I was in the line for using it and was sent to an agent and just showed him my passport and I was on my way. All three times I did self debarkation and it was quite early in the morning. I like having it as it seems the line, if any, moves very quickly.

I joined a roll call group for Allure on an upcoming sailing. After joining, I found out the mod or whatever she is called is a travel agent. I do think she is trying to drum up business in that she has mentioned a couple of times she has some group space available that has to be released soon. Another FB group, not or a particular cruise, is run by someone who runs an agency. He posts info on several pages and he is also trying to drum up business. I haven't ever heard him mention a cruise he, himself has sailed on or will be sailing on. It might be that he doesn't sail on Royal Caribbean, but I don't know. I also don't have any of my person info on my FB page so I get called a troll frequently. In addition, other than the roll call site for the cruise, I never post that I will be leaving in x many days for my cruise.