Atlantix2000

Right, but for individual reservations, can you actually purchase the kid price in advance through cruise planner? I thought I've seen posters recommend you just book for the adults and show up with the kids and they get added at $10 each. Although, I would probably stop by earlier and mention we need a larger table so it isn't a surprise when you want to get seated.

Ironically, I had to highlight your post because that shade of yellow plus white background is unreadable on my screen!

Sounds like Costco is making things sound more complicated by not using Royal's terminology. Shipboard credit is just going to be onboard credit. The only difference is it won't be available until you are actually...on board...and then there are no rules on how it is spent. Dining credit really should be no different than onboard credit but again won't be useable until on board. You can only spend OBC before the cruise if it comes from Royal. You might be able to play some games where you book and pay for a reservation in advance on the Cruise Planner. Then, during the cruise you could try to cancel that reservation and rebook it using your OBC. Not sure if they would let you keep the pre-cruise price with that option though.

They make the courtesy reservation for day 1 or 2 because those days are usually less busy at the specialty restaurants. Many people don't do any pre-planning so they don't even know specialty restaurants exist until they've explored the ship. You are not required to keep that reservation but they usually require that you use one of your package's reservations on day 1 or 2. You can change the courtesy reservation and make the others by visiting any specialty restaurant once you board. In order to make reservations in advance, you must make individual reservations at full price. That's the trade-off for the package discount. As long as you make your reservations on day 1, you can usually get where and when you want (+/- 30 minutes). If you wait until day 2 or later, you're competing with everyone on board that forgot to plan ahead.

To answer the other half of your question...if you have early traditional dining, no, you cannot show up to my time dining and ask to be seated. They aren't going to deny you dinner if you arrive 10 minutes late, but they are not going to seat you at 7PM. If you miss you traditional seating, you would have to go to the windjammer buffet, another complimentary venue, or see if you can get into a specialty restaurant that night.

This is a common confusion with the Voom packages. Just buy one 4 device package using one person's name. If you put two names, you would actually be buying two 4 device packages! There's no restriction on whose devices get used. You could give the login code to a random person you meet on the ship if you want.

I think so? They might remind you that you aren't getting the best value for the voucher because your smoothie costs less than a glass of wine or mixed drink. Bartenders are known to point that out when you redeem them for an $8 beer instead of a $13 cocktail. But as long as you're ok with that, I would assume it would work on any ship.

Ship Previews?!? Wonder will have been sailing for 9 months at that point!

Did your MIL use the same travel agent or book directly with Royal? TAs can add their own rules. For example, Royal's final payment date may be X but your TA might require you to pay them at least a week earlier since the payment goes through them not Royal. Are you booking under the same rule system? Your location says Manchester. If that's Manchester in the UK and your MIL is American, you'd have different booking rules because the UK has different consumer protection laws. That said, I think Royal use to have a rule for prepaying gratuities with MTD some years ago but I don't believe it is true anymore. Your TA may be out of date on the rules and that might be a sign that they aren't the best TA to use for booking cruises.

For your first cruise, I recommend enjoying all the free food options available. Sure, specialty dining is nice but it's required to enjoy the cruise. The pre-paid gratuities cover your cabin attendant, waiters at complimentary dining areas (like main dining room, windjammer buffet, etc), and other staff that perform standard/free services during the cruise. This is a daily per person charge that is added to your account. Paying in advance has the advantage of locking in the rate. So if Royal raises the gratuities before your cruise, you aren't required to pay the higher amount. For any services you purchase during the cruise (drinks from a bartender, spa appointments, or specialty dining), 18% tip is added to the cost. Note this doesn't apply to merchandise purchased on board.

You also may have to go further through several steps before you are giving the option to choose the refundable (usually more expensive) option. I think others have posted they need to fill out the passenger information because the refundable option is shown after that step. This could be annoying if you are trying to compare several cruise prices.

Your question implies non-civilian (so naval? any other categories?) ships do something. You might want to describe it since the vast majority of us are unlikely to know what you're refering to!

We are not going to tell you that you are allowed to break the rules. If you choose to cruise, assume the rules will be enforced. If you don't like that answer, then don't cruise. There's always the chance the rules will change again for better or worse.

It's a simple trade off. Pay full price - make your reservations ahead and guarantee the time and place you want. Pay less for a package - make your reservations on board with some chance you'll have to be flexible on time and place.

Given its height, I'm surprised they don't attach some cables for stability before towing it home. Imagine having the technical capability of landing upright on a barge but losing it to an inconvenient wave!

There's no proof that meter is anything other than a marketing tool to make you think you should bid higher. Bid what you're willing to bid. It's not like they actually tell you what anyone else is bidding.

You must pay with a seapass card, but your daughter's friends seapasses don't have to be linked to your account. Set them up as separate so they get their own bill. Then, they can use their Visa card to pay off their charges at Guest Services before the end of the cruise. However, these might need to be setup as cash accounts. Not sure if they will link a pre-paid card during the cruise. You could also make their accounts separate, but give your card for all of them. That way you would get separately itemized bills for each person at the end. Then you can just give the parents their daughter's bills for reimbursement.

I should clarify. The website required you to split up as described because multiple rooms are technically separate reservations and every reservation has to follow all rules. By treating each reservation individually, the website programming can't recognize exceptions like adjacency. If you had called Royal (or used a TA), then they would let you book without splitting up as long as you follow the rules for being near enough to each other. Of course, as you found, sometimes this works in your favor when you want the DBP for only one person.

Guaranteed rooms are just a fancy term for saying that you didn't pick your own room. They are usually cheaper but they are also the leftover rooms that no one else picked. In general, that means they will not be best or most desirable rooms in the category. That doesn't make them bad rooms, but they might be further from the stairs/elevator or they might be noisier because of their location and what is above or below them. The only guarantee is that you have a room on the ship. Also, in the event that they sell all the rooms in the category you booked, they promise to upgrade you to a higher category. So if you booked an oceanview guarantee, you will get at least an oceanview room, maybe something better, but they will not downgrade you to an interior. A guaranteed interior is already the lowest category so in theory you could get any room on the ship. But you're almost certainly going to get a plain interior room. There's a small chance of getting an interior with promenade or central park view. There's almost no chance of anything higher than that.

It's possible it was a mistake but odds are also good they won't take it away. Yes, OBC can be used to pay gratuities or any other charges (drinks/food/spa/etc) you make during the cruise. The only way to prepay the gratuities online is during the booking process. I think you can call and prepay them, but since your cruise is coming soon, I would just wait. Have a good trip.

You don't have to do anything. Non-refundable OBC is automatically used first. You can verify with Guest Services on the ship, but all you have to do is make sure you spend more the the non-refundable amount before the end of the cruise.

As others have said, yes, it's no problem to switch rooms. But I question why you had to book the rooms this way. You should only have to book the "children" (quotes since they are both 18+) with the parents if you were booking NON-adjoining rooms. I've always heard the rule is children have to be next door or across the hall to be booked in a separate room. There are other reasons to split the parents though. Since the alcohol package must be purchased for all guests over 21 in the same room, it is common to separate the parents when only one wants the package. Again, no problem to switch rooms once on board.

Whoops! My bad. I'm still way more likely to get a full breakfast from the Windjammer though. But I'm also never in a hurry to get off the ship.

The departure lounges are almost worthless perks even for suite guests and high ranking loyalty members because most people arrive at the terminal AFTER the ship has started boarding. If the ship is open, you check in and just get on the ship where you can get start getting all the food and drink you want. However, if you check in BEFORE the ship starts boarding, then yes, you can go to the departure lounge and get something but you won't be there long because they don't start check in until they are almost ready for boarding to start! This perk is even less useful since cruising restarted because they are assigning and enforcing arrival times. So now, you also need to get one of the earliest arrival times or this perk doesn't matter.

More than likely, they recategorized a few staterooms. If it's just things like changing a few Balcony rooms from D2 to D4, you'd have to be looking VERY carefully to find those. Something obvious like a change in restaurants would be much easier to find, but also worthy of press releases and we'd probably already have a thread about it here somewhere.