Atlantix2000

The 15 minute wait is (or at least was) a Carnival rule. Many people ask because they assume all cruise lines have similar rules. Royal has never (to my knowledge) had a time limit but the bartenders will cut you off if they deem it necessary.

Geography is part of the answer. Another part is the number of ships already docking at Cococay (1-2 every day I believe). Another part would be sales numbers. We obviously don't see those numbers but you can bet Royal analyzes them. If the rare Galveston to Cococay cruise sells faster than other Galveston cruises, that would indicate the demand is higher than expected and they should sail it more. But if those cruises sell slower than other Galveston cruises (or worse they need to offer better sales to fill the ship), than they are meeting the demand shown by their customers.

It's simple. The kids don't really sail free. Their cost is built into the prices for passengers 1 and 2. It's marketing. If you want to sell a cabin of 4 people and you want to charge $500 per person, you could charge: 1) $500 per person...total cost = $2000 2) $1000 each for passengers 1 & 2, kids sail free...total cost = $2000 for 2 parents, 2 kids 3) $750 per person with a sale of $500 off each for passengers 3 & 4...total cost = $2000 4) $1000 for passenger 1, BOGO 50% off for passenger 2, $250 each for additional passengers...total cost = $2000 I could keep going, but depending on the details of the "sale", some versions work out better for 4 adults, some versions work out better for parents with kids, but Royal gets the amount they want for the cabin.

Well, honestly, the debit card MAY be the source of the issue. There have been many long posts written (here and across the internet) why they aren't a good choice for online purchases. I'll just sum those up by saying it's always better to spend someone else's money (the credit card company's) than your own money (your checking account). Even if your transactions had worked the way we think they should, your checking account would still be charged twice while you waited for the refund to arrive. What if you needed that cash for rent/utilities/etc? With a credit card, you'd have a month for the pending charges and refunds to sort themselves out without costing you anything. For purchases made only with OBC, this process should be both easy and instantaneous to get the lower price without costing you anything. However, there's always a small risk that you cancel something and before you get it rebooked, other people have purchased all the remaining items leaving you with nothing. Excursions, restaurants, and dining/beverage packages can and do sell out.

While you've given a lot of numbers, there's a lot of important information missing. Normally, cruise planner purchases are refunded to the original method of payment. So if you used OBC, it refunds as OBC and can be immediately reused. If you paid by credit card, it gets refunded to the credit card but this does take time. You said the refund would go to your checking account, but I didn't think it was possible to pay that way so that is confusing. Is there a Travel Agent involved? So here's some questions. When is your cruise? Are you past final payment? If you're very close to the cruise, they might prefer to give OBC because you wouldn't get the refund before the cruise (though it seems unusually to make it non-refundable). Are you booked under US rules? Most answers you get here will be from US cruisers. International rules are often different because of different consumer protection laws. $450 in OBC is an unusually high amount. Did it come from Royal, a Travel Agent, casino related? And who did you speak with? They gave the normal US answer (cancel, rebook, refund to original form of payment) but if you spoke with the US call center about an international booking you might not get the right answers.

I think for hibachi, I would book the right number of people. During checkout, if there's no way to indicate adult vs child, you would just have to pay the adult price for all. However, once on the ship, they can refund the difference as on board credit. I've heard of people doing that for all specialty restaurants, not just hibachi.

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.