Atlantix2000

They could have been focusing on advertising the future cruises because the Spring ones are already as booked as they want/need them to be. Normally, it wouldn't matter that the earlier cruises aren't mentioned but between the pandemic and Wonder being a ship that hasn't sailed yet, it's easy for the internet to jump to conclusions. A few years ago, if Royal announced "Oasis to sail Alaska in summer 2022", no one would assume that meant Oasis Spring 2022 cruises were cancelled. Now we question everything!

Some people might fail to calculate them, but others are purposely leaving those drinks out because they have no value to them. For example, I avoid soda, drink plenty of black coffee (the free stuff), and simply don't understand why anyone ever pays for bottled water. If I've already bought a package, I might grab a couple bottles of water for the convenience but because I would never pay for them, I cannot count them as there is no savings. That leaves fresh juice and milkshakes which I might get once or twice a cruise. But again, if I haven't already purchased the package, I'm perfectly happy to skip them. So that's why I only use alcohol when considering a beverage package. Even then, it's a good thing I prefer mixed drinks and wine. If I drank beer, I could never break even on a package.

@ChrisK2793 Back to your original question, I think the "correct" answer is that the children should connected to the parent that has primary physical custody which I think in most all cases would be where they officially live for purposes of public schooling. However, since I don't believe Royal asks for proof of residency for children, connecting them to the parent with the higher points/status is unlikely to be questioned unless they keep updating it. I think this situation could also easily lead to the children actually having more points/status than the parents if they travel separately with both parents.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with you. The reason Royal (or any business) handles their charges this way is all about saving money on card processing fees. Anytime you use a card, there are two possible fees the merchant pays: a swipe charge (fixed amount per transaction) and a processing charge (fixed percent per transaction). Larger merchants have some ability to negotiate those fees but they still add up. By posting daily (or even more frequent) pending charges, Royal is making sure your card can cover what you have charged. But then, they only run one real transaction at the end so they only have one swipe charge. In general, this saves them some money. I would say your case is somewhat unusual in having so few charges add up to 8K so Royal probably didn't actually save very much in your case. But their accounting system can only do what it is programmed to do. I hope it resolves soon for you!

Normally, pending charges only take a couple days to fall off. If Citi says 30 days, they are just covering themselves. There's also nothing Royal can do about it, they have no power to remove pending charges. Best option is to have multiple cards and use the one with the best travel rewards for Royal and a different card for everyday expenses like groceries. At least for me, I've never found my travel card to be the best option at the grocery store (from a rewards perspective).

I've previously had to close a card due to fraud but was expecting a known large charge to come through very soon. Chase allowed me to keep the original card active but restricted to that one known vendor while blocking all other activity. If your cruise/RoyalUp is coming soon, you might be able to ask your card company to do something similar.

I've heard it has something to do with medical emergencies and getting the patient (in this case an infant) to qualified care in a reasonable amount of time. For the most part, the 3 consecutive sea days rule only eliminates transatlantic/transpacific voyages where you're multiple days from a hospital. Royal's doctors have a chance to stabilize an adult with a heart attack but don't want to take that type of risk with an infant.

Most likely this was due to rearranging passengers due to covid concerns. Either your original room is now in the covid quarantine area or they moved you to meet their distancing plan. It is unfortunate that they would now be downgrading you if you truly did win your RoyalUp bid. Hope your TA can come to a satisfactory resolution.

Time to update the title of the thread!!

You probably don't want to use the Verizon cruise package, you want Verizon's TravelPass service. It costs $5 or $10 per day where each day is a 24 hour period. You need to activate it before you leave (I think you have to call), then when you connect to cell service in an international country, you get a text from Verizon asking if you want to use TravelPass instead of international roaming. Respond yes and for the next 24 hours, they extend your normal phone/data service plan to cover you internationally. That includes unlimited data if that's the type of plan you have. The best part is it doesn't matter if you change countries during that 24 hours! So you could activate it in Antigua at 2PM and use it in St. Lucia the next morning. TravelPass doesn't work while at sea so Voom is still the best choice there. On most Caribbean itineraries, you spend more time in port than at sea so I've been able to use TravelPass without Voom and only needed to use it every other day if I'm careful.

Often the differences aren't much. If the room is 5 sq ft larger, but they changed the loveseat (a 2-seat sofa) to a regular sofa (a 3-seat), then they've actually already filled that 5 sq ft! Of course, it's much easier to lie down on a sofa than a loveseat so that might be worth it to some people. Another example, an extra 5 sq ft on a balcony could be the difference between a chair and a lounger on the balcony.

The laws on car seats are rather different (or non-existent) in many ports. Taxis/buses are far more likely to expect you to hold your child because that's what the locals do. It's something to consider when booking the excursion.

Every ship can't do Saturday-Saturday (or any other day of the week). There are only a certain number of terminals at the ports. They also have to spread out the demand or there would be massive issues with traffic, parking, customs, loading and storing supplies and fuel, etc. There would also be staffing problems if the terminals were only in use 1-2 days a week.

The app chat feature (and its fee) is definitely aimed at those cruisers that don't want an internet package. I cannot think of a reason anyone would purchase both unless they don't really understand the options.

They don't NEED to accommodate smokers. Smokers are banned from many places on land with no loss of revenue. They will be banned everywhere eventually including cruise ships. You're welcome to disagree but that won't change the eventual outcome.

If you are under 30 days, you clearly meet the eligibility requirements for CWC that are given in the first half of that answer. It says the NRD bookings follow the same guidelines, so what are those guidelines? The second half that you highlighted is about changing ship/date so I don't see how that's relevant to your question.

Depends whether you've scheduled traditional or My Time Dining. With My Time, the default is to seat your party alone. With traditional, the default is to fill tables of 6 or 8 people. Generally, they match people up by party type. So if you are cruising as a couple, you're going to be seated with other couples (as opposed to a family with multiple children). Of course, even if you have other people assigned to your table, they may not show because they are doing specialty or prefer eating dinner in the windjammer. On my first cruise, I had a table for 8 and we had the same 3 couples every night. Not sure if there was supposed to be a 4th pair. On my second cruise, we had a table for 6 with 3 couples on the first night but no more than 2 couples the rest of the week because we each did a few nights of specialty.

Awesome news!

Possibly dumb question, but have you tried using the new password from one site to log into the other? Or purposely set them both to the same thing to see what happens?

At one point, the answer depended on the ship, but it didn't matter. On ships where the max was $12, most drinks cost $12. On ships where the max was $13, most drinks cost $13. I think all ships have standardized at $13 now. One other benefit of the package, if the drink price rises to $14 by the time you cruise, your package would also change to cover up to $14. The bartenders don't have time to look up when you bought the package to see what it covers! So you're safe from increases in prices. Same thing with pre-paid gratuitites. I think they are currently $13.50/person/day and if you pre-pay them, it won't matter if they go up. If you wait until the cruise to pay, they'll charge the current rate.

If you've got the Surf and Stream Voom package, you can use any messaging app including plain old texts (if you have WiFi Calling enabled) to contact people on board (whether your family or those you just met), at home, or anywhere else in the world. The chat feature in Royal's app is only useful for contacting people on board that don't have/want/need any other form of internet. So while not worthless, it's only going to be useful to a minority of the people on board.

Can they charter a private plane to bring your home without a passport? I honestly don't know. If not, I imagine they would still pay for your flight home but that flight won't happen until you visit the local embassy and arrange for an expedited passport. That's going to take some time. The question is who would pay for your hotel while waiting for that passport. The cost of a passport is far less than the inconvenience of being stuck in a foreign country.

Honestly, I think the only way Royal releases a voice recording is after you file a lawsuit against your "friend". During the evidence gathering phase, your lawyer or the court would request the recording from Royal. Outside a lawsuit, I don't see why they would release this to you.

Every restaurant has at least 3 pools of reservations: X% available to be sold online for direct reservations (for those that plan ahead) Y% held for those that purchase the UDP package (must be reserved on board except for the first night placeholder which can also be changed) Z% held for anyone to book on board (because many people don't do any pre-cruise planning) If you absolutely must eat at a specific restaurant at a specific time, you want to book directly but it will cost more. If you are willing to have some flexibility, the UDP will be cheaper and generally get you the right restaurants at about the right times.

Making reservations onboard has always been the trade off for getting a lower cost by buying the dining package. That said, it is extremely popular with the regular cruisers on this forum which wouldn't be the case if they were unable to get good reservations. Really the only common "complaint" is that you can get too much food when you always dine specialty. This is a case where it's important to remember that the average forum poster knows and plans a LOT more than the average cruiser. Many people don't even know specialty dining exists until they get on the ship. That's partly why it's generally easy to make reservations on board on the first day. If you wait until day 4 of 7, then you can't be surprised that good reservations are hard to find but that's true with or without a package.