F1guynz

8 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

I'm annoyed that people would think that all is equal when obviously not all fares are equal!

I agree with you and what is ironic is if these people ever got a star class suite they would probably be the most obnoxious arrogant people of all. I can imagine them complaining about the “cheap” wine served in the lounges, making outrageous demands of their genie etc.

When  we are in a suite and the concerirge reserves the lift for us I am often amused by people’s reaction. But that’s the service you are paying for. No different than business or first class on an aeroplane.

8 hours ago, Sabrinaklai said:

Tip: Get here early!!

I did this as soon as we boarded Ovation on the first day. As long as you get on early there doesn’t seem to be any crowds. We got multiple rides in a row.

we also found turning up around 3/4 of the way through a session was good as a lot of people leave. The queue time was pretty short then.

if they hold a session around dinner time, also good as you could have 2-3 turns.

I am just curious, do you have to get off the ship on these Islands or can you just stay on board and enjoy the ship without many people?

I have also found that VOOM continues to work on the day of disembark. We got off Ovation in Sydney and while around the ship I was able to use her Internet access all day until she left again that night. (without us unfortunately).

My ipad does not do roaming so it was very useful to take advantage of this while she was still docked nearby.

Hey Sabrina,

Really enjoying your blog.

We have done the Kennedy Space Centre (not through a cruise) and really loved it. I am sure you will too. We got to have lunch with an astronaut which was a fantastic experience.

3 hours ago, twangster said:

Carnival corp is going with their 'medallion' platform

I see Princess has delayed the rollout of Medallion bands for an undisclosed period of time.

I find it funny some people are upset about this as it was the "main reason they chose the ship". If your main criteria for choosing a ship is how you access your room you would think they have fairly low expectations for rest of the ship.

A quote from one poster:

"We skipped out on a Royal Caribbean trip to take a more expensive cruise on Princess testing out the Medallion experience. Not only is the Medallion not rolling out now, but Princess didn't notify us about it until 3 days after the date at which we'd incur a 50% cancellation fee. Absolutely terrible customer service on this one - I'm pretty sure I'll never step foot on a Princess line again"

I see an.access cruise planner button has appeared on the account page. 

Don’t get too excited as it doesn’t work yet. It takes you to another logon page and when you logon it takes you back to your account page.

You can also click on reserve now and enter all your details to get to the planner.

Baby steps I guess.

49 minutes ago, Sailor_to_Cruiser said:

Didn't RC recently recruit a team of people to sit in their corporate headquarters and test their website development?

The testing for the website starts on the 12th and goes through to the 16th. The testing is about usability I think so hopefully the dB update will be complete by Monday.

I hope the website is working properly for their user testing next week. ?

i wonder what sort of feedback they will get.

The Australian website has changed as well. It still seems to have a number of issues.

In the meantime I have found I can access the cruise planner and the old website by using this link.

https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/mycruises/processLogin.do

The site seems to work okay using this.,

Done with exuberance

Just waiting for them to apply the 30% discount for these cruises as $17,500 NZD is a bit steep for a 6 night cruise in a Grand Suite. Still that was better than the Owners Suite which was $32,000.

Explorer of the Seas will be sailing in the Europe from May 2019 until 5th November 2019 when it heads back to Miami on a 14 Transatlantic crossing.

Another month to see if Adventure comes down under like I hope.

When we were on Explorer recently the Royal Suite guests were escorted on board by the concierge so I think you should expect that.

I don't find their website that difficult to navigate and use (caveat: I am not sure how different it is from the U.S website) but I do think there a lot of screens you need to go through to find the price of your cruise (around 10 I think). It would be nice to consolidate this information into 1 or 2 screens.

Of course everyone is different so maybe in one of their previous workshops this was the preferred design.

Even if they removed a lot of the basic bugs that would be a good start.

I don’t get the emails either. Looks like @Matt will need to have an email page as well as cruise compass and menus to keep all of us in the loop ?

Probably most content wouldn’t be relevant to this side of the world anyway

With regards to their testing I just wish they would hurry up and fix the NZ website. Still with IT.

There is a top secret class of ship being developed by RCI. It's code name is Ginormous Duck.

This totally new class of ship will be distinguishable by 6 large round inflatable rings attached outside the hull that can double as life rafts if necessary.

It will have the fastest top speed of any ship in the world today and capable of going to locations previously unheard of for cruise ships.

The cruise I booked for their 40% off sale is cheaper than their current promotion of 45% off even though there are heaps of cabins left.

To be fair they always state “up to” but I always immediately assume my cruise will have the maximum discount applied?

I don’t get to see my C&A discount on the NZ website but it is now with IT to investigate.

9 hours ago, mpoole3 said:

I need to get back on this ship! 

Me too and it’s only been a week since I got off

43 minutes ago, pamw said:

I noticed RC staff sticking the boot in as well whilst someone was on the floor.

Hi, This video was not from an RCI ship, this incident happened on Carnival Legend.

there was a similar incident on one of the P&O Australia (owned by Carnival corp) earlier in ththe week. It was a 3 day cruise and the people on board were part of a stag do. A woman ended up bottling another passenger.

it isn’t common for these large scale incidents where people get removed from the ship but 2 in a week get the media salivating.

i see the passengers on the Carnival ship was saying that 25% future cruise credit is completely unacceptable as they will not cruise with carnival again. I do think Carnival have been fair in offering compensation, they don’t have to offer anything. I think they are angling to get the cost of their cruise refunded. Unlike the US they cannot be sue the cruise line for compensation.

In New Zealand it is illegal to sell alcohol to an intoxicated person. It doesn’t look like cruise ships have a rule like this as some people I have seen struggle to stand when the sea is perfectly calm.

Definitely in Australia (and NZ) there is a culture of binge drinking which is why the short cruises are popular with young people. P&O are the leader in this market offering 3 comedy cruises and wine and food cruises.

In a few days this will blow over and the media will be able to get back to reporting Norovirus outbreaks.

I think trouble /and or scuffles are more likely to happen on short cruises. We just completed a 3 day cruise on Explorer and there were some fairly intoxicated people on board even by the muster drill on the first day.

We were told they sell as much alcohol on a 3 day cruise as they would normally sell on 7 day cruise.

On longer cruises the passengers are usually older and seem more controlled in their drinking.

Hi, welcome to the forum. Not sure about a TA but if you book direct with RCI once you have paid the deposit there is nothing further to pay until the final payment date. This date will be documented on your cruise booking. If you don’t wish to make the final amount in a lump sum you can make payments of any size up to the final payment date when any outstanding balance must be paid.

Excited to be following along. Voyager class ships are my favourite so far.

i am also forward to hearing about the changes to Adventure in the hope she ends up down under.

When we were on Ovation the flight time was 1 minute per guest.

I was wondering if this was the standard flight time or whether it varied by ship with this feature.

It wasn't that heavily booked on Ovation so your could go multiple times on the cruise. On our cruise I went 3 times but I did get better.

This must be a good gig for the crew to get on the ship. I saw them practicing for an hour or so in the morning before the passengers could have a go.