F1guynz

RCI can have strange pricing structures for their specialty dining packages. On our 3 night Explorer cruise coming up in a couple of weeks the ultimate dining package was $10 cheaper than the 3 night dining package. No prizes for guessing which option we went for.

No lifeboats

They won’t let us poor old kiwis enter ?

As long as you book you can book the iFly multiple times. I did it 3 times on Ovation and we weren't in Star class.

When we were on Ovation there was a priority queue for Star class guests to use the bumper cars. Because ifly requires reservations I would assume you would just get your genie to make the bookings

When we went there was an area on the pool deck outside the Entrance to the Solarium. There were times when people were using the outdoor seating area of Jamie Italian but I am guessing that was at designated times as they weren’t always there.

I understand on a Voyager class ship you need to complete 5 laps to complete 1 mile.and on an Oasis class it is 2 laps that need to be completed. i also read that on Oasis it is on deck 5 and it is all under cover but I haven’t been on one myself.

@twangster you are right, if I connect to the Australian website directly rather than their redirect I can see the Crown and Anchor discount in AUD. It is a workaround but now that means their website seems to have two issues. 1) The checkbox is not available on the New Zealand part of the Australian website. 2) The date format is not working correctly in the guest info and search function. I think I will contact them via email again on the first point as hopefully that will be easier for them to understand than the date format problem.

I have an option to search for my Crown and Anchor number when making a booking and even though it says enter the date in dd/mm/yy format it won't find my details unless I use the incorrect date as above. E.g if I was born on 10-Aug-1986 I have to enter I was born on 8th-Oct-1986 otherwise it can't find my number.

Hi Twangster, No not my real birthday, just an example of what happens. I don't get the option you are talking about on any of my devices i.e. ipad or windows computer. I have have also tried private browsing

I seem to have come across a bug on the Australian website that prevents me from seeing my Crown and Anchor discount. I logon to Crown and Anchor and proceed to do a mock booking but the guest information on the left hand panel converts my birthdate into American format. As a consequence if your birthdate is registered as 10 August 1986 is loaded into the booking screen as 8th October 1986. This mismatch seems to prevent any Crown and Anchor discounts being displayed. i sent them an email with screenshots of issue and agree my Crown and Anchor details are correct but are unable to help further They suggested calling the customer service line which I have done. Well I tell you that was a frustrating experience. He has said he will escalate the issue to his supervisor but I don’t think he really understood what the issue was. He said he just works in the sales team and he could tell me what my discount would be but that’s not really the point. i work in IT and can see this error was introduced after one of their website updates as it used to work. I have tried it across multiple devices and operating systems with the same result. I have also tried it with my partners account and she has the same issue. i don’t have any cruises to book so I have given up trying to get it fixed. I am not the most patient person and speaking to people who can’t understand what I am trying to explain just wind me up. Hopefully it will eventually get reported to the IT team and they will be able to sort it. luckily I don’t have any cruises to book at the moment. Vent over. i need a holiday now.

This was my review of our cruise. We enjoyed our Ovation cruise and you won’t encounter the same issues boarding that we had. Happy to answer any questions you may have on Ovation.

Welcome! On our last 14 cruise on Ovation between Singapore and Sydney there were 3 formal nights which is normally the standard for a cruise of this length. It was the same when we did Radiance around New Zealand last year.

On Radiance, once you had been through all the cuts you could ask for extra cuts of any of the meats. After the 7 courses (excluding appetisers and desert) I don't think I could have eaten any more. I love meat so this is one of my favourite restaurants on all of the ships.

Gotta love cruise critic and peoples world view This is the subject line for the cruise after ours on Ovation. If they are such big fans for RCI who cruise 3-4 times a year why are they only platinum.

When we were on Ovation a few weeks ago I wanted to do this but there were no accessible HDMI ports on either of the TVs in our room. I have been able to do it in the past on the older ships because they had a PS3 in the cabin, I just unplugged the HDMI cable from the PS3 and plugged it into my ipad and it all worked fine.

This is a good option plus on the smaller ships as there are less suites so the concierge lounge is a much more relaxing experience. Also as the concierge has less people to attend to it is much easier to get to know them better. That is not to say the service is poor on bigger ships, it is just that there are far more demands on a Concierge's time with more guests to attend to. I also find the suites on older ships feel larger than the new ones (In our case Ovation). Maybe it is just because the layout is more open. Having the wall separating the living area and the bedroom in our GS on Ovation made it feel more cramped to us.

Hi Tim, According to the RCI policy the consequences are: "Smoking is not permitted inside any stateroom and any stateroom balcony. This applies to all stateroom categories onboard. If a guest is in violation of this stateroom policy, a cleaning fee of $250 USD will be applied to their SeaPass® account and may be subject to further action pursuant to the "Consequences Section" of the Guest Conduct Policy". I guess passengers may get away with it if nobody reports them and it is not visible on the camera system, but as you are not a rule breaker none of these penalties should effect you. Have a great cruise anyway.

Interestingly I have never seen this on the Australia / New Zealand website. I can normally book / cancel as I like. If I cancel it is only to rebook the same room at a cheaper price, no mention of any non refundable deposit.

Happy New Year. 2018 has just begun here in little old New Zealand. I hope everyone has a safe new year wherever in the world you are and have an amazing cruise to look forward to. Thanks to everyone for making this such a great community to be part of. I am looking forward to seeing what RCI has installed for us this year. Let the cruising begin.

I would definitely try the CK. We had the 5 night dining package on Ovation and really enjoyed all the specialty restaurants but still really loved the food, views, ambiance, and waiters in the CK on nights we weren’t at a specialty. Congratulations on your 10 year anniversary and also welcome to the blog.

I’m always the person who is looking the wrong way.

I have seen people topless on the Flow Rider but I don’t think the riders were expecting that

Hi @ChrisV the all access tour we did on Ovation was 142 NZD which equates to approx. 100 USD. We pre-booked on the cruise planner which maybe cheaper than ship prices. IMO it was well worth the money and we would definitely do it again on another ship. Welcome to the website and enjoy your cruise.

I never go on a ship without my trusty armour. i am not going to let anyone ruin my holiday by making me sick