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Orange Crush

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Everything posted by Orange Crush

  1. Can you go to JR for just a milkshake, or do you have to pay the cover charge no matter what?
  2. The crew probably doesn't like being put in a position to play bad cop and scold guests for sharing their drink package. A lot of people get in to that "I'm on vacation and I'll do what I want!" mentality, and it isn't fun for anybody to watch the ugliness that comes from that mindset unfold. I'm sure money's a factor in this decision, but I bet that reducing the amount of policing the crew has to do is part of it too. Sucks for people who obeyed the rules, but I understand why they're making this change.
  3. I booked the 3-night pack and it planted the reservation in day-2. I'm trying to do a specialty every other day, and the main dining room the rest of the nights. I went ahead and booked the Main Dining Room My Time Dining for Days 1, 3, 5 & 7. Days 4 & 6 are blank. Anybody know if Royal is going to know to fill the empty slots with specialty restaurants, or if they might ignore that and just book whatever days they feel like?
  4. My grandmother took the whole extended family out on a cruise 16 years ago, I was surprised to find that I still got credit for those cruise points all this time later! It might not help your point balance, but it's something they can use and appreciate far into the future.
  5. You can get pretty close if you time it right and find a good sale price. Getting a balcony for less than $100/person/day is still possible. Considering inflation since 2002, $1,300 then is worth about $1,750 today, and I can find 2018 sailings on Voyager-class ships in that range right now.
  6. LOL! I never made that connection until you pointed it out. My old cable company got bought out by them too, and for all the old company's flaws, I miss them compared to Spectrum. NEW SPECIALTY DINING DEAL --- ONLY $29.95/each when bundled!
  7. When buying the BOGO dining packages, can we schedule our My Time Dining nights when we want to eat in the main dining room in advance, or does all the scheduling have to be done on the ship when we set sail?
  8. Your best bet is to bring a laptop or tablet to watch movies directly on the device itself and not bother with trying to get a Chromecast on the ship's wifi and fuss with figuring out the TV Inputs. If you use a tablet (like an iPad or Kindle Fire), you can load them up with their favorite shows/movies ahead of time so you won't even need to buy the internet package.
  9. There's an $8/person plan on Quantum, Anthem, Ovation & Harmony that lets you call and text other people on the ship through their app, but it's only on those four ships. There's a "new app" of some kind in the works that might be rolling out to more ships later this year, so who knows, but for now it's just those 4 ships.
  10. I usually book through Costco Travel, and some of their sailings include a free soda package. I'm curious if I'd be able to upgrade to a Deluxe drink package and just pay the difference ahead of time. I called and asked, but the phone rep said they wouldn't be sure unless I booked it in the system first to see if the option was there. Has anyone gotten one of these through Costco or another travel agent and tried to upgrade?
  11. I'm seeing some conflicting information, some articles are saying that already booked cruises will be unaffected, but not hearing anything about future itineraries. Does this policy change mean that the cruise lines won't be able to post new itineraries to Cuba?
  12. Yeah, I'm seeing the Deluxe Beverage Package @ $52 or Deluxe + Voom @ $56 on my upcoming Majesty sailing just after Thanksgiving. That's not much better than the usual $55, but I went ahead and bought Deluxe + Voom to lock something in. I've been checking the Cruise Planner every single weekend. Hopefully a better sale comes along between now and then. Maybe the 4th of July will pleasantly surprise us. :)
  13. Also watch for drink & internet combos on the drink package page. I had booked the $48/day Deluxe Drink packages and then saw a deluxe + surf & stream combo for $52/day pop up later. I wasn't going to pay full price for Internet, but $4/day was hard to pass up.
  14. Hmm, still shows $26.00/day on mine. Was this a short-term sale?
  15. I'd spend at least a couple hours walking around. Looks like you're there 10am-6pm. When you get off the ship, head down Caroline Street and get something to eat: Pepe's if you want Breakfast Schooner Wharf often has live music Half Shell if you just want to sit by the docks with some decent seafood B.Os fish wagon if you want conch fritters, onion rings, hot dogs or just about anything fried. Don't let the appearance fool you, this place is a gem! From there, walk off the food by heading back the way you came and turning left down Duval. There are some interesting shops and museums between the T-shirt sellers and slushy-rum-thing spots. If you hang a right on Olivia (about a mile down) you'll walk past the Hemingway house. I've never done the tour, but have been wanting to--time just got away from us the last few times. You can backtrack to Duval or hang a right on Whitehead to get to Mallory square and back towards the ship (there's more stuff to see on Duval, but there are a few neat spots on Whitehead). Overall, skip the ship-sponsored tours, I wouldn't bother with the trolley if you don't mind walking a 2 mile loop at a leisurely pace. I also would skip the Southernmost Point, it's just a big concrete buoy with a long line of people waiting to take their picture in front of it.
  16. Is it included like Compass or do they upcharge? How late is it open?
  17. If you have one of the big 4 US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile and Sprint) they all support native wifi calling. You may need to change a setting in your phone to enable it and then you can put in in Airplane mode, turn on the wifi and sign in, and your phone will work as normal but calls will be going over the wifi automatically instead of using the expensive on-ship cell phone tower. If you have a smaller carrier or a pre-paid service (event the ones that say the use one of the above networks) you may or may not have this feature available.
  18. It was about $100 cheaper per stateroom than RoyalCaribbean.com, maybe $50 or so cheaper than other websites I tried (CruiseSheets, Travelocity, etc.) and comes with a $70 Costco gift card they mail to you a few weeks after the cruise. I called them a couple times to do a price-match when I noticed it dropped, link up the dinner reservations for both staterooms and again to move the stateroom when I changed my mind about which deck to stay on. They were quick and friendly and took care of all requests without a problem. Other sailings had different perks. They pretty much all come with a Costco gift card, $ amount varies on the price of the booking (I saw ranges from $50 to $300), some included onboard credits and soda packages. I didn't go to an actual travel agent, but I tried USAA's travel site. The price was about the same, but didn't offer any perks.
  19. Hi all, My fiance and I are treating his parents to a Chistmas Cruise this year (Majesty 4-night out of Port Canaveral). There was a medical scare last Christmas and we think a lot of it was brought on by how over-the-top they go throwing their big Christmas Eve party, so this year we want to take that off the table and just take them on a nice relaxing trip where they can be pampered and chill. We're basically living the setup to "Christmas with The Cranks." My gift is going to be covering their gratuity and drink packages. Future Dad-in-Law will get the money's worth out of a drink package without question, but future Mom-in-Law might have two cocktails the whole trip. I'm trying to decide whether to get her the non-alcoholic Refreshment Package or just put what I would've paid as a credit on their stateroom so she can use it for whatever she wants. So my decision here hinges on a few things I'm thinking about: We want this to be as stress-free for them (her in particular) as possible. I don't want her to even think about charges she's accumulating and JUST RELAX She'll appreciate the sodas, fresh squeezed juices, fancy coffees and teas, but I'm not at all sure she'll appreciate $26 worth of them a day. Is there anything else the package gets you that I'm not thinking about? If I get her no package at all, she's liable to stick to the free stuff because it's free rather than getting what she'd actually enjoy She *does* have a bit of a sweet tooth. Outside of Johnny Rockets which charges you for milkshakes whether you have a package or not, are there milkshakes at Latitudes or elsewhere on the ship that would be covered? How much is a fresh squeezed juice ala carte? Is it available outside of the MDR?
  20. If you only want a milkshake, do they still hit you with the $6.95 cover, or is that only if you order food?
  21. I booked through Costco Travel, about 300 days ahead of time for a Christmas sailing. I could book drink & internet packages as soon as I paid the balance, but not before. Dining shows unavailable, but I don't think Majesty even has a specialty dining restaurant.
  22. I get why they might be selective about changing all the door locks on an old ship for smart bands, but I don't see why they can't deploy the new app fleetwide. How much more equipment is necessary for an app? They already have the VOOM networks installed, app support shouldn't take much more than a server install.
  23. Was it the standard package, or the Surf and Stream package? I wonder if the Surf & Stream is a better overall experience. I'm thinking about being able to do a longer cruise some day and remoting in to the office from the ship on a couple sea days to cut down on the amount of vacation time I'd have to burn, but it needs to be fast and reliable enough for wifi phone calls. I bought the Surf & Stream package for my upcoming 4-nighter over Christmas on the Majesty to test it out, but I'd be interested to hear about other people's experiences on a variety of ships.
  24. This one change won't really affect me, since I'm not likely to use room service anyway, but I don't like the continuation of the trend of nickel-and-diming. These places to eat are included, but these places are not. These beverages are included, but these are not. Buy a drink package! Now these drinks are included, but these are not. This show is included, but this show is not... On and on and on... If they couple this with something new and complementary, I'd feel better. More late night food options that aren't pizza would be a welcome addition.
  25. Yeah, you probably won't save any money buying a bottle of something available stateside in a port shop, besides the ship probably has a supply you can have as much as you want of with your drink package. Get something the locals make. The Mexican shops have some really nice blue agave tequilas you can't get here.
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