Cruise Planner Brags

[Larry Muster]

The Royal Caribbean cruise planner math is really tough.  I can rarely tell if a deal is a deal without going through the effort of a mock-purchase.  I keep track of all my cruise planner purchases over the years to compare prices and help myself know what prices to aim for on certain things.  Every once in a while I get something that looks too good to be true (like the $17 drink package) and assume others have the same experience so I wanted to brag.  Does anyone else have any "rock bottom" scores recently?

I have a 7 night Oasis OTS sailing in July.  I did a mock-purchase this morning on a Voom Surf and Stream 4 device package.  It came in at $531!  I looked back at my log and noticed I purchased it for $216.  It was such a big difference that I doublechecked my receipt and confirmed I had it right.  I was going to go down to 2 devices, but it would cost me MORE than what I scored for the 4 devices.  Can anyone beat $216 for 4 devices 7/nights?

I'd love to hear about any other recent purchases you all have made that you want to brag about.

 

[Moby Dick]

15 minutes ago, Larry Muster said:

The Royal Caribbean cruise planner math is really tough.  I can rarely tell if a deal is a deal without going through the effort of a mock-purchase.  I keep track of all my cruise planner purchases over the years to compare prices and help myself know what prices to aim for on certain things.  Every once in a while I get something that looks too good to be true (like the $17 drink package) and assume others have the same experience so I wanted to brag.  Does anyone else have any "rock bottom" scores recently?

I have a 7 night Oasis OTS sailing in July.  I did a mock-purchase this morning on a Voom Surf and Stream 4 device package.  It came in at $531!  I looked back at my log and noticed I purchased it for $216.  It was such a big difference that I doublechecked my receipt and confirmed I had it right.  I was going to go down to 2 devices, but it would cost me MORE than what I scored for the 4 devices.  Can anyone beat $216 for 4 devices 7/nights?

I'd love to hear about any other recent purchases you all have made that you want to brag about.

 

My wife is an avid bargain hunter.  So, like Matt always suggests, we purchase items early.  So, my wife goes into Royal just about every day to check on prices.  We've found that if you book at least a year out, you can find a lot of price drops, call and get the reduced prices.  We don't/can't worry about what the prices were back a year or two or three ago.  It is what it is, we do our best playing the game.  

But, you are 100% right, things have gone up a lot.  I fear it's only going to get worse.  My fixed income (I'm retired) is fixed to the cost of living (which isn't and doesn't keep up) is getting harder and harder to stretch.  

 

[San Diego Garrett]

The best I ever got was for our 7 night Navigator cruise over Thanksgiving. I scored the DBP for $44. The DBP + Voom was going for $49.

[FionaMG]

I think my best ever was a (now sadly demised) BOGO dining package that came in at under $15 per person per meal.

Another trick that I used on my upcoming Odyssey cruise was to book the Spanish language versions of two excursions, saving a sizeable chunk over the cost of the same tour in English, but that's obviously not going to work for everyone. 

[Larry Muster]

1 hour ago, San Diego Garrett said:

The best I ever got was for our 7 night Navigator cruise over Thanksgiving. I scored the DBP for $44. The DBP + Voom was going for $49.

I have to ask because of the complexity of Royal Caribbean math.  Is your $44 for the DBP the advertised price or the all-in price after gratuities etc?  Since 2018 (other than the $17 mistake) my best all in DBP score is $53.10 per night all-in.

[Larry Muster]

1 hour ago, jay1021 said:

My fixed income (I'm retired) is fixed to the cost of living (which isn't and doesn't keep up) is getting harder and harder to stretch

I recently got my first booking receipt from Royal where my age bracket changed.  YIKES!  Seeing my new age band for the first time was TOUGH.  However, as I get older, my post-booking expenses for cruise planner things is the one thing I can point to that is trending down.  My drink packages have moved from Deluxe to Refreshment and sometimes even soda (just so I can get seltzer from the self-service machine).  Partly due to me slowing down and partly to the free D+ drinks.  I even just got the water package on one cruise, and if you told the me of 10 years ago that - I wouldn't have believed it. 

[Moby Dick]

9 minutes ago, Larry Muster said:

I have to ask because of the complexity of Royal Caribbean math.  Is your $44 for the DBP the advertised price or the all-in price after gratuities etc?  Since 2018 (other than the $17 mistake) my best all in DBP score is $53.10 per night all-in.

I've got one rule of thumb.  It may not always be correct but I keep in mind that Royal will always add an 18% tip/service charge to any service that involves its crew having to physically serve or deliver something to you.  The only question, as eluded to above, is it included in the advertised price or the final price.  I guess, one way to find out is to select the package and see if there is a difference between the advertised price and the final price, you may even have to go a little bit further.  They do make it a little more laborious than need to be.  Their advertised price could/should state that the tip/service charge is included or not.  I just checked the package we purchased for the "refreshment package".  It was advertised at $22.99 per person, per day, that's 22.99 X 8 X 2 = 367.84, we paid 433.92.  So, the 18% was not included in that advertised price.

[San Diego Garrett]

1 hour ago, Larry Muster said:

I have to ask because of the complexity of Royal Caribbean math.  Is your $44 for the DBP the advertised price or the all-in price after gratuities etc?  Since 2018 (other than the $17 mistake) my best all in DBP score is $53.10 per night all-in.

It was the advertised price, so add the gratuity to that.