shady Posted August 13, 2017 Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 Hello everyone! I'm now just 1 week away from my first cruise on Liberty! We haven't decided whether we're going to get a photo package. Thanks to @Matt and several others for your insights on the value of the packages during yesterday's Facebook Live broadcast. This morning, I tried to log into the Cruise Planner to find out when the booking deadline is. I couldn't remember whether the deadline is 2 or 3 days in advance of the sailing. Of course, the RC website is down. I called the number on the placeholder page to which I was redirected. The gentleman with whom I spoke said I should wait until noon EDT today to try the site again. RC expects the site to be back up by then. Ok fine, I can wait a few hours... or log onto these boards to ask. So here I am! Does anyone know what the deadline might be? TIA! Katie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted August 13, 2017 Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 4 minutes ago, psushady said: Hello everyone! I'm now just 1 week away from my first cruise on Liberty! We haven't decided whether we're going to get a photo package. Thanks to @Matt and several others for your insights on the value of the packages during yesterday's Facebook Live broadcast. This morning, I tried to log into the Cruise Planner to find out when the booking deadline is. I couldn't remember whether the deadline is 2 or 3 days in advance of the sailing. Of course, the RC website is down. I called the number on the placeholder page to which I was redirected. The gentleman with whom I spoke said I should wait until noon EDT today to try the site again. RC expects the site to be back up by then. Ok fine, I can wait a few hours... or log onto these boards to ask. So here I am! Does anyone know what the deadline might be? TIA! Katie Katie, I believe it's 3 days in advance. Of course, you can always book it once you board the ship. Have fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shady Posted August 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 Just now, rjac said: Katie, I believe it's 3 days in advance. Of course, you can always book it once you board the ship. Have fun! Thanks for the quick response, @rjac! You're absolutely right; it will not matter if we book before or onboard. As for having fun, I'm sure we will! I can't wait! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocLC Posted August 13, 2017 Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 I think it's 4 days, but I wouldn't do anything that close. I had serious issue cancelling an excursion 5 days out the resulted in Royal claiming I owed then over $200 when I went to check-in for our cruise at the port. Their systems aren't known to be reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shady Posted August 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 Thanks, @DocLC. That's a great point about Royal's systems. I hope they got it worked out in your favor. I definitely won't wait until the last minute to book if we decide to prebook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjac Posted August 13, 2017 Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 1 hour ago, psushady said: Thanks, @DocLC. That's a great point about Royal's systems. I hope they got it worked out in your favor. I definitely won't wait until the last minute to book if we decide to prebook. I would strongly recommend booking anything and everything you can ahead of your cruise date, the sooner the better. Especially if you're thinking about any excursions. Nothing worse than spending time in line at the excursion desk on board only to find that the one you want is filled up. That's time wasted that you could have been having fun on the ship. That happened to me....once. DocLC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shady Posted August 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 1 hour ago, rjac said: I would strongly recommend booking anything and everything you can ahead of your cruise date, the sooner the better. Especially if you're thinking about any excursions. Nothing worse than spending time in line at the excursion desk on board only to find that the one you want is filled up. That's time wasted that you could have been having fun on the ship. That happened to me....once. I agree that would be unfortunate and something to avoid. Luckily, we booked our excursions and beverage packages months ago during Cruise Planner sales and even applied our onboard credit to one of those purchases (Thanks to the blog, I knew about all of those things I just mentioned as a first time cruiser!) The photo package is the only remaining thing. I really want to book ahead of time too, but we haven't decided for sure that we're going to get a photo package. That's why I asked about the Cruise Planner deadline. I need to give us our own deadline so we'll make a decision. Knowing what @DocLC said about RC's system, that time will be earlier than the 4 days the Cruise Planner requires. If we are going to book before we go, it will be for the reason you gave: I don't want to wait in line when I could be having fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocLC Posted August 13, 2017 Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 2 hours ago, psushady said: Thanks, @DocLC. That's a great point about Royal's systems. I hope they got it worked out in your favor. I definitely won't wait until the last minute to book if we decide to prebook. It did in the end and I was even comped dinner in Chops for my troubles, but it was a less than pleasant boarding experience. This is also a good reason to have a TA. While I did address it with limited success onboard, I also contacted her to handle it on her end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shady Posted August 13, 2017 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2017 45 minutes ago, DocLC said: It did in the end and I was even comped dinner in Chops for my troubles, but it was a less than pleasant boarding experience. This is also a good reason to have a TA. While I did address it with limited success onboard, I also contacted her to handle it on her end. It definitely sounds less than pleasant, but I'm glad you were satisfied with the outcome and that your TA was able to help you. I wholeheartedly agree about using a TA! I will never take a cruise without using a TA because mine has been so great (she's from MEI Travel, btw). She possibly saved my cruise already. That's the most notable of a number of wonderful things she's done for me. I noticed a few months ago that Royal had my birthdate wrong. It was just one day off, so probably someone was typing fast and didn't notice the error. My TA got it fixed very quickly. If she hadn't gotten it fixed, I was worried that Royal might have been able to deny my entrance onto the ship because my (correct) birthdate on my passport wouldn't have matched their records. Maybe I could've fixed it later during online check-in or they could've fixed it at the port. But I'll never know because my TA understood my concern and handled it right away. DocLC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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