DaveWallsTV Posted January 19 Report Posted January 19 Who else is cruising with us on this Wonder of the Seas trip? My wife and I are cruising on Royal Caribbean for the first time since 2003! (Sovereign of the Seas R.I.P.!). We did our honeymoon years later on Disney Cruise, but have always wanted to come back to Royal. Should be a fun trip! OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 19 Report Posted January 19 I'll let ya know in the next few days. We have this one on hold after some good prices popped up during last week's GGG sale combined with some TA perks. The hold is good until Wednesday but we'll likely discuss and decide by tomorrow. It's mostly my wife's call. We normally sail during school breaks since she's a teacher but she had to cancel this year's spring break cruise so this would be a replacement and she'll just take the week off with saved up personal days. We've been on Wonder 4 times so even if we don't book it, if you have any questions, fire away! We love Oasis class and Wonder has some additions that we really enjoy (like Mason Jar brunch). WAAAYTOOO, Sweety and DaveWallsTV 3 Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted January 20 Author Report Posted January 20 Nice! We booked this one in March '24, so we've been counting down for a while. It'll be a slightly bittersweet one. Setting up a burial at sea for my mother, who passed away last Valentine's Day. She loved cruising, and introduced it to me a long, long time ago. It'll be the closure I need, and then a relaxing and fun getaway. My work schedule usually doesn't allow for long trips, so been looking forward to this, and binging on RCBlog Youtube videos for sometime! OCSC Mike and WAAAYTOOO 2 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 20 Report Posted January 20 First, my condolences. We normally book when cruises are released and then look for last minute type deals when our schedule and price allows since PC is only an hour drive for us. This one obviously falls into the latter category. Never sailed in April before. We've been sneaking in an October short cruise the past few years but skipped last October so I'm in serious withdrawal, lol. DaveWallsTV 1 Quote
WAAAYTOOO Posted January 20 Report Posted January 20 Condolences on the loss of your wife, @DaveWallsTV and welcome to the RCCL Blog !! OCSC Mike and DaveWallsTV 2 Quote
Sweety Posted January 20 Report Posted January 20 My condolences!!! Sending prayers. DaveWallsTV 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 20 Report Posted January 20 On a lighter note, my wife just started checking her school/teaching stuff to make sure there was nothing important that week... and for the first time since I found the deal last week we realized that this cruise leaves on Easter Sunday. Don't think that's going to impact our decision, just thought I'd share. Back to the discussion... Sweety 1 Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted January 21 Author Report Posted January 21 Thanks for the condolences, everyone. I work in as a sports anchor for a local TV station, and Easter is one of those rare windows I can actually squeeze a vacation into. When college basketball is done, spring sports are just starting to get going, and football hasn't completely taken over my life yet, lol. All the cruises I've taken so far have been in October, whether with my parents a long time ago, or my honeymoon with my wife. So this will be an interesting experience, for sure! WAAAYTOOO and OCSC Mike 2 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 21 Report Posted January 21 7 hours ago, DaveWallsTV said: I work in as a sports anchor for a local TV station Very cool! Just please don't tell me you're a Commanders fan. My wife and I grew up in the Philly burbs and moved here after college in 2000. We still root for all the Philly teams (except for soccer since the Orlando MLS/NWSL teams came about long after we moved, hence my Orlando City name and avatar). Fly Eagles Fly! WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted January 22 Author Report Posted January 22 13 hours ago, OCSC Mike said: Very cool! Just please don't tell me you're a Commanders fan. My wife and I grew up in the Philly burbs and moved here after college in 2000. We still root for all the Philly teams (except for soccer since the Orlando MLS/NWSL teams came about long after we moved, hence my Orlando City name and avatar). Fly Eagles Fly! I'm surrounded by Commanders fans here in Virginia, but I was born in Delaware, and spent most of my time in South Philly, so GO BIRDS! (Also, my wife is from Delaware County, PA, with her family having roots in South Philly. We bleed green in household!) Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 22 Report Posted January 22 10 hours ago, DaveWallsTV said: I'm surrounded by Commanders fans here in Virginia, but I was born in Delaware, and spent most of my time in South Philly, so GO BIRDS! (Also, my wife is from Delaware County, PA, with her family having roots in South Philly. We bleed green in household!) Awesome... except for your current location I guess. I grew up in Montgomery County and my wife is from Bucks. Quote
OCSC Mike Posted January 22 Report Posted January 22 We pulled the trigger! See ya on board! If you see any Philly sports t-shirts, that could very well be us. Just need to finalize some dinner plans and decide whether or not we want to go back to Paradise Beach in Cozumel. We were there in July and I really enjoyed it but it was crazy hot. I'd love to go again when it's slightly cooler but we mostly cruise for the ship at this point so we'll see. We're content to mostly chill onboard without spending anything extra. WAAAYTOOO and DaveWallsTV 2 Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted January 24 Author Report Posted January 24 Nice! I'm sure we'll see you there. We're basically cruising for the ship, also. Doing the Beach Club at Cococay is our one excursion. Past that, this is a relaxation trip for sure! WAAAYTOOO and OCSC Mike 2 Quote
killswitch1968 Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 Afternoon fellow cruisers. First time cruiser here, and not sure if I am doing this right. I was told it was advantageous to book My Time Dining, but when I try to do so I keep getting errors or messages stating there are no available options at that time. This was quite suspect as I even tried 3 months before the cruise date! Just want to confirm if it's something on my end or RCs, I even called their help desk and they said it was a temporary glitch but I still can't book My Timing Dining. Paid dining seems to work well of course! Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 49 minutes ago, killswitch1968 said: First time cruiser here, and not sure if I am doing this right. Welcome to the roll call and the WONDERful world of cruising! It's almost certainly a glitch (which sadly is common with Royal). We don't normally do MTD but I was going to for this cruise until it was only letting me book days 1 and 7. We switched back to early seating for now. I may have my TA switch me to MTD again at some point just to check on it since he can easily switch us right back (I had him try last week). Please share here if you're able to book MTD and if you have any other questions, fire away! Quote
WAAAYTOOO Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 1 hour ago, killswitch1968 said: Afternoon fellow cruisers. First time cruiser here, and not sure if I am doing this right. I was told it was advantageous to book My Time Dining, but when I try to do so I keep getting errors or messages stating there are no available options at that time. This was quite suspect as I even tried 3 months before the cruise date! Just want to confirm if it's something on my end or RCs, I even called their help desk and they said it was a temporary glitch but I still can't book My Timing Dining. Paid dining seems to work well of course! Welcome to the addiction ! We almost always do MTD and I’m sorry to say that your issues are almost certainly examples of Royal’s very fallible IT system. I’ve been having some major problems booking MTD online, lately. We are boarding Utopia in 4 days and the MTD link in the Cruise Planner JUST showed up today ! …and the link didn’t work the first time I tried it….and when it finally DID work, I was able to book only 2 of the 4 nights successfully ! UGH. Keep trying. It will work eventually. OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 28 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: We almost always do MTD and I’m sorry to say that your issues are almost certainly examples of Royal’s very fallible IT system. I’ve been having some major problems booking MTD online, lately. We are boarding Utopia in 4 days and the MTD link in the Cruise Planner JUST showed up today ! …and the link didn’t work the first time I tried it….and when it finally DID work, I was able to book only 2 of the 4 nights successfully ! UGH. I've been semi-following the Bella thread across the street and saw you post that. We're only planning to eat in the MDR on three nights and one of them was one of the nights I was actually able to book. I'm thinking I'll trust the reports and past experience that says it must be a glitch and ask Ken to move me back to MTD. I don't want to bother him with it during the cruise though. Do you have MTD this week? If so, running smoothly? Thanks for popping in to share on the topic, BTW. Quote
WAAAYTOOO Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said: I've been semi-following the Bella thread across the street and saw you post that. We're only planning to eat in the MDR on three nights and one of them was one of the nights I was actually able to book. I'm thinking I'll trust the reports and past experience that says it must be a glitch and ask Ken to move me back to MTD. I don't want to bother him with it during the cruise though. Do you have MTD this week? If so, running smoothly? Thanks for popping in to share on the topic, BTW. We did have MTD but….since we were admitted to the SL/CK for this one plus had a 3 night dining package, we have not and will not be going to the MDR at all on this sailing. So, while I cannot provide any recent Wonder intel, I can say that our last few experiences (different ships) with MTD have been awesome ! We have never had any kind of line in which we had to stand, we were always seated with the same servers (if that’s what we wanted) and the food has been very, very good. Frankly, I have just quit worrying about reservations for MTD. We show up when we want to eat and we’ve been seated within 3-5 minutes every single time. I think they finally have the logistics worked out with MTD…except for the reservations part. OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 6 Report Posted February 6 18 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: since we were admitted to the SL/CK for this one plus had a 3 night dining package, we have not and will not be going to the MDR at all on this sailing I wouldn't either! 18 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: So, while I cannot provide any recent Wonder intel, I can say that our last few experiences (different ships) with MTD have been awesome ! We have never had any kind of line in which we had to stand, we were always seated with the same servers (if that’s what we wanted) and the food has been very, very good. Frankly, I have just quit worrying about reservations for MTD. We show up when we want to eat and we’ve been seated within 3-5 minutes every single time. We've been avoiding it on Wonder b/c when we were leaving early seating the crowd of people waiting for MTD extended back to the elevators! It was a total cluster and we wanted no parts of it, especially without reservations. That said, if the app is to be trusted, it now lists MTD on deck 3 which has no late seating listed. MTD was on deck 4 during our cruises so if it's really on deck 3 now, that probably alleviated the backup. Thanks for the feedback; I think we'll give it a shot. Right now we're planning on two specialties (a D+ BOGO and a freebie that came with some sort of balcony promo when we booked), one dinner at Playmakers, and one WJ dinner after I spend the day stuffing myself and drinking the day away at Paradise Beach in Cozumel. It works out well since my wife really only likes 3 MDR menus anyway. Enjoy the rest of the Bella cruises! My main takeaway so far is there's a strong group of beer and bourbon drinkers, lol. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
WAAAYTOOO Posted February 7 Report Posted February 7 We are enjoying the group cruise. It’s been 2 years since this group sailed together b/c last year was the Ultimate World Cruise, but we’re back on schedule. We can’t hang with the power drinkers. We just wander in and out and make an appearance every now and then. Had fun last night at the Music Hall. We will go home for 1 night and then head off to Utopia for the second part of this group cruise. We will lose some from the first leg and gain some newbies for part 2 that aren’t on this one. They’re a tough crowd ! OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 7 Report Posted February 7 22 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: We can’t hang with the power drinkers. Join the club. You also won’t find me closing down any bars at 1am. I haven’t even seen a midnight balloon drop. I think I was awake once or twice but was too lazy to go down to the promenade. 27 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said: will go home for 1 night and then head off to Utopia Nice to be able to go home in between. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 9 Report Posted February 9 On 2/6/2025 at 3:49 PM, WAAAYTOOO said: We almost always do MTD and I’m sorry to say that your issues are almost certainly examples of Royal’s very fallible IT system. I’ve been having some major problems booking MTD online, lately. We are boarding Utopia in 4 days and the MTD link in the Cruise Planner JUST showed up today ! …and the link didn’t work the first time I tried it….and when it finally DID work, I was able to book only 2 of the 4 nights successfully ! UGH. Keep trying. It will work eventually. I had Ken switch us back to MTD this morning (felt bad bugging him but at least you guys are in between ships today). All 7 days showed up this time, yay. Now for the shenanigans... The website showed pretty much any time I wanted for every night... but it wouldn't let me add night 2 to my cart except for 8:45 which is waaaytooo late. So I added the other 2 nights we wanted at the time we wanted... and they went in the cart... but I couldn't checkout, lol. OK, let's try the app... those 2 nights were already in my cart and the app let me checkout, woohoo! So I kept playing around with the site vs. the app and noticed there are a lot less times showing in the app. Is it a glitch? Is night 2 randomly more popular than other nights? I booked lobster night no problem. As usual, who knows with Royal IT? In any case, we now have 6:45 reservations for 2 of our 3 desired MDR nights and I'll just keep checking on night 2 and worry about it later. Thanks again for checking the WJ last night and the MTD feedback. Enjoy Utopia tomorrow! WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
killswitch1968 Posted February 10 Report Posted February 10 On 2/6/2025 at 1:22 PM, OCSC Mike said: Welcome to the roll call and the WONDERful world of cruising! It's almost certainly a glitch (which sadly is common with Royal). We don't normally do MTD but I was going to for this cruise until it was only letting me book days 1 and 7. We switched back to early seating for now. I may have my TA switch me to MTD again at some point just to check on it since he can easily switch us right back (I had him try last week). Please share here if you're able to book MTD and if you have any other questions, fire away! Well that's a relief knowing I am not the only one with issues; at least I am confident this is more of a systemic issue and there should be opportunity to book dates in future. I am traveling with my spouse and 2 kids 12+15. My plan is as follows: Cococay: Mostly hang out and beach and pool. The actual park is very expensive for what you get, and there seems to be enough to do on the island without doing the park itself. Cozumel: We are doing the cruise sponsored trip to Chichen Itza, should prove a long day but we have plenty of relaxation bookending this. Roatan: The Gumbalimba park seems fun for the kids, but will likely book this outside of RC. Puerto Costa Maya: Haven't heard much good about this place, seems like a conventional port turned tourist trap, likely plan on doing ship related activities we couldn't before. As far as dining goes I would like to try the Chef's table (for 2, my kids don't deserve that kind of expense). I am just waiting to see if a discount more than 15% pops off, I think Boxing Day went as low as 30% maybe? I figured Valentine's Day will probably have another offer and if it's not better than 15% I would just book at that. OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 10 Report Posted February 10 2 hours ago, killswitch1968 said: Well that's a relief knowing I am not the only one with issues; at least I am confident this is more of a systemic issue and there should be opportunity to book dates in future. Welcome to the roll call! FWIW, I did switch back yesterday and all 7 days were showing. Some had tons of times available, others only had one or two times. I still think it's being glitchy but whatever, if it doesn't rectify itself in the app/website, there will be spots available once we board. We did get the time we wanted for 2 of the 3 nights we plan to eat in the MDR so I was at least happy about that. FWIW, we've been to CocoCay like 10 times by now and I never spend a penny other than to tip on drinks. There is definitely plenty to do and I think the included food is very good, it's just not upscale, which is fine with me. One bit of advice, if you don't mind getting up slightly early, even with two huge ships there like on this cruise, the island doesn't get crowded until after 10am but eventually it will get more crowded as the late sleepers get off for lunch. We're early risers anyway so we get off first thing to grab our favorite spot and it's a ghost town for the first hour or two even with 2 Oasis class ships in port. We've only been to Roatan once and took a private customized tour with RonysTours. I highly recommend it as they will go wherever you want and not make you go anywhere you don't. We saw sloths and monkeys at Manawakie but I know different eco parks will fit different people better depending on what you want to do. Just throwing it out there in case you wanted to make more than one stop. It was pretty reasonably priced for having a private car for as long as you want. Besides Manawakie, we brought donations to a local school and met the kids, saw the school, etc. b/c my wife is a kindergarten teacher, drove all around the island a bit just to see different areas, saw the west bay, stopped at a resort that our driver got us into for free just to look around, etc. We saw different ruins a long time ago and it was a cool experience (when Royal docked in a different Mexican port and it wasn't as far away as Chichen Itza is from Cozumel). Now we basically go to beach clubs there or stay on the ship. I agree with staying on the ship in Costa Maya or just taking a quick walk around the port and getting back on. It's actually a nice port area with stores, two pools, some food/drink places, etc. We went to a beach club there a long time ago but that was when we weren't leaving so early. It's not worth it since we're only there until 2pm. Anyway, we'll be staying on the ship. There's some unsolicited advice... feel free to ignore it, lol, I just post here a lot and figured i'd share. Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 12 Report Posted February 12 More fun with Royal IT... as of this morning, it says MTD is SOLD OUT. Riiiight... they suddenly booked all the open spots I saw between last night and this morning. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 13 Report Posted February 13 Today’s MTD shenanigans. App, uhhh what? Website makes even less sense; it says it’s only able to be booked once per day. I don’t want dinner twice on the same night, lol, give me night 2! WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 14 Report Posted February 14 ***FOR ANYONE ACTUALLY ON THIS CRUISE*** Entertainment is now open for booking. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted February 24 Report Posted February 24 FYI, MTD seemed to finally begin working properly yesterday as suddenly all 7 nights had tons of availability and were able to be booked without issue. WAAAYTOOO 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted March 6 Report Posted March 6 All checked in. Now impatiently waiting for my neighborhood balcony gty assignment. I miss the bar code trick! Sweety and WAAAYTOOO 2 Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted March 7 Author Report Posted March 7 Since it's been 20 years since my last Royal cruise, two silly questions from me: 1) We're checked in online. Should we have received luggage tags/etc in the mail yet? If not, when do they arrive? 2) For those who have dining packages, is there a way to reserve restaurants ahead of time? I've seen both yes and no, and I'm not sure. Thanks! Quote
OCSC Mike Posted March 7 Report Posted March 7 57 minutes ago, DaveWallsTV said: 1) We're checked in online. Should we have received luggage tags/etc in the mail yet? If not, when do they arrive? They'll appear on the website to print when you get your cruise documents 30 days out. You should also get an e-mail but for some reason I never do. 57 minutes ago, DaveWallsTV said: 2) For those who have dining packages, is there a way to reserve restaurants ahead of time? I've seen both yes and no, and I'm not sure. If you have the UDP, you "should" be able to book in advance I believe (I've never had one). I feel like I saw someone post that if you go into your order history on the site and find the package you can click through there to make reservations but I could be wrong. If you meant something else like the 3-night package or Chops+1, you book those onboard. Quote
DaveWallsTV Posted March 7 Author Report Posted March 7 1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said: If you have the UDP, you "should" be able to book in advance I believe (I've never had one). I feel like I saw someone post that if you go into your order history on the site and find the package you can click through there to make reservations but I could be wrong. Thanks - We have UDP, but haven't seen anything about booking yet. My wife says she's looked but couldn't find it. I'll check with her when I get home from work. Appreciate it! OCSC Mike 1 Quote
OCSC Mike Posted March 8 Report Posted March 8 13 hours ago, DaveWallsTV said: Thanks - We have UDP, but haven't seen anything about booking yet. My wife says she's looked but couldn't find it. I'll check with her when I get home from work. Appreciate it! Here's the post I thought I saw from a thread about the UDP... Quote
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