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Was going to give RC another go - but they blew it before we got that far


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We are just a couple of cruises off Diamond Plus but haven't been on a RC ship for the last 8 or so cruises.

 

Today, I came across a price for new Symphony showing a Balcony Cabin at £1896 for 2 people. (nice price for 7N Med)

 

Started the booking procedure - only to find the price was for a VIRTUAL Balcony.

 

I'm sorry, but no matter how much you want to dress it up, a virtual wall is NOT and never will be a Balcony - do they have a fan, sea noise and deck chairs to sit and stare at this TV?

 

Totally put me off trying them again - if they have stooped this low to promote a price point then I dread to imagine just how bad they have got once you're onboard.

 

No thanks royal (note the small r as their Royal days are gone)

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With all the newly added categories no wonder some are getting confused...you need to read the fine print description about every aspect now. Good luck on whatever cruiseline you decide will work best for you.

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Meh.... If that's all it took to shake you off the RCL tree, then you probably made a good choice to move on. The facts are they've built HUGE ships w/ many, many cabins. The bankers need x amount of small cabins in play because the $/sqft is great. So they build many small cabins. Unfortunately, many cruisers like yourself prefer a balcony Balconies fill themselves in most cases. Smaller, non balcony rooms don't. While you may not like it, this is where the advertising of price points should be. Otherwise they could just build these mega ships w/ all balconies and not have problems w/ occupancy. BUT... the price then would increase dramatically.

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We just came off the Explorer - a last minute booking with only GTY interior available. Were given a virtual balcony and were quite pleased with it. Of course it is not a balcony, doesn't even come up in the balcony category but did make our interior seem larger. We knew when the sun was up, what the weather was and even gave us a more natural sleep cycle.

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Interesting that they were listed as a balcony cabin. We just booked a balcony on Anthem, which also has virtual balconies. They were definitely not listed in the balcony category on our cruise. They were clearly listed in the inside category with a virtual balcony

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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We are just a couple of cruises off Diamond Plus but haven't been on a RC ship for the last 8 or so cruises.

 

Today, I came across a price for new Symphony showing a Balcony Cabin at £1896 for 2 people. (nice price for 7N Med)

 

Started the booking procedure - only to find the price was for a VIRTUAL Balcony.

 

I'm sorry, but no matter how much you want to dress it up, a virtual wall is NOT and never will be a Balcony - do they have a fan, sea noise and deck chairs to sit and stare at this TV?

 

Totally put me off trying them again - if they have stooped this low to promote a price point then I dread to imagine just how bad they have got once you're onboard.

 

No thanks royal (note the small r as their Royal days are gone)

 

That is why the price was low.

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I don't understand it, if you select balcony when you do mock booking, virtual balcony is considered part of this grouping. Never seen this with any of my mock booking. Unless you assumed that virtual is a real balcony.

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We liked ours. We knew all about them when we booked a last minute Navi out of Galveston. You do get the noises, when we were in port you could hear the Stevedores yelling at one another and clanging etc. I fell asleep to it waiting for Muster drill. Later we got the same views as if we had a starboard balcony along with the noises.

 

I would book it again over a regular interior or even a Promenade.

2ywixyw.jpg

 

Of course I knew it wasn't a real balcony, that's what Virtual means.

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We are just a couple of cruises off Diamond Plus but haven't been on a RC ship for the last 8 or so cruises.

 

Today, I came across a price for new Symphony showing a Balcony Cabin at £1896 for 2 people. (nice price for 7N Med)

 

Started the booking procedure - only to find the price was for a VIRTUAL Balcony.

 

I'm sorry, but no matter how much you want to dress it up, a virtual wall is NOT and never will be a Balcony - do they have a fan, sea noise and deck chairs to sit and stare at this TV?

 

Totally put me off trying them again - if they have stooped this low to promote a price point then I dread to imagine just how bad they have got once you're onboard.

 

No thanks royal (note the small r as their Royal days are gone)

 

Fine if you never want to go on royal, but what exactly are you upset about? Did you click on balcony and get a virtual, or just click and inside and see a virtual balcony? I went through mock bookings on several sailings, and the only place I can find virtual balconies in on inside.

 

If you found one in a balcony section, maybe it was a glitch.

 

If you are just complaining that they have virtual balconies, then to me choice is a good thing.

 

If you are complaining that the prices are high, what do you expect on the newest, biggest ship in the world?

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i am confused. Why is there such a difference between the UK site and the US site for Royal?

 

I'm curious too. The US site clearly lists them as insides so does the UK site list them as balconies?

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An aside, the virtual balconies were far more difficult to implement than RCL anticipated. Turns out the scenes displayed had to synchronise completely with any motion felt in that cabin otherwise people got seasick watching the "window". Had to use all kinds of fancy cameras, gyro stabilisation and extra $$$$ to make it all work properly.

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I am even more confused by CoupleUK's post. I just looked at a couple of Symphony cruises, and the only place that a Virtual Balcony showed up was after I had clicked on Interior.

 

Unless the UK site is different, or has a glitch that we don't have (hard to believe; we seem to have all of them), CoupleUK just made a mistake.

 

But that's ok. Bon Voyage and smooth sailing on other cruise lines that don't annoy you quite so much.

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On the U.K. website the virtual balcony indeed shows up on the Balcony category, NOT on the inside option.

Weird. Congratulations on your special glitch! ;)

 

(Hardly worth getting that upset about, IMO. Just don't book it. Worth an eyeroll, too.)

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It wasn´t RCI who invented the "virtual" cabins. Actually it was DCL who first came up with "Virtual Oceanview cabins". RCI put this just a step further to not only have "Virtual Windows", but also "Virtual balconies".

 

I went on the RCI UK site to have a look at what the OP is describing.

 

Here is what I found out about the booking process:

 

1. You chose a cruise and a price is displayed as Interior: from £ XXX pp, Oceanview: from £ XXX pp, Balcony from £ XXX pp, Suite from £ XXX pp.

2. Next you go to "book now" and provide some information on how many persons, C&A, etc.

3. It says select stateroom type: Again as above the 4 main categories are listed

4. You chose Balcony and a list of available categories pops up, with the "Virtual balcony" at the top of the list and being lower in price than the "from" price listed in the prior steps for balcony.

 

So the OP is partially correct with he says, in the virtual balcony being listed under balcony. However the lowest price for balcony displayed and advertised, does not reflect the price of virtual balcony, but the price of the real one.

In addition the stateroom discreption clearly says in bold letters Interior with Virtual Balcony, so the lower price, the bold headline and the stateroom description really gives away what you are buying.

 

I agree with Carol, not really worth to get upset about it. For the OP however it looks more like they are looking for reasons to not return to RCI, when there really is no need for that. Simply book other lines - It´s OK really!!! No excuses needed.:)

 

I´m wondering though how many folks looking at insides who would be interested in the virtual balcony are missing out on it, as they might never click on the balcony category to find it. But maybe it´s also due to the fact that the virtual balcony is more expensive than the oceanview, at least on the one cruise I picked.

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