rg123

We are considering a walking tour that meets in the center (?) of Athens at the tour office on Athanasiou Diakou. Can we expect buses or taxis at the cruise port to get us there? How much might it cost? Thanks, Rita

Another consideration might be Shared Shuttle. We are using them for all our transfers- airport to hotel, hotel to port, and port to airport. Also good reviews and prices.

Thanks! Have a wonderful cruise and safe travels.

Not till Oct 15. I am a planner and don’t like last minute surprises. 😆

We have an 11 am flight arranged by Royal’s Sea2Air. They said we could get a transfer from them so apparently they believe the time is doable. We opted for a private transfer but I think we’ll look into the fast track as well.

How wonderful! Should be a great cruise. (If only things would calm down in Israel) And thank you for the suggestion. Hope all goes swimmingly for you as you go forward! Rita

Sailing Oct 2 2023

Waah! 😩. Yes, it’s all coming back to me now, LobsterStalker (love your name btw). I do remember reading this earlier. Guess we will hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Even so, I’ll be pretty upset if they gum this up. Will head to the dining room first thing to check out the table situation!

UPDATE: Our TA called this morning and we have been taken off the waitlist and now have early traditional dining. Yay! And it must be so as Royal sent a bunch of email cancellations of our MTD reservations- ones for myself and then my husband for every night we were booked! So there’s still hope folks if you’d like traditional dining rather than My Time. Make sure you’re waitlisted. Much easier way to go than having to beg once onboard!!

Perhaps it’s different if you would like OBC, but I experienced exactly what you did. My credit was not showing up against the price of the cruise and I was told on 2 separate phone calls that the credit would only be applied at final payment time —it could be a few days before or up to the due date. My TA asks for final payment about 6 days before Royal’s due date. I think she wants to be sure there all clients are paid up eliminating any missed final payments. This was problematic for me though so I called a third time and asked what would happen to my credit if the cruise was paid up before the credit had been applied. I was reassured that the credit would go on to our credit card which was ok with me. I just didn’t want to lose the rewards. As it turned out, I saw the credit was applied the day before our TA required final payment.

Our trip is Oct 2023. We perhaps could have waited, but I wanted to make sure all our ducks were in a row. Lots to arrange when going abroad and making airline, hotel, and tour arrangements. I am a little bit of a nervous Nellie and hate to leave things to the last minute or to chance.

It’s true! And the earliest time we could reserve My Time Dining is 7:30. Hopefully traditional will open up. If not, we’ll go to the dining room first thing when we board. Due to hubby’s health issues and scheduled medications, I hope we can come to some satisfactory time. 7:30 is much too late

Seems to have worked better in the past and allowed for earlier starts than 6:45

Our cruise isn’t until Oct and the earliest MT available was 7:30 a couple months ago meaning we won’t leave the table until close to 8:30. I feel for folks who are booking from here on out. And I am getting more anxious and unhappy as time goes on. This really is unacceptable.

Good grief!

Very frustrating and discouraging. We enjoy WJ and usually do breakfast and lunch there each day, with a few Solarium Bistros thrown in. But we don’t want to do dinner there each evening as well. Would like (and expect) a more upscale dinner service without paying extra for the specialty restaurants. Meals in the dining room don’t seem like much to ask for considering this is all part of the cruise experience that we pay for.

We are using Shared Shuttle for our 3 transports- airport to Rome hotel, hotel to cruise port, port to airport. We felt they were very reasonably priced and were pretty prompt in responding to my questions

Traditional seating typically is 5 or 5:30 these days with MT starting at 6:30 I believe or more often 6:45

We wanted early traditional and would have reserved 6:45 (not because that’s what we preferred-but better than nothing.) and you’re right-we are forced into having 7:30 My Time since it’s the earliest available. Not even close to when we wanted to eat. Lousy.

Seems like that would have given them ample time to iron out the kinks. Still seems problematic.

It does appear that the majority of people prefer an early time to eat, thus the full early traditional time slots. But those opting for MyTime seem to like the earliest times the best as well so all those slots are filled, too. Our 7:30 time is not going to work for us. 😏. We are dealing with timed medicines and timely meals so I guess we’ll go to the dining room first thing in hopes of finding a resolution (other than WJ each night-which we enjoy-just not every evening)

It took Royal forever to post excursions for our Hawaiian cruise this past September giving folks jitters on whether we would even sail. But they finally came through. A word of advice though: even after they post, keep checking as there were new ones that trickled in every few days. I’m sure some people didn’t even know this

Thank you!

We are on a 13 day cruise in October and would like early dining. At this time we are waitlisted leaving us with My Time Dining which begins at 6:45. However, the earliest time available is 7:30 every night which I know many people may like. However, this is rather late for us and really isn't "our time" and isn't the best due to a medical condition. Our time could be anywhere between 5:00-6:30. We wouldn't mind eating in the WJ upon occasion, but not every evening. What are the chances that early dining may open up or that we could make alternate arrangements once on board?

We are actually booked on the Pompeii, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast tour with the Shore Excursions Group. The tour sounds very good. Have not used them before so hope it meets our expectations!