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On 1/29/2023 at 11:40 AM, YoungDubFan said:

 Avalon Tulip Time starting 4/29 on the Tranquility II. . The only optional I am considering is the tour to Muiderslot castle. Any thoughts?

We were signed up for it last year but didn’t make it.  I did really want to go. We heard a good reports  from other guests. Honestly, we probably should have just gone. We ended up skipping out because one of  the passengers was sailing solo and was having the worst time. She won the trip in a raffle and I swear her goal was to just make everyone miserable. She was going, so I was not. It was the end of the cruise and I didn’t mind at the time sitting it out for peace of mind and a little extra rest. Our cruise director refunded us without us even asking. I think she knew why we skipped out. 

On 1/31/2023 at 3:06 PM, QueenofEverything said:

I found a website for the Amsterdam Port Authority that shows all riverboat docking locations for the year.  I was under the impression that these were flexible and aren't assigned until 24 hours or so before.  Anyone know if these are accurate?

Our Amsterdam cruise in April, Avalon let us know where they’d be about a week before. Though the docking area was probably 1/2- 3/4 of a  mile from one end to the other with a maybe 20-30 slips mostly full. We walked from our hotel  (2 miles) to the port number that was assigned 17 or 22 kind of the last end. But when we arrived there our ship was actually in the first slot, so we had to walk that additional unplanned stretch. I’d recommend maybe calling them the morning of to make sure they gave you the right info. Even our app had it listed wrong. 

On 2/6/2023 at 3:28 PM, D. B. said:

I just found out that Azamara Dropped the Price by Thousands of $ (and added better cabins) for a cruise we booked so I ask my TA to check into it.

  He said the answer was They do not do price changes on Bookings that have been paid in full.

 

You can always try to switch to a different room, pay a slight difference if the price is better then when you booked. We do this from time to time and never have issues up to days before we sail. Though we just booked our first Azamara so don’t really know what to except with them. But thinking they’d be happy to please their guests.

On 7/5/2022 at 2:52 PM, CruiseWendy said:

I haven't received any communication from RCCL on my August 15th cruise. I've had to reach out to my travel agent for clarification and he doesn't know why I'm not receiving any. Only found out because of this post.

I’m a TA and the thing is when booking with a TA is royal will only contact the direct person that booked. Technically, your agent booked, he gets the email and is supposed to reach out to his clients. Other lines will email the contact on file but royal goes through booking agents. I work under a hosting network and didn’t get my email until a couple of days after royal actually sent them. It is not an efficient way for contacting with such changes. 

Our 8/1 sailing is changing too. canceling the glaciers 

email: 

Due to a speed limitation caused by a technical issue with one of the ship's engines, we've reduced our speed between ports and as a result, we've adjusted some of our arrival and departure times in Alaska and British Columbia. Regrettably, this also means we'll no longer visit Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier. We're terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused by this, but the safety and comfort of our guests and crew is always our top priority. Below, please find our revised Quantum of the Seas August 1^st, 2022 itinerary.

We know you were looking forward to visiting Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier, so to help make up for this unexpected change, we're providing you with an Onboard Credit to use during your cruise - $75 USD for Interior and Ocean View staterooms | $100 USD for Balcony staterooms | $200 USD for Suites. These credits can be used anywhere onboard. If at the end of the cruise you have a remaining amount left over, it will be refunded to your card on file.

Our Shore Excursions team will automatically reschedule any pre-paid Royal Caribbean International shore excursions affected by this change. In the next few days, your updated tour information will be e-mailed to you. In the meantime, feel free to browse all the exciting shore excursion options for your sailing in Cruise Planner to level-up your vacation.

Thanks for your understanding. We can't wait to welcome you onboard Quantum of the Seas!

On 4/3/2022 at 10:34 AM, BAYA said:

The AvalonGo app is working for us but we never got luggage tags either. We embark on April 5th. Yesterday we got email notifying us of our docking location in Basel. 

How exciting! Hope you have a great trip. The app is now working for us, though still no luggage tags. I’m guessing they will just have them when we board. 

Does anyone know when we’ll get luggage tags? Or when the app will start to work with your reservation? We got emailed our travel docs but no luggage tags in that package. No tags in myavalon and the app still doesn’t work? We leave in 2 weeks. 1st river cruise, getting excited/and nervous. 

On 3/19/2022 at 12:19 PM, Playtennis said:

 

 

Before our travel to France this May I have been tracking what is required for travel because of the viruses.  Here's what I've recently found:

 

According to the CDC before leaving France for the USA, We are...“REQUIRED -  Before boarding a flight to the United States, you are required to show the following: * a negative COVID-19 test result taken no more than 1 day before travel.”

 

Is anyone up to date on whether Avalon makes arrangements for us to take the test at the end of our cruise?  (Hopefully they have made or will make arrangements!)  If not, I plan on contacting my travel agent and to find out what’s happening.

 

I’m bring some just in case. Ordered the same ones we used through royal Caribbean. 

We’ll be right behind you guys, boarding on the 15th… We are staying a couple of nights pre cruise and I hope to check out Pasta e Basta Address: Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 8, 1017 DE Amsterdam, Netherlands. My mom went here years back and really enjoyed it. The waiters sign opera during you diner. My husband and I are artists, so we’re looking forward to the museums. I’m sure you two will have a great time. 

Still no news on our 12/15 cruise. All higher category suite are showing sold out, so unless someone cancels last minute, I’m guessing not. Also, I hear we’ll loose the double cruise points that was offered during our booking as this promo is gone and the royalup will rebook as a new booking altogether. So, I’d rather take the 20 points for a 5night cruise and , up our C&A status vs a royal suite anyways. Just really want my own private balcony hot tub. It’s the only thing we left a bid on.

On 11/18/2021 at 8:23 AM, sammee said:

I've got a couple bids in for OV or Balcony on my casino offer. I tried to get one when I booked and pay the extra money, but was told it can't be done. So here I am hoping for the best.

So strange… We book our free casino cruise and upgraded to a Jr. no problem. Saved $600 doing this vs booking a direct Jr.  . Good luck on your bids, though you could call in the casino line and try again. Sometimes Royal’s staff doesn’t know what they can actual do.

We got our offer 43 days out. The subject line in the email was strange. It said, important information about your upcoming….. I initially dismissed it as something to do with COVID or check in. Was going to open it later… That same morning I tried the royalup link to check and it said, “make sure you are 30 days out”. So i was surprised that the email came/worked before the self check link. More surprising was an offer for 2 for one Jr suites… As if my husband and I need 2 rooms. LOL. Placed bids on GS, OS, and RS. There are 5 GS 1bedrooms available on the website, so perhaps we’ll get lucky this time. Haven’t won a RU yet, tried twice both from JR suites moving up.

2 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Agree. Demand and bookings dried up when they started to require pretesting for covid. Then they moved it from 3 days to 2 days. It stresses people out. It's when I de ided to stop booking more cruises and I'm sure I'm not alone. .. of course I'm not getting those $25 pp rates or $100 balconies.

The lines are definitely trying to fill up. Some are offering travel agents some pretty amazing bonus commissions. Just throwing it everything they can at bookings.  I’m not thrilled that as a fully vaxed couple we also have to pre-test (just another hassle in our schedule) but with the amazing casino offer they kept sending up, we finally took the bait. And I’m hoping to sail in a 50% cap range. That’d be AWESOME!!! 

We’re 72 days out still no offer or access with the royalup weblink. I wonder if we wont get invited to bid because we booked our complimentary casino cruise? 

There seems to be a lot of grand and owner suites available and we wouldn’t mind the upgrade from the Jr. 

Recently booked our second gty, this one is with royal. The 1st one was a celebrity Alaskan cruise and we were placed in the 2nd balcony at the very front of the ship. I was a bit annoyed, thinking it wouldn’t be a good room. No problems at all, i rather enjoyed the tiny bit of extra swaying. We’ve had an aft corner balcony on princess and it was truly my favorite room. Slightly noisy/vibrations from the engines but simply stunning to watch the wake in private. Again, no sea sickness or anything. If you aren’t prone to motion sickness, you will be fine forward or aft on a cruise ship. With the money we save booking gty, it definitely worth the room gamble. Would love to the sweet suite upgrade someday 🙂 but not booking a gty expecting to be lucky.

Honestly, it Just depends.

i was able to use a mvegas reward on a cruise I had OBC for but a friend on the same cruise wasn’t. I think it had to do with they booked earlier and the time frame wasn’t considered a new booking. I think I just changed room categories to bypass that. It refreshes your booking date. 

if you spend your myvegas points and it doesn’t work, you get your points back, so it’s worth a try.

We are planing a 2022 Galapagos cruise with Avalon and I am wondering if anyone has cruised here with them. Info in weak online and I couldn't find anything on the forms here. Just curious how well done this is since it isn't an Avalon ship.

12 minutes ago, Issyalex said:

How long, in average, do you wait to hear if you’ve ‘won’ your bid? 

Seems random. I’ve read people have heard withing two days they won and up until 24hr before they leave. From what i see in the forms, most people that hear the day before don’t win. And those that do win tend to hear a little sooner. Just really depends on if the ship is sold out and who has a last minute cancellation. 

We had a royalup offer for our balcony room 7nights May 12 on Liberty

I made bids but then decided to go ahead and pay for a Jr. Suite last week. Price was good, not great. I think a little less then it was in September, maybe by $200. I really wanted double points and we love the extra room and tub.

It took a few days, a phone call and an email for the royalup offer to update to our Jr. suite.

when we were in a balcony our offers were for:

1. Spacious Balcony (min $80pp)

2. Jr Suite (min bid $200pp)

3. Grand suite 1bed room (min $300pp)

4. Grand suite 2 bed room ($350pp)

(can't remember the max)

Doesn't look like a balcony will be able to jump to a royal suite, lol!

Now our offers are:

1. Grand suite 1 bedroom (min $150pp-700)

2. Grand suite 2 bed room (min $250pp-600) ...yes, the max is less on this room...

3. Owners Suite (min $300pp-$900)

4. Villa suite 4bedrooms (min $500pp-$1,000)

5. Royal suite (min $800-$3,000)

I bid very close to the min. on the 1st three. If we get the grand suite upgrade, it would cost us (all in) about $1500 less then what it was going for online in September when we booked. So for us, even paying full price on a jr. suite, the upgrades would put us in a category we typically wouldn't splurge on, for far less then at the time of booking.

I'll let y'all know if we actually get upgraded or not.

All the suites above Jr have been "sold out" for months. so my expectations are set low.

On 4/13/2019 at 4:30 PM, kwbound said:

 

According the FAQs for the Royal Up program, you only get the points you would have gotten for your original cabin.  I was going to bid in an effort to get double points too, until I read that.  

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/will-i-earn-crown-anchor-points-for-the-royalup-upgraded-stateroom

 

Correct.

What I meant was, I called in and paid full price to get a Jr. Suite.
 

I deiced to pay for a Jr suite upgrade to ensure double cruise points. I just couldn't stand ending this cruise 1 point away from leveling up...

But I want to bid on a higher suite. Only problem is the biding system still has us in a balcony. so, the bidding upgrades are way too high since I just paid all that extra $$$... I hope they update the bid system in the next week... Otherwise my plan sort of back fired.

we sail may 12th so maybe there is still time.

For our may cruise, the min bid for a jr suite is $200pp or $400 total. The gty jr suite comes to just over $900 total.

I'm torn, part of me really wants to just call in the gty and get the double points. But I'll loss our current $100 obc.

I bid on both a jr suite and a grand suite.  they still have about 15 jr suites online and ZERO grand suites. Min bid on a grand suite is $350pp, i figured I'd be totally surprised if we won our 1st grand suite experience . We wouldn't have been able to afford the $6k+ original price for the room when we booked in September.

If we get a jr suite, via the bid, we at least get to keep our $100 obc but still pay $400 extra and not get the double points. which means we'll have one more night before we turn platinum...

22 hours ago, molly361 said:

Sometimes the emails end up in the Spam folder

I doubled checked my spam today and didn't see it. But perhaps I had already deleted them out. I tend to kill off everything in spam once a month without really looking at what's in there.

1 minute ago, molly361 said:

Did he receive an email offer to bid?  

no. he doesn't even give his email to them. (or anyone) we use my email for his C&A. I never got email for either of us. just figured I'd check.

6 hours ago, Issyalex said:

We are booked on Independence 1st June 2019 but when I tried the Royal up link it wouldn’t let me on as it states I’m not within the 30 days prior to sailing category!  However I’ve noticed people on this thread have been notified more than 60 days before they cruise, but have noticed they are all US residents. Does this mean us UK cruisers have to wait to see what, if any, is left? 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

 

I think it's a random selection. I checked my name and got the 30 day message but check my husband, different last name and he was able to bid. I've read other people had the same luck with same room/different last names.