MaddyandMax

1 hour ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Oasis does the parade, not sure how much the kids club is involved, but they have the pirates and a cool little show they do while parading through the promenade.I know that's not exactly what was asked, but still a cool little thing for the kids

Yes they did the pirate parade when we were on her but there wasn't a parade that the kids took place in.  Perhaps I misunderstood the question.

I haven't seen a parade done with the kids since covid.  We just got off the Oasis and they did not have one.  As for the granddaughter wanting to move up.  That will depend on how full the older age group is and the staff working the groups.  I'm going to guess because she is aging up to a more rambunctious age of kinds they may not allow it.  But hopefully I am wrong.

Thanks,

We've been to Nassau 3 times in the past 1.5 years.  We've always had to show our passports to get back on the boat (we are Canadian so we can't use a birth certificate).

Just as additional information to this post.  My husband and I are still married but I did not take his last name (for work reasons).  We went on a cruise on June 30 out of Bayonne.  We were checking in with my two kids and my husband.  The agent looked at our passports and then asked my 15 year old daughter to confirm who I was to her (she did not ask my 10 year old).  Being a socially awkward teenager she froze and went "ah...." which prompted the agent to ask more questions.  In the end I offered to her long form birth certificate that I had just happened to bring last minute (we are Canadian and all have passports).  That seems to appease her and she let us through but it was an tense few minutes with some uncomfortable laughing.  Even though my daughter and I could be twins we were still asked.  I'll never travel without their birth certificates again.  Even with my husband, who obviously has my kids last name.

We just had this happen on our Oasis cruise.  Niece and her boyfriend broke up before the cruise.  We had him as a no show.  We paid a ridiculously low group rate fare ($1,032 for 2) so we did not want to take the chance of being repriced.  The port taxes were refunded to her credit about a week after the cruise.  I'd heard reports of getting the port taxes as a room credit but that did not happen to us on our cruise (June 30-July7).

We were on Oasis the week before you and agree with all you said.  We are a group of 11 that cruise 2-3 times a year.  This was our first cruise since the menu change.  We had just been on Oasis in October less than a year ago.

The food changes were really upsetting.  No one from our group is what I would consider a "foodie" but so many nights more than one us didn't want anything on the menu and ended up with ordering 2 starters.  Starters continually came cold (except soup).  Don't even get me started on the July 4th menu.  They need to throw it overboard LOL.  If the food continues to be like this we will branch out.  I personally have only ever cruised with Royal but others in our group have been on other brands.  I suspect the food problems are not just on Royal though.  We've never complained on a review before but on this one I ran out of room.

Did you ever go into the stores?  The kids in our group love the Royal shirts and getting the glow in the dark ones.  On day two or 3 we started noticing the shop workers were cutting off the price tags and all the sudden everything in the shop became more expensive.  We'd see printed tags saying $19.99 with a price tag over top marking it up to $24.95 or $29.99 (on the ones were they forgot to cut off the original tag or got lazy and just put the new sticker over the old original tag).  We have never seen anything like happening before.  We know about the games they like to play with their watches but we've never seen prices on clothing going UP during the week. 

At 3 you will get a phone when the child is in Adventure Ocean.  They'll use that to call you if they have accident, upset or want to leave.  That said, our experience with the phones is that reception is so bad more than 50% of the time they can't even get through to you.

11 hours ago, Cruise Crazy Family said:

Thank you! That is super helpful. Any advice on a family friendly (teens) hotel? We prefer 3 or 4 stars.

We used to stay the Quality Inn - East Stroudburg but never again.  I found a bed bug when we stayed there in October.

We are trying out Baymont by Wyndham - Bartonsville Poconos this time.  It has an indoor pool. I'll have to let you know how it was in 3 weeks when we get back 🙂

We cruise out of /Newark all the time from Hamilton.  We usually stay in a hotel about 1.5 hours from the port as they are much cheaper.  We found so many hotels charge so much to keep your car there for the week and the shuttle it's not much more expensive to just park at the pier.  Plus much quicker on the way home.

If you are booking park and stay make sure you read the fine print.  A lot of hotels now are only providing the shuttle to the port and you have to find your own way back when you get off the boat.

Been there twice and I would NEVER go back again.  First was just a beach excursion we waited for what felt like forever in the heat for a ferry.  We were one of the last ships in port so there was no seating once we finally got there.  The lunch was supposed to be closed but they had to stay open because we were late.  The workers were not happy about and let us all know they weren't.  Average wait for food or a drink is 30min to well over an hour.  This was March 2022.

Second excursion we had private dolphin swim (dolphins were amazing).  We got the first ferry because of our excursion but again crazy long waits for everything and very unfriendly staff.  This was October 2022.

End of the day the place is beautiful but they over sell it and it and it makes it so seating and getting anything to eat or drink is impossible unless you waste your whole time in line.

Just now, mandream said:

 

That doesn't sound like a problem that needed fixing...

 

Mike

LOL I didn't want any problems.  The last time he tried the one waiter wasn't pretty rude to him.  Not something we wanted to deal with on vacation.   And to be honest I don't really drink. 

We were on the Oasis in October.  My husband had the package and I didn't (we were in two different rooms because of kid logistics).  Every time he went to the bar to order himself a drink and myself he was given a hard time.  He always told them to charge for the second drink.  Most of the time they told him they couldn't do that (no idea why) and they'd end up not charging for both.  After that happened a few times he would go to the bar with my card and that fixed the problem.

We were on the Oasis this past October and only paid $56 a person.  Regular price was $80.  I don't understand how it has more than doubled.  We thought the waterpark was great but I wouldn't spend more than $80 to go.  We are on oasis again June 30 and its $170 on sale...

Off topic but parking related.

Anyone know of any other parking at Bayonne?  $30 a day plus the Canadian exchange rate makes me cringe.  Before covid there was another cheaper option that would shuttle you and they were great. They closed during covid and we heard they never reopened.

Is this the Ron Jon shuttle?  If so there is a return bus every 30 min.  They will tell you multiple times on the bus when the last return shuttle is.  I don't remember when the last one is because we usually go back to the ship for early dinner.

$22 in November on Oasis this July.  Cheapest I've seen it since is $28.

1 hour ago, Ferry_Watcher said:

 

Closed Loop Cruise - US passport

Oh people, I do check-in for both Royal and Celebrity.  If any of you came to me with a valid US passport that was still valid by the end of your closed loop cruise I would embark you.  

 

I would politely let you know that your passport was about to expire, but for the purposes of your closed loop cruise, it still works.

 

Corporate legalese v boots on the ground, real life, local best practices

 

mic drop

Thank you for your response!

What about an Canadian?  My son's passport will expire 5 months after our cruise booked later in the year.  But children passports are only good for 5 years so I want to wait as long as possible to renew.

8 hours ago, gluecksbaer said:

Anyone know how many people you can get in a photo before they consider it a "group"?  I'm going with a group of 12 family members and hoping to get some photos of all of us together but I'm worried they will say it isn't included because the package doesn't include groups.

We were a group of 14 and took a ton of group pictures.  They were all included in the package.  Make sure you give the photographer the room number of the person who has the photo package.

17 hours ago, topnole said:

If you weren’t booked in the same room with him then you weren’t on the package.  Maybe the reason why?   We were all the same room so that might be the difference.  

Sorry I didn't explain well enough.  My mother-in-law was in a room with my husband.  The photo package was in his name.  She wanted pictures just of herself and they would not include them, even though they were in the same room.  I wonder when all this changed.  This was October 9, 2022 on the Oasis.

I correct myself.   Apparently the photo package has changed since October which is interesting.  Now it is per stateroom.  They were very adamant in October about my husband or children needing to be in the photo.  They must have had enough complaints to change the rules.

22 minutes ago, topnole said:

Not completely accurate.  It included anyone in the cabin for us.  Not just minors.  So if anyone in the cabin a I. The picture, it was included for us.  

You may have just been lucky. We were on the Oasis in October and they would not let us a print a picture of someone else in the room with my husband because he (or my minor children) were not in it.  When you look at the photo package it in in the fine print.

The package only includes the pictures the person who bought the package is in and any minor children.  So we had two rooms and bought the package under my husbands name.  The package covered every single picture he was in and any that both my minor children were in.  Including the one child that was not in the room.  So you just need to be "strategic" when taking pictures.  You also allowed double, triples, etc. of any picture so take lots of group pics!

As a side though a 100 pictures is a LOT and they make you pick 100 a pictures, even if you only want 60, 70, etc. So 99% of the pictures sit in a photo album never looked at.  Even though we got it super cheap I would never purchase it again for the waste factor alone.

I found in October on Oasis the key to getting notifications was locking my phone while keeping the Royal app open.  In October it wasn't free.  I've also heard reports that it is still not free so I don't know if this is fleet wide yet.

We went on October and paid $56 during a crazy sale.  It was worth it for that price. But all 3 of our next cruises we have booked it almost $180.  We are Canadian so add another 37% to that.  It's not worth going for that.  Especially for a family of 4.  Royal is out to lunch on their Coco Kay pricing.

41 minutes ago, Toddcan said:

Any word from your parents on the arrival time on Bayonne. CruiseMapper shows 18 knots, with a 2 hour delay - not sure how accurate CruiseMapper is on the ETAs

They touched base with me this morning but didn't say anything about a delay.  So either they don't know about a delay or they don't want me to know because I'm watching their dog 🤣