scottrn7

The rest of the world copes with this. Time to adapt. There's also a multiple page thread this could've gone in instead of starting another one

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2497510

 

They introduced it due to people in NA booking up loads of suites and then cancelling the ones they didn't want just before final payment, resulting in them having to sell those cabins at a reduced rate in the final 75 days.

Well I don't live on here so didn't seen any other threads. Yep, adaption is a way of life, be cool or be cast out. I always find that one could removed themselves from the equation. Spend my shillings elsewhere too :)

So you are angry that RCI offers a non-refundable fare?

 

Or am I reading that wrong...

 

The idea of the fare makes sense- as it does cost money to allow people to have that kind of flexibility- one could have cabin reserved for just about 2 years, and then cancel it with 75 days to go. Which now makes that cabin tough to fill at the last moment. And yes, the last moment is that long, when many also have to factor in flying and arranging vacation time.

Not angry, just disappointed. Like anything in life our expectations and what we are used to often gets changed over time.

I understand yes, I could book a room and cancel it with 75 days to go. We book a stateroom often when the sailings are released due to needing a handicap room. So we are there for the long haul.

I think overall it will make people take a long look at booking.

I really don't see the big deal. Airlines and hotels already offer discounts if you book non-refundable fares. Why not have the same option on a cruise?

Understand, but the attraction to get friends and family to cruise and to look specifically at Royal Caribbean was the fact it was risk free.

Not everyone had the lifestyle to cruise anytime but want to go some day. I would say just get one booked and then budget it out to make a monthly payment to pay it out. Often there was price reductions that if you found it you could benefit and get back some money there.

Royal doesn't want your commitment that ties up their inventory i.e. cabin/suite, if the commitment rings hollow. I don't blame them. Using your scenario, they also don't want your friends & family's hollow commitment either. So if your are sincere about your date, ship, cabin, etc, book it w/o fear. If not, book it at the higher rate or even better, don't book it until you are sure all is a definite go.

I hear you, and all along I was thinking being loyal to royal might improve things over the years. Finding the benefits for the rewards levels are decreasing over time made is wonder why even bother getting to Diamond Plus.

As far as the booking we had made plans that had to be changed due to health issues. For the most part we book way in advance usually when sailings are first released due to my wife being handicap. We felt secure in feeling that if circumstances arose we could back out being risk free. Now will have to really consider other things to do rather than

cruise. It was a easy was for my wife to travel. Oddly enough in the last year two cruises we booked were cancelled by RCCL. We were able to re-book one of them. Still working and have to plan a schedule.

The only constant in the universe is change, but hopefully for the better.

We not be booking as many cruises in the future as we have done in the past.

So as I have done over the last several years. I went online to do a price check on one of my future cruises to compare with the price I booked it at to see of the price had dropped. Royal Caribbean has is now offering a "discounted" price if you choose but there is no refund of the deposit if you cancel. What? One of the facts over the years that you could cancel your cruise up to 75 days out is often why I was able to get people interested in cruising in the first place. Now you have to decide on gambling for dollars. When is enough and enough. Why can't Royal Caribbean be happy with the Billions they make?

So I was given the offer to save 290.00 dollars from my original booking and a 100.00 on board bonus that I would loose if I had to cancel, but I would need to plunk down an additional 700.00 that if I had to cancel I would loose actual 200.00 and get back 700 in vouchers for future cruises. So basically yes, there is some very marginal savings and over all I have only had to back out of a couple of cruises in the past years but that was part of the attraction to start with, a feeling of being risk free to a point. I re-book the same cruise with the refundable deposit for 500 dollars more than what I originally booked it at? Why even mention that?

I hate to say it but I can no longer promote RC to new people. Peoples lives situations change and unless they have a sure schedule and know that bad things won't happen I could see people booking at the discount. Not me.

We will be sailing with ya'll!

Special thanks you Nick our driver and guide. We had a great time visiting Rome to include the Vatican, Colosseum, and Pantheon. wonderful history given on sites around Rome. My wife was using a wheelchair and he was able to get us close to where we needed to be to reduce the distance to places. He suggested wonderful lunch was just awesome!

We highly recommend Rome in Limo for any tour and as we visited the Trevi Fountain we home to return to Rome someday!

We always take wine on our cruises, or buy a package when we flying to a port. Our group of 10 on our Canadian Cruise that was 10 nights we went through 3 cases of wine. Check out our future cruises on our profile and dates to include Greek Isle, Alaska, Western and Southern Caribbean.

So has this only happened to you on this one occasion? If so, how did you get to the adjective "usually" when you said "Usually American will cancel flights if they don't fill the plane ..."?

 

And are you sure that the number of direct flights for that day had reduced by one? And, for example, it wasn't the case that your flight was cancelled but another flight was added at a much later time on the same day?

 

And what did that do to the overall capacity between the two airports that day? Were different aircraft types substituted on any of the flights that did operate? What was the overall change in capacity between the two stations on that day?

 

In addition, did the airline add any flights to SJU from another point or points, so as to maintain capacity at SJU that day, and rerouting other affected passengers accordingly?

 

You were given no direct and authoritative explanation by the airline about what happened. So unless you know all of these things, and more, you could not possibly be in a position to assert that your flight was cancelled because loads were low. It could just as easily have been a frequency adjustment or network redistribution without any reduction in capacity, and therefore not indicative of any reduction in expected demand.

Okay, please excuse my use of adjective, my bad over zealous use of words.

We don't fly enough to have all the experience, I do know that the number of flights for that day that was direct went down one that day. I was only assuming since I know it is a practice with other airlines and services. I will really never know the reason I just know that it happened.

At best we can hope for a booking at a good price and a flight that gets us there and back without delays and interruptions or cancelations. We do prefer American and is our first choice of Airlines. They have been gracious to us in that during there overbooking we volunteered to stay over for the next flight back from Fort Lauderdale to DFW. They gave us $600.00 in vouchers, open lunch ticket at the dining venues in the concourse and put us in first class from our coach tickets.

Nope. Airlines don't just cancel flights because they aren't full, because they would then have to cancel the next flight the plane was scheduled for.... and rebook all of THAT flight's pax too. fbgd explained it in detail and gave other reasons as well.

 

 

 

No one doubts your flight was canceled but it is highly doubtful that it was simply because there weren't enough passengers. Given the chaos that results when pax have to be rebooked for reasons the airline has no choice about (weather, unforeseen mechanical problems etc.) it would be crazy to think that they would voluntarily cancel every flight that wasn't full.

This was quite a few years ago when we had booked our flight to San Juan, and then was notified by American about a month before the flight that it had been cancelled and we had been rebooked on a different flight that day. So the number of direct flights for that day had dropped by one. No explanation given. It is true that with Southwest, for frequent routes, example Dallas, to Houston, there will be a cancellation of a flight, and the passengers booked for that particular flight are automatically booked for the next plane out to Houston. This is a practice done in there case for cost, told to me by a Southwest Employee. It is plausible to adjust flights a month out like they did with us.

Absolutely incorrect. But that won't stop folks from thinking it is true.

 

So, Scottrn7, did someone from AA tell you that was the reason? Or did you get secret, special info from the spirit of Bob Crandall??

Eh, I guess we just imagined our flight was cancelled and we rebooked by AA to another flight. I better cut back on the alcohol intake. It is what it is maybe its you with all the special top secret spiritual messages from Bob Crandall.

I am not a seasoned flyer so I have a question on flight schedules. We are cruising this September leaving from San Juan port. We are wanting a direct flight from DFW to SJU however, there is only one scheduled direct flight scheduled for that day leaving at 12:40 pm arriving at 6:36 pm. We do not want to waste our first day on vacation getting to San Juan so late in the day.

 

Looking at this route from now until mid August there are two direct flights daily on the schedule with one leaving early in the morning. If I book the 12:40 flight and they add another flight I will have to pay an additional $100 pp to change to an earlier flight.

 

Do you think that American will add a addition flight the closer it gets to September?

 

Thanks for any insight!:confused:

Usually American will cancel flights if they don't fill the plane which is what happened to us when we flew to San Juan for our cruise. We opted to go 2 days ahead of time. Another couple flew in 3 days before and the other two flew in the day before. All were direct flights. It has been a while so not familiar with the daily flights as of present. But our original was changed after we booked it when we went.

By the way, hello fellow Burlesonite. Good to see other cruisers from our hometown. Let us know if you need any information, Adventures of the Seas is a nice ship. Our next one is on Brillance in August for a Greek Isles Cruise.

http://discountcruiseparking.net/

58.99 pay ahead, free shuttle and they will also handle your luggage.

We also recommend

http://ezcruiseparking.com/

Free shuttle, 65.00 book online before you get there.

Galveston Park N Cruise offer only the indoor parking at 80.00 book online before you go, 65.00 uncovered, but you have to walk across the street to the terminal. They recommend you drop off family and luggage before parking.

So I had brought five bottles and was going to disperse them but ended up going through the scanner and metal detector with both my wine tote that had 3 bottles and another wine back with 2 bottles, they were more concerned with the very small pocket knife I had and sent me over to a table where employees were setting and I showed them the two bottles I had in the bag and they said fine and were not even interested in whatever else I had, but they confiscated my small pocket knife as to not to take over the ship forcefully. I had noticed this also in Galveston when I came through the scanners with four bottles, again they motioned me over to a table where I showed them my one bag with two bottles and they smiled and said thank you enjoy your cruise, again not interested in asking me or looking in any other bags. So, there you are...

So if you don't mind me asking - how did you bring 5 bottles yourself??

 

Really hoping they will bring this back to all the ships fleetwide, especially for our Radiance Alaska cruise in late May as I am planning to bring the 2 allowable bottles myself (purchased in Vancouver) and would like to have a 5 or so bottle package to have with dinner each night.

 

If the package does return I'm hoping they have some good Malbec's to choose from as well :) I suppose we should be able to use our on board credit for the package as well. Although, so far everything else I have pre-booked (e.g. specialty restaurants, excursions) I had to use my CC :mad:

73 days till the next cruise!

So the price on Navigator is 35.00 going out in June.

That is the correct info, we did spend a lot of time of the cruise focusing on the coarse but made a lot of friends along the way to include the Manager of Sea Trek on Mariner. The after thought was if we had known we would have done the certification at home first and saved about 500 dollars since both my wife and I went through it. I travel with my own gear, wife has retired from diving.

correction

 

the course being offered is the PADI "SCUBA DIVER"

 

from the PADI web site:

 

The PADI Scuba Diver course is a subset of the PADI Open Water Diver course.

 

Open Water Certification is what you need to become an "autonomous diver"

 

*******************

you can get certified in 2 days before your cruise ... well sort of anyway. You can complete all the 'book work' via an online course.

 

The you seek ouk a participating dive shop and can complete all the wet requirements in two days. dd did this not long ago completing the online work then traveling to Key Largo where things had been arranged with a dive shop. Day one morning, verification of book skills then to the pool for pool skills; afternoon, two tank boat dive with instructor ... skills. Day two another 2 tank trip completing the required 4 dives for open water certification. Easy!

 

http://www.padi.com/scuba-diving/padi-courses/course-catalog/scuba-online/

We pay all our items such as phone bill, water bill, anything that we would normally pay by check monthly on our card to earn more points. We have cashed in hundreds of dollars towards cruises and also on board credit. I try to use them towards purchase of the cruises since my wife finds ways of spending the money on board! :)

It is not a full Open water certification which is what we thought it was. You are enrolling in a "PADI Open Water Diver course" which is a beginners step towards being Open water certified, we did not know when we signed up.

So, save your money, get certified before going, it cost us double the price of what you need to get certified.

If you are interested in what is like you can book a Snuba Dive through RC, that is how we decided we thought we could do the whole thing.

I was looking at a website (Not RCI's website) and it stated if you go to the Sea Trek desk on the ship, for $249.00 you can get PADI certified on a cruise? Is this true?

Yes and and NO.

We did the "Padi" scuba certification on Mariner of the seas for 249 per person both my wife and I. So we did the whole thing, pool check off on boat and open water in St. Thomas at 40 feet. We got our cards in the mail and discovered we were only certified for 40 feet or resort diving with a dive master? So really not a full "open water" certification. So a waste of money, get certified before you go on a cruise and you can dive at the stops. We had to pay additional money to get certified in our hometown and chose to do SSI since it fit our schedule better. I have over 70 dives now and usually book through RC, but they don't offer dives at every port so I have to book them ahead of time. I have dove off RC ships through their bookings in Bonaire, Aruba, Cozumel, Roatan, and Grand Caymen. I have had to book dives separately in Nassau, Grand Cayman, St. Lucia, and Barbados. They actually just make money off booking the same dives you can do yourself.

I was looking at a website (Not RCI's website) and it stated if you go to the Sea Trek desk on the ship, for $249.00 you can get PADI certified on a cruise? Is this true?

So if you boil water and try to put a live frog in it, it will just jump out.

But, if you put a frog in the pot with the water at room temperature and slowly turn up the heat it will just sit there and cook.

Slowly the price goes up and those have enjoyed Chops several times over might not pay attention to the price slowly rising. Maybe if we all just pass on it they will bring the price back down? Think it would work?

They say the cost is just to cover the service provided but we always tip on top of that. So, what the hey?

Our last seven night on Serenade our group of six enjoyed outstanding service in MTD, set the time at the beginning of the week and same waiter and assistant waiter. Never missed going to the premium venues and no regrets not going!

Science would call it "diffusion"

Others have posted that they smell smoke in the gym on Allure and/or Oasis. I never have, and wondered what THEY were smoking. ;) (j/k)

 

I am sitting at a computer on Deck 7 in the Centrum on the Serenade of the Seas. FABULOUS live music. I am just enjoying the music and using my unlimited internet package that costs $189 for the week. The connectivity stinks.

 

And speaking of "stinks".................

 

I am not paying attention to much of anything. Suddenly the thought enters my brain, "It really stinks of cigarette smoke in here."

 

But that's not possible.

 

I'm in the big, open Centrum.

 

I still smell it.

 

THE CASINO IS ON DECK 6 DIRECTLY BENEATH ME.

 

One deck below, and somewhat recessed from where I am.

 

But the smell is STRONG here.

 

YUCK.

 

So, to those of you who have posted about this kind of thing on other ships...............I now agree.

 

That smoke REALLY travels!

 

:eek: :mad:

They have starbucks at the cafe in the promenade, but there is good coffee on she ship. Why pay more? Don't think there is a soda machine on Navigator.

I will continue to call them and bug them about bringing it back on all cruises.

We just got off Serenade and several people inquired about the wine packages and I actually brought 5 bottles on myself. We also took our bottles to the dinner table and they opened it for us and served, no corkage fee.

We did spend some money at the Vintages but no where near what we usually spend on wine on cruises.

We have met lots of nice people in the Diamond Lounge. Just smile and say hello and where ya from? ;)