Dewaldcruiser

Same problem and it extends to the Celebrity app as well.  Had this problem a week or two ago and it was fixed in a couple of hours.  This time it seems to be taking much longer.

If I can link, this is who my TA recommended and who I am using.  Very responsive.  I asked about a side trip to Stonehenge and they repriced it and we are going to Stonehenge on the way to the port.  They have Mercedes V-Class minivans with wifi.

https://www.airport-pickups-london.com/Heathrow/Heathrow-Taxi-Prices.asp

I have been around Royal for a long time, starting with Song of America.  They have changed their target demographic over the years from the traditional "older cruise couples" to what is now a water park at seas, very family friendly cruise experience and from their latest financials, it appears to be a very astute decision.

Along with this approach has come more expensive ships and much higher fares.  Seeing how full the Icon of the Seas is, these higher fares do not seem to diminish the demand for cruising on these family oriented ships.  So much so, that the price of Royal's Luxury Line, Silversea Cruises, are become much closer to the mainstream Royal Caribbean cruise.

If you are looking for a quiet, mostly kid free cruising experience it may be a good time to go this route.  I know I have.  And as a plus for some of the posters here, dress codes are enforced in the dining room 😉

1 hour ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Honestly, they need to just include it as a service fee, stop calling it a gratuity and stop making it an "option".

Better yet, Roll it into the price of the cruise and advertise "no tipping" cruises.

Seems like current demand is through the roof along with revenue.   Seems unlikely that prices will go down until the demand subsides.  Not seeing the demand go down especially for the newer ships any time soon though.

Love Grand Suites on Oasis, Quantum and, I imagine, Icon classes with Coastal Kitchens and free internet.  I've tried them on other ship classes, but, for me, it is only worth the extra money on the 3 largest classes of Royal ships.

We did a Royal whale watching tour in Juneau recently and we saw 10 or so whales including a couple of calves.  The tour had a money back guarantee if you did not see any.

Pretty much varies by port & ship

15 minutes ago, alfaeric said:

Except when it's sold out to the highest bidder.  Then it's not.  Pretty much every venue has been sold to someone at some point.  

I was on a recent cruise where a Country & Western group had taken over multiple venues for their paying customers.  Small deal in the over all cruise to me, but there are always people that like to make a big deal out of trivial things that should not impact fully enjoying their cruise.

On 1/16/2024 at 8:17 AM, gerard43 said:

obsession with thinking royal Caribbean owes you much of anything for being loyal

Not really an obsession, but just as the airlines do, cruise lines have discovered that they can greatly increase their repeat business by offering perks to frequent cruisers.  Even Comcast has a loyalty program now.

And it is effective.  I like the trinkets and drinks that Royal gives me for cruising often with them.  Without these perks, I would likely cruise more often with Royal's competitors.  Do I think Royal owes me my free drinks? No, but if they were not offering them to me, I think I would like to try Princess cruises 😉

Here is how my wife and I did it;  I booked the specialty for just me the first night and she booked the specialty restaurant for the second night for just her online before the cruise.  When we got to the ship, we went to one of the specialty restaurants and had them change the single reservations to a BOGO for the two of us for each meal.

Unfortunately, every time we have done this, we have had to pay the difference in price between the online price and the onboard price for the "buy one" meal.  Still cheaper than buying regular meals online, but not as much as you may think,  That, coupled with the restriction with using BOGO only the first two nights has had us rethink using the Diamond Plus BOGO perk.

I follow the Crew Center website.  It can be an eye opener as most of the posts are from cruise crew members from many different cruise lines.  It is looked at by some of the RCI executives as Dave Bailey once responded to a RCI crew member's comment.

After a time, patterns appear.  RCI tends to get overall good comments.  Not all major cruise lines do.  Royal has their issues, but, at least from these crew comments, they are better than most.

Any price you see will have an additional 18% gratuity added on top at check out.

What is unfortunate for Royal is they went off script from previous overbooked/unavailable cabins.  In the past. they have come up with a decent package and asked for volunteers.  Had they done that there would have been little to no bad publicity.  As it is now, they have some serious PR issues.

Sometime this week.  Last week the 2025 Alaska cruises were scheduled to drop and they were there when I checked Wednesday morning.

14 minutes ago, LEMJMcC said:

Is this a specialty venue or is it included in the cruise fare?

If I remember right, some of each.

There is a conference room that can be rented if it is available

I have always considered midship the rooms between the fore and aft elevators.  May be overly broad, but those are the cabins that I look to book.

deleting the app and reinstalling often works

sometimes the best thing is to delete and reinstall the app

Supply and demand.  If it is truly an outrageous price, few will pay and the price will come down.  Time will tell.

I have reservations at Quantum's Solarium Bistro in 10 days.  The reservation says this is a complementary food venue.  

1 hour ago, cruisegirl1 said:

If I have this right, I've paid the daily gratuity (for dining staff including dinner), was charged 18% gratuity on the dining package price, and then tip staff each meal as well.  Is this the norm?

That is accurate.  Is it the norm is a good question.  I leave my dining room gratuities alone even if I have the UDP or any other dining package.  No idea how many others do so.  I have always felt that the wait staff needs the money more than I do.  Not sure there is a completely right or wrong choice.

4 hours ago, Wanna Be Retired said:

When you give the waiter extra I wonder, do they get to keep that money or are they required to share tips with everybody

I asked the Hooked manager this question and he said that the waiter/waitress got to keep the entire amount.

On 5/27/2023 at 6:37 PM, basenji56 said:

I don't think it's necessary.  I usually leave $5-10 if the service was good and I plan to come back.  But everyone is free to tip as much as they want

This is how I tip at specialty restaurants as well.  Occasionally I leave no extra when service is poor and occasionally I leave more than $10 for exceptional service.  Tipping as it was originally conceived before many companies figured out that they can get their patrons to pay their staff.