bigdavefc

HA suites do not get any 'better' perks at all. a JS is a JS,. HA or otherwise.

 

your TA merely meant that there are no GS HA suites available for your sailing, not there are none in GS category at all.

No she showed me a deck plan and said there were no accessible suites on board in any category above a JS. She may have been mistaken but I could not see any either.

so because there are no other options for guests that require an accessible suite, people with disabilities miss out on getting the full suite experience?

Seeing that there are no accessible suite options above a JS on Explorer of the Seas, do accessible JS guests get the same suite advantages as if they had a higher category suite? We would have liked to purchase a Grand Suite if they had accessible options but were told by our TA that the JS was the best accessible option available. So do we now miss out on the extra benefits we would have had with a GS?

thanks for the helpful replies!

 

so heres my current pickle...

 

Explorer junior suite for 10 days south pacific for the same cost as Legend for 8 days with grand suite, I could even go an owners suite on legend for $100 less than a grand suite on Explorer..

 

Are we still leaning towards Explorer?

For me the question would come down to the itineraries. Do they have identical posts of call?

Thanks for the info regarding the pole...my wife is a stripper and she would absolutely hate to be reminded of work whilst on vacation.

waydago, have you thought about purchasing some OBC prior to the cruise, I am not sure of RCCL rate at the moment, but lately it has been better than that

The current rate for obc is just under 77c ($1.30 Au = $1us). All you have to do is ring Royal Caribbean and they do it over the phone. We have purchased some for our up coming cruise and we have effectively saved 10 percent by buying it this way. The great thing is its refundable so if you don't spend it all you can cash it out.

I looked at these towels too. We haven't sailed with Royal Caribbean yet and I was wondering if these towels are the same as the beach towels you can get to use onboard or are they bigger and better?

We went to Fiji & New Caledonia and took the local currencies for both. In Fiji it was very necessary but in New Caledonia you would pretty much get by with just having Aussie dollars. I found that often you got a much better exchange rate when the shops did their own conversion from pacific francs to aud, than you would ever get if you sourced the francs here in Australia.

My advice is get a little bit if you can but there is no need to go over board with it.

I have just spoken to the Australian passports office and I have been informed that these stamps do not invalidate your passports. While they wouldn't advise that you fill your passports with "souvenir" stamps it is OK to get them.

No, they don't stamp them (at Immigration getting on or off the ship).

 

Cheers

Di

Thanks Dizziedi, I am aware they don't stamp them at immigration, that's why I have asked the question. In Noumea you can get your passport stamped at the Tourist information centre at the ferry/cruise terminal. I was hoping there would be somewhere like this where they could get their passports stamped in one of our ports (Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Auckland, Picton, Wellington or Dunedin).

Hi guys, we have arranged a private winery tour for our stop in Picton on 10th December. We have had a couple of cancelations and have 3 seats available. I have posted details in our Roll call if anyone is interested in joining us.

Cheers,

Dave

Hopefully some of our Kiwi friends can help us out with this one.

We are cruising around New Zealand in December and I was wondering if anyone knows where we could arrange to get some passports stamped?

This will be the first time that my parents in-law have ever left the country and they would like to get their passports stamped to commemorate their losing their international travel virginity :)

Hello, I have just joined this site. I have never solo cruised before and would like to make contact with anyone sailing from Sydney on Explorer of the Seas on 2nd Dec 2015.. Would be nice to chat.

Thanks

Hi Sandra, My wife and I are on this cruise and can't wait. I suggest you head over to the roll call and sign up. There is also a meet and greet organised and I recommend signing up for that too. Its a little over a month now, hope to see you on board.

:):):)

Dave

I will assume you are going through the Sounds first which means you should get a Portside balcony or an aft-facer for the best views.

 

Not sure if this helps, but If it is on Explorer departing Sydney on 2nd December then the sounds are last :)

I am very interested in what responses you get to this. I am having difficulty finding information regarding the photo packages and it isn't available online yet for our Explorer cruise in December.

Hi guys, I have a question regarding the shuttle buses royal Caribbean use to get people from where the ship docks to where tour buses pick us up . Can anyone please tell me does Royal Caribbean charge a fee to use them, if so how much is it and what ports are they required. We are visiting Bay of islands, Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Picton and Dunedin.

Cheers,

Dave

We are sailing on Explorer of the seas in December and wondered if anyone could tell me if we can expect any theme nights on board and what they might be? It's a 14 night cruise leaving Sydney Australia and going to New Zealand. Also does anyone know how many formal nights we should expect please?

Thanks,

Dave

Hi, please can you tell me how to purchase OBC with RCA, thanks.

Marina

Give them a call and they can do it over the phone. I believe that they will only do it if you are 90 days or less out from your cruise

If anyone is interested, Royal Caribbean is still offering the rate of $1.30 = $1 us. So at almost 77c its a great buy. I purchased $1200us yesterday for my cruise in December.

For those people from countries who don't understand this, then my advice is, "learn the customs of the country to which you are visiting." If you don't like these customs, then don't visit

So if you are on a cruise out of Australia (a non-tipping country) that travels to New Zealand (again not a big tipping country) and returns to Australia then its ok to not tip? :confused: Yes its an American company but it bases its ships in Australia for most of the year. When I go to other American companies that set up in Australia they change their practices to cater for their chosen market, for some reason Royal Caribbean choose not to do this.

As a fellow Aussie who is also organizing a group, I have been watching this thread with interest. In my opinion some of the responses have been a tad aggressive and rude. Australians on a whole are not used to the concept of tipping and there are travel agents out there who actively advise Australian customers that they can remove the Gratuities, so clarifying the accepted position is a responsible thing to do.

My group contains several older passengers who struggle to comprehend the need for tipping. By asking the question the Original poster now has something that they can refer to the other members of their group to (as I will be doing).

Cruising is meant to be fun and it is something we all love to do (that is why we are on these forums) , there is no need for rudeness and aggression. Comments like "If you can't afford to tip, you cant afford to cruise" are not helpful.

We are scheduled to visit Lifou next month on Golden Princess. No word from Princess about not visiting.

 

Hi bigdavefc, did you arrange to do the tour before the cruise or did you arrange the tour on arrival? Sounds like what we would be interested in doing.

We arranged it when we got there and just got lucky.

When you get off the tender boats you can see a few buildings from the pier. If you head towards them you will find a small market, a couple of food stalls and a departure point for the ships tours and up the back there was a desk were you can book private tours.

Hi everyone, I am still pretty much a rookie at this so please accept my apologies if this has been covered a lot but I have a question regarding the crown & anchor loyalty program.

We are traveling as a group on Explorer in December and a couple of people within the group will be Gold status for the first time. What does this mean and do they get any benefits for being gold?

Cheers,

Dave

Do all cruise ships use the same pier? If so I find this a bit strange because we were there in late March and I thought the pier was in very good condition.

We loved Lifou and would return in a heartbeat. My wife and I took a mini bus tour that cost $25 each. We were told that the driver may not speak very good English but the lady that took us around was amazing. She was so nice and very informative. It turned out that my wife and I were the only 2 on this tour and it was a definite highlight of the trip.