Tin can

Thank you for explaining that the Royal Caribbean disembarkation process is similar to tender tickets. Quite a few posts mention issues but not how it actually worked. We are looking for 2024 and quite fancy Jerusalem DIY from Ashod. I don't suppose you remember roughly how much full day RCI Jerusalem excursions were? My guess is quite expensive so just trying to do some quick maths to see whether putting that cost to get a suite (and a concierge giving out tickets) would be close enough to consider.

This is an old thread that I found and hopefully your still about. I'm curious why it took so long to get off the ship in Israel as you have confirmed what I have read elsewhere that independent tour folk have missed their trips. I'm a bit confused at the requirement for a ticket to leave the ship. I'm looking at a 2024 Holy Land trip that only stops in Ashod for a day, Jerusalem DIY is possible from there but not if stuck on the ship until late afternoon.

Thanks for the heads up about Voyager on 19th August, its an interesting itinerary. To me Voyager seems expensive and by the looks of it a significant amount of cabins have already been sold presuming that it only went on sale last week. Perhaps this is normal for Holy Land cruises.

I don't know if this has any significance to the dry dock planned for Explorer but Europe 2024 on Explorer is considerably more expensive than the same itinerary in 2023. Our same cruise would be 75% more expensive. General post covid price increase or something interesting confirmed happening to her during the 8 week dry dock early 2023?

Explorer to Greece out of Ravenna is an interesting example to use as the prices for 2024 are just crazy. We are on this sailing in 2023 in a Grand Suite for not much more than the GBP equivalent of the $3400 you mention you were quoted for an inside. Generally we find that US departing cruises for us in the UK are cheaper booked on the UK website than the US one. We have booked quite a few cruises on the US site and no problem with needing a US address or needing a US credit card. The problem we had was when RCI cancelled one of the cruises as paying in $ on a UK credit card was not an issue but the refund back in dollars was.

It's certainly being promoted by travel agents even here in the UK. We are sailing from Galveston in 2024 on the recommendation of a TA selling the new port, Harmony and some different ports (for us) in Mexico and Honduras. Been to New York, Chicago, Florida, San Francisco and Vegas a good few times but never been to Texas and really looking forward to visiting and sailing with Texans.

There doesn't seem to be any strategy for this. I have placed minimum bids, quite a few maximum bids and everything in between but had no luck. There was a thread recently where someone got something like an owners suite from a balcony for about $50 so I have no idea how the bids are reviewed or selected.

Thats very sad about George Smith .... we were in a suite on Navigator many years ago and got friendly with the people in the Royal Suite after meeting in the concierge lounge. They had a party one night in the Royal Suite and the wet bar was fully stocked and run by RCI servers. There was certainly no restrictions on alcohol that night and most of the senior officers and the captain were in attendance (some likely not drinking). The family were Texan oil barons or something like that so it was all very interesting to an average family from the UK 😀

I agree Portofino and Villefranche Sur Mer are just fabulous. The 'same old same old' is one of the reasons we are venturing East next year around the Greek Isles.

Such a shame if that is the case as our Baltic cruise was one of the best we did. Since this all began we have land holidayed in Latvia and were in Gdansk Poland last week for a city break from the UK without any concerns at all but can obviously understand the RCI decision.

We were on a Baltic cruise during the World Cup once with a really big group of passengers from Mexico. When Mexico played it was so much fun around the ship, we love football here in the UK but they were something else. A bar in Cozumel for the game sounds great.

Here in the UK Royal seems to have mixed messages about alcohol consumption and behaviour. Short cruises here have tended to be 'lively' and after some incidents the sale of drinks packages for sailings of three days or less were stopped. Included 'free' drinks packages were also stopped as a UK sales promotion. What we currently have running here though is a promotion for the deluxe beverage package of £43 (approx $47) a day.

Personally I think it is tailored and adapted more to the local market of the passengers rather than a blanket fleet decision. It doesn't bother me in the slightest what people wear but it was clear in the cruise compass on Anthem sailing from Southampton in May that shorts were supposedly not to be worn in the MDR. Although we are UK based it is also noticeable to us when sailing from the US that expectation and compliance of dress code (for want of a better word) seems considerably higher sailing from the North East than from Florida. As I say it not something we bother about but we do notice inconsistencies across the fleet depending on where the ship is based.

Agreed, the only thing I can think of with a comment like that is there is a procedure to go through speaking to guest services first and having the issue escalated up the chain before involving the Hotel Director if his staff cannot resolve. The way it was worded though in the response to the guest was terrible 😒

Just noticed you are D+, have you discussed with the concierge in the lounge?

That is definitely not correct that you cannot move to a new cabin if there is an issue after using your original cabin. Be persistent with this, the simple solution would seem to be for the staff to be a bit more considerate with the loungers and I'd be back at guest services making a nuisance of myself until resolved either way. You may find a second visit may get you someone who may be a bit more helpful at guest services. Hope you get this sorted.

The train and public transport systems in general are very good in Europe. What is very unpredictable in Greece from experience of land holidays there is sudden unannounced strike action.

I think they do, the actual cruises are fantastic but any involvement with anyone on the phone is a disaster in my opinion. As Biker19 mentions, you could call back again and get a completely different response.

I might be wrong but I think the deal is for new bookings only irrespective of how you booked it. It could be worth a call though and if you booked with one of the low deposit offers it may be worth looking at whether it pays to cancel and rebook with the drinks offer but I would carefully look at this.

Apologies, I must have read your post incorrectly about your friend getting notifications. In my situation after payment was due I was getting reminder emails daily, I'd have phoned to explain and cancel if it didn't take so long to get through and then they phoned me after two weeks. No automatic cancellation and I could have paid there and then 14 days late, I'm nothing special (only Diamond) so must be a peculiarity about booking from the UK. That was a one off though with us not being able to go on this cruise, we don't get price match here so I pay them off early. We are fully paid for Anthem out of New York next Easter.

Very strange, your friend gets her cruise cancelled with no notification and I get a phone call two weeks after the payment date asking me if I had forgotten to pay and would I like to do so now. Must be something to do with UK and US booking terms.

There is a conference/meeting room on Liberty which would provide a professional location for the webcast but I’m not sure the internet would remain consistent enough.

That really is fantastic, congratulations. I have tried minimum bids, maximum bids and everything in between and no luck yet.

Just in case anyone is wondering what happens if you don’t pay by the date this is our experience. Our plans changed with a cruise and booking in the UK we knew we would lose our deposit so thought that would be it, the cruise would be automatically cancelled for us. I was amazed to get a call two weeks after final payment date from Miami (bearing in mind we are UK based) asking if we had forgotten to pay it and would we like to do it now. I explained our plans had changed, we would like to cancel and that was that. I’m not sure if this happens all the time or whether it’s a UK thing as we have different booking terms.

Never had a channel list like that but always found a BBC News channel which being from the UK should be of interest but it is often focussed on Middle Eastern or African news and is not the BBC channel we get here. For me when I have looked it has always been a very random collection of channels, you would almost get the impression that Royal doesn't want us sat in our rooms with revenue to be made 😀