Jcol5786

44 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

Yup, you are thread number three. 🙂 

Well this is the first one I saw and it's great news for some of us. Guess I know how you got so many posts.

8 hours ago, Merion_Mom said:

@Jcol5786 - I have been reading some "interesting" things about the Embassy Suites.  What was your experience?

Hi Merion_Mom - this was the fourth time we have stayed at the Embassy Suites and have always had a good experience and this one was no exception. I did read some negative reviews from last October which seemed related to the hotel being used as a shelter after a particularly bad noreaster storm. 

What were the "interesting" things your were reading about?

10 hours ago, nu_cruzer1 said:

Thank you for posting this info.  Can you provide any info about how you got back to the hotel after the cruise to pick up your car?  Was there a shuttle and how did it work?  Thanks again. 

The Embassy Suite and two or three other hotels in the immediate area seem to share a common shuttle service. They picked us up at 10 am and told us to meet them at area C which is in front of the terminal when we got off the ship. We stepped out shortly after 8 am and the shuttle was waiting. It was cold and we turned over our bags and got in right away. The driver waited about 5 minutes and 2 more people joined us. At that point we were full so he left. We were dropped off first and were loading up our car by 9 am.

12 hours ago, wolfcathorse said:

was Capt Srecko Ban the captain?

Yes I believe that was the captains name. We went to Captains talk but I'm bad at remembering names. The captain was tall and slim and very funny with a dry sense of humor. I believe he mentioned he was born in Croatia.

Lots of question from over night. I'll try to get them all.

13 hours ago, smeesme said:

Hi there,

If you don't mind telling me, what did you do for testing for coming home to Ontario?

Thanks,

Smee

We purchased two kits from Switch Health rapid antigen. These are the monitored ones. We did our first one from our home on Friday morning. This was required to get on the ship and it was accepted with no problem. As others have mentioned the internet on the ship would come and go. We purchased the single device basic package and were able to keep up with emails and messages OK but it was clear that it would never work for a video session.  On Friday we stopped and spoke with the Zoom person and asked about upgrading so we could do our return covid test on the ship. We mentioned that the basic package had been spotty and asked if the stream package would work well enough for a video session. At this point he offered to upgrade us for free for the remaining 2 days and suggested we try it and see how it worked. We thought this was very good of him. After the update we were able to stream Netflix so we thought it should be OK. First thing Saturday we logged into the Switch Health portal and got connected to the nurse within about 5 minutes. The video froze a couple of times but for the most part it worked well. We were both negative, uploaded our test pictures and had our  QR code results within 10 minutes of the upload. Later in the morning we went to the library above 270, logged into a computer there and printed out our results. Our tests were checked at the land border and excepted with no question. Our backup plan if the Zoom had not worked out was to simply wait till Sunday morning and connect to the normal phone data when in the NYC habour. We have Rogers so roam from home would have cost us $11 and I'm sure that would have worked as well.

6 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Other Anthem reviews have mentioned this - apparently RCI is missing (or won't pay for) riggers (since the restart) required for that portion of the show, so they just eliminated it.

That's too bad. It really added to the show. Hard to fathom that RCI would cheap out on riggers for an established show but you never know.  My niece was a rigger and worked in the UK and Toronto for years. She was always in high demand.

4 hours ago, ellenh said:

Just one quick question: Do you recall if Boleros had mostly Latin music or was it mostly Karaoke?

We stopped at Boleros a couple of times and listened to a Latin band who were good. I think High Voltage was also in there once or twice. I didn't hear any Karaoke but we could have missed it.

 Had a wonderful time. This is our second post covid cruise and our 10th overall. Drove to Bayonne on Saturday from Kingston Ontario. Stayed at the Embassy Suite and used their park and cruise package. Shuttled to the port at 10 am. Had an 11:00 am boarding time. By 10:30 they called the 11:00 am group. Line moved well as did the check in process. We were on the ship by 11:00 am which is about as early as we have ever been onboard.

Cruise had 3300 people on board. We had a GTY and received a connecting room on the port side of deck 13. The room as right beside the elevator lobby. We were initially concerned that the room might be noisy  however we had no neighbors so it was fine. Overall we loved the location. It was a short walk to the end of the hall to the door which comes out in the Solarium. There was some noise from above in the early morning but it wasn't a huge problem as we both sleep pretty well.

We only ate in the MDR and WJ, also used room service every morning for our coffee and pre-breakfast bagel. Note that they no longer use the door hanger that you place on your door the night before for your breakfast order. It's now done from the TV and this is a great improvement. Instead of having to guess when you will want your coffee delivered  you can now simply wake up, order through the TV and ask for immediate delivery. We had our coffees within 20 minutes every morning but we are early risers so it might take longer the later our place your order.

Shows - We Will Rock You was good as usual but we have seen it 4 times now so there are no surprises in it for us.  One performer named Hanna put on her own separate show with the Anthem house band (High Seas)  which was excellent. She has a great voice and her song selection was very good. She told short stories between each song describing some events in her live which was also done very well. Another show we saw had the singer from Jersey Boys (Ryan Molloy) who did an amazing melody of Franky Valley songs.  He had the Anthem house band and 3 other back up singers. We really enjoyed this show and for us was the best of the cruise. We also saw Spectra's Cabaret which again we have seen a few times. It's my wife's favorite however we noticed that they are not doing any of the aerial sequences which was a bit of a let down when you are expecting it. Other live music around the ship was good however we really missed the Royal Swedes who were Anthems pre-covid show band. They have been replaced by a band called High Voltage who are good but for us not quite as good as the Swedes.

We got into PC late on day 2 and we didn't get off the ship. We did get off in CocoCay and have a nice late morning early afternoon on the island. Than went back and enjoyed the quiet ship. In Nassau we got off in the morning and did some souvenir shopping which was nice. Weather was perfect. The area around the pier seems to be a little nicer than it used to be - less people trying to sell you things and generally cleaner. We went back to the ship for lunch and then got off again and did a habour tour on a large cameraman. This was a nice relaxing excursion.

Wasn't planning on doing a full summary so I think I'll end it here. Please feel free to ask any questions and I'll be happy to answer if I can.

Lots of reports on the CC  Canadian Cruisers board that the Switch Health Telehealth rapid antigen test is accepted by RC without any issues. My wife and I are cruising on Anthem on Sunday out of Bayonne and we will be using the Switch Health test as our boarding test.  Doing our test on Friday so hopefully we both will be negative and be ready for our drive to Bayonne on Saturday.

Hope you have a good cruise. I recall you mentioned you were going on Anthem? We're leaving on Saturday heading for Bayonne ourselves for the same cruise. 

James

Another vote for the Embassy Suites in E town. We were there the last week of October and all was good. They have a Park and Cruise package and the shuttle was fast and easy. Rooms are nice and if you get a high floor the view of the airport is great but I love watching planes. The managers reception in the evening has nice snacks and 1 free drink. A nice full breakfast is also included in the morning. We are heading there next Saturday for our March 6'th cruise on Anthem, bags are packed.

1 minute ago, livingonthebeach said:

I just got off Jewel as a passenger which was a hospital / quarantine ship for crew prior to my sailing.  So all is well in paradise. 

Thanks - I followed your fine review and it made me want to sail on Jewel when she is up north later this year. I also remember thinking that if they brought Jewel back from being a Covid ship that is a good sign however were there not several other quarantine ships that are still not back in service?

Perhaps but that's assuming RC is reporting these cases to the CDC. I would still like to hear if any recent cruisers have observed actual crew transfers. If there hasn't been any sign of this I think it is a great sign since back in January there were lots of reports of these transfers happening at various locations.

Hi - just curious if people on recent cruises are still seeing sick crew being transferred off ship to "covid ships"  or has need for this  passed? If it's no longer happening it's another good sign IMO.

Thanks

Thanks - I understand about the RC "Sales" but bottom line prices do fluctuate especially when booking more than a year out. Seems like there might be an option based on post # 2.

Hello,

I'm looking at a couple of cruises in 2023. Is there a way to get  notification of a downward price change rather then doing mock bookings every time the sale changes?

Thanks

3 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Had nothing to do with them being connected.  13158 is a 2D category.

 

13160 is a 1D category..

 

The only reason 13160 showed up is they removed occupancy restrictions as it holds up to 4 guests but it is a different category.

 

 

If you want to switch you must find another 2D category

Thanks for the clarification. It's  confusing as 13160 shows up on the RC deck plan as the same colour but with a * which as you pointed out means its occupancy is up to 4.

We asked about 13150 and 13152 which are non-connected, same colour with no star. At this point the csr told us that we couldn't move from a connected to non-connected room type.

3 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

That is odd that you see different availability on the canadian site.   Give Royal a call and ask if you can switch to a non connecting cabin.  if happy with current location then ask about 13160.  Never hurts to ask🤩

 

Got the rooms to show. I had selected rooms at the front but when I chose the middle section 13160 showed as available. We phoned Royal and asked if we could switch but they wouldn't do it. They stated that since we had been assigned a connected room we could not switch to a non-connected even though the are within the same room category. In the end I'm fine with the room we have and hopefully we will have quiet neighbors or maybe none at all. Thanks for the replies.

16 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Looks like a bunch of balconies available for your sailing.  Cabin 13160 is open, maybe ask if you can be assigned that cabin or one that is not connecting.

Hi Sunshine3601- I'm not seeing 13160 when I do a mock booking, in fact the only rooms that show as available for me are all connecting rooms on decks 13, 12 and 9.  I'm using the Canadian site so perhaps that's why I'm not seeing these rooms.

Hello,

We have sailed three times on Anthem and have always done GTY rooms and our rooms have all been fine. Have never been put on deck 6 with the obstructed views. We are on the March 6'th sailing and just got our room assignment - 13158 (2D) which is a connecting room. I'm happy with the higher deck but have never had a connecting room and have heard mixed reviews about  noise. I checked and there are no non-connected 2D rooms available to move to. I'm assuming that since this cruise will go with reduced capacity we probably will not have a neighbor in the connecting room? Not a big deal if not but I just wondered if anyone has any similar experience with GTB assignments and connecting rooms during these reduced capacity sailings? Thanks

That's the catch I hadn't considered. I guess RC would  consider us  2 solo cruisers in each room and the up charge would make it a less attractive option. Oh well it was a thought. Thanks for pointing out my error.

Anyone ever done this? I've been looking at a couple of cruises on Adventure and for whatever reason the price of the interior rooms are cheap while the increase for OV and Balcony are much greater than the usual spread between room types on Oasis or Anthem. For one cruise that I priced it worked out that 2 connecting promenade interiors would be nearly the same as 1 OV. I initially dismissed this but I started thinking about it and it might be a good option. Pros - 2 bath rooms, two closets, twice the space,  double points, can bring 4 bottles of wine, double OBC, twice the available outlets for charging, noise from neighbor reduced by 50%. Of course the down side is that they are  interiors that are slightly smaller to begin with but I'm thinking the advantages outweigh the negatives. Thoughts? Am I missing something? 

Hi - Things could change by April however currently PCR test are available in the terminal when you disembark. The price is listed as starting at $130 US with results emailed to you within 60 minutes. Charging for the test will be starting after January 31'st so give it a few days and we'll probably start getting reports about how it's working out.

Thanks Ken,

This is great news. I had no idea that they would allow us to transfer the OBC and double points to a different cruise particularly for a non-covid related issue. We are not sure if the cruise we are moving is eligible for double points or not because we are not sure when we purchased it. We think this one was originally an Empress cruise that got moved  by RC once and than a LS by us in January of 2020. Is there a way to tell of the current booking is eligible for double points? Either way it's good to know that we can at least transfer our OBC and deposit to the new booking.

Hello,

We have a cruise booked on Explorer on April 30'th that we need to cancel. This is a lift and shift from a Next Cruise booking. We need to cancel/move because I teach and our winter semester start was delayed by 1 week so the semester is ending 1 week later thus I can't make the April 30'th departure date. We have a deposit of $200 and a $100 OBC on this cruise.

We found a cruise on Adventure leaving on May 15 that we plan to book to make up for this missed cruise. We also have FCC's that we need to  commit by the end of April so again we plan to use them toward the Adventure cruise.

What would be the best way to deal with this situation? Ideally I'd like to move the $200 deposit directly to the new cruise and pay the difference but I'm not sure if that is allowed. I assume a call would be required. I'm also assuming that I will not be able to save the OBC or the double points. Any suggestions as to the best way to cancel and transfer would be appreciated.

Thanks