TeeRick

25 minutes ago, monorail81 said:

Just got ours for $36.75 pp per night including gratuity for our 8 night on Freedom next Spring. 

Really good price 

44 minutes ago, Seville2Cabo said:

Within the last month, I paid $45 pp/pd on Brilliance and $46 on Indy - both included the tip.

That is the current price online for my Indy cruise next year.  Thanks!

Looking for feedback on pricing (per night per person) for the UDP on ships without a Coastal Kitchen. 

We will be in a suite next year in May on Indy for our 45th anniversary.  Indy has no CK.  So we are considering the UDP.  At this point with a 15% discount offered the price is $553 pp.  12 night cruise.  So that is $46 pp per night.  Is that a good deal?  Should I wait (cruise is a year away)? Can I get a D+ discount on top of this too?  We usually do Oasis class on Royal with CK included so we have not considered this before.  Thanks for any advice!

On 4/27/2024 at 3:07 PM, CarolRoy said:

Going on the Symphony OTS.  Do we have to make reservations for the shows?  If so, when are we able to make reservations.  On the Anthem in December it was not required. Earlier Anthem cruises we had to.  Thanks for any info.  Carol

We did Symphony recently.  Two shows are very popular and definitely are worth trying to get reservations early.  The Comedy Show in the Attic.  And the Aqua Show (Hiro). The others are less of a problem.  We did very much enjoy the Ice Show (1977)  and thought Hairspray was ok.

In Florida we always use Larry's Limos.

It might be a better response if you put smoking area on Grandeur in the thread title.  Somebody on board might catch it and respond.

On 4/26/2024 at 7:55 PM, Southern Dan said:

I'm excited for my JS on Symphony in November.  Hope to try CK for dinner at least one night if they allow us...

Advice.  Try to look at the CK menu in advance of your cruise when it gets posted on the Royal app.  There might be certain items that you might really enjoy (or not) on a given night.  For us, they make an excellent Filet Mignon. 

@Lionesss thanks so much for sharing your cruise with us!

We have not yet tried MSC Yacht Club but tempted to follow the crowd at some point.

We have done a Crown Loft suite twice on Royal on Oasis-Class ships (Symphony and Harmony).  It might be a consideration.  They are in a small enclave deck (17) just with other CL suites.  Just down the hall on 17 is the Coastal Kitchen suite restaurant and the Suite Lounge.  But to get to the Suite Sun Deck you need to go down a deck and cross over.  

Corner aft sky suites are the best!  We have sailed these on several ships and at least once with the window equipment- which was really not an issue for us.

19 hours ago, Lionesss said:

Now mind you RCI has been known to move slot machines around from cruise to cruise. 
 

HOWEVER. 
 

If you walk in to the casino to the left  as you go by studio b. ( ice skating rink) 

when you enter casino there will be machines to your right. In a row. 
 

On top they are called Spitfire. 
 

They give free spins in groups of 7 if you hit the 3 “bonus” symbols you get bonus spins with a multiplier to win more money. 
 

Also. 
I usually spend the first eve after dinner in casino. 
I do not go on Second day. Always few hits not talking big jackpots but little tokens of appreciation. 
 

Best of luck. 

Have you tried the small, non-smoking casino on Symphony yet?  We found the selection to be very limited in there.  But the smoke in the main casino is bothersome to us.

14 hours ago, the wandering two said:

We earned our diamond (therefore elite match)  on Royal, mostly great deals on transatlantics, but recently have had way better value on Celebrity.  

Our last Royal sailing (Jewel Aug 23) saw around 1100 C&A diamond upwards members onboard, the viking crown was given over to Pinacles (200 ish) which left the D lounge for everyone else, so 900 people in a lounge with circa 36 seats! 

 

Recently off Constellation transatlantic,  way more inclusive, lots of elite events, food better (dont get me started on Royal  MTD shambles) greater choice of music and entertainers in lounges & theatre compared to Jewel, a similar sized ship. Lots of folks saying Royal has better entertainment, but they need to compare ship size. 

Looking ahead, for us to return to Royal it would need to be a destination itinerary, at our price point the older ships are better value but they don't have the quality that Celebrity has. 

We have sailed extensively on both Royal and Celebrity.  Onboard experience is quite different for sure.  We mainly do destination-type cruises on Celebrity.  Longer itineraries, quieter, very few children.  We have generally sailed in suites and the Celebrity Retreat product has dramatically increased prices and has decreased in value.  So we are trying the Royal suite product again.  It is less expensive overall since we have no need for a drink package with our D+ coupons and the included Suite Lounge drinks.   On Celebrity this is all built into the pricing so our E+ benefits are not very valuable to us.

29 minutes ago, Kiki and The Noush said:

Is anyone else in the same boat as me on this?  I have always prepaid my grats - just pay it and forget it was my mantra.  On the ship, I've always tipped bar staff for bringing me drinks and waitstaff in specialty restaurants under the premise that they really aren't getting that much of the prepaid grats.  

It now seems that more and more people are removing the grats - we are all paying a lot more for everything in life and it sucks.  

 

If you consider the active members of this group, or any other online discussion, as a sampling of the typical passenger, it feels like my payment of grats has increased proportionally to cover all of the people who remove theirs.  

 

Frankly, while I haven't minded paying my fair share in the past, I'm starting to wonder why I'm paying not only mine, but part of theirs. I do wish they would just add a service fee onto the bottom line - it does irk me that they call it a gratuity if they want to automatically charge for it.  

 

One of the cruises I have booked for 2025 I didn't prepay the grats.  I'm contemplating what to do.  I don't mind paying my own way, I'm just getting tired of subsidizing others.  

Here is my take on the situation.  The vast majority of cruise passengers pay auto-gratuities and do not remove them.  So the gratuity increases we have seen are not entirely due to other passengers removing theirs.  But instead we are all paying the staff more as inflation has rocked the world since the pandemic.  Yes I agree that in the US anyway that the "add a tip" line on every credit card transaction even for take-out has become quite unacceptable and it is built into the software systems.  You can put aside the machine-made guilt and add zero.

26 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Thanks. I've never eaten in CK. What's your opinion of it? Is it more like a specialty restaurant or more like a smaller MDR just with different choices? Despite being on Cruise Critic every day I haven't really done any research about the dinner experience there. 

We enjoyed CK recently on Symphony.  The CK dinner menu has more choices than Luminae.  The food and service was on par with Luminae IMO.  Enjoy!

1 hour ago, mafig said:

Those who are in a suite, when did the Concierge contact you for CK reservations?

 

We're going the cruise after yours and I find myself checking emails several times a day.

We were contacted by the Symphony suite concierges by email about a week before our cruise.

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

I thought for JS cabins CK is only available for dinner on space availability and breakfast and lunch isn't an option. Is that not true for JS cabins? I'm on the Ovation at the end of the month.

Yes you are correct.  My response was poorly written.  

Yes you need CK dinner reservations on RCCL ships, unlike Celebrity/Luminae as you mentioned.  

If you are in a GS or above, you will get contacted before your cruise by a concierge and they can make your dinner reservations in CK before the cruise.  Or on the first day, go there directly for lunch when you board and make your reservations.  If you are in a JS - if ICON is like other ships- you might not be able to dine for dinner in CK depending on availability.  But breakfast and lunch will always be open and no reservation needed.

Hi @Lionesss have a great cruise.  We did a similar itinerary in Feb on Symphony but it went to Labadee then, but now Jamaica of course.  We were in a Crown Loft Suite.  What kind of suite are you sailing in?  We really enjoyed the CK and SL area on Deck 17 right down the hall from our suite.  The ship was awesome as was the service and crew.

17 hours ago, 2chiefs said:

We cruise both lines like others here have motioned. One thing we like about RCL that CCL does not have is the Crown Lounge exclusively for Diamond and above. It's open 24 hrs and has a nice coffee/expresso machine. Most Crown lounges also have a continental breakfast and then light snacks in the afternoons. In the evening, usually for about 4 hours, they have a "happy hour" with heavy hors d'oeuvres. (in the old days, this was when you could have as many drinks as you want but now they simply put 4 on your card for diamond, 5 for diamond+ and 6 for Pinnacle) We noticed that CCL has cut way back on their Elite and above functions that they used to have nightly. On our last two 12-night cruises they only did this for two nights of the sailing and didn't even have hors d'oeurves like they used to. 

On RCCL the 4D or 5D+ drink coupons are really nice and can be used anywhere all day.  We did not need to buy an expensive beverage package.  A note about the Crown Lounge- on some ships (like our last cruise on Symphony) it was D+ and P-only during the happy hour times with the hors d'oeuvres.  It depends on the sailing and the number of D, D+ and P's on board.

Not trying to alter this as a smoking thread- but we gambled quite a lot less on our last Symphony cruise because of the heavy smoke odor in the casino.  Celebrity is smoke-free in all casinos.

2 hours ago, dazey said:

Good info.  Have to see what pricing is and decide.  WE are at a point where Celebrity is perfect for us.  Just thought a change might be nice but maybe not.  Appreciate all the help.

We are E+ /D+ on these two lines so we sail each of them often.  We like to switch it up too.  We sailed a lot recently in The Retreat on Celebrity but then they started messing with it, raising prices dramatically and cutting services and suite amenities.  So we strayed!  We did O-Class this year (Symphony) on RCCL and very much enjoyed the CL suite we had.  The ship is huge but has everything imaginable.  Entertainment far better than Celebrity.  Loads of restaurants and bars.  Yes more kids, noise, and less of a serene experience but we don't mind that on occasion.  Service and staff were outstanding.  We did not do the MDR but mostly Coastal Kitchen and specialty restaurants (Hooked, Jamie's, Wonderland).

1 hour ago, Cruise a holic said:

The suite sun deck is on the opposite side of the ship.  We walk outside across the deck then go up one flight of steps to enter the suite sun deck.  The suite lounge and coastal kitchen are on deck 17 near the CLS.

I mentioned all of that in my previous post #7.

On 4/12/2024 at 5:24 PM, 1025cruise said:

There used to be the ability to search based on ship, but it was removed due to technical issues. 

At the top of the page on this Celebrity Cruises Board.  There is a drop down menu "See Posts About: - Select Ship".  The most recent posts come up first.

In the past, I sometimes used a lanyard in the casino (only).  Sometimes I forget my SeaPass card in the slot machine so a lanyard helped with this.