CruiseZog

So excited to follow along... will be on the Anthem in April. Have a great trip!

Looking forward to following your review and hearing about your amazing cabin!

Thanks, Radio! I enjoyed your live review so much, I am considering doing the same when I sail on Anthem in April.

Radio, have a great cruise! I look forward to following along. I'll be on Anthem in April. :D

Interesting to see all of the different replies and opinions.

I always think the best part about my money is that it's mine and I can spend it how I like. Also great how your money is yours to spend how you like. Seems pointless to tell people how they should spend their money.

I like that the gratuities are technically optional... seems the most fair to me. I almost always tip at least the standard, but often more. There have been times, though, when I tipped less than the standard (like when the waiter screwed up my son's order 3 times and he started eating at 10pm).

Voluntary tipping is a meritocracy... people who go above and beyond will generally earn more than those who do not. Will there be guests that abuse the system, are cheap and free ride on the rest of us... sure. But mandating a minimum takes away my freedom to spend my money the way I want. If someone truly does a bad job (below the minimum acceptable standard), they do not deserve to be paid more than the minimum. If someone does a great job, I will go above and beyond on my tip.

I think that forcing a minimum gratuity makes it more likely that everyone gets the same / similar tips... this does little to incent superior performance and too much to reward poor performance. Just my own opinion.

Totally agree with the Maya Chan comments... very peaceful and relaxed, plus great service! Haven't been to the other one, but it sounds great, too.

Thank you! That's just what I needed. I am staying on Friday, March 30. I'm leaning toward the Residence Inn near the mall.

I'm cruising out of Cape Liberty in March 2018 and looking for a hotel near Newark airport for 1 night for my family (me, wife, 2 teens). We'll then take an Uber or something to the port.

I'd like to use my Marriott points, so my top choices are:

• Residence Inn by Marriott Newark Elizabeth (2 bedroom suite)
  
• Courtyard Newark Elizabeth (2 queen beds)
  
• Courtyard Newark Liberty (2 queen beds)
  

Anybody had experience with any of these? Any other area hotels that would have queen beds? Thanks!

Rick, great set-up and hilarious video... I'm following and looking forward to your posts!

One comment on this thread....it's probably a good idea to review your account via your stateroom TV, especially on the last day/night just to avoid such surprises. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, we learned of their mistake with our credit card not being on file via a message (mixed in with the multiple sales messages) on the TV.

This didn't help... I checked the stateroom TV multiple times during the week. Besides showing my activity, the message was something to the effect of "if you have a credit card on file, it will be charged". My total was less than $500, so I never hit the cash account hold. There was never a TV message that said they didn't have a cc on file or needed me to stop by GS.

Their alarm bells went off....How are we gonna charge this person $12.95 tomorrow?

 

That would just be icing on the cake, wouldn't it? They screw this up and delay your disembarkation to grab your credit card info. The next day they will whack you with the fraudulent min bar charge.

 

OP, please, please come back and post if they added $12.95 to your credit card a couple days after your cruise was over. The irony would make for an all time classic thread.

Ha, that would be epic! No, they charged me exactly what my account showed. Overall, I had a very nice vacation, just ended much differently than I would have liked.

It was a very annoying ending to the cruise.

For whoever is managing the Royal Caribbean brand, this is not the last impression you want to leave with customers who may have otherwise had a great vacation.

Same thing happened to us the week before (we were on the Allure 3/26 sailing). First the concierge came up to me on the second night when we were in the Suite Lounge and said there was a problem with many passengers and we needed to have our pictures re-taken. Then the next day we got an email on our tv (I just happened to check) telling us that we were close to reaching our cash account limit of $500 (although I had given my credit card). The concierge was able to fix that in less than a minute.

My thoughts exactly... why couldn't the concierge have alerted me to this and resolved it?!

But no, it's not. Not only is annoying, if you have a delayed departure that you've already been sitting in a lounge for two hours just to stand in line for customs in hopes to try and make your afternoon flight (as I just did yesterday) then this would be a big issue.

Exactly... if we had only known, we could have resolved it earlier. Also, we were disembarking with a large group. Our delay screwed up everybody... nobody sure whether to wait for us or leave. And caused a lot of unnecessary stress.

Yes, bought stuff all week. At some point, even though I provided my card all along, they switched me to a cash account (learned this after the fact). So, when I went to get off, they said I had not paid my bill. Of course, I thought it had been charged to my card.

I just got off the Allure yesterday, but almost wasn't let off the ship. Despite entering my credit card with RCCL three times (with my reservation, confirming it prior to getting my SeaPass, then again at the pier before boarding), I was held up when disembarking because Guest Services didn't have my credit card on file?! :eek:

I'm not sure why they didn't have it and why nobody bothered telling me until getting off. I was staying in a suite and while Nancy the concierge was helpful in getting this resolved quickly, why didn't the concierges catch this?

Lesson: need to waste time during the week re-checking that Guest Services has what they need. Disappointing end to an otherwise great cruise.

Do they have this on the Allure? Sounds like something my family would enjoy.

Cruising Allure on April 2nd... looking forward to your posts. Have a great time!