ARandomTraveler

I got an email from Royal Caribbean today and they gave the info about who might need to apply for visas, and it seems pretty clear that everyone has to apply for their own (they don't do it for you).

The water is prettier (it's more calm, it's crystal clear, and it's warm for more months of the year than the islands that are on the eastern and western routes). These islands are also much less crowded because less tourists make the longer flights to get there, and less ships visit these ports, especially in summer. They're just prettier, and more unique in my opinion, and they have a different vibe than say, Cozumel, Nassau, Roatan, St Maarten etc. Barbados and St Lucia are also on that list of southern route islands that are gorgeous and unique.

Thanks for the heads up, I'm gonna go put a deposit down on that one. Last time I did the ABC route, they changed the itinerary and skipped Bonaire, so I obviously need a do-over.

I figured it's probably because there's only 3 left and so they're priced really high. I can do 2 insides for about $7000 vs $11000 for the one balcony. It's for the October 5th 2024 sailing. I didn't pull the trigger on the inside rooms yet because I'd really prefer to do a balcony for a 16 day cruise, and I just need to convince myself that $11,000 is worth it (it's probably not). I'm doing a 12 day cruise this summer in a balcony on a much nicer ship (spectrum) and it cost me less than $5,000. Of course the rest of the vacation, (airfare, hotels, and the land portion of that vacation) is costing me 5x that amount, but if I'm just comparing the cruise fare, it's ridiculous to be charged $11,000 a year and a half in advance when I got a similar trip on a nicer ship for less than $5,000 when I only booked it 10 months in advance. I might put a deposit down on a refundable fare to hold the room and watch to see if prices drop, but I'm unlikely to take a 16 day cruise on a crappy ship in an inside room for 11 grand.

I'm excited to see these Panama Canal cruise itineraries! There's a few 14-16 day itineraries going from Los Angeles and ending in Ft Lauderdale in 2024. I almost booked one today until I saw that the one I wanted had balcony cabins starting at $4400/person, plus an additional $2000+ to make it refundable ☹️. I guess I discovered this itinerary too late because there's only 3 balconies left, even at that price.

When I was doing research for Italy and France, a lot of things I read (and Rick Steves videos I watched) said to be prepared for a strike on at least one form of transportation while you're there because they happen all the time. I think train strikes happen more than airline strikes. Not sure about Spain, but you should be prepared with a backup plan just in case, especially for Rome, even if your backup plan is just making sure you have travel insurance that covers strikes and will reimburse you for having to buy new airline or train tickets, or extra nights in a hotel while you wait out the strike.

Doesn't seem like there's much value in booking on board anymore. I remember back in 2004 when the next cruise desk offered increasing amounts of on board credit each passing day of the cruise to try and entice people to book another cruise. They gave out $600 of obc for booking a regular balcony. It may have just been that particular cruise I was on, but I remember the discussion about what a great deal it was. Those days are long gone.

Not with this recent strike, but I had travel affected by an airline strike in France last September. The airline (Air France) let us know a couple days in advance that the strike was going to happen, so we changed our travel plans to leave on an earlier flight. My travel insurance policy paid for the additional hotel night, and reimbursed me for non-refundable tour tickets etc. so it worked out ok, although we did miss a day in Italy because of it.

True, the one that goes to Aruba and curacao have those 2 southern islands on them, but it also has one of the private islands, and so many sea days, so I guess that's more what I was thinking - that itinerary is missing the opportunity to hit up so many other islands. But to each their own I guess. If I was going on the cruise to hit up southern islands, I'd personally choose to leave from San Juan where you'll get more islands, and not "waste" one of the port days on a private island you could get on pretty much every other itinerary. If the only 2 options for the southern route are to sail the odyssey or symphony, I'd pick symphony, Aruba and Curacao route.

True - if you're looking for more time on the ship vs caring where it goes, these longer cruises are nice, plus it's nice to have more time on these bigger ships too. I was speaking more about the itinerary, which in my opinion, these aren't real southern routes. Then again, looking at what Royal Caribbean is currently offering in their San Juan southern route itineraries, those don't look all that appealing right now either. I miss the days when they had a freedom class ship sailing out of San Juan and hitting up St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, St Kitts, Aruba, curacao and Bonaire. Now it's a jewel class ship (at best) going to obscure islands that still haven't recovered from the hurricanes like Dominica. I've looked at the offerings through April 2025 and there really isn't much I'd be excited for right now.

I would do symphony because the southern Caribbean has great weather, so you'll want an outdoor ship. That being said, if you really want a southern Caribbean route, I'd take a ship that leaves from San Juan Puerto Rico rather than one that leaves from Florida. They're very different experiences. Leaving from San Juan, you actually get 4-5 southern islands (5-6 if you include Puerto Rico). You usually get a port stop every day, with mayyyyybe 1 sea day. Those are the best southern itineraries. These ones that leave from Florida, in my opinion, aren't very good "southern" route cruises.

Since you've both sailed on Spectrum by now, can you confirm that there are in fact no freestyle machines? And if there really are no freestyle machines, what kind of soda can you get at the bar? Someone mentioned in another thread that it was hard to get Coke products in Asia, so I'm curious if they have different brands, or if they simply don't have soda at all?

Thread hijack: Someone asked recently if the Spectrum has them, and it sounded like the answer was no, due to the inability to get the supplies to keep them working. That's making me wonder though, if they can't get supplies, then do they even have soda at the bars for making mixed drinks? I bought the drink package yesterday for my Spectrum cruise because of how cheap it was, but if I can't get a bourbon and Coke, do I even want the drink package?

Just have a male friend or relative call and say they're him.

I forgot that option, definitely check your credit card. That's one of the biggest benefits of having a good travel credit card.

Yes it's too late, unless you booked the cruise within the last 14 days, in which case you can buy cancel for any reason insurance (you'd get 75% back if you cancel). You might be able to buy a policy that allows pre-existing conditions but I'm not sure how those work or what they cost.

Im gonna be on this cruise too. I know you can expect the drink package to be cheap right now (check your cruise planner if you haven't already, I bought it for $43/day yesterday, the refreshment is at $24/day). You can also check menus by looking at current sailings in the app. Unfortunately they're currently doing short cruises (4day) so you can't see much, but you can tell from what they have posted that there are some additional menu items that the Caribbean sailings don't get. I think the menu looks good. The windjammer also looks different, seems like a higher quality selection of food to me (check out YouTube videos of the ship and you'll get tours of the windjammer). The specialty restaurants have the same menus as the other ships, however Spectrum doesn't have Hooked, Playmakers or Johnny Rockets, but it has 2 restaurants that are unique to this ship (Hot Pot and Sichuan Red). I booked Hot Pot, but I didn't book Sichuan Red. I'm an adventurous eater, but frog legs and stuff like that aren't really up my alley of adventure for wanting to spend extra dining dollars on. Could be interesting though. Im going into the cruise with the mindset of being casual. I think there are definitely going to be people on the ship who are gonna dress more formally, given the high prices some of them are paying for suites, and the fact that a lot of spaces on the ship are blocked off for suite people only. It's kind of geared towards people who value that separation and acknowledgement (more than they do in the US and Canada), and I'm just assuming they'll be kind of fancy people but who knows. I dont care, I'm gonna be in Asia for a whole month and it's hot and I want to pack light, so I'm not packing a bunch of nice clothes and accessories and shoes and crap. I'm going flip flops and shorts, maybe a sun dress or two. Mostly swimsuits, shorts and tank tops though. I've also heard that July and August are some of the most humid months and to be prepared to be sweaty, which to me means, don't bother with trying to get your hair cute and don't bother with makeup that will just drip off your face and clog your pores. Im excited to try something that's so different than the usual cruises I take. I spent a ton of money on this trip and I'm gonna go and be comfortable and have fun and not worry if I fit in with the dress code.

It might just be a promotion for Singapore then, cause that's where mine sails from too.

Price-wise that's true, but so far the timing of the sales has coincided. At least for my sailing. Any time there's been a drop on Caribbean prices, mine drops too, so I was giving a heads up just in case. I'm hoping life everyone else that the "regular" price has gone down closer to the $65 range.

The deluxe package dropped to $43.99 today on my sailing. Before you get too excited, mine is a 12-day Asian cruise, so the price was already a lot lower than "normal" ($54.99-$58.99), but a $10 drop is a lot. So I'm curious if the usual $75.99/day price has dropped into the $65/day range or if it was just my sailing that is having this big drop. It could be that they weren't selling enough beverage packages and since the cruise is only 55 days away they're doing a fire sale.

Check your cruise planners, the price for the deluxe beverage package just dropped to $43.99/day for my cruise (which is going to be lower than most sailings because it's an Asia cruise). It's been fluctuating between $58.99 and $54.99 since last fall. The refreshment package dropped to $24.99/day. I wasn't going to book either package (even the refreshment had gotten too high for me at $27.99/day), but I keep saying that the deluxe package would need to be $40/day for me to buy it, and this is really dang close, so I went ahead and booked it asap just in case it was a mistake.

Wow, I was on the Symphony Thanksgiving sailing too. I bought the unlimited dining package package for $207.99 which was the cheapest I ever saw it listed for 8 months, and I checked every day, multiple times a day. I never saw it listed for a lower price. Maybe they offer different prices to different groups of people, and test out whether the % of bookings is different with Group A vs Group B. *Edited to add that I'm not sure if you were talking about a 3-day package (since that's what the topic of this thread is) or the unlimited dining package (which is what you said you bought), but maybe you were using the terms interchangeably, in which case, my price comparison is irrelevant, because my $207.99 package was for the unlimited, not the 3-day.

Or Asia

The 3-Night package was going for $124.99 ($41.66/meal). After the recent price hike, it's now going for $131.99 ($44/meal). I got a good deal on the hibachi a few months ago when they had it listed for $28.99, and I also booked the hot pot for $28.99. The other 2 restaurants were $57.99 and $50.99, for a total of $166.96. So I paid $34.97 more for 4 dinners than it would have cost for the 3 day package (which is charging $44/meal, so the way I did it was cheaper). However, I guess if I cancelled my 2 most expensive dinners ($50.99 + $57.99 = $108.98) and then bought the 3-night package for $131.99 ($23.01 more) I'd get a 5th meal. It might be worth paying $23.01 more dollars to get an extra meal (I'm on a 12 day cruise so I could easily spread these out). I might do that 🤔.

Individual restaurant prices have gone up by about $5/person at all the restaurants in my cruise planner. UDP went up $100/person. I chose to book individual restaurants this time around because I felt forced to only eat at specialty last time in order to make it worth the money, and it was way too much food, and too much of my vacation hours spent having to sit at restaurants. By paying out of pocket for 4 meals, I saved more than half the cost of the UDP.