ARandomTraveler

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.

I should have provided context, sorry. It's a 12-day cruise on Spectrum out of Singapore, priced in US dollars. So it's not a terrible deal, but it's a lot more expensive than it's been offered in the last 8 months, and supposedly on sale. Spectrum also doesn't have that many restaurants, so it's not worth it to me. I bought the UDP on Symphony and enjoyed it, but even with all the restaurants on Symphony, I had to force myself to get full use of the package because I just can't eat that much food, plus the hours of time spent dining really took away from other vacation activities that I enjoy more. I don't plan to buy it for this trip.

The price for the UDP on my upcoming summer sailing was $315.99 for the last 8 months. It's never changed, no matter what the current "sale" is (not even Black Friday). For this weekends Memorial Day sale, the sale price is now $419.99 😂

I'm on Spectrum this July/august on a 12-night. The UDP is selling for $315.99 which is fine, but they don't have as many restaurants as Oasis class (it's missing Playmakers, 150 Central Park, Hooked, and Johnny Rockets). In their place it has Sichuan Red, but the menu doesn't look appetizing to me (spicy bullfrog for example). I decided it wasn't worth the money for the 3-4 restaurants I'd eat at, so I booked a couple a La carte. The windjammer and dining room menus have a lot of options that aren't on other ships (the windjammer is the only ship with its own Wok for instance). So I figure I'll enjoy the free food more.

They're calling that a "southern" route? That's garbage. Southern is my favorite but there is not even 1 truly southern island on that itinerary. I'd refuse to book it for that reason alone.

She lets you lay on the bed in your outside clothes? 😂

Our original itinerary had us stopping in Osaka and they changed it to Kobe months ago. They didn't say why. The cruise is in August 2023.

Royal Caribbean offers a shore excursion to Vinpearl Beach in Vietnam for $124/person. It looks like it's just transportation and entrance to a beach resort (no food or drinks included). Has anyone done this and know whether it can be done via private tour/transport? $124/person seems like a lot of money just to get me to a beach, but I'm sure I'm missing something here (like maybe it's a really far distance or requires a boat ride to another island).

Wow I can't thank you enough for this!

My itinerary and cruise documents don't say anything about the cruise line providing any visas.