ARandomTraveler

Yikes! You've got enough replies at this point to know that's a no-go. I have the same issue with flights out of Miami. Southwest Airlines only has 1 direct flight back to my home, and it's not until 6pm, so that's the one I'm taking. If it were an option, anything around noon is comfortable for me. I get off the ship as late as possible, don't stress about how quickly my Uber shows up, don't stress about lines to drop off baggage, or lines in the terminal (though I have pre-check so that's never been a problem), and if I want to grab something to eat or drink before my flight leaves, I still have time. Noon-1pm is always my sweet spot, but I'd rather take the 6pm direct flight than get on an earlier flight with a layover that has me on airplanes for 7 hours.

In addition to this, if they book a single person in the balcony room, they should make one of themselves the single, so their family can benefit from the extra solo point per night (assuming they cruise more than the grandma, and the grandma wouldn't care about the points as much).

Can I add an unpopular opinion of "Live threads that are started a week before the person even gets on the plane to get to their cruise, and where the "live" part doesn't start til page 7"

This was gonna be my suggestion.

Gotcha. Then I'd probably go with the specialty restaurants as they're making a smaller number of meals and you can much more easily customize them, and trust that the information has made it to the person in charge of making her specific meal. The MDR is putting out thousands of meals, and while people do report that the chef will come out and talk to you, and that you can get customized meals in there, depending on the food allergy, it could be risky. @CatLadyFemme has a lot of good experience with this, and I know they eat in the MDR. Hopefully they'll chime in.

My comment stands

Personally, a cruise is not the vacation I'd be taking until I got the food issue worked out. FODMAP is a diet used to eliminate common foods allergens and irritants to help people with digestive issues figure out which food(s) the problem stems from. It's not a "forever" diet, so I'd either wait until the cruise is over to work on the FODMAP, or I'd wait to take the cruise until I figured out which foods are the issue. I've been given that FODMAP diet before and it's so extremely restrictive that there's just no way to eat out everyday on a cruise and follow it.

This exact question was asked a couple weeks ago, not sure if it was the same poster. Seems a little troll-y, so I'll refrain from the answer I gave last time as well.

I like the buffet, not because of any specific food quality related reasons, but because I like the flexibility of being able to eat when I'm hungry, not when I've reserved a time. I like not having to change my clothes and do my hair and makeup to be presentable for a nicer dining option. I like to take a little bit of everything that looks good, and get up and get seconds of the stuff I like, without waiting for someone to ask me if I want something more and then waiting for them to bring it back to me. I like to be able to eat without constantly being questioned by the waiter about why I don't eat very much, and needing to give constant reassurance that I like the food, but that I just don't eat a lot. I like to come and go as I please, and not go through the formality of a 2 hour dinner, especially on vacation. But alas, my daughter also likes the dining room, so that's where I go 😂. I sometimes have first-dinner at the windjammer, and then endure the dining room dinner later. This next cruise I bought the dining package, mostly because I knew my daughter would love it, but also because it's our first time on an Oasis class ship, and I'm looking forward to knowing I can try any restaurant option that sounds good, and the price of the dining package seemed negligible compared to the cost of the rest of the vacation. But I'm not looking forward to having to plan ahead for all my meals. I also know that I don't have a big enough stomach to eat the amount of food that's generally served for one meal, but again...it'll make the vacation more fun for my daughter, and that makes me happy.

Royal Caribbean's insurance also only refunds your money in the form of a future cruise credit (FCC), I think. With independent insurance you can get actual cash. Like others have mentioned, independent insurance also covers things that happen outside of missing the actual cruise. It can cover medical expenses, evacuation expenses, private excursion reimbursement if you miss a port, rental cars or other rental sports equipment if you book a tour like Aruba Trikes where you're driving a vehicle that you may damage, or renting a jet ski or things like that. I have a recent non-cruise example of using my independently purchased travel insurance. I was in Europe and there was an air traffic control strike that caused me to have to rearrange one of my travel days. It cost me extra money in hotel fees, and I missed a tour that was non-refundable. My insurance not only paid me for the hotel night, they also paid me for the travel to and from the airport, the food we ate at the airport, and covered my non-refundable tour tickets. The cost of that insurance was under $100, and it saved me almost $600 in expenses.

I was responding to @Husky1987 post above where they referenced that being the cost. The lowest I've seen it on my Symphony cruise next month is $20.99/day. This was a few weeks ago when they seemed to be having a random fire sale for a few hours and lots of people were getting The Key for $16.99-$20.99/day. Usually for my sailing it's between $30.99-$35.99/day.

The thing with The Key is that you have to buy it for everyone in the room. Buying surf and stream for one device at $17.99 is still a better deal than buying The Key for $19.99 if you were only planning to buy the surf and stream for one device. The other calculation you need to take into account is that when you add a second device to your surf and stream purchase, it costs less than if you bought a surf and stream package for 2 people. So it's rarely an actual savings to buy The Key over buying the surf and steam package and adding additional devices, but can be a "better deal" than buying They Key would have otherwise been.

That does make more sense 😂

Dang that's expensive, $945 for 2 people is about $118/day. $98/day seems really high too, but for only 4 days, not nearly as bad as if it was 7. You should get your money back within 10 days give or take. *Edited to add that at $945 total, assuming that included the 18%, that ends up being $118/day with the 18% (or $100/day without the 18%). If the $98 new price does not include the 18%, then you're really only saving $2/day per person, rather than $20/day, which is only and $16 total savings. Make sure you're comparing prices that either both include the 18%, or don't include it.

That's true, I'm just making sure he knows how to calculate the cost before he cancels a package that may be a better deal. People have reported doing that before, and ended up Re-buying their drink package at a higher price. Still - even if he's on a 14 day cruise, that's a $14/day price drop, which still seems like a lot. Maybe he's on the world cruise though. My guess is he's not but we'll see.

$200 cheaper? Are you sure? That seems like an extreme price difference, the likes of which I've never seen reported on here. That would be a $28/day drop in price. Are you sure you're not looking at a price that says something like $72/day, 50% off, and you're thinking that it's 50% off of the $72, when in reality the $72 is the price after the 50% was already factored in?

I've also read that if it's really important to you to be able to go to a specific restaurant on a specific day at a specific time, you can pay out of pocket to make the a-La-carte (non package) reservation in your cruise planner in order to lock it in, and then once you're on the ship, cancel the reservation and swap it out for a reservation using your UDP. I'm not sure if that's fool proof though.

➕1️⃣ What he said. Using it for lunch makes the discount for buying the package negligible.

I'm pretty sure they were talking in hypothetical terms, meaning that one person may be willing to wait until the very last minute to accept the upgrade, while another person isn't. So notifying the cruiseline as soon as possible when one knows they'd like to back out makes it easier and quicker for everyone because it takes the extra person out of the equation. Their use of the words "your" and "your friend" confused things because it implied they were talking about you personally, when they really intended to speak in generic terms (and therefore should have used generic terminology). ...I think anyway

A waste of money.

I guess we can at least agree that the minimum age is definitely not 5 😂

Copy and paste?

I've read that on here too, it sounds like there are some holiday meals at specialty restaurants that have an upcharge. I don't know if someone using the UDP pays less of an upcharge, or if they pay the same cost as everyone else. It also seems to be only for Christmas and New Years (from what I've read). I'm on a Thanksgiving sailing next month and there's no special holiday meal black out dates on my cruise, from what I can tell. Of course Thanksgiving is an American holiday so that might be why it doesn't count.

If that's the only specialty restaurant, I would say no. How many times would you go back and eat at the same restaurant with the same menu? If not everyday, then it's a terrible deal. The lowest price I've seen for my Symphony cruise is $207.99, and Symphony has at least 7 specialty restaurants. I wouldn't pay $183.99 for one restaurant.

I did a little more investigating into my own refunds because I haven't gotten them yet, and I realized there's a website on the envelope that you can go to, and input the numbers from your barcode on your paperwork. This will tell you where your refund is. The receipt in my photo above was from a purchase where I was able to get my refund at the point of sale, probably because it was a really small amount ($16). I still had to validate it at the airport though. I looked into all my other refunds and they all say that the refunds are still in process and that they take up to 30 days. I'm at 34 days and haven't received them yet, but assume I'll get them eventually. Here's the link to track your refund, assuming that the paperwork the store gave you has the barcode, you can check yours. If you didn't go to the kiosk at the airport though, I don't think your paperwork will have been processed, unless the cruise ships do it differently. Either way, go to this link and put in the numbers and you should have your answer. https://www.planetpayment.com/en/home/#