Mikamarii

Currently on Odyssey. They needed to go to Puerta Plata as someone had a medical issue. I dont know what the issue was. The person was tendered ashore where apparently there was a helicopter waiting for an evacuation.

On Odyssey now. Used a vpn to put our location in Canada and had full access to our telus tv package on my phone. Been watching hockey games with 0 issues.

Was a little concerned when i saw this as we are booked to be there Tuesday at the waterpark. Never been and got tickets for dirt cheap. just checked a couple weather sites and showing a range of 24C to 28C ( I guess that would be high 70s to low 80s F?) We will have to take frequent breaks out of the sun so our skin doesn't melt off. Yeesh its currently -8 C (-18F) right now and it us unseasonably warm for this time of year.

we have 3 cruises booked in December 4 night liberty price is 53Cdn pp 8 night Odyssey 61Cdn pp 6 night Odyssey 102Cdn pp We have it booked for our liberty sailing

We have a couple sailings coming up in dec. We just booked coco cay water park for $54/pp cdn. Was pretty happy about that considering on one of our sailings it was as high as $210. We wouldnt have gone on regular pricing.

I love that it goes to svalbard but wished it did at least one of flam geirenger or olden. Plus it is a tad pricey. We are currently booked on the jewel back to back in 2024 doing arctic circle and transatlantic. Its a year sooner than we wanted to do this trip but just love the ports and not looking like royal will offer these again anytime soon so we likely just go with this one. We have a hold on a non refundable deposit thats due in a couple days. Holding out that jewel will offer the same thing in 2025. If not we will throw our deposit down. Arctic circle is my bucket list cruise and the 2024 has Flam! We looked at celebrity 2025. Great ports but more expensive than our ta got us for the b2b.

Disappointed with the lack of options but somewhat expected based on how it was reported here. We have a hold on 2 cruises in 2024 as we waited for this release. We were hoping for 2025 with time to save a little extra but not gonna happen. We have the 12 night fjords booked Aug 2024 followed by the 16 night transatlantic to Boston. Quite excited about this and out TA got us a great rate. Very happy with the price and itinerary. Greenland is somewhere we never thought we'd get to.

We’re eagerly awaiting the release next week but I I feel we will be disappointed with the ports. Really hoping for an arctic circle cruise in July or August with a stop in Honnigsvag. Based on the Southampton itineraries I’m not holding out hope that there will be stops in Flam or Geringer from the cruises from Amsterdam/Rotterdam. There is an MSC cruise that caught our eye that has ‘sailed’ to the top of out list!. 14 Night out of Hamburg that goes all the way to Svalbard! It has a 2300-0500 stop on Honnigsvag which seems odd. Also, no Flam or Geringer on this one (they have other sailings that go there) but lots of other port stops. We’re going to wait until the itineraries for Royal to come out and if nothing we like then we will go with MSC. Never cruised them before but never opposed to branching out.

On our last cruise we booked on board. Got our obc. I emailed our TA that night and she moved it over to a group rate. Just had to pay the balance of full deposit but then got the better rate, OBC from next cruise, and OBC from TA with a refundable deposit (minus the 200$ we put down at next cruise)

We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and hope to do it again one day. It was at half capacity so we never waited in line for anything and ship was never really busy. It was amazing. We did have a drink package and internet package because prices were dirt cheap at that time. I think we paid 55$cdn a person so it was well worth it and allowed us to try a bunch of different things. If it wasn't so cheap I don't think we would have gotten it. We're from Northern Canada so cold weather doesn't bother us but after leaving NZ and head towards Sydney it was pretty cold and windy. Upper decks pretty much shut down and heavy rocking on the ship. So may want to consider bringing some layers since your from a warmer climate. Other than that weather was amazing. I know there are lots of complaints about food now but we didn't have a bad meal. That was before the changes though. I'm not sure your stops in FP but if you have a stop in Moorea I suggest thats where you spend your time and money Touring. We liked Papeete but it was very commercialized. It reminded me a lot of downtown Honolulu. Moorea is postcard material and what I would think of when picturing an island paradise. There are plenty of vendors right at the pier with good pricing. We used a company called Albert's transport that toured the whole island. Simply amazing. They have a little souvenir shop they stop at that makes fresh fruit smoothies from the island. We had an overnight stay there so got to spend some extra time. There is a beach nearby. I think it was about a 25min walk but roads are very narrow. We took a transport there which was a couple bucks a person and caught a cab back which was no more than 10$. Its sad thinking that was a year ago! Any questions just ask but it is truly an amazing cruise.

We did a 19 night TP last October on Ovation. They had a week long menu that repeated on the new week. So nights 1-7 then repeated 8-15 and again 16-19. That was before all the recent menu changes though.

So you came to the internet to throw a tantrum with your mind made up that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and beneath you. The 'tweakers' are usually those that are rational adults that understand what they signed up for and can look at a situation objectively. Have had several issues over 10+ years with 5 different cruise lines. Some resolved, some not. RCI has over 100 000 employees. Because you've had an issue with 4 or 5 of them doesn't mean the entire company is rotten.

Not only that, you have corporations making billion dollar profits guilting customers in to giving. They then use those donations from customers as a tax writeoff to lower their own tax burden and make more profit. Donations are always best when given directly to an organization.

Your own cell phone is one of the dirtiest things you'll come in contact with on a daily basis. A safe bet that all these clean elite types that care oh so much about the health of everyone around them are touching their phones at least once between washy washy and the buffet line. If not your cell phone then your glasses case, sea pass card, list goes on. All carriers of bacteria. Humans are inherently gross. It's why we have an immune system. I understand being disgusted by outright actions like spitting directly in someone's food...but some of these complaints...yeesh.

Anyone who thinks that rolling gratuities in to the fare will change anything is fooling themselves. In our province we used to have the separate wages for tipped positions. A few years back they got rid of it and minimum wage is minimum wage. It's 15$hr here. So the person working at a restaurant makes the same as the person working at Macdonalds yet the restaurant worker makes triple in tips for essentially doing the same job. Tipping will not change because wages increase. It is too engrained in people to flash their money around and buy loyalty. Every 'all inclusive' in Mexico advertises 'gratuities included'. Yet everywhere you look in the resort you will see tipping jars stuffed with American bills. Tipping is not going anywhere. I got my windshield fixed the other day and was a tip option on it with min 20%. It is getting crazy out there.

Yet we see on here constantly from our overseas friends how they don't have the tipping culture in their country yet Americans still do it because that is 'what they know'. Americans like to say when in our country do as we do....but don't take that same advice when they leave their own borders.

Not renewal related but After 3 1/2 years of waiting we finally got our Nexus cards. We applied February 2020 and approved beginning of March. Immediately set up our interviews at our nearby airport. Then some stuff happened.....multiple opened then cancelled interviews. Then the delay because of closed offices. When they finally introduced the new interview process it seemed to risky to rely on doing the interview at the airport when travelling to the states. So we booked an appointment this summer, packed up the kids, and travelled to Sweetgrass enrollment center (about 8-9hrs from home). Did our interview for the family and cheered when it was done. Our application changed to approved next day and we got our cards in the mail about 1 week later. So glad this is finally done. Our kids are 9 and 11 I'm sure we are going to have to make an appointment for their renewal but hopefully by that time they'll have figured out the airport situation and we can just do it there. If not, we will make the trek again!

From what I can see the cruise critic message board goes back to 2004. Randomly clicking on pages one can usually come across the same themes....cutbacks, changes, price increases, decrease service.... While I'm sure there are some members here that have been with Royal since 'the beginning' I'd venture most started in the last 20 years....say starting around 2000. So when one person started and thought everything was great and would be a 'lifer' others were complaining about the changes and leaving royal. I've also, from time to time, gone to other boards just to see and guess what...same complaints...Princess had a doozy going on about a new charge. If businesses are to survive they need to adapt. Either raise prices or decrease service as time moves on. No business is immune to that. Wife and I were Disneyworld 'lifers'. DVC owners and Annual pass holders that would go at least twice a year (coming from Western Canada). Did that for over 10 years and with our kids. It became mundane and a little tedious and prices kept going up. We had done almost everything there. After so many trips it grew stale, we saw behind the curtain and just didn't feel the value any more. We changed our habits. No hard feelings towards Disney but I really don't know if we'd ever go back. Yet friends and co workers go and love it. We would never deter them and steer them away. Tell them what we like and didn't like .We are very lucky to have the options we do.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/01/business-food/taco-bell-lawsuit-false-advertising-meat/index.html

Having never followed a deployment schedule before I don't know what to expect! Our big one will be Norwegian Fjords that we will book as soon as released. Should I be worried that none of the common fjord ports have any slots booked in for RCI ships? They do for other lines. I figure that if Honningsvag is showing a booking then it is guaranteed to have an Arctic Circle cruise for that year 🙂

Well to be fair OP never once said they would partake in this nor was seeking ways to skirt rules. It was clearly stated that it was likely to happen beyond their control and asked what could be expected if happened/caught. The pot stirring has come from people putting their own spin on it. It reminds me of the scene from zootopia.... "When asked a question, respond with a question of you own, then answer that question"

It's the manufactured outrage that is ridiculous. "Royal is lying" "It's cost cutting measures" "It's slimy business practices" "death by a thousand cuts". There is no evidence that this half and half scandle is a fleetwide issue. 1x cabin cleaning, lobsters, menu changes...fine make your argument that this is good/bad but at least this is a known fleetwide issue that affects every ship and blame can be placed at the corporate level. People are acting like Royal execs came to their house, trampled their flowers and kicked their dog. This has happened a couple times on a couple ships. Far from a known fleetwide issue. I guarantee, in the history of cruising, someone has been brought reg coffee when they ordered decaf, coke when they asked for root beer, or a teaspoon when they ordered a soup spoon. While annoying, It's situational and likely common. Deal with it at the level it's occurring at. Not every staff member has strong English or come from more developed countries and may have no idea there is a difference. Mistakes are going to happen. It doesn't mean RCI is somehow involved in the JFK assassination.

Don't you mean how long we can 'half and half' it for... bdum tsss

I think most people understand that everyone has their "thing" and of its not right its a big deal. As a beer drinker I've been served warm beer, flat beer, stale beer, etc. It's a simple ask of the server and fixed if not an escalation or return of the product. Where this issue becomes trivial is the immediate leap to some bigger conspiracy theory without any effort to try and ask some simple questions but using "someone on the internet also said" as basis for the complaint.

You've posted the same thing 3 times in a row. Instead of going to pieces over something and making bold accusations about deception maybe ask first. It could be one of a million reasons the container was filled wrong. Yes one of those reasons could be intentional but you don't know that as you've done nothing to look in to it and chose to come here and complain using hyperbole to try and make a point. People can handle criticism. What they get tired of is baseless accusations and reasons to complain. Royal has what...30 ships....10s of thousands of employees cruising every day of the year. It's possible mistakes happen and they are duplicated across ships.