Engineroom Snipe

@fletch1027, Great review and information. Thank you. The smaller ships must be getting bigger breaks. My Vision voyage in April is currently offering it at $30.99 and it was on a non-holiday special price as low as $26.99 a month ago. I was not even going to be interested at that price but maybe I will change my mind due to your truly unbiased presentation. Sometimes it is hard to separate advertising and hype from reality.

Well thought-out presentation. I have seen similar views from many experienced cruisers coming to the same point: Will the other shoe drop? If so when? I am seeing softness in bookings after July of this year. How soft, I can not say yet. Much more price adjustments being reported on CC posts recently. Time will tell,

@mduffy1834, @smokeybandit was joking about a thread created not so long ago about this identical situation. Even the travel advisors say that what you saw is legit and said that many people were hitting the family of four only to leave the two children with the Grandparents at the last minute because they were not feeling well. Sometimes the parents just need a break. 😉

The reasoning behind calling is this: You are entitled to a full refund before your final payment date unless you used some non-refundable deposit discount. Even then you would lose your deposit and book again with a savings. This is a worst case scenario if you are talking about a 50% price difference. Otherwise, you can threaten to cancel, get a full refund and book at the new 50% less price. Any travel agency or even Royal can see the logic in this and in most cases will adjust your price on the same contract. If your price dropped by 50%, they would be foolish to lose a booked cabin over this situation. The price drop is normally associated with cruises which are not meeting time requirements against cabins sold.

NOW!!!!!!!!

@alfaeric 2029 is a good thing. Better than the 2027 rumors. Is the dry dock for standard inspection? I cannot find anything about the dry dock as far as enhancements or changes of the configuration which is just fine with me.

@Another_Critic I stand corrected. I did like Enchantment and looking forward to being on a new ship. Sorry for the bad info, never sailed on the Grandeur or Rhapsody.

I have been on Enchanted which is a stretched Vision. I enjoy the forward views in the Windjammer having coffee and breakfast. The only thing missing is a children's splash area. The Vision would be a tough ship in summer on a Kids Sail Free voyage (I love children but I know my limits, do not buy a summer cruise on Royal if you expect a semi-adults only experience). I cannot complain about summertime families in the summer. 🤣 Overall, the ship was good. The food was adequate. I loved all of the varnished wood onboard. Will try and post a quick review at the end of the cruise. This way, if I have some little quirk, I can measure it against the whole cruise and not base it on one particular experience.

@ColdCruise, Going on the Vision in April for the first-time. Do you have anything specific you want me to evaluate or have a concern about?

I agree and I am not posting anymore because I think we are getting into more of a travel insurance post which has a thread of its own. Insurance is just that, we buy it because it covers situations we hope to never need. Don't buy, there might be a day you really need it. Buy it and don't use it, you feel like you wasted money after enough years.

With inflation, do you think you could trade them for a Royal T-shirt onboard today? 🤔🤣

Yes, while the insurance does not change for the calculated "hard" portions of our trip (airfare, hotels, cabin fare, and excursions), They raise it upon our age since we might have more difficulties if we get injured. I wish we could get some "no-accident" forgiveness based on our previous trips but that would probably mean we would be heavily penalized once we had one and no longer be able to get insurance. It can be tough getting long in the tooth. At least we can celebrate we got here to be "penalized". 🤣

Please refer to @Coralc post following mine. It is a very accurate answer. I will not duplicate it.

Sounds like you already know this but as long as you include the air flights and hotels as part of your estimate total insured value, and list the dates, you should be covered. Are you talking about last minute spontaneous add-ons? You would correct that they would not be covered normally.

I had third party travel insurance like you. Every cruise was insured and I never regretted getting it. All it takes is one slip and fall on the ship or on a shore excursion. Every single excursion now has a legalize disclaimer about being in a foreign country subject to their laws and not being responsible for injury during the tour.

Song of America, 1989, out of Miami, my second cruise after Nordic Prince 10 day out of Miami. I love the picture in your Ship Shape Yellow T-shirt that you earned with Shipshape activities.

That is what I think is happening with Royal pricing. They have been able to bounce the "retail" prices to higher levels in the 2023 year of revenge travel with almost near total occupancy on multiple ships during the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2023. The CEO is stating that 2024 bookings are stronger than ever and cruisers are spending more onboard than before. Maybe better to allow a larger percentage of cabins go empty and keep existing cruisers at a higher price point?

That was discussed in another post. I know Port Canaveral, Florida has barges filling ships with LNG. Galveston,Texas, has a contract supplier too.

We know that most of the Caribbean cruise ships have about 30 feet of draft underwater. The only way to make them bigger is to make them a combination of longer and wider. Maybe making another quantum leap in size might overwhelm the capacity of existing ports and doom them to specific docks? Following up on your thought that there was not a completely different feel from the Oasis class.

You and I have discussed how repeat customers might do less cruises per year (like myself, one instead of three) or worse, take a hiatus from cruising in response to the sharp price increases, once a day cleaning, and reduced food options (do not want to get into any discussion on that, we have hit these items so many times and I know there are those who might vehemently disagree with my opinions). It would take at least two years to affect Royal's bottom line since repeat cruisers tend to reserve far in advance allowing the cruise line to charge top dollar for the remaining rooms as it approaches embarkation. When do you think Royal is going to retreat a bit?

That is a sharp drop-off and not much of a dead cat bounce. I can give you an example of a small ship occupancy which I think is telling. I have been tracking the Vision out of Baltimore on August 8th, 2024, for a nine day cruise. The ship stops at Coco Cay which enhances the prospect of getting families onboard. The ship does not have the family amenities of the larger ships. Since, for the most part, school is still out, I would expect this cruise to be full as it was last year at this time six months out (revenge travel, cost no object). I do not like to cruise during the summer for various reasons but I was tracking this to look at small snippets to see how fast cabins are filling up. A weekly review of interior rooms (without counting connecting interiors in the number) has remained at 100 rooms since December 12, 2023. There have been no price decrease during this time period. RCI must feel that their price is competitive and waiting for cruisers to make last minute decisions before lowering the price. I sense a cat and mouse game going on.

Ok, you are in a Junior Suite. I absolutely acknowledge that there are not a lot of Junior Suites onboard the Vision. You are an experienced cruiser who has done this itinerary several times. Your weather has been warm and beautiful every time you have cruised, Got it. You are "actual." You stated that you believe you have a high probability of not being limited in the Crown Lounge per the topic of this thread. I am giving you my opinion that you might be too optimistic on your expectations. My opinion and only my opinion. When you post, I read your post and give you my opinion. I think it might be best to not express my opinion or respond to your post. If I might disagree, better to not respond and move on. GOT IT!

During the Black Friday Sale and Cyber Monday Sale in November of 2023, those dates out of Baltimore were going for about $1,200 per cabin (two person occupancy, GTY cabin, including taxes with a $50 OBC from multiple travel agencies). I would call those prices extremely low compared to what was offered before they were sold out at close to twice that price about one month ago. I did not say your quoted low prices. I am only stating that I could get a better price on an 8 day cruise from Baltimore if it stopped at South Carolina compared to a cruise that directly went to Port Canaveral and avoided the colder weather of South Carolina for a sea day and a port day.

The April 4th cruise will probably have fewer families since it starts on the Thursday after Easter and most students will have to be in school. Sold out except for the ultimate suite at this time. I expect there will be many "experienced" cruisers on that journey. I would predict limits on the Crown Lounge on that one. My money is that the cruise leaving on April 12th, you will have less competition. It is an April cruise and the ship leaves cold weather to just stop at South Carolina after a slow cold cruise for one day to arrive at a cooler weather port instead of hustling to Port Canaveral in one day. They charge you an extra $145 port charge per person to stop at S.C. in a month that is still cold on a ship that only has one indoor pool which was suppose to be for adults. Odds are, there will be hours available for non adults in the Solarium because of the temperatures. The price was low because of the South Carolina stop and many new cruisers would not know the difference. I predict you will have an easier time getting to the Crown Lounge on that cruise. I could be wrong, just an observation after 35 years of cruising.

Another wondrous thread on CC that goes off on so many tangents. The subject's journey has been hijacked so many times it is hard to keep track of it all. Like so many journeys, it finally ends up where it started. 😁