jencruzin

17 hours ago, Miloomar said:

Never noticed this before

If you observe a price drop, and they tell you it's because port fees and taxes have went down, this is how we found out. I'm wondering though, from the different calls made to RCL's customer service, if this might be turning into a trend so that they can avoid checking PD's - or have been told to say this.

On 2/8/2023 at 11:27 AM, Jbluebird said:

It's always interesting to look at cabin prices and price drops.  Our balcony cabin in November when I originally booked was 3527 pp.  I was able to get a price drop in December, but the cabin price at that time was about $150 more than the original price.  I then got another price drop at the beginning of January with a cabin price that was about $140 less than the December price.  My last price drop was at the end of January with a cabin price about $40 less than the previous price.  All of the cabin prices are before the percentages or money off and all for the same cabin category.  I was also told that even though the port fees/taxes are significantly less for each successive price drop, my fees etc will not drop because they are for the original booking. I don't understand all the differences in cabin pricing from month to month or even week to week. 😕

This is exactly why we're AVID on conducting price checks....DH creates a spreadsheet, loaded with formulas. He keeps track on excursions, dining options...if he catches a PD on an excursion, he will cancel the reservation and then re-purchase for the cheaper rate. So far, for just this one cruise, we have saved $1505.48. He also observes flight costs, (even though we know we can't cancel those and rebook, too risky). On flights alone, for this upcoming cruise, we have saved $1507.94.

Seriously, it pays to check....AND, pays to hold off on the final payment (until the last day) to get the bargaining power through Price Drops.

14 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

 

They got the right answer.  Port fees and taxes do not get adjusted on price drops.

Is this though, fair to the customer? I don't think it is because if the company gets a decrease in port fee and taxes per customer, that extra free money goes to the cruise line.

So, here was the OUTCOME of all this.

After me trying three times, three different agents...

agent 1 (early morning): "No, I see a a price INCREASE. Where are you seeing a drop?"
 

agent 2 (early afternoon): "I only see an increase. I cannot see what you're referring to. Are you mock booking the same category as your own booking? I do see that port fees and taxes have dramatically dropped, we have no control on that." Me: "Well, if port fees and taxes have dropped, shouldn't this come off from my outstanding balance I still owe?" 

A pause....
"No, that doesn't change."
 

agent 3 (after dinner last night): "I don't see what you're seeing. I'll have to cancel your flights and start over. Want me to do that?" We instantly hung up.
 

agent 4 (around 9pm): "Oh, hold on. What I have done is deducted your excursions, your dinner bookings, your flights and gratuities....I see it. I am going to see about you possibly saving more money on the price drop" he came back, "I'm not seeing a $72 price drop. I see a $90 drop instead" and he honored it.

See the different responses? All from different agents from the same company. Utterly ridiculous, even though we gained a bigger PD than intended.

 We've had interesting luck in price drops this January and now into Feb; today's price check doing a mock booking showed a $72 drop in our price. So I phoned in to ask it to be honored. We still owe a balance, but final payment is due next month.

The guy said he sees a price increase. On my end, I'm doing another mock booking, not logged in, cache cleared - yep, a $72 difference.

He can't honor it, because....taxes and port fees for this cruise has significantly DROPPED. And, already knowing the cruise line has no control over those, and given my time was limited, I said "OK' and said bye to the guy.

So then, I wondered. Since port fees and taxes have significantly dropped - wouldn't that have reflected on my balance due? It hasn't changed. Will it, in a matter of days? Is there something that I am forgetting?

On 1/31/2023 at 1:21 PM, LEMJMcC said:

 

 

Any advice to a guy who wants to be nice, but...

Ask them if there's any happy endings. Suddenly, they'll leave you alone and not bother you ever again!

On 11/12/2022 at 7:29 PM, SherriZ366 said:

 

 

Dumb idea to bring back in-person muster!!  

Explain that to the tragically obese man who showed up for the old, tried and true muster on an earlier sailing - who told the muster recorder that his lifejacket doesn't fit?

On 11/12/2022 at 3:24 PM, smokeybandit said:

That will be a very, very unpopular change if that happens.

 

Safety usually is very unpopular.

On 11/12/2022 at 3:06 PM, mets123 said:

Why would anyone want to go back to the in person muster drills?

It's not a case of want. It's a case of maritime law.

On 11/12/2022 at 3:15 PM, chengkp75 said:

It was not the USCG, it was the IMO that allowed the change, and I've been hoping that it would change back.  Just the fact that the poster in your link mentioned that only one member of the party had to go find the muster station is one of the major flaws in this system.

DH stated it's a great idea because of the nature of the highly flawed new method. He also said there would be major clusterf's if a cruise ship started sinking using the temporary method, and mass panic, loss of lives would result. We will be so very happy if RCL goes back to the in-person muster drills. He sailed on many Navy ships 1980-2000.

On 1/30/2023 at 4:25 PM, vacationlover_mn said:

I won’t use air to see again.  Last time we used them, we got good rates, and they promised us assigned in advance seats. They were not- we didn’t get our seat assignments until just before boarding, and of course they were middle seats.  I had tried to pick seats prior to that, but I couldn’t 😞

Forgot exactly how I obtained our reference number. May have been me cross-referencing our name on the Virgin Atlantic website. Once I got that, I went ahead and just selected our seats in advance. I didn't pay extra, either. But....the seats can change without notice thanks to the airline.

On 1/30/2023 at 4:21 PM, time4u2go said:

OP's cruise was 6 months ago.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for pointing that out!!!! Yay!

We had an issue like this on our last cruise! It was our last night, we had left two pool towels in our suite. In the am right before leaving, our room attendant told us, no worries, because we were "in a grand suite." Without thinking ahead, I said OK. Lesson learned! Take the towels yourself and turn them in, never rely on a room attendant that would properly scan back in your pool towels - he probably just dumped them into a laundry bin! Subsequently, we were charged for two "missing" pool towels. DH called RCL after he noticed the extra charges and it was resolved with a refund after around 10 business days.

Fortunately for us, never had any issues using Air2Sea yet, but OP's experiences are genuine. We've heard similar stories like this.

To the OP, do you have the airline's flight reservation booking number? If not, try to obtain that, because you'd be able to try and also work things out directly with the airline on your own without Air2Sea and even your TA, who does sound as if they're on it. 

On 1/26/2023 at 3:38 PM, HappyTexan44 said:

Curious how soon is that cruise?  
 

5 months out.

35 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

When you get a price drop you also get the associated promos that go with it and you lose the promos that were attached to the old price.

 

Say you originally booed for $4000 and $500 OBC and you now see a new price of $3000 but it has $50 OBC when you get the $300 price you also get the $50 OBC and lose the $500 that was associated with your original price.  

Turned out - she made a mistake. She was checking current database, not past. All OBC now restored. phew!

Just now, Ret MP said:

LOL, I sure hope you are right.  

 

Eventually, all you'll need on a RCCL ship is:

 

LMAO because....I had this vision of people WEARING these $59.95 lanyards with sporks tied to them......

6 minutes ago, Ret MP said:

Gag! Are you sure?  

 

It HAS to be! There is no way they'd do this......???

Ok, this gets weird, she's telling me that "what you are telling me, does not tally in our database"

I told her, the intitial cruise credit shows $200, the next, was $250, then the latest shows $50, a total of $500. I told her I am seeing this right now on my up to date, printed cruise vacation receipt. She's saying no, you now only have $50 cruise credit.

15 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

If the FCC was special fared onto the booking and you get a price drop then yes the FCC will =drop off and they will have to manually add it back on.

 

I've even seen some of the older FCC's drop off when refaring

This isn't future cruise credit

8 minutes ago, Tree_skier said:

Yeah I can’t imagine a price drop triggering that. Did Royal give you any explanation about why they thought it happened and what are they doing to remedy it?  
 

is the cruise paid in full?

 

 

Not paid in full yet but we did get a nice chunk dropped from the balance. I have not called them yet about this.

Now, MAYBE the glitch was because I had just cashed in from BOA, a few days back, $50 in cruise credit, which gave us a total of $500, but for now the web page shows just $50! 

WOW! Just experienced a total reverse experience with our upcoming cruise!

We just saved $1003 knocked off our existing balance on the next sailing....it seriously pays to keep

track of price drops, I was expecting more increases in pricing, but the total opposite now.

On 1/6/2023 at 8:17 AM, DirtyDawg said:

Thank you for posting this new menu. Unfortunately it just confirms the rumours I've been hearing about Royal lately. I hear that some big cruise line corporation just ordered hundreds of thousands of plant based biodegradable cutlery sets that can handle foods like cod, turkey, pasta, stuffed peppers and chicken. Don't worry about any waist, as I hear we'll be getting one set of cutlery at check-in which will last the entire cruise. Newly designed lanyards that can fit cutlery sets will available on board for the low, low price of $59.95. (Psst. The extra time the room stewards will need to wash our cutlery is the real reason the cruise line is moving to once per day cabin service. 😉)

 

And that * beside the New York Strip is for the new $19.95 plus 18% gratuity for a 2 hour rental of a steak knife. Eat fast everybody! 😁

 

LMAO....I can't wait to tell hubby about this, he will freak! What a great gag!

Just now, Tree_skier said:

What’s a PD?

Price drop

Anyone ever seen a sudden change in cruise credit for an upcoming cruise? 

I thought maybe it was because I reported a PD, but he assured me, no CC would be removed following the PD being honored due to the nature of the booking created from our previous cruise.