chadbeck

In the end the op actually came out ahead as they shouldn't have had $25 refunded. The coupon is for if you play $50 you get another $25 added for a total of $75. Its not if you play $50 it only costs $25. I just used this same coupon last month for my nephew.

It doesn't change the fact the system should have added it and the son should've been able to play another $25. Either way I'm glad you got it sorted out.

I've gone from a balcony(D1) on Allure & Oasis to a Crown Loft on each. Both were no charge upgrades. Haven't seen any since but it was a good run.

Barefoot Beach cabanas are for full suite guests and Pinnacle Club members, and are booked by the concierge. In addition to the cabanas, there is an upgraded buffet.

 

Nellie's Beach cabanas are open to all guests and can be booked at the Shore Excursions desk. I don't believe the upgraded buffet is part of the Nellie's cabana package anymore.

They could still go over and have the upgraded buffet even with the Nellie's cabana seeing as they're in a suite.

To each his or her own, but I'm not a fan of these balconies at all. What you gain in size you lose in privacy, both with your neighbors and the people above you. Also, the lifeboat covering below you means you cannot look directly down to the water from some of the balconies.

That's the main reason I won't book one of those rooms again. Looking down at the top of a lifeboat vs the water isn't for me.

We are Pinnacle and always book Owners Suites. And while we enjoy the perks we get (nothing really that special in our opinion) we never have and never will cruise or be loyal to any one cruise line for the perks they provide. Having said that I believe there should be a formula that determines loyalty levels that is a combination of nights spent on ships and the dollars spent. There are many Diamond Plus and some Pinnacles that only book inside rooms, nothing wrong with that and good for them that they cruise so often. But the "rewards" for cruising (loyalty benefits) should be somewhat related to how much money a person spends with RCCL...the more you spend the more you get to put it in simple terms. The one size fits all doesn't work. We will continue to cruise RCCL because we like the product. We don't cruise RCCL because of the benefits we get.

Really they are to a point. If you book a suite(which as we all know is more expensive)you get an extra point. Same goes for solo cruises, they pay more so they get an extra point. So there is a division between suite value & a standard room. I don't really see them doing anything beyond that because of the tracking it would involve. With the issues their i.t staff has I think it would turn into a mess. I with you, in that I don't go because of benefits but because I enjoy the experience. If I was ever only going because of a status level I would stop going. I don't feel the need to worry about what everyone else is spending their vacation money on or what they get for that money.

It's not what the teens/children will see or hear. It's the adults want to get away from teens/children and we don't want them there.

Someone tried bringing a teen and they got turned away and the adults bringing them got turned away as well.

The sign does say "Adults Only".

I think this is what is missed most by people when it is listed as "adults only"

Everyone always seems to think its about what happens on/at a tour/event. That is hardly ever the case as nothing different is happening that a kid couldn't see on the ship. Sometimes people just want adult time away from kids. I believe that should be respected if its listed as adults only. Plenty of family activities for everyone to enjoy so there is no reason to try and sneak, bend the rules, or get one over on someone to get into an adults only event.

If you are spending an extra day in San Juan- el Yunque National Forest has some good hiking.

Agreed there are some good trails and worth the trip. It is a bit of a drive from San Juan.

I'll look back as I seem to remember a really good one I did in St. Lucia as well. I do remember it being extremely demanding and wasn't just a easy hike. The view at the top made it worth the effort but I think when we started around 15 people went before us in a group and only 5 of them finished it.

I remember a few of them guest services, casino, and on the sides of elevators. I think 3 or 4 total. As Bob said if there was three it is likely only one was working. I also would plan ahead and have most of what you need. Those things aren't cheap. I don't remember exactly but it was $6-$8 to use it plus whatever your bank charges so you'll be pushing $10 for each withdraw. For me that is a lot to just take my own money out of the bank. You maybe better off hitting an atm on one of the islands.

I think you were very lucky. On our recent 16 and 17 night Radiance cruises in Feb/March we were told if we purchased an unlimited pkg we could not use our coupons. In the past....when there were paper coupons.....we could put them together. But now, with the new system, Patti is correct and we were told, on more than one ship, that they were now attached to the each person's folio. Each of us had to log in and set up an account. Sure would have been nice to have credit towards a package. :)

I was able to do like the previous poster and combined my coupons and was then taken off the total package cost. Although the folio number was different everything was going on my card for payment so they had no issue combining ours. I think this is going to be one of those things that your response will be dependent on who is the in charge of d/d+ and how nice they are feeling.

Do you need to make reservations for Lunch?

 

How much is it for lunch?

 

Does any one know how much the margaritas are meaning will they be less than $12 to be include in the premium package?

It was $15 in Feb. but I don't know if that was just a special because it was the first week it was open. They had 4 or 5 special margaritas that ranged from $12-$16. They just charged me the difference from the in price, so I paid $2 in my case for one.

If you go the menu is a little strange. Some of the apps are more like meals and some of the meals are really better as apps. I would recommend ordering a few different things and splitting it. Everything that I tried was great.

DACSMOM was referring to the fact that in post #8 you stated "I'll cancel the next 8 cruises" than in post#20 you stated "NOW they could cancel my next 12 cruises."

I think what he was trying to say is he had 8 booked when this all started but because the prices were right he booked another 4, over the time frame from post 8-20. Or that is how I took it anyway.

I'm not sure I would be as worried as you are. This isn't the first time someone has posted about missing points and they always seem to come back and say it is/was corrected.

You seem to know what cruise is missing or cruise that is missing the extra points so I can't believe they wouldn't or couldn't fix it.

I don't know if it was the exact same one or not but 8 of us did this in Coz a few years back. For $150ish each it was unlimited drinks(The normal rum punch, beer, water, juice, etc.), lunch, and a couple of snorkel stops. The $1200 amount is the entire 4 hour time and only one person in the group books it. On the ship, in the room, there were tickets in an envelope. I don't recall how many there were but more than a couple left over and don't know if you could get more.

So like others said if you can get around 10 people the value really isn't bad. It just seems like a big cost right away

The other one posted for $3200 doesn't seem like a great deal unless you can have more than the 6 max

The others are correct. If the company supplies a ship excursion they can't allow people to book independent. All other operators will take bookings. I get the same thing every cruise when booking excursions. Whatever tour you wanted to book but couldn't you will find something extremely close with another operator. The operator is exclusive to the ship but the tour rarely would be.

Also don't forget that this is not a truly all inclusive. It is only one of the alcohol packages that are included. The specialty restaurants are still extra.

Agreed. Its only the drinks packaged added to the price/increase so not close to an all inclusive. If this is truly more of a party boat(I have never been on) it could just be their way of cost control. No need to worry about shared packages and drink revenue lost.

That may have nothing to do with it but I wouldn't be surprised

I can't remember the ship (MARINER?) and for a while our A/C just wasn't working. Our room steward gifted both of us with little foldable fans. Like a geisha would use. (Not battery operated). THey were pretty and we used them a lot on that trip. Now they got on every cruise with us.

 

I love Indian food and eat it regularly here as we have MANY Indian restaurants in Plano, due to the high tech environment here (Texas Instruments, HP, MacAfee etc etc). So we have a large Indian population working the high tech industry here. I happened to be chatting to my (Indian)waiter. Now I know they have Indian food in the crew mess and they were having my favorite, aloo gobi, the next day and he said they'd bring me some. However, we were eating in a specialty restaurant that next day, as well as the next. Lo and behold 2 night later, in addition to what I ordered, my friend and I had a VERY VERY deliciously spicy aloo gobi w/ all the trimmings. The head waiter came by and he and my waiter told me the assistant waiter made if for us. That he used to be a cook so he made it just for us. Let me tell you people at the tables near us were asking "What is that and can I get some?" But only we got it. I was impressed, touched and they got WOW's as well as an extra something at the end of the cruise.

 

PS: Best aloo gobi EVER.

I have asked a few times for real Indian food. Its always the best food all week. imo

How many rooms do they block off at once? I don't mind not having access to one club but if they use half of the ship for the whole cruise than it's not going to be much fun for the non AAA members

This year they had around 700 on my cruise and was told it was like that all three weeks he was doing it. Never once was I unable to do something because of that group. The people I ran into were all very nice. It actually works out well for the normal cruisers for shows. They would have a show in the ice rink during the normal theater shows or they would use the theater during the ice show times. Don't worry about cruising with them at all it won't affect your access to any scheduled event in the compass.

Oasis - No

Allure - Yes

Freedom - Yes

Enchantment - Yes

Brilliance - Yes

Liberty - No

Splendour - Yes

Vision - Yes

Independence - No

Rhapsody - Yes

Navigator - Yes

Quantum - Yes

Freedom didn't in Feb. Sign was in front of the main door and overflow door. Personally I have never been in the dl and had kids there.

The mud pie is gone, therefore, not worth the money as far as I'm concerned.

Still offered on Freedom

About the different cost of drinks, some bars don't have the same "house brand"(Viking crown and Schooner for example used different house vodka). This was most likely the cause of that or at least it was the case on Allure. Sorry if this was already brought up but didn't go through all 17 pages.

Thanks again for doing this, Robyn! If you're walking by the piano bar after dinner one night, could you please snap a shot of how crowded it is? Is there more than one piano bar?

There is only one in the schooner bar. I can't remember who it was a couple of weeks ago(Paul something). If it is him then it will be very busy. He was maybe the best I have seen on a ship. He does a great job with requests and passes out a sheet every night with all of the songs listed you can pick from. He even downloaded the music to a few requests from the previous night. He made it very interactive and that pulled in a lot of people. I have also had some that weren't so good and it was easy to find a seat but they weren't nearly as engaging with the crowd. After the first or second night people would show up around 930 to make sure they had seating around 10-15mins in it would be standing room only.

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If the Captain may or may not switch times, how do you expect tour to start on time? can you explain

Pretty simple actually. I know the time zones that I will be traveling in so if the website says we will be arriving in Cozumel at 10am I know it will actually be 9am. The website never listed the local time in port but rather the departing port time zone. So if a tour leaves at 9am on shore I won't be making that trip and need to book later.

I don't care what he captain does with the clocks. Most trips it doesn't ever change and you stay on the local departure port. However last year when I left out of Tampa the capt changed the time in the middle of the night. Had they not left a note on the bed I would have been really early for my tour.

Well, that answers most of my questions. I assume with what you are saying that most public areas were not upgraded. (carpet, tile, paint, etc...) H

Some of the carpet that was really worn has been changed out along with some of the furniture in the lounges. You could smell the new leather in spots. Its hard to tell what carpet was changed as most was still in really good shape. The capt didn't really list all of those spots.

Good morning, Robyn!

 

Thanks again for your live report, I'm really enjoying it.

 

Do you know if they have breakfast for suite guests in Chops? They offered it on Brilliance, and it was one of my favorite perks.

 

Have a great day! :)

Yes suites can do made to order/or take food in Chops. For Diamonds the seating is in Gios. with you getting food from wj.

Whatever time the ship's clocks show is what time it is! Nothing else matters! If you book a "private" excursion, you must still go by "ship's time". Your tour guide knows how this works. If you're supposed to meet your excursion at 9am, then you meet them at 9am SHIP'S TIME.....

This may have been the case for you, but not me. I always have to adjust when I book outside of ships tours. Most of the time you are joining people already on the island and they aren't going to make the people staying on the island switch to ships time just for you. The independent operator has always asked me to adjust to island time. You need to be back by ships time but the tour could start on island time or ships time.