happy cruiser1234

It appears the Oasis will have a new Category for a Spa Ocean View Balcony cabin on the Deck Plans Starting November 3, 2021. According to the description there will be an upgraded shower head and appears to have upgraded furniture and other perks.....I wonder if those cabins are already equipped with the upgraded shower head, etc? 

Thanks for the replies!  Hopefully they open the earlier times, if not we might consider switching to traditional dining. 

2 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Hey Serena,  What week are you travelling?  We are on with the kids over Christmas.

Hi Ken, Unfortunately we aren't going over Christmas.  

We scored a great deal on the December 14th cruse for 2020. Our oldest will be finished college and we will take the youngest (Lexi) out of school a week early.  

If for some reason the kids won't be able to come Mark & I are still going!  We got too good a deal on the drink package to cancel. 😜 

We have MTD for our Oasis Cruise in December of 2020.  Reservations are open, however 5:30, 6:00 & 8:00 are not available for any day to book.  

Does anyone know if they will become available later?  Or why those times are blocked out for each day?

I am very impressed with Royal!  They really do care about their customers and it makes me happy to be loyal to Royal.  I will likely always book with Royal Caribbean and spend my vacation dollars here!

What a great company!  Congrats Royal Caribbean! 😀

Thanks so much to the OP for posting this!  I got the deal for our Oasis 2020 cruise.  

Unfortunately our Anthem 2019 wasn't on sale, but I'm so excited to have been able to snag this one!  

Gotta love Cruise Critic! 

I think Royal needs to change the pricing structure for longer cruises.  Right now in my cruise planner the key is listed at $51 CAD per person/per day.  (Equivalent to $38 USD)  My Anthem cruise is 12 days bringing the total $1220 CAD ($912 USD) For two people in a cabin.

Who in their right mind would pay that?

However, on a shorter 3-4 day cruise it seems to be a pretty good value.

I just returned from Symphony where we purchased the Key for $19.99 per day, and i was not impressed. 

The Chops lunch was limited and it was so busy the servers did not have time for us.  

The seats reserved for the shows were not in a good location at all.  Except for the Aqua show.

However we really enjoyed the private breakfast on the last day with an escort off the ship, right up to the customs officer. 

It's showing up in my cruise planner for Anthem, in CAD it's $100.50.  I'm glad i already purchased the original BOGO offer which was $52.40 CAD.  

The price has almost doubled! 🙄

9 hours ago, Canadian Tyler said:

Is anyone else having problems with the RC website showing only US currency? I change it to Canada at the top, but it keeps reverting back to US.

Yes, I had the same problem.  When you finally get the site to stay on CAD currency bookmark the page.  Then when you visit the page next time use the bookmark and the CAD currency will stick.  At least that is my experience.  

2 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

No headliner on any Symphony sailing.

 

You  changed your sailings around?

Unfortunately yes. We didn't want to go without our oldest (Ashley), and can't pull her out of college for the week. So I'm just going with my sister in April. 

The kids are coming with us to Aruba during Ashley's reading week instead. 

Bummer about the Headliner.  But I suspect they will have the Love & Marriage show and Quest on those nights. 

We are sailing April 6th on Symphony and the Headliner is not available to book.  I thought maybe it would show up later?  Perhaps there will not be a Headliner show for our sailing either?

Ken, Is the Headliner showing on your March Symphony cruise?

On 1/28/2019 at 6:55 PM, Ellehci said:

I went on a cruise at the beginning of December. My travel agent had put through that our gratuities be pre paid. Two months after our cruise RC is now telling us that the gratuities never went through on our credit card. I’m frustrated because it’s two months later when we had not budgeted to be paying for them during this month. Would you fight having to pay for them or would you just suck it up?

If Royal did not receive your pre paid gratuities when you sailed then they would have charged you for them daily on your account.  

Awesome photos! Looking forward to following along! :)

Thanks for the review. We are sailing the same itinerary over Christmas. We can't wait!:)

The muster station could fill up and they would not be able to add another guest.

Yes, I didn't think of that. I will add the second name when I can start booking dining and excursions etc.

Thanks

Yes I looked at an 11 day sailing today. The deposit is $450 per person. My TA quoted me this. The deposit amount is not an error.

 

If the deposit amount is an issue, you could book for one person and add the other person later. There are some risks in doing that.

Can you please elaborate on what the risks are in doing this. I booked an 11 day on the Anthem today and I just put one name on the reservation because of the deposit being so high.

Planning on adding my husband later, and the Royal Rep I spoke with said it won't change the price of the booking when I ad the second name. But I am a bit worried there will be an issue with it.

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THANK YOU!!!

 

We will be in the same cabin in April!

You will love it! Best cabin on the ship. IMO

Thanks for the review. You say the WiFi speed was great when it was working. Any details on that? Pages loaded fast? Did you try streaming audio or video? That’s a new WiFi system that is only on vista and horizon right now.

Our kids had the social plan ($4/day) and they did live streaming. I think on Instagram or Snap Chat. It worked perfectly for them when it was working. We had the second package ($10 day), although we didn't do any live streaming it worked perfect when it was fixed.

I’m booking a cruise on the Panorama. I can either have an interior Havana room or a regular Cove Balcony? It will be myself and two girls (15 and 13).

 

Since I’ve never been on the Vista I’m not completely sure the Havana area is worth giving up the space of the Cove Balcony (which we absolutely LOVE btw).

 

 

Can anyone help me out here?

Go for Havana. We sailed Vista last week with our 14 & 17 year old daughters. Our daughters loved the Havana. They like to sleep in on sea days and come to the pool around noon. Never a problem getting a lounge chair, and there are no chair hogs.

You will spend so much time in the Havana area that you really don't need a balcony anyway.

Kids 12 and over are allowed to book in Havana cabins

Thanks for your review! I leave for an 8 day on the Vista this Saturday and really wish I had booked Havana, at the time of booking I had no idea that you got perks in Havana so I didn't bother! Lol

You will have a great time! The serenity area looked really nice too if you want a quiet area to relax. You just need to be there early for a good spot.

Hello, Just back from our 8 day sailing on Carnival Vista.

We have always sailed with Royal and love their Oasis Class ships, but we were getting tired of the same Itinerary. We wanted to sail the Southern Caribbean on a newer ship and the Vista looked amazing. So we booked it for our final March break cruise with our kids, as the oldest is going to college next year.

We booked Havana Extended Aft cabin 7467 and booked the kids in a Havana Inside cabin 7457. The Havana area is Awesome! We loved our Aft cabin. It was dead centre on the aft and the view was amazing, the cabin was very spacious inside. Our Cabin Steward was fantastic. Our kids inside cabin was much smaller and the HVAC unit was very loud in their cabin.

It took us a few days to get familiar with the layout because we found it very confusing having to go up one deck across then back down again to get to certain venues. Once we were familiar with the layout we really enjoyed the ship. We really enjoyed all the outdoor spaces and all the live music in so many of the venues.

Flick and America Rocks were fantastic! We got there early and had front row seats for both shows. Matt was the best CD we have ever encountered on a cruise ship. Cheeky Charlie and Richie Rich were also great! These three people make the Vista a very fun experience! I can see why they call Carnival the Fun Ships.

Our biggest disappointment was the crowding and the lines. There were lines for everything and not enough staff. Two times at night we tried to get pizza and the line was horrendous, with only one person making and serving the pizza. We gave up after standing for 20 minutes in a line that didn't move. The bars did not have enough bartenders. The line for breakfast on Lido was huge. Lines to get on and off the ship seemed to take forever.

The other major disappointment were all of the delays. We were late boarding on embarkation day, I think due to the fact they still only have one gangway functional in Miami.

We were late getting to Grand Turk. Then when we were finally ready to get off the ship, another ship was coming in so they had to close the gangway until they were safely docked. There were literally thousands of people waiting for over an hour in the hallways on deck one. It became very hot. We had very little time in Grand Turk and we didn't want to get stuck in the big line to get back on. So we went back on the ship after only spending 2 hours on the beach.

We were one hour late getting into Curacao, but the Captain made it up to us by letting us stay one hour longer in Aruba.

Getting back on the ship in Aruba their computer systems went down and we were stuck in yet another hot line (or should I say cluster of people pushing and shoving) for well over an hour.

The internet did not work for several days, and man did I have some cranky teenagers on my hands. When they fixed the Wifi, the speed was great and everyone was happy again.

We really liked the food options for lunch on Carnival. Guy's burgers were fantastic! Jiji's Asian Kitchen was also fantastic! Seafood Shack was excellent and inexpensive. We loved having Brunch on Sea days. (Wish Royal would offer this)

Food in the main dining room in the evening was similar to Royal's quality. But we thought Carnivals breakfast buffet options were lacking.

Carnival had better quality desserts, and the cakes on Lido in the afternoon were fantastic.

We did venture out of the Havana area a couple of times to go to the main pool area but it was crowded and loud. Did I say how much we LOVED the Havana area. There were always loungers available in the sun or shade. Hot tubs were perfect temperature and there was never many people in the pool or hot tub. Easy access to our rooms on deck 7, there is a staircase by the Havana Bar. So just up the stairs were our rooms.

We preferred the Vista over Royal Caribbean's older ships but it doesn't even come close to comparing to the Oasis, Allure or the Harmony, IMO. I would sail Vista or Horizon again but only if I had the Havana area.

All & all we had a great trip with a great itinerary!

We are a family of 4 also. We usually book a Balcony for DH and I, then book the kids in an inside room directly across the hall.

Depending on the age of your kids this might work well for you.

We've always sailed with Royal and I always buy the non-alcoholic drink package for my teenage kids. They don't drink soda, so they are pretty bummed that they can't get a drink package on our upcoming Carnival cruise.

They usually go off on their own or with the friends they make on the ship and having the package gives them so much freedom. They drink the specialty coffees, virgin cocktails and water.