bogofman

Thanks Bob,

Hmm I'd best get on the zip line as early in the day as possible reading point 5 :D.

 

Claustrophobia? I thought ziplines were openair! Surely it should be agoraphobia and acrophobia

This is a zip line

we did this during the winter in ski boots :eek:

There was quite a surprising of smoke out of the main stack when she was leaving Southampton. If my car did that, it'd fail the MOT emissions test :D

 

Yes, I think that the Cupcake Cupboard has made way for a pie shop. Others on my sailing this summer have heard that it's both sweet and savoury pies and they'll be $4.25 each. But I've not heard anything official. :)

They used to do savoury pies and pastries at sorentos for free (UK sailings)

No sign of them on our recent TA, only pizza

On the Radiance last summer, I don't know which was worse, the poorly contained smoke, or the fragrance they tried to mask it with.

Got to agree with this

just got off Indy and the smell of the masking fragrance turned my stomach when it was in full masking mode :-(

We just used Budget April 2016

Picked car up at Miami airport and dropped off at the 17th street budget office.

It could not have been easier

parked car, got issued with a receipt

hopped on the waiting shuttle, less than 15 minutes later we were at the bag drop next to the ship

What time was this? We have train tickets reserved and plan to do the same as you. We're hoping to catch an 8 am train to Gatwick. Thanks!

We left at around 8.45

Best to leave about 7am for the 8am train or earlier just in case they are queuing to get off early.

There were no customs checks for us

If walking to the station you will need wheeled cases,

Plenty of cabs waiting out side if needed

We arrived back this morning, Southampton has got to be the best port for disembarking

We elected to take our own bags off,

Caught the lift down to Deck 4 forward

No queue, walked straight off and out side in 5 minutes,

Less than 15 later and we had walked to the train station.

:)

Does the party take place in the room at the front of the ship above the gym?

On solstice class ship

Or in Michael's bar? Each day

I seem to remember people entering around 5pm dressed formally

Are these events formal?

Next celebrity we will be elite courtesy of royal diamond we move upto :)

Do celebrity have similar perks to Royal caribbean?

3 free drinks during the happy hours, or only free drinks in the lounge?

Those photo's bring back memories of our Anthem cruise out of Southampton last year.

:)

Do other things get added to our cards we might not know about?

are the buy one get one free drinks on the card or the ticket?

not used these for sometime as we have had a package inc.

We used this transfer

http://istanbul.safeairporttransfer.com/

last August to our hotel opposite the port.

I wanted to do it on the train but with the issues i tried these and was surprised with how good they were.

We can out of the immigration, walked left to the waiting guys with sign'before i spotted my sign the guy asked me if i was Mr xxxxxx, and i was

must have been a lucky guess , as they also had other guests to collect.

They showed us out side and a driver arrived in a Mercedes Van/bus

You get your own van and you pay the driver on arrival in our case 30 euro's

Considering the journey, money well spent.

On the Independence TA in 2014 UK immigration boarded in St Maarten, and you were given a time to go to the dining room to be processed during the sea days. Took longer for me to get to the dining room from where I was than to be processed :)

Do us British have to to go though this as well ?

Never needed this on a Europe cruise

Surely they know who is on the ship from first boarding,

All our europe cruises returning to Southampton, we just walk off and are in the car on our way in 5 minutes

I continue to be surprised they allow or are willing to empty it at all. The whole wisdom of a mini bar is for the impulse buy. Emptying it takes the opportunity for that impulse away.

 

To me, emptying the mini bar for your own use is akin to asking a restaurant to microwave your frozen meal for you.

i'd have to get a mini beer fridge to bring along,:D

along with a kettle ( as they are supplied in europe)

This is the second post I've seen about the minibar being empty upon arrival. I hope this is a new policy that goes fleetwide.

so do we, the contents takes up cupboard space

We once asked the person who fills up the minibar to take away, all he did was put it in a bag under the table.

Just move ourselves now.

AS more and more cruises come with drinks packages, just bring cans/bottles back to the room

Anyone know what TV channels are on the TV in the cabin's?

BBC?

I'm hoping to catch the snooker world final

does ESPN show the F1 races?

If you are going to fudge the address, you might as well get a US one.:cool:

Definitely,

just done a dummy booking on the Swedish site

makes the UK prices look very cheap

Update in price is handled differently within the different sub-markets inside RCCL.

 

For the Nordic markets customers RCCL have the policy that price updates can be done for a change fee (250 SEK/NOK/DKK or 30 Euros) up to 42 days before sailing.

If between 42 - 30 days the price can still be adjusted but it would count as cancellation and making a new booking. For Nordic countries this would mean either 5% on Cruise fare for Sweden, 300 NOK/DKK for Norway and Denmark and 50 Euros for Finland.

The exact rules changes from country to country to meet requirements of the laws to sell vacations packages in each country.

 

Other markets have 60 days limit but no change fees. Another have a deadline of 75 days. Some pays out back to the credit card and some of them apply it as refundable OBC on the sailing.

Trying to learn them all is confusing but I tried my best ;)

 

In your bookings confirmations the policy should be mentioned in the Terms and Conditions section.

On our T&C the cancellation policy is under paragraph 9 and policy for changes to the booking is written under paragraph 13.

That layout should not be too different for your markets.

 

I know it is a long read but I strongly advice to read them through at least once :)

 

 

Good luck!

umm will look into this

we have family in Sweden, we could use there address ;)

So I went for it and books via US TA. The difference in cost vs UK was too great to pass up, will almost cover our flight cost London to Miami!

Thanks for everyone's advice - and for anyone else who was thinking about it, it was really easy, you can pay up whenever you like (so I'll jump in once the dollar rate swings in my favour) the reservation is already showing in my cruises on RC website and all Terms confirmed as a US booking. Sooo pleased.

Happy Cruising!

did they organise the perks and flights for you as well?

will they organise any price drops for you if they occur?

I book on the .com for my English Friends all the time, I just use their address and my state, never been a problem.

This interesting,

why don't they book themselves and put your state?

i assume it would know that were booking from the UK?

do you organise the price drops for them as well?

We certainly don't

Cannot see why anyone would.

Usually take everything out and put our water bottles in there.

(same in Hotels) :rolleyes:

Forgot to mention that Emerald has an increase of $25 in the amount of balcony discount.

I never noticed as my recent bookings were not able to use the member bonus, as it's not combinable with the offer we booked under,

Surprise surprise

When the member bonus can be used, the overall price still comes out to be the same

:rolleyes:

My guess is that as folks get more experience on a cruise line, they spend less and know how to get the lowest prices. In other words, new cruisers are the most profitible.

Got to agree, we spend close to zero

Last cruise we had a tax refund so a positive credit was made to our card

I couldn't agree more. I was looking forward to my Emerald status, and all it gets me is a free can of soda in my cabin.

We didn't even get that, did not know about it :confused:

I just logged in and registered for a can of sprite, just to see if I get it.

Not bothered as we have the drinks package included

Has anyone used the choice air booking, when wanting to customize the start and end of cruise stays?

when i was booking our cruises, the options (on line) did not extend to the dates we wanted.

i assume you would need to phone up for that?

We booked our flights independent as a result.

inquiring about one way flights we found choice air to be approx twice the price of a single fair ( if booking a two way)

i.e return from London to Miami is about £520

Choice air wanted over £600 for a one way.

In the end we decided to book a return and take the opportunity to do two Ta's 7 months apart :)

I cannot find anything on the msc web site about the levels that are transferable. Only the form

How did you find out Diamond transfers to black?