topnole

Ha. I’ve been at chefs table on oasis. I remember it well and yes it was an odd spot. All the folks at the bar made for quite a noisy environment. It was a nice dinner, but nothing that special IMO.

Chefs table isn’t in that spot on Allure. That spot is all CK dining tables. Two big circle tables and then booth tables all along the back wall. Allure has no larger tables in the main area. So those circular tables are for larger groups (6 top) and that is where our family of 5 sat every meal. It was nice having our same table every time because with kids a routine helps things go smoothly.

We just did allure and will be on Harmony late this year. Been a while since on Harmony so I’m wondering how accurate my memory is with the reality. I just know that I really preferred oasis and allure SL/CK better. I also didn’t like how CK and sl were flipped on Harmony. I guess that is just bias towards what I knew because that part seemingly shouldn’t really matter. But the bar facing a wall sucked on Harmony in comparison to allure and oasis. And by the way, the CK on Allure last week was outstanding. Service was fabulous and the food was great. Did breakfast every day but one, lunch once, and dinner once. All meals were outstanding. I’ve read some negative reviews of the CK lately and I was a bit worried it had diminished. Our experience suggests otherwise.

Not sure about the never crowded aspect, but agree on the rest. I still remember the peanut butter chicken on skewers served at lunch.

Agree. Harmony bar in the SL is horrible while oasis and Allure are absolutely fantastic. Probably the best single indoor bar on the ship in terms of view. I haven’t been on the two newer oasis class, but assume they are like Harmony. Just a terrible design.

The old DL is now inside cabins. The walkway to the front of key in gate is visible and now dead ends into a wall. I think the CK/SL concept was driven by competitors?

Point is the contract is what they promise you. Getting frustrated by a 10-15 wait for something isn’t the company violating their promise to a customer. It is just sub par service. That is the type of stuff people are upset about and apparently some are demanding compensation. Doesn’t mean those people should get it. Where you are right is that people can go elsewhere. But some people on here won’t. They just like to keep coming back on Royal and then complain. Everyone on here knows things aren’t ideal. It’s fine to observe the issues or maybe even belly ache about them. But demanding compensation for bad service? My goodness. You think Royal’s contract isn’t legal? Good luck with that and I think we both know that legal isn’t black and white white when it comes to many things. They have a team of lawyers. The average Joe doesn’t. The team of lawyers will win that fight every time. Not saying it is good business. Just stating reality.

They can lose crew at a moment’s notice due to Covid. Outbreaks are happening and then out of nowhere they are down a bunch of crew. It isn’t like a store where you hang a help wanted sign. Recruiting and retention in this industry must be absolutely brutal in this Covid environment. Not sure if you have ever managed things at this level, but the HR issues they are facing are necessarily highly complex. And managing bookings and demand is the same. All aspects of the industry are a logistical nightmare right now. Those pretending there are easy fixes to these issues simply don’t understand the variables involved. This is a million times more complex than you are making it out to be. I can promise you that operating at low capacity at these cruise fares will result in failure in a short order of time. Just look at the profit margins pre Covid when ships operated at near capacity regularly. Lower capacity isn’t sustainable for Royal Caribbean at the current prices for a cruise.

Just read your cruise contract. That is what you get. The rest is just your expectations. Demanding compensation because you didn’t like the service is ridiculous. Your phone example is not the same. If it doesn’t work and you bought a phone that doesn’t work, totally different. Slow service or a show not happening is totally different. Again, read the contract and demand what is in the contract. Nothing more.

I don’t think what your saying is accurate. Lots of universities faced significant drops in enrollment when Covid hit. People didn’t go back to school and earn a degree since 2020. That just isn’t true.

Your acting like they know how many the will be in terms of surplus versus short staffed for a given cruise at a given time. They don’t and if they don’t start filling the ships they will go out of business. The don’t make money off of cruise fare. They need all the extras and half full ships will bury any cruise ship company if it happens long enough. I guess if people were will to pay double or triple they could do it. But then again, that is what a few of the other more upscale lines do.

You can only Royal up for those in the same cabin. Whoever isn’t in your cabin, but still with you on the trip will still have their own cabin. They can sleep wherever, but their booking will remain the same and they will still pay for their cabin regardless of whether they sleep in your upgraded cabin. Basically, it only works for those staying in one cabin together.

I think it is a 2br grand suite. 6 could work with that. But it’s pointless because they can’t all upgrade with the Royal up.

You can’t do that. Only if all of you were already in one cabin. Only those in the cabin can up to the suite.

No one is due a refund just because they think the service didn’t meet their standard. Now If they didn’t give one a room or the meals guaranteed in the contract, that is one thing. But just because one thinks the service was poor doesn’t mean a refund is due. The norm would be to not return and go elsewhere. Some are born to complain and some go with the flow. I’m not interested in complainers getting rewarded like folks who return dead Christmas trees in January at Costco for a full refund. That just raises the price for everyone else. If you think the service is bad, just try a different cruise line. People complaining on here act like there is some easy fix to this issue. There isn’t. It is an extremely complex issue for cruise companies.

And how do they lower capacity? Can you imagine the complaining when they start canceling X% of the people due to staffing issues. Then people would complain and say they’d rather deal with some staffing issues than have their vacation canceled.

MTD often had lines 100 people deep on oasis class before the pandemic. With that said, they are definitely short staffed in some areas. We just got off allure and rare was the employee I met that wasn’t on their first contract with Royal. I’m sure it is very difficult to get staff in the Covid era and then get them trained for the job.

It’s called sarcasm. But clearly that is the concern of the OP. They don’t care what time they get on the ship. They just don’t want to be locked out of show reservations. It is a stupid system that encourages the crowding they are seemingly trying to avoid.

It is a really stupid system if they want people to follow the boarding time schedules. Show up to your late checkin and miss all the shows! geez. What an incentive to show up at your time. I got off last week, but have no idea whether they enforced checkin times. I doubt they did though because almost all the port staff seemed clueless about things.

The part about a COR not replacing a vaccination record probably tells you what you need to know. Interesting that the COR time is 180 days. For Royal out of the US it is 11-90 days ago.

Only a PCR test counts for COR. If you don’t want to be able to get one of those then don’t get one. Up to you. Just trying to help you since you asked.

If you mean smart bands that open your cabin, then no they don’t. Just key cards.

Get a PCR test now. Then a letter of recovery if you keep testing positive for a while but are otherwise better. You would be more than fine on timing for a late June cruise. Added benefit is you will have strong Covid immunity that soon after.

COR does not replace vaccination. It only means you don’t have to test before boarding. You have to be vaccinated. Also, I was told on our cruise last week that unvaccinated kids can’t use a COR as a replacement for testing.

Yeah. We’ve done that plenty of times too.