bar1068

We've not cruised with Royal for a while, so I can't recall past experience, however we're booked on Harmony OTS in May. I went on our cruise planner to check the latest "deals" on different items and a few other things. I then went to order bottled water for our cabin, and was surprised to see that the 12 or 24 bottle packages were sold out, is this a common occurrence? If it's sold out now, is that it, or could they offer more later?

That probably accounts for some of the cost difference. The other could be the NCL cruise operates the entire 7 days in Hawaii where as the 15 day Carnival cruise spends only 4. But thats just a guess.

We always use lanyards, have since our first cruise over 15 years ago, we don't think anything of it. Will be using them on the Celebration in May.

I agree with all you stated here. One thing I have to mention that still "cracks me up" to this day is when we took our first cruise on Royal, it was on the Oasis of the Seas. My wife and I grabbed some lunch at the Windjammer. After we had our lunch, we were sitting chatting, and staring out the windows, when an announcement come over the pa that if you were done enjoying your meal/lunch/food or whatever, to basically, get out of the Windjammer to give others a chance to sit. We looked at each other like, *****??? Biggest ship at sea(at that time) and they have to ask to clear out cause there's not enough room to....handle the crowds around lunch time?!?!? We chuckled and went on our way. Not at all a big thing...just seemed odd to hear that on such a large ship. We've cruised on the Anthem a few times, no Windjammer space concerns on those, and have a cruise scheduled in May on the Harmony of the Seas, followed by a cruise on the Carnival Celebration....a, what...side to side. Guess we'll see how those ships handle the lunch rush at their buffets!!

We did a "spur of the moment" Alaska cruise last August on the Splendor taking advantage of a crazy discounted cruise fare, but the fare was only for interior cabins, but we booked regardless to take advantage of the low fare. I've read numerous accounts of how a balcony cabin is a "MUST"!!! for an Alaskan cruise, but I was not convinced. Having taken that cruise, I'm less convinced. The cabin we booked was forward on the ship, and a quick walk out to the "secret deck" where there is a much better view than you'd get in any balcony. Plus we also spent very little time in the cabin, something we felt we would have done even had we booked a balcony. Sites to view occured all around the ship, roaming around the decks we were able to move from port to starboard and vice versa when the naturalist onboard spotted something worth viewing. The other side of booking a low cost fare vs the pretty much guaranteed over inflated cost of a balcony, was the dollars we didn't spend on a balcony, we spent on excursions we wanted to do, which are also pretty pricey.

Every steakhouse on every ship.

A free bottle of wine can also be had in the steakhouse if you choose to forgo the "play dress up" night as we do, and dine in the steakhouse that night. I'm not sure though if that holds true for the second dress up night as well.

Totally agree about the big deal people make of these little things. Understand why people miss them, but the level of complaining is crazy!! One thing just to say, we've been cruising since 2008 and back then they did routinely fill the ice buckets on the first bunch of cruises we went on. For us that was a waste. But some seem to need them filled all the time...whatever floats your boat!!

According to RCI reps I've talked to, they supposedly can be used for onboard spending. The RCI site used to redeem gift certificates has 2 options, to apply the certificate to the cruise fare or for OBC. However whats most confusing is that discounted gift certificates don't seem to be offered any longer, only gift cards, on the discounted which have different values to input into the redemption site. Also as I mentioned the email response I received when I emailed the gift card info the redemption site, says the gift card value will be added to my reservation, whatever that means.

Thanks....I'll look for it there.

Yea, I would agree. Not bashing or anything like that, however use of discounted gift cards on Royal, much more cumbersome than say Carnival. We've easily saved hundreds, maybe thousands buying discounted gc's on AARP and Allstate's websites and applying to our cruise balances and for OBC. The handful of Royal cruises we taken, we've seen discounted gift certificates in the past, but they didn't appear straight forward to redeem.

I made the semi-mistake of purchasing a RCI discounted gift card from AARP, something we've done a number of times when cruising Carnival. I mostly knew previously AARP offered discounted "gift certificates", was surprised when I went on AARP's site to see RCI "gift CARDS". I almost purchased enough gift cards to pay the balance of our cruise fare for our upcoming cruise on the Harmony of the Seas, but before "pulling the trigger" I did some "research" which suggested RCI handles gift cards differently than CCL. With that, I declined to purchase enough discounted cards to pay our cruise balance, but because of what I was told by an RCI customer service person, that we actually could purchase them and apply them online, I took a chance and purchased a lower denomination card and tried applying it to our cruise fare, and of course, it did not work as the rep explained. I did end up using their process of sending the gift card information to an RCI gift certificate email. They acknowledged receipt of the card information and replied via email that the gift card balance would be "reflected on your reservation" within 10 business days. So, all of that said, where can I, or is there somewhere on RCI's website under my cruise reservation where I can see that card was applied to my reservation, as I would assume as some sort of on board credit as we've since paid the balance of the cruise fare? I'm not seeing anything like that when I log on to view my cruise information. Our cruise is in May. Thanks.

Curious to get your input on why you'd advise not to consider walking? I'd not think its the distance, would it be more the "confusion" of navigating through debarking pax from all of the ships? We pack fairly lightly so i don't anticipate our luggage bogging us down too much. Thanks!

We figure time not going to be a concern. If we can hand our luggage over to Carnival asap, we may see if we can grab that trolly, head somewhere to grab a couple bottles of wine and other incidentals and head back then check in and board. But we know the port will be nuts with the turnover of returning cruises and folks ready for next so may be a play it be ear kind of "adventure"!

Wife and I have done a bunch of 14 day+ cruises, are finally "pulling the trigger" on a back-to-back, side-to-side...2 consecutive cruises...whatever anyone wants to call it! We're calling it our "2 Big A$$ Ships Cruises!!". Anyway, question I have is what options might there be to get from the Harmony OTS to the Carnival Celebration at the Port of Miami? Looking at info for POM, looks like the HOTS uses berth A or AA and Celebration uses C or D. Is walking an option? We're more than capable to walk, but I can't figure if there is "safe path", sidewalk or whatever to walk from one ship to another? Looks like a taxi or Uber could be an option...rather avoid paying, but if thats best thats what we do. I also saw something about a trolly that does a "loop" around downtown Miami with stops as POM? Thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Wife and I have done a bunch of 14 day+ cruises, are finally "pulling the trigger" on a back-to-back, side-to-side...2 consecutive cruises...whatever anyone wants to call it! We're just calling it our "2 Big A$$ Ships Cruises!!". Anyway, question I have is what options might there be to get from the Harmony OTS to the Carnival Celebration at the Port of Miami? Looking at info for POM, looks like the HOTS uses berth A or AA and Celebration uses C or D. Is walking an option? We're more than capable to walk, but I can't figure if there is "safe path", sidewalk or whatever to walk from one ship to another? Looks like a taxi or Uber could be an option...rather avoid paying, but if thats best thats what we do. I also saw something about a trolly that does a "loop" around downtown Miami with stops as POM? Thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Wife and I have done a bunch of 14 day+ cruises, are finally "pulling the trigger" on a back-to-back, side-to-side...2 consecutive cruises...whatever anyone wants to call it! We're calling it our "2 Big A$$ Ships Cruises!!". Anyway, question I have is what options might there be to get from the Harmony OTS to the Carnival Celebration at the Port of Miami? Looking at info for POM, looks like the HOTS uses berth A or AA and Celebration uses C or D. Is walking an option? We're more than capable to walk, but I can't figure if there is "safe path", sidewalk or whatever to walk from one ship to another? Looks like a taxi or Uber could be an option...rather avoid paying, but if thats best thats what we do. I also saw something about a trolly that does a "loop" around downtown Miami with stops as POM? Thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Yea...basically the same as Splendor. I'd think with Spirit and Splendor doing itineraries in Australia, they had the euro plug replaced with the 3 prong Australia plug.

We did an Alaskan cruise on Splendor this past August. I usually bring a European adapter to have an extra plug or 2 when sailing on "older" ships. However I was not able to use mine on Splendor as there was a different plug configuration. I asked our room steward about it, he informed me the plug was an Australian plug setup for when Splendor returned to Australia. Sorry, I don't know the plug specs, just going from what our steward told us.

Carnival no longer allows access to airline sites for flight check in or checking status unless you pay for an internet plan?

A follow on question. If you choose to upgrade from say the social plan to the value plan, can you upgrade for just one day, or would it have to be for the remainder of the cruise?

Looking to purchase an internet plan for our Venezia cruise in October, and beat the price increase that goes into effect tomorrow. We usually get the Value plan, but looking to save about $50 by getting the Social plan. I've seen posts on hear suggesting iMessage does not work or is "not supported" on the Social plan, but I don't see that noted anywhere on Carnivals site, only other apps, email etc.? Other posts state iMessage worked fine. I've also experienced using iMessage without being connected to an internet plan, but certainly would not rely or count on that. Question I have is if we decide the Social plan is not getting us what we want, and decide to upgrade, I'd assume the upgrade cost would be at the new, higher rate and the rate charged onboard, not the pre-cruise discounted rate?

Bridge may be one of the quietest places on the ship. We've stayed in 4J cabins (considered interiors) on a number of cruises and never heard anything from the bridge.

We never let "Elegant nights" factor in to when we make reservations for any specialty dining reservations. In fact we now make specialty dining reservations on those nights of elegance. Sometimes easier to get reservations and tend to be less crowded those nights.

Pretty sure it was not delayed.