wreckem2013

21 hours ago, la_croisiere_s'amuse said:

Just curious, have you seen $90 PP lately? It does fluctuate a lot, as you said, but the best I've encountered in the past couple of years was $125 on a black Friday sale. One of our upcoming cruises is currently showing $195 as a 30% off sale price. 😬 Maybe I'm just unlucky. 

I booked three people for $89 a person two days ago. My last several cruises have been $250-$300 so it was a hard pass on those but a scooped up the $89 quickly.

I booked CoCo Beach Club for $89 a person. cheapest I’ve been able to book it in a long long time. Water park is $54. contemplating booking it as well.

5 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

I thought you said you were within final payment.  That's usually 90-120 days, not 6 months.  Or can you pay over 6 months with affirm even if cruise has already sailed?

Cruise sails at the end of June. Affirm is sorta of similar to a credit card or lone of credit. Except each transaction is like a loan/micro loan. So I can pay with Affirm. Affirm pays the cruise and then I pay Affirm back for 6, 12, or 18 months. 

3 minutes ago, brillohead said:

Try calling and booking over the phone.

I just email my travel agent and he does it all for me, easy peasy.  He even saves my credit card info, so all I have to do is type, "Book Room 1234 on SHIP NAME on DATE please" and I get a confirmation in my email within 5-10 minutes, usually.

 

 

I’m trying to use Affirm so I can spread the payment over the next six months without  interest. The Affirm pop up won’t pop up and nothing happened when I try to put in a credit card number.

Ok here is the deal. I am trying to book a cruise inside final payment window.

Yesterday I was trying to book two rooms one with two people and one with one person.

I kept trying to check out with a credit card or affirm and it wouldn’t do anything. No error message or anything. I took out one of the rooms and then kept trying to get it to process. Eventually i got affirm to pop up and then backed out but a hold was created. I was then able to go back and successfully pay.

Ever since then I have been trying to book the solo room. No matter what I do I just get a spinning circle and then nothing. I’ve tried different computers and a phone and an iPad all the same thing.

Any suggestions on how to get the website to work. Why it’s doing this. Is this happening to others? It’s frustrating because they have one room fully paid for and I cannot book the other. 

51 minutes ago, Laplayaperson said:

Thank you so much!  Yes totally helps, so in everyone's opinion, would it be safe to cancel our current excurionS we have booked for Labadee and allow the refund to process so we can book something else?

Yes. I doubt very much Royal will be calling on it anytime soon. I know they are looking at the issue every week but until there is some sort of order in the rest of the country they aren’t going to go.

9 hours ago, The Fun Researcher said:

Agreed.  We've really like both the Anthem and the Quantum, but we sailed them both in cold weather sailings (one to Alaska, and one from Cape Liberty in March).   They are fantastic ships for cold weather.  Along that point, I think it's weird that they moved the Odyssey to Cape Liberty during cold months given that the Odyssey switched the indoor family pool area into an outdoor pool area.  However we look forward to sailing Odyssey next year in March out of Cape Liberty, we love that it has Playmakers and one large dining room

 

I think Quantum class is fantastic for Alaska, given the weather.  I wonder what keeps Royal from using them for one way sailings like Seattle (or Vancouver) to Seward and vice-versa.  Would be great if they went to Glacier Bay (but Princess and Holland have the lions share of those openings)

Seward cannot currently handle larger ships. However the owners of the Seward cruise port announced its expansion back in 2022 and recently gave updated plans with an expected completion of spring 2026. In the promotional materials for the project they have rendered picture of the completed port with a Quantum class ship docked. This project is in conjunction with RCCL and the plans are for the ability to handle two ship at the same time, and the ability to handle quantum class ships.

I am planning on booking a B2B or a cruise with post cruise tour during the quantum class’ inaugural season to Seward. Fingers crossed it’s the 2026 season.

20 minutes ago, MVP2024 said:

We were so excited to set sail on our first ever cruise with a great social group we are affiliated with. We set sail out of Tampa, FL on 2/8. 24 hours into our trip my husband fractured his leg on the sports court. We were “treated” ( I use that term loosely because they just did an xray and splinted his leg) and were charged almost $1,200 for this. They “treated” us down in medical and sent us back up to our room for the night, we were then forced off the ship the next morning on 2/10 (19 hours after the accident) where we were taken by ambulance to the local Cozumel hospital and were told by the cruise line that the doctor had to clear us in order to get back on the ship. Long story short the doctor did not clear us to get back on the ship because my husband needed surgery on his leg. Royal Caribbean took it upon themselves to pack all of our belongings up without getting permission from us (this alone was very violating). We were stuck in Cozumel by ourselves with zero support from Royal Caribbean and we had to find transport back to the states in order for my husband to get surgery. We were stuck in Cozumel for 3 days prior to having to pay out of pocket for an air ambulance back to Tampa. Hard lesson learned from our end to ALWAYS buy travel insurance. But also shame on Royal Caribbean for zero support to their customers. I am now having to fight to get some money back since we only were on the ship for 2 days. Also side note the ship returned to port a full day before we were able to get back. My question is, how bad does an injury have to be for Royal to medivac someone off their ship. Thankfully my husband and I had the support of friends and family and were able to return to the states but I know there are people in this world that would have been stuck for much longer. Not sure I will ever cruise with Royal ever again

Be thankful they didn’t do a medivac because without cruise insurance you would have owed tens of thousands of dollars for it. Medivacs are rare, generally when they are far from a port or life threatening emergencies. I’ve only ever seen one and it was in Europe but I’ve seen plenty of people disembarked at the next stop. 

12 hours ago, HicksRA said:

I was on that cruise as well. Other than some worn carpet and some banged up furniture in a few places, the ship was fine. I did notice many rolls of new carpet stored up in the bow of the ship, so it was obvious they were getting ready to install some new carpet soon. 
I love Radiance class ships. 

Those rolls of carpets were there in July….

Did back to back on Radiance in Alaska last summer. Also did Serenade last spring break. Didn’t have any issue on either. Comparing them to a newer bigger shop and rugs they are dated but they were well maintained and I didn’t smell sewage either.

6 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

Utopia will be doing 3/4 day cruises out of Port Canaveral starting this Summer and Allure will be doing 3/4 day cruises out of Miami. 

 But Allure is coming back to Galveston when Harmony goes to dry dock in 2026.

7 hours ago, Another_Critic said:

Seven Oasis class and three (or more) Icon class for 3 FL winter homeports?

 

When will they sell the first Oasis class to make room for the new ones?

 

Edit:  I forgot that Galveston can do year round Oasis class.  Maybe add a second ship?

 

The there were reports that a senior RCI corporate officer said there would be a Wonderful announcement regarding Galveston soon. So there has been rumors of Wonder to Galveston but Allure has been moved back to Galveston in 2026. Will Wonder be going to Galveston to do shorter cruises I doubt it but we will find out what the other ships for Galveston will be next week?

On 9/12/2023 at 1:09 PM, 3yorkies said:

I sure wish they would leave the diamond lounge alone and not add those hideous slides.  It's terrible to move it to the dungeon with no windows.  Ugh.   Allure is my favorite ship right now.

The crown lounge on Allure is going to be moved. Everyone might as well accept it. Same with the slides. Sabor, is a goner as well. Those are all pretty much done deals. Giovanni’s Table is probabky be flipped to Giovanni’s Kitchen.
 

It’s what is replacing Sabor and the Crown Lounge that is not fully known. Sabor is probably playmakers but who knows what they will choose for the resturant to replace the crown lounge.

Hopefully they turn studio on air into a piano bar or something .

8 hours ago, GJustice said:

Well, the "new" ones are available now and all that's "new" is Allure replacing Harmony in March 2026 with a couple of additional itineraries to the same old destinations.

 

Guess I'll have to surrender and start flying to FL since the 4th busiest port in the US (Galveston) won't see more destinations next year. Or I guess I can defect to one of the other TX based lines 😞 

Yeah ever since they brought Oasis class it’s been 98% of the time the same three ports. I remember when we were able to do Grand Cayman and Jamaica out of Galveston.

3 hours ago, amindu said:

 

Really? that is very disappointing, I would much rather have Harmony or Symphony over Allure. I wonder if they start losing market share if changes will be made now that NCL is also sailing from that port.  I had friends that went on the Prima and they loved the ship and all. 

Allure is going in for a massive Amplification in 2025. But that also the loss of one of the better crown lounges. Then again Harmony goes off dry dock and a likely amplification once it leaves Galveston. With the year round revenue they make out of Galveston, they should always get a better ship than New York. But we don’t.

I guess this puts to bed rumors of Wonder coming to Galveston once Star starts sailing. 

20 dollars at playmakers is a lot of food for one person.$40 for two is even worse. First time we had Playmakers was on Odyssey during Thanksgiving 2022. We both maxed out our $20 each and had a lot of food left over. Now we eat $20 worth of food for lunch and then go back late night a couple hours after dinner and get two camp fire cookies.

8 minutes ago, AspiringCindy said:

The cows are gone already?

Yes. They have discontinued their business relationship with Ben & Jerry’s and are removing all associated items.

With the soda package, most of the time if you order soda in the MDR or speciality restaurants you will end up getting a can. In specialty restaurants it’s 100% of the time in my experience. Now if you go to a bar and as for a can they are going to charge you for a can.
 

I use my left over Diamond vouchers at the end of the night to get cans of soda for the room so I can be lazy and not have to go  to the bar/free style machine.

On 12/9/2023 at 7:21 PM, BecciBoo said:

Our ICON day in September got down to $63 at its lowest and is now back up to 75 pp.  So glad we snagged them at the low price.  But I think it's so unfair that Icon is higher than other ships.  Makes no sense and having to pay the higher pricing for ICON???  Money grubbers!  GRRRRR

My Thanksgiving on Symphony is currently at $71. We share Coco Cay with Oasis that day I believe. I’m paying close attention for when my spring break cruise on Symphony opens for Coco cay bookings to see how much it is on there. We will be there with Wonder on the trip.

Also pricing is based on current sales as Royal uses dynamic pricing so it’s also impacting the other ship there at Coco Cay the day Icon is there. In theory it should be priced the same as Icon. You can expect days with Icon and Oasis class or two Oasis classes there the same day to get more and more expensive as sales are made. While days with only one ship at Coco cay will always have the cheapest.

It’s pretty clear that Vision and Radiance class ships are going to be retired in the next 5 years or so. I don’t think the Voyager class ships will be far behind. 

We did back to back on Radiance this past July. Did whale watching in Juneau and Icy Strait. Both have the potential to be phenomenal. 

We saw a large pod(15+) of hump backs do bubble net feeding Juneau for about a hour. Saw a pod of orcas with young calves in Icy Strait.

On 12/30/2023 at 9:15 PM, PhoenixCruiser said:

No, that was discontinued after Covid, except for Seattle. 

Odyssey was doing it for select airlines on its New Years cruise.

Just now, wreckem2013 said:

 

On 1/2/2024 at 8:28 AM, sunonfire said:

It says on the Royal website one punch per espresso shot? Does anyone know how many espresso shots are in the caramel macchiato and the frappes?

Number of shots are based on size

1 shots is tall

2 shots is grande

2 shots for iced(they don’t have tall for iced)

6 minutes ago, Buffettphan1 said:

6 minutes ago, Buffettphan1 said:

sorry, Liberty

Those obstructed balconies on Liberty are most likely the aft balconies.