ajtaylor29

I'm copying a post i made earlier today on RC's page, same problems happening there too:

We've been having issues for months, with both RC and Celebrity sites. I haven't had to reset my password, but i do have to log in EVERY time i go to their website (it used to keep me logged in).

My husband has the problem some others have described, where he clicks on something within the cruise planning and it kicks him out; he logs back in over and over and gets frustrated and just gives up?!

I've reported to RC and don't get any response.

I've also noticed this problem: we use a password manager, and normally you can click on the link in the PW manager site and it will automatically take you to the website AND auto log you in. But, it doesn't work anymore for RC/Celebrity. I wrote to my PW manager help desk to ask them about it, they quickly responded to say they're aware of the problem and are working to fix it on their end....but it's definitely an issue on RC's end.

I have NO idea what this means (i am definitely not a techy!) but for what it's worth, here is their response:

"You're correct, and we've previously identified issues with autofilling on the website. The page is using shadow-root, and that's causing the issue here"

SO, it looks like until RC addresses these issues and fixes their configuration, we're all going to continue to have problems....sigh....

there's another thread going with people talking about all the issues they're having with RC and Celebrity websites. You are not alone!!!

We've been having issues for months, with both RC and Celebrity sites. I haven't had to reset my password, but i do have to log in EVERY time i go to their website (it used to keep me logged in).

My husband has the problem some others have described, where he clicks on something within the cruise planning and it kicks him out; he logs back in over and over and gets frustrated and just gives up?!

I've reported to RC and don't get any response.

I've also noticed this problem: we use a password manager, and normally you can click on the link in the PW manager site and it will automatically take you to the website AND auto log you in. But, it doesn't work anymore for RC/Celebrity. I wrote to my PW manager help desk to ask them about it, they quickly responded to say they're aware of the problem and are working to fix it on their end....but it's definitely an issue on RC's end.

I have NO idea what this means (i am definitely not a techy!) but for what it's worth, here is their response:

"You're correct, and we've previously identified issues with autofilling on the website. The page is using shadow-root, and that's causing the issue here"

SO, it looks like until RC addresses these issues and fixes their configuration, we're all going to continue to have problems....sigh....

We've eaten at Wonderland twice.

my personal opinion: the venue on Symphony is beautiful,the 2 story space with a wall of glass looking out over the ship! it adds to the whole dining experience! We loved the cocktails, loved our server, enjoyed most of the dishes we tried (some more than others, of course!)

But, on Odyssey, the restaurant space is not the same, and to me it felt like just another restaurant. Dark, low ceiling, just nothing really memorable about it. Not good, not bad. But, it also contributed to us feeling, well, just not as magical and fun as we did when we dined on Symphony.

Would be dine at Wonderland again? Sure, if we are travelling with others who have never been for sure. But, if it's just me and hubby, probably not. There are so many other dining choices that i like better on the Oasis class ships.

One tip, tho - you can always go into the bar and have a drink without dining there! We did that on last Symphony cruise, and we all loved the cocktails!

29 minutes ago, ajtaylor29 said:

Hmmm, i guess i need to do some research and figure out what's going on with these upcharges? At some point, if all the specialty restaurants have upcharges....then what's the point of an "unlimited" dining package?!?

We don't always get UDP, but if on an older ship that doesn't have Coastal Kitchen we usually do....

Coming back to comment on my own dumb post. (i can't figure out how to delete or i'd do that?!?)

I don't think anything has changed, i must have read wrong....

I understand that there has always been an upcharge to dine at Teppenyaki (hibachi) grille. We've paid it before and i don't have a problem with that - it's an entertaining meal/event that we enjoy when we go but we don't go every cruise!

The other specialty restaurants are still all included. I do understand that with both Izumi sushi and Playmakers there is a food credit allowed per day. We've eaten at both venues multiple times and i don't think we've ever exceeded the daily amount!

Hmmm, i guess i need to do some research and figure out what's going on with these upcharges? At some point, if all the specialty restaurants have upcharges....then what's the point of an "unlimited" dining package?!?

We don't always get UDP, but if on an older ship that doesn't have Coastal Kitchen we usually do....

20 hours ago, Tom47 said:

We are on the Best of Scandinavia, May 9-22, 25.  There is a roll call for our cruise if you are interested.   See   

 

thank you! yes, i will definitely join the group!

We were also torn between these 2 cruises and finally decided to do both!! 

Our first Celebrity cruise(s), our first B2B. SO excited!

And glad we have a year to plan as there are a LOT of ports so a lot of decisions to figure out!

2 hours ago, D. B. said:

I was just on Eclipse a few weeks ago. Around the bottom of South America.

  I did see a few indications of wear that should be addressed but overall the ship (and my Concierge cabin) were fine.

  I would sail on Eclipse tomorrow with no worries.

I love the M and S class ships as they are less crowded and less Glitzy than newer ships.

 

Thanks! I love to hear this!

We've sailed on older RC and Carnival ships, also the new, bright shiny RC ships. Love them all! 

While i do enjoy some of the variety on the bigger ships, we also seldom take advantage of all the bells and whistles (no slides, flowriders, go-carts needed for us!)

We tend to take the new big ships when the itinerary doesn't really matter (what? Cozumel again you say? Ok Sure!!! Let's go cruising!) But, when we sail for a special itinerary like this one, what's most important is a good cabin, great crew and a few good dining options. I'm sure we're going to have a great time!

2 minutes ago, Cruise a holic said:

Great choices!  Since we started sailing in suites, we haven't been back to balcony cabins.  We love the suite lounge and  Coastal kitchen and on the E class ships the suite deck. We aren't wealthy but are getting on in years.  Our children are all married with families of their own and it is their responsibility to provide for their families.  We a spending their inheritance one cruise at a time!

Totally agree! We always start out saying we'll be fine in a nice balcony cabin....then slowly talk ourselves into the suite because well - the suite life is so wonderful! Glad at this stage in life that we can afford to pamper ourselves a bit!

I'm hoping that Luminae is as good as Coastal Kitchen, because we're perfectly happy eating most of our meals in Coastal. We will usually have one or 2 specialty meals mixed in, and i'm sure on this 3-1/2 week cruise we'll want to do that a few times. Which are your favorite restaurants? I'm really looking forward to trying something new, since i've eaten in all the Royal restaurants multiple times!!

3 hours ago, Cruise a holic said:

I am sure you will love it!  Hope that you are in a sky suite or above.  The perks are wonderful!  Enjoy your cruise.

yes, we are splurging on this cruise since we're on for so long! 1st leg in a Celebrity suite, 2nd leg in a Sunset Sky Suite!

Hubby and i love cruising, have enjoyed every cruise and cruiseline (some more than others, of course!) and in recent years we've been pretty loyal to Royal. We started on Carnival years ago, then shifted to Royal, with 1 on HAL and 1 on Crystal sprinkled in. However, I've been wanting to branch out and try some new lines, particularly Celebrity (i know, sister co. to Royal) and eventually NCL, maybe Virgin, maybe MSC, etc. Hopefully we'll get to spend our golden years cruising all over the world! (we're 60-something now).

So, we started looking at cruises for next year in Northern Europe, and came across a B2B opportunity on the Eclipse: Best of Scandanavia (13 nights), then Iceland, Ireland and Scotland (13 nights). They both sounded so amazing that we couldn't pick so we decided to do both!  It's may/June 2025. We've never booked that far out either so the waiting will be something new for us.

I'm a little nervous as we've never sailed this long, and it's a new ship/new cruiseline for us so i hope we like it!!!

I know it's an older ship, and we're fine with that. But, for those who have sailed on Eclipse recently please let me know your thoughts! I believe i read that Eclipse will be in dry-dock next March, so when we board in May we'll hopefully have some new carpet!

14 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

What kind of special attention do you get? I am Platinum on CCL and Diamond Plus on RCI, but I don’t feel like I get special attention from either cruise line based on my loyalty level. To be fair, I have not cruised on CCL since 2019 and I have no plans to cruise on CCL again, so I can’t address how CCL currently treats Platinums and Diamonds. 

First to make a correction - I'm platinum on CCL, not Diamond. 🙂

I guess really it's not much....most of our feel goods come from the suite life!

For being diamond on RC, i get those 4 free drinks per day. I get to use the suite lounge for coffee and pastries.

um.....what else do i get?!? I guess not much, a few discounts maybe.

Book a suite if you can. 🙂

We cruise both cruiselines but i admit i'm partial to Royal at this point. We still book Carnival mainly for a great itinerary, i'm diamond on both so i guess i get a little "special attention" on both although it's not really much?!?

If we're booking for a specific itinerary, those seem to be older, smaller ships, which is fine with us as we're cruising for the ports. If we're just cruising to get on a ship to go anywhere, we do try and book newer, bigger ships on Royal. I love them all. 🙂

We tend to cruise in suites these days which definitely does give us those special feels like first on/first off which is nice....a few free drinks here and there and maybe a free bag of laundry!

I'm sure you will enjoy Odyssey, i think she's a beautiful ship!

5 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:

TLDR

I hear ya. The only people who will bother to read it are vp players and that's who I posted it for.

For everybody else....a boring post with tmi. 🤣

My husband and I both having issues with RC's website, and have been on and off for months. for me, i have to log in every time i go to their website (even tho i've selected "keep me logged in". For him, whenever he clicks "plan my cruise" it logs him out. That's been going on for a while....

So, first of all - i'm pretty loyal to Royal! And still am after last weeks cruise. But this was one of the worst casino at sea experiences i've had so i'm sharing with others for information purposes. It won't prevent me from sailing with RC again (already have 3 more booked) but I will definitely hesitate to sail on Navigator again.

My hubby and I sail several times a year, we're big video poker players, and spend a lot of our free time in the casino. We always research each ship before sailing and when we watched youtube videos of the Navigator we saw a whole wall of VP machines (supposedly taken less than a year ago) so we felt good knowing we'd have plenty of machines to play!

Once on board, however - we discovered they had rearranged the machines, and now all (8) VP machines were crammed in a corner, back to back, very close together. If you were against the wall, and needed to get "out", at least 2 people had to stand up and move so you could squeeze by. It was pretty uncomfortable for sure.

So, the casino solved the problem in this way: starting day 2, 1 of the machines messed up so they shut it down. Next day, another one. Next day, another one. By day 4 we only have 5 (of the 8 machines) working. Less crowded.....but of course, lots of frustrated players who can't get a machine. I saw no attempts by them to fix any of these machines.

Day 6, another machine messes up, but they reboot it and it appears to be fine so they leave it online. Then, on day 7 i'm playing on this messed up/not messed up machine, when i see 4 Aces deal across the screen. That's $1600 and a handpay! But i don't even have time to nudge my hubby and tell him before the screen goes black and "call attendant" pops up.

Long story short - the machine lost all data regarding this handpay. They spent time looking in the logs and found zero data, no record of it, no error messages or anything that would give them any hard proof that it happened. Therefore, they would not pay me the $1600. (Only later did i wonder - why didn't they look at the cameras?? there was one right over the machine. Maybe they don't work either....??)

The staff was very "nice" to me in dealing with this, and apologetic that they could simply not pay without any proof of it to go by. . I actually understand why their policy mandates this (in theory, i guess we could all scream for payments of non-existent hands, if we're cheats....which i definitely am not and they knew that but still....). They did come back and give me $200 free play

My biggest complaint was that the machine had messed up the day before, almost exactly what happened to me. The difference there was, when they rebooted the machine the "lost" handpay popped up, so they paid it. And, kept the machine in play. My argument was that it was their fault for having a machine on the floor that they KNEW was having issues, yet they let us continue to play it. (i asked them to shut it off after my fiasco so it wouldn't happen to anyone else, which they did). I also told the Casino manager that i felt bad for those VP players boarding the next day, because they would have only 4 VP machines working?!

So, for those boarding Navigator any time soon, just beware of the video poker situation.

I will also mention that last year, we sailed on Explorer and had the exact same "machines crammed in a corner" scenario. However, that sailing was in Europe, with family, so i spent a lot less time in there. And, there weren't 4 broken machines....it was crowded but at least we could play!!

As i've seen others post about, Labadee is VERY removed from the populated areas of Haiti (something like a 7 hour drive from Port-au-Prince??) so the likelihood of there being trouble is probably pretty slim.

However - maybe part of the consideration for cancelling these excursions might be that some of the locals who normally staff these excursions are not available right now?? Maybe their country is in the middle of a civil war and they don't have time to take us jet skiing???

I think everybody should enjoy their beach day, swim, eat the food, sit int the cabanas, tip the locals?!?! Be happy for a nice day at the beach instead of worrying and/or complaining that you can't go swim with pigs and therefore RC must be trying to steal your hard earned dollars.

Many of the islands we all enjoy in the Caribbean are unsettled and deal with poverty, unrest, political struggles. They usually hide this from us but sometimes it rears it's head.

We all (most?) can go home to our nice warm beds. They will live with it.

We sailed last October on Explorer. On returning to Ravenna, we took the RC shuttle to the airport (to wave our kids home!) then we grabbed a taxi in to town where we stayed for another couple of days. Loved Bologna!

I don't remember exact times, but there were several buses so i think they left as they filled up. I would recommend the RC bus transfer to get you to the airport, then taxi over to the train station?

It sounds like the train to Bologna may be really crowded and uncomfortable; the bus was comfortable and easy.

I second other comments that you should try to do private excursions in the med if you can. Taking the ship excursions will involve a busload of people, which is slower and harder to get around and see the sites. You spend valuable time loading and unloading the bus! We've been several times now and almost always book private excursions. We feel like we get to see more and beat the crowds, especially if you're headed to a tourist area.

BTW, you might try looking on the ports of call boards here for advise of others who are doing this same route. I always find great tips and advise there! Also, look for a roll call for your sailing?

On 3/5/2024 at 10:08 AM, ajtaylor29 said:

Which is important to remember because the time in ports will be different (Aruba and Curacao) so if you've booked private excursions you need to make sure you coordinate the local time vs. ship time!

I just came back to add - once we shift to daylight savings time this weekend...the ship time may be the same as local time now?!?

Why can't we just keep time the same?!?! It's so confusing.... 🙂

11 minutes ago, leisuretraveler223 said:

 

As a general rule of thumb, the ship will stay on ships time if local time moves ahead, but will adjust if local time moves back. That way if someone leaves the ship and starts looking at the incorrect time, they will think it's LATER than it is and will be back earlier.  Ships are much more likely to adjust their time on a western itinerary, so  no one making the same mistake will think they have an extra hour and get back to the ship late.

This makes sense! I had always heard that it was the captains decision that's why it varies from ship to ship. Don't know why it would be his/her decision but that's what i've heard?!? Aruba/Curacao - they WERE an hour ahead....once we realized that we did have to contact our excursion company to adjust our arrival time with them.

We were on Symphony the end of January! He waws NOT our room steward, thankfully!

3 minutes ago, Bead Pirate said:

 

We stayed on EST the entire cruise...

Which is important to remember because the time in ports will be different (Aruba and Curacao) so if you've booked private excursions you need to make sure you coordinate the local time vs. ship time!

4 minutes ago, crusin1112 said:

Glad to hear you had fun!  Going next month on Symphony to Aruba, Curacao and Labadee.  Cant wait!  It will be my first time in Aruba and Curacao.  How was the aqua show (Hiro i believe) and Hairspray? 

We just did this itinerary in January and had a great time! I'm not always a big fan of the shows, but i loved Hiro and Hairspray!! We also saw 1 comedy show late night, and the ice show, enjoyed them both!