ladybugpug

No. Royal Caribbean didn't provide what they were paid for. Don't blame the victims.

Renee

Agreed. Some people have the attitude that God forbid anyone has a legitimate complaint about their favorite cruise line. I swear there were probably a select few on the Costa board who blamed the passengers on the Concordia for the ship going down.

More than one passenger verified that RC handled this situation really badly.

Ditto

LoL, ,my first thought also. My opinion is that whether it is your first cruise or your 50th cruise you you should be treated exactly the same as every other passenger.

Special lounges and other perks I completely understand as loyalty rewards but preferential treatment otherwise... no.

And I keep picturing that old, rich guy from Gilligan Island reruns.

I don't get the whole "loyal" to a cruse line. I look for price, ports, and dates. I check at least 3 lines and find the cruise that will work the best for my family. Of course I look at ships offered too to see what each one offers. But usually we are pretty stuck after looking at ports, dates, and prices so the choices of actual ship are slim. I liked the freestyle of NCL and thought we would hate having a set seating time. But then actually really enjoyed our 8pm seating on RCL. I couldn't care less about advancing levels for perks that seem pretty mediocre. My dream is a Viking cruise to Russia.

It's called supply and demand

Agreed. They know people will pay extra. We cruised last over last Christmas on Oasis. While it was a great cruise, I wouldn't cruise that same week again unless I really had to.

We only booked that week because it was the only week we could work around my son's grad school schedule.

They had a carol sing along on either Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. Besides that I didn't really notice any special Christmas events. Santa was there for the little ones but we never saw him.

We paid an outrageous amount for my group of 6 for a "special" Christmas Eve dinner in the Italian restaurant. While the dinner was nice and service excellent, it did not deserve the big ticket price in any way. Usual menu with some added champagne and some lobster tails. I think it would have been just as nice in the MDR.

This year we are going the week prior to Christmas and will be home for Christmas Eve. I like being home for Christmas!

She would be a laughing stock among her peers and subject to bullying and teasing.

I agree! Some posters are acting like this family was disembarking from the freaking Titanic.

Nice! Congrats. That's definitely an insurance worth looking into.

I couldn't even imagine putting a harness on an 8 year old. Unless the 8 year old had some type of intellectual disability or a severe behavior problem that caused him/her to have decreased awareness of danger. At what age do you stop?? Put a harness on a 10 year old, a 12 year old? When they get married lol?? There is no magic age of safety. Ludicrous. It's a parents job to teach their kids about danger and to also supervise their kids because kids will be kids. But accidents are going to happen sadly. A perfectly wonderful parent might get distracted and the unthinkable occurs.That doesn't mean we should infantilize kids and treat them like toddlers until middle school. By the age of 10 I let myself into an empty house after school took care of the dog, and started making dinner.

Travel is educational?

 

They learn as much outside of the classroom as inside?

 

Then travel is just as educational during school vacations. They don't have to miss school to have that travel experience or have that family time.

 

 

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Then don't take your kids out of school for family vacations. If I take my kids out of school for a family vacation then that is my right and decision as a parent and it effects you not in the least.

I definitely don't regret taking my kids out of school for family vacations. Now that my oldest is in grad school (year round program) and works in the pharmacy of the local hospital it is very difficult to plan around his schedule. Same with my older daughter in her second year of college. Her school breaks are pretty short and she works on campus part time.

I just saw my son and older daughter last night for the first time in weeks. We were finally all able to get together for Chinese food. We are a very close family, but once they leave the nest they get their own lives and responsibilities.

My youngest will miss a few days of school for our upcoming cruise the week before Christmas. That's the only time I could work it out for all 5 of us to go.

I've seen Cats on Broadway and loved it. Never saw it on the Oasis as I kept reading terrible reviews about people leaving half way through and no one in my family had an interest in seeing it. To each his own. My son and his girlfriend saw the aqua show and raved about it. My husband and I, and our teen daughters, saw it the following night and thought is was stupid. We all loved the ice show and saw it twice.

Yes, we have taken our kids out of school to cruise. Also for week long Disney vacations. They all are/were very good students and as long as we turned in the school vacation form (which we did) the school doesn't have a problem with it. Now if I had a child who was struggling with school and missed days would have caused added stress to the situation, I'm sure we would have planned around school breaks.

I agree that family time is as important as school time!! And let's be honest....cruises and Disney parks tend to be less crowded when school is in than during school breaks and summer vacation.

And lets not forget the great fun of checking in and out on the same day as the other 5600 people staying at your floating hotel. Scheduling flights to ensure that when you do show up your floating hotel will actually still be there, and making sure you keep an eye on the time while in ports of call for the same reason that you need to be diligent about scheduling flights.:D

Agree 100%.

I like both and can't really say I prefer one over the other. I can say that when I cruise the ports are my interest. While I enjoy time on the ship, if I couldn't get off I think I would get bored after more than a few days. I have no interest in poolside games or sitting at a bar for hours on end. I like to see new places. The shows in the evening are usually pretty good but besides the ice skating show on Oasis none of them are shows I would want to see again during the same sailing.

I haven't found cruise ship passengers to be anymore friendly than people anywhere else. I have encountered plenty of rude people on cruises including the two old bags who pushed my and my son's just made breakfast buffet plates filled with food and two steaming Starbuck's travel mugs of coffee aside to take our table when we were dumb enough to get up for juice. And then the one classy lady says "move your feet lose your seat" and then giggled like she was so clever when I told her the table was obviously taken. And they were not under 65. The was our first full day on board of our first ever cruise and I remember thinking that this is what we paid all this money for? Never again. But the rest of the cruise was great and with any vacation is what you make of it. Plenty of both lousy and great people anywhere.

I truly enjoyed the absence of children on the solarium on Oasis. I will be very disappointed if kids under 16 are in the Freedom Solarium this December. I am not a child hater. I had 3 of my own but my youngest is 17 and I like time away from little ones on occasion. Every parent thinks their kid is a precious precocious gem, forgetting how distracting or irritating OTHER peoples kids can be. They are often not that cute when they're not yours lol. I really hope RC keeps solariums kid free. I don't gamble so have zero interest in sitting in a casino and on beautiful cruise days I don't want to sit in a bar. I'm not diamond or any other special class of passenger so I don't have a horse in that particular race, but when the cruise lines keep relaxing the polices it just makes people push it even farther. Parent gets away with it in one area and then expects it in every venue.

NCL posts reviews of excursions, or at least they did a few years ago. I wish RC did. What sounds like a lot of fun on the website may prove disappointing in reality. We booked 3 excursions off of the Oasis in December. 2 were great but the third was horrible. Way too much packed into too short of a time span meant a long miserable day. My review would have read "up at 5am, sat on a water taxi for 45 minutes, sat on a bus for 30 minutes, stopped for a bathroom break (tourist trap in disguise) for a HALF HOUR, 30 minutes back on the bus, Tulum ruins for 45 minutes, back on the bus to go to an empty buffet (left hungry and thirsty), and then last but not least the beach break which consisted of exactly 15 minutes to "relax" on the beach, then a long bus and water taxi trip back to the ship. On my computer monitor this excursion sounded magical. In reality I would have preferred a root canal :'). Of course everything is subjective. But if I had read reviews explaining what actually occurred during this particular excursion I would have booked something else.

We enjoyed Labadee very much. We booked a snorkeling excursion but it was cancelled due to rough waters. We received an automatic refund. Take some ones if you want to tip your chair guy. And avoid avoid avoid the straw market up the hill. They behaved outrageously to my daughters and me. The straw market under the pavilion was perfectly fine.

We sailed Oasis in December for an 8 day cruise. My daughter is a vegetarian. There was a vegetarian option on the menu in the MDR each evening. She said a few were very good but most were pretty bleh. Breakfast in the WJ was fine as most breakfast items are already vegetarian. The menus on Oasis didn't seem overly vegetarian friendly. We booked 3 excursions through RC and they did all provide vegetarian options. When I booked the excursions I was reassured that RC excursions provide those options and, at least in our case, this turned out to be accurate.

We did a long weekend is Salem a few times for a road trip from PA. On our second visit we did a whale watching tour in Boston. Truly magical! I highly recommend to anyone visiting Boston. Also Salem is so much fun in October and just an hour away is the Lizzie Borden B and B for true crime buffs (like me) or ghost hunters (also like me).

I was on the Oasis in December. I saw shorts in the MDR. My son was one of the offenders. He was wearing cargo shorts and a nice shirt. I thought he looked fine and he is an adult and can pick his own clothing. Our waitstaff told him that the only night shorts would be a problem was formal night. I pulled on the same pair of khaki pants with a different blouse every evening and changed as soon as dinner was over.

My idea of vacation is wearing shorts and sandals. I wouldn't even consider packing a dress. I have to dress nicely for work EVERY SINGLE DAY. So I like a break. Dinner in the MDR is really not formal dress worthy IMO.

We are booked for the week before Christmas. I saw it mentioned somewhere (not sure where) that the 8pm dining progresses so slowly that it is next to impossible to make it to any of the evening entertainment. Anyone have this issue?

We were on Oasis this past Christmas. Spent the day on Labadee and dinner in the MDR later that evening. They did play Christmas carols during dinner. My kids are older so we didn't investigate Santa. There was a carol singalong either Christmas Eve or Christmas day. My husband and teen daughters said it was fun. My idea of Christmas day isn't being on a cruise ship but that's just how it worked out due to scheduling. We are cruising the week before Christmas this year. I think I'll like that better. I like to be home for Christmas.

I can't believe people get all up in arms over lanyards lol. I just bought a cute one with ID holder from Vera Bradley for my upcoming cruise. I think its cute as can be. :hearteyes:

I worked with a nurse a few years ago who kept calling them "lanards". I'm like what the hell is a lanard? :confused:

How close to the cruise date will they cancel reservations for a charter group? I certainly don't think it's all about me but for my family it is not that easy to just pick another date. With my son's graduate school schedule the few weeks around Christmas are the only times he can get away as it is a year round program. I would be extremely upset if our cruise was cancelled. We went the week of Christmas last year and are booked for the week just prior to Christmas this year. I guess we just need to hope for the best.

We went to Falmouth in December on Oasis. We booked a RC beach break type excursion. The beach was gorgeous and it included a buffet lunch, unlimited alcohol, and live entertainment. Everyone was very friendly; we didn't encounter anything scary. I didn't even realize Falmouth was an issue. We had more "scary" moments at Labadee and that's RC's private island!

My 23 year old son wore cargo shorts with a nice shirt to the main dining room every night but formal night and no one ever said a word. I did tell him that I was pretty sure shorts weren't supposed to be worn but he really didn't care what I thought lol.