dagunny

Since they are all favorites, the most interesting one was the "Evacuation Cruise" for Hurricane Irma.  Royal cancelled our B2B and let us stay on as we had no power. They evacuated all their employees from Miami.  Mass load onto the ship where they stayed in the lounges and theater until being assigned rooms.  They had from 9-11:30 am to board and we beat feet to hide below Cuba until it passed.  Tales told here http://www.cimorelli.com/cruises/2017-evacuation-cruise/2017-evacuation-cruise.html

 

Cuba on the Empress would be our second most interesting cruise.

They probably hired the same programmers. It also blocks VPNs. App and Tapatalk is broke as well. If it ain't broke don't fix it. As a Director of an IT organization I would never have let this go thru. Always run parallel systems and let the users flush it out as beta testers. Stupidity rules. Go back to something that works.

Thanks everyone for coming along. I wanted to share the top post counts before the site shut downs Tuesday.

 

413 OP posts, 124,000 views. Contributors make this site work, we all can't lurk. :halo:

 

John&LaLa - 414

Milwaukee Eight - 77

grapau27 - 71

Andy C - 35

A&L_Ont - 25

frank808 - 20

dagunny - 19

Biker19 - 14

cruising grandma - 14

reallyitsmema - 13

Host Clarea - 13

MrFunInTheSun - 12

beachnative - 11

Life is Good Cruising - 10

suesnake2002 - 10

Ourusualbeach - 10

Hey John,

Did you do this thru rose colored glasses?

[emoji16][emoji16][emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]

I liked the colors.....

 

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Just off our first and last President’s Cruise. We were in a suite. We chose to pay dearly for it.

 

Tried to enjoy the Suite Lounge ( perks we paid for) and actually had PC cruisers tell us to get out of the chairs we were sitting in because they were “their seats” because that’s where they always sit. It was like sitting in the elderly people’s pew at church. Entitled rude behavior all week.

 

We watched an elderly woman scrape all the desserts off the trays in the suite lounge into a to go container. I did utter “seriously??” under my breath at which point she said F you to me. All righty then. Don’t think my grandmother has ever uttered that word in public but whatever. She really wanted all those desserts I guess.

 

Never again will we pay the price of a small car to experience such bad behavior and to be treated like dirt by fellow passengers. Staff was amazing.

 

We were there on a much needed vacation. We were there to have fun. A few bad apples did spoil the whole bunch.

 

We did meet two very nice PC at dinner one night but that was it. The SL was a total nightmare - never again.

 

Cruise number 21 will probably be on a different line just to see if the grass is greener.

 

 

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If that happened to me I, even as a Pinnacle, would take a picture of the person with my phone and go directly to the Guest Services Manager and inform them the Concierges are not doing their job and make a formal complaint. Have your friends do the same. They will pull the person aside and give them the riot act and a warning. Multiple occurrances and they will get tossed off the ship. I have personally seen that happen. Complaining on CC does no good but taking formal action does. Concierges work for GSMs. They keep a profile of guests so enough complaints and they could get banned. Being complacent and taking no action gets no where. As stated, write, not email, Bayley and one of his Executive Assistants will contact you via phone. It works as I personally have experience doing this.

 

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Have seen it, really tacky. :o And that man was very rude to the crew members also. They are have just recently made it to actual Pinnacle.

I hope you're not referring to my triangle pin and me as I go way above for the crew and make all the flag buttons you see them wearing.

 

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The triangle Pinnacle pin I designed makes a lovely necklace for the ladies so they don't have to wear a magnet on their clothes. My wife's is embellished with Swarovski crystals thanks to a fellow Marine. If I'm aboard, I give these to guests who make Pinnacle on our cruise. I think RCCL should give our a temporary pin as it is an accomplishment to make Pinnacle. See designs above for "awaiting pin" or "Finally" or something to that effect. Maybe Congrats et al. I'll be making the Pineapple Award to give to crew that go over and above. Like Napoleon, a piece of cloth goes a long way, or in this case a pin.

Not a knockoff - as the pin clearly stated - Half Pinnacle.

 

Ya mean things like these? Yup!

On this cruise, Suites didn’t have priority or reserved seating in the theater for Michael Bolton or at Labadee for Billy Ocean.

 

We chose not to see the other normal shows so I can’t speak to seating for them.

 

We were denied access to the balcony area for Michael Bolton as it was reserved for Pinnacles but it worked out better for us as there was plenty of good seats on main floor. We had to be Diamond or better to enter.

 

Many of the events were BOA Royal Credit Card sponsored and required notation on one’s SeaPass to gain access. I heard some complaining about this regardless of Status, Suite/Pinnacles/Diamond.

 

We haven’t booked next years 50th Anniversary Cruise yet. It has more to do with the price than our experience. If the price drops like it did for this years cruise, we probably will book it.

 

We met so many friends from last years cruise and made plenty of new ones.

 

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You may want to book a room for the 50th. If you don't go it's only $200 lost. We watched price gouging on 2019 Serenade eastbound TA go crazy to $18k for a balcony. We booked late and got one of the last kinda reasonable rooms. Once people realize its the 50th it will fill up. It's about $2500 for two for a balcony now. We like the balcony much better than JS and have had GS and above to get to Pinnacle but cost per value is not there any more IMO.

 

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dagunny

 

I was stalking you all week until John told me you were not on this cruise. Looked just like you. They must have really thought I was stupid. Lol

 

 

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Another good looking Marine with long hair? :D Hope you enjoyed the chaos. We're chillin in a VRBO awaiting flight to Barcelona for Costa and Symphony then Serenade. Busy 2 months.

Hey John,

 

Thanks for the hands-on reporting.

 

 

If I had done buttons and magnets for the cruise I might have done something like this...:D. This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands.

 

Anyone going on the Symphony TA or the following Serenade, I already have done buttons and magnets. The colors print out much better than they display below.

 

 

If you see me on the ship, just ask. I'm bringing a couple hundred to give out gratis. I'm not doing the nice brass pins because of the snafu on the Mariner.

 

 

I've made some for the Progressive Trivia and regular Trivia winner buttons as well - so if you want one - get your game up. Lots of sea days.

Here is the hat and letter. I guess it is from VISA.

 

Fireworks are after, so we may leave early to watch from our deluxe balcony.

 

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I would have at least put the ship name, ports, and dates on the magnet....... their design team needs some work.[emoji4] But freebies are just that.

 

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This won't end well.

 

 

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Like the Marine Bear magnet!

 

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So for those of you who live on ships and travel a lot - what is the water temperature like at Labadee in December?

There is an online link to temperatures. Unfortunately at happy hour with no PC that has link shortcut. Google it.

 

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Another thing to investigate is St Brendan Isle to obtain Florida residency. No state income tax. Also a mail drop.

 

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I hope our cruising paths cross soon. We have a lot in common as we are semi homeless also by choice.

 

Very long story for us but we are at our timeshares 44 or so weeks of the year. We stay mostly at timeshares travelling and hotel stays using reward points when timsehares don't work or are unavailable. Then on cruises for about 6 to 8 weeks. We stay at our home here for less than 4 weeks out of the year. Would love to swap stories and exchange ideas.

 

Been doing the almost full time timeshareing for about a decade. The cruising just the past 4 years.

 

 

 

 

 

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We just got a storage unit directly across from Thrifty car rental at the front gate to Port Everglades. Keep a small roller bag with Caribbean clothes so we can swap after TA and dump jeans. Runs appx $50 monthly. Can get Thrifty shuttle to rentals and cross street, get clothes, and off we go to AirBnB or hotel. Life is great!

 

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Family and I thoroughly enjoyed our 14 nights on seaside this past july. We enjoyed it so much, that we booked 4 more sailings with MSC. The yacht club deluxe is about the same size as a junior suite on royal. Their royal suite is bigger than a grand suite but smaller than an owners suite. Balcony is fairly large with a hot tub.

 

For the comparable price of a GS on oasis class, you could saila two weeks in a yacht club deluxe. Might have to make do with a smaller stateroom. The top sail lounge and yc dining room are so much bigger and better than the suite lounge/coastal kitchen setup. YC pool area is head and shoulders above what royal has for their suites.

 

Deluxe dink package and the pampering you get in lounge from butlers is the cherry on top.

 

We will still cruise royal as royal still does things well. But now it will take us twice as long to get to P as we will divide our time between the two lines.

 

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We got a suite on Costa for two at $2800 on the sailing before Symphony'sTA. New ports as well. Includes a drink package. In fact we have been on Costa twice and really like the atmosphere. They are also the only cruise line that gave us a free upgrade from inside to Balcony. We are looking at options since now we're homeless and live on ships and AirBnBs. It is definitely competitive. We'll be looking at MSC as well.

 

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You sir are one of the kind ones. You gave my boys pins in the elevator. I recall you wearing very short shorts like Magnum P.I.

 

I enjoy Macallan and did in fact order it with little ice. I had a good banter with the bartenders and tipped them very handsomely. They loved our boys. Really an outstanding crew. One of them even told me to shut up and sit down which I did. Another cruiser explained that I could get them fired for talking to me that way. They had to explain to our fellow cruiser that it was our own personal banter and that they could speak to me that way.

 

We changed out Symphony cruise back to Harmony because of the crew in SL/CK.

 

Looking forward to the day when the only people I see in SL/CK are people who actually paid for a suite. It’s coming soon.

 

 

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Actually, we talked to Millie, who runs Crown and Anchor, at our luncheon and she stated no changes are coming. That's from the horses mouth, so I would believe that. She also told us that on the Mariner crossing. Many rumors are generated and many take the bait, but this is fact, and a whole theater heard it.

 

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I think my magnets are nicer [emoji16]

 

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An FYI about the Pubkic Storage we talked about. Public storage is directly across from Thrifty to store spare clothes easily reached on turn around day. We also found where the crew shuttle is back to ship at Southport shopping area.

 

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You are always insightful. Are you a fellow member of The Bar?

 

 

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I'm a member of the BAR. The 20 round magazine kind [emoji1787]

 

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I’ve never had a Suite price that low???

 

 

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We had a Royal Suite for $1,800ish in 2017. We have had many GS for $4k and under. We're on our free Pinnacle cruise and it cost us $400 total for a JS. Have to look for the bargains.

 

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That was $50k. Bad keyboard.

 

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Soon you all won't have all the access you love to brag about. Soon! At least to the SL and CK that is.

Do you really think that RCCL will ignore Pinnacles that spend, in my case, $50 plus annually, with people that spend $4k for a suite. That would call for a President/CEO replacement.

 

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It was wonderful today. We were the only ones most of the morning.

Probably to hot up there

 

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That should not happen, it's passive near field RFID

 

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Maybe its my magnetic personality [emoji6]

 

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