Only one guests name has to stay on the reservation. If they happen to get sick and miss the sailing nothing will happen and their taxes and fees will be refunded.
Royal absolutely does still offer group rates to TA's including a group amenity based in the sailing but most people choose the $50 OBC as well as an early booking bonus of $50 for booking directly into a group more than 6 months in advance (this is not combinable with the C&A balcony discount)
All your agent needs to do is log onto cruising power and they can view the group rates and create their own group.
Wow.
Glad everything turned out okay but that high a bill surprised me for 2 reasons.
1. I have seen them waive nearly all bills where there is any chance it was due to something caused by them
2. That amount is huge compared to what I have seen some bills. Vikki's was around $100 for a visit for a perforated ear drum and an antibiotic on our last cruise. I realize yours was more serious but 17x....wow.
Thank goodness for insurance
Typically the earliest is 6:45 or 7:00. There won't be anything earlier as all 3 restaurants are used for early seating. Once those people leave is when MTD starts.
If true all that will do is to cause more people to show up at the port without having checked in, slowing things down.
Given that it is the weekend, and we all \know Royals IT track record over the weekend I would say this is a glitch, I feel that something as big as this would have warranted an announcement.