A RCI Newbie here...a few questions

[bahama97]

Hello,

My family & I have cruised Disney before, but this year, we plan on cruising RCI. Our plan is to take the 4 day Bahamas cruise on Monarch of the Seas, leaving out of Port Canaveral. I am a little confused (Okay a lot!) as to what food and beverage that is included with the price of the cruise. I see that you can get a soda/juice package so I assume those drinks are not included with the ticket. It seems like some meals are included and some are extra? If you don't buy the package, what do you drink an included meal? Can you bring your own soda/juice bottles on board?

 

Thanks for the help and any info you can give!

[dixieva]

Sodas are not included in the price of the cruise. Juice is free at breakfast in the buffet and also in the dining room (unless you want fresh squuzed orange juice-that's not free.)

 

Tea and coffee is free at all meals and is usually available someplace on the ship all day. You can also order a pot of coffee or tea from room service for the price of a tip to the person who delivers it.

 

You can bring on your own soda but I never do. I'm not a big soda drinker.

 

Oh and lemonade is usually available for free in the dining room or buffet.

 

All meals are included unless you decide to try a speciality resturant on board and that will be extra.

[bahama97]

Thank you so much for the info!

 

One more question...is there a set dining rotation that you follow?

[Aquahound]

Monarch does not have a specialty restaurant. All food on board is free. The only cost is a $3.95 charge for room service between 12 and 5 am.

[pltag]

One more question...is there a set dining rotation that you follow?

RCI does not have a dinner rotation like Disney. You will choose either early or late (main) seating for dinner. Depending on how young your kids are, you will probably want to chosse the early seting. You will have the same table and waiters in the main dining room every night for dinner.

 

RCI has also now introduced My Time Dining, which allows you to set your dinner time each day or just show up anytime you like. You might want to look into this, but for a 3-4 day cruise I'm thinking one of the 2 dinner seatings is probably going to work just fine.

 

Hope this helps, have a great cruise! :)

[PantherFan]

Iced tea is also free..

[d-e-h]

Iced tea is also free..

 

Milk as well, if you have a milk-drinking kiddo.

 

I'd say that you want to look at the drink packages offered and decide based on what you normally drink. We're wine, tea, water and milk (the kid) drinkers, so we've always purchased one of the wine packages for dinner and just drunk water or iced tea at lunch, juice at breakfast.

[cb at sea]

For the "soda package" you have to drink ALOT of soda for it to pay! You can buy cans of soda "a la carte", if you prefer. I think kid's packages run $4 pp pd +15% tip and adults are $7 + tip (fountain soda) Cans are $2.24 which included tip. Or, bring your own.

[createmem]

Now that our daughter is older, we buy the soda package for her, and I will confess, sometimes we send her up to the bar to get a soda for us - this might happen once or twice on a 7 day. Typically I drink water at home, and DH drinks ice tea, so not getting the soda package for us is no big deal, but we think it is worthwhile for DD, especially since she will be hanging in the teen areas with friends. If your kids are younger, I don't see much value in the soda package.