Why is Royal's behind the scenes so expensive?

[BillOh]

 

They gave us a lanyard, some chocolate-dipped strawberries and a glass of champagne or mimosa.

 

On 5/6 on Oasis we got the same except no strawberries, champagne or mimosa :D

[BillOh]

Can't speak for RCI specifically, but most of the lines have a welfare fund that provides holiday parties for the crew, subsidizes the crew store, buys new things for crew lounges like gaming systems, and contests for prizes like spa treatments, meals at specialty restaurants, and may even run to financial help for crew family problems.

 

That is just how our otherwise worthless guide described it.

[Turtles06]

We did the Behind the Scenes tour on the Anthem TA last fall. Frankly, I think $150 is a crazy price for this, but we had NO ports on the TA, so my spouse and I decided to treat this expense like a shore excursion. :)

 

I actually love this stuff, and was glad I did it. I've been on a number of bridges, and Anthem's was the most high tech I've ever seen. But the tour is definitely not anything I feel the need to do again (especially for those prices).

 

As for whether they gave us anything -- they gave us the crappiest, cheapest cap you could imagine. It said something like Anthem of the Seas Inaugural Season on it, but the cap was so shallow you could not wear it, even if you could get past its ugly crappiness.

[BillOh]

 

Next they giver you "free stuff" that is included in the price at the end.

 

They let you sample some "free" food.

 

They give you a "free" drink in the staff bar.

 

None of this happened on Oasis 5/6/16.

[Pratique]

None of this happened on Oasis 5/6/16.

 

My tour was on Allure last month. Since this was my first All Access Tour I have no others to compare it to. From reading the various posts here it sounds like there is some inconsistency from ship to ship and perhaps tour to tour. Maybe this is due to lack of quality control, or maybe as a result of operational considerations (e.g., which areas/crew are available on a given morning to host the tour), or maybe they are intentionally mixing it up so you get a different experience on different sailings (within the three hours allotted), or some combination of these things. For example, our tour did not include the Aqua Theater as you mentioned in your review on the other thread but we did get to go out onto the helipad.

 

As far as the tour guide, ours also seemed bored, but she was very clear from the start that her primary job was to get us from one place to another and that she was relying on the various crew members to give us the details, and they did an excellent job. When we engaged our guide with questions she was very happy to answer as best she could, but otherwise she just kept an eye on us to make sure no one strayed off or got left behind. I did not see her apparent boredom as any shortcoming of the tour. I think it depends on the person, some of them are used to customer-facing roles and are better and more enthusiastic at it then those who usually work behind the scenes and don't routinely interact with the guests.

[BillOh]

Pratique - That is probably a fairly accurate and astute post.

 

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

Edited May 18, 2016 by BillOh

[BillOh]

it sounds like there is some inconsistency from ship to ship and perhaps tour to tour. .

 

Yes, I'm about to address that in my review I have been working on. I definitely saw some difference tour to tour.

[BourkeBlogs]

We did the tour on the Anthem TA last year.

 

We really enjoyed it, although it seemed expensive for what it was. I think it was meant to be around 3 1/2 hours although it only lasted about 2 3/4. We got a rubbish baseball cap give to us, and in the kitchen we did get some rather nice mini cakes and pro secco.

 

I took quite a few pics of the tour and details of what it includes on here

[Cindy]

My husband and I have done three...on the Carnival Conquest, Mariner, and Oasis. You can poke fun at Carnival all you want, but that was far and away the best tour with the most "stuff" included...several photos, chocolate covered strawberries, a couple breaks with snacks and beverages during the tour, caps, etc. Most of what I've learned about how ships operate behind the scenes came from that first tour where our guide explained everything in great detail and spent as much time as we wanted answering questions.

 

The tour on the Mariner was almost as good. We didn't get all the "stuff" but we could take pictures which Carnival didn't allow. Our guide was pretty good and answered everybody's questions. It was an interesting tour, and I thought it was worth the $95/person we paid.

 

We decided to do the tour on the Oasis just because of the size of the ship. We thought surely since the ship was so much bigger and the tour was so much more expensive we would see more and do more. I thought it was a complete waste of time and money. Our guide was terrible -- disinterested and really didn't answer questions, and the tour was even shorter than advertised. It didn't help that we had to stand around for about 20 minutes before we started while all the people who couldn't follow directions went back to change their clothes/shoes.

 

In my experience, "special events" like this aren't where RCI shines. I've been to Chef's Tables on several different lines, and even though our Royal Caribbean (Serenade) Chef's Table was a lot of fun with great food, we missed the table photos, commemorative menus, flowers, and autographed cook books we got at our Chef's Tables on Princess and Carnival. Royal charges for the event, but they don't seem to throw in any of the little touches that only cost them pennies but are appreciated by the participants. From the little I've seen, Celebrity is the same way. We recently did a fantastic Progressive Wine Pairing dinner on the Equinox, but the only "souvenir" was a sloppily copied menu printed on regular 8.5 X 11 copier paper.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Cindy

[caribbean sailor]

Because people keep paying it.

 

I was going to say the same thing.why should they charge less,if people are willing to pay it.:D

[Cindy]

None of this happened on Oasis 5/6/16.

 

Our All-Access tour on the Oasis was far and away the worst (and the most expensive!) of the three we've done.:(

[TLex]

Our All-Access tour on the Oasis was far and away the worst (and the most expensive!) of the three we've done.:(

 

Then maybe you should come on Allure!!! :D

 

BTW, your Roll Call is missing you....

 

VR,

 

T Lex

[copnlpn2]

I've done three All-Access Tours, twice on the same ship. The first one I did cost $100, but the tours became more popular so the price went up. The first one I did was on the Navigator and it was terrific...a sit-down lunch break and lots of very nice gifts when we completed the tour. In all, the tour lasted about 3 to 3.5 hours.

 

The second and third tours were on the Freedom, both $150 each. That second one nearly soured me on ever doing another one. We hardly visited any areas at all, were given dried out pastries and a beverage (I swear it was Kool-Ade!) and the tour only lasted a couple hours. Gifts at the end consisted of a bag, a wrinkled ball cap and a RCCL luggage tag.

 

I was beyond disappointed with that second tour and wrote to RCCL to express my disappointment. I was told the tour idea was new and had no standardization from one ship to another...which I also objected to because of the price. I also complained about the fact that the tour on Freedom was less than 2 hours long and absolutely not worth the jump from $100 to $150. I told RCCL I would never recommend the tour to another cruiser if the one on the Freedom was the standard tour. RCCL told me each ship offering the tour were informally competing with each other to provide the best tour and obviously Freedom didn't go all out like the Navigator crew had.

 

I did bite the bullet and do another All-Access Tour later on the Freedom and felt my $150 was well-spent. The tour started mid-morning and lasted into mid-afternoon. We got to do what I really wanted all along - to really get a good look at areas normally unseen by passengers. We must have spent at least a half hour in the engineering department and spent a reasonably amount of time in the laundry, the mechanics section, the area where the anchors are drawn in (correct term?), the recycling center, I-95 and the crew recreational areas, etc. Although I didn't take the tour for the food or gifts, we had a nice light lunch with beverages mid-tour and received a nice bag of gifts at the end.

 

The pictures I took during that third All-Access Tour are among my favorites ever taken on a cruise! The first photo shows the anchor chain's size, the second photo was taken in the engineering department, and the last photo shows the crew bar on I-95. (Sorry, I've never been good at posting pix here on CC)

[Ourusualbeach]

We lucked out with the one and only tour that we did. It was Christmas 2012 and we were on the Monarch out of Port Canaveral. John Denton was the HD and they had a fantastic crew. The Monarch was offering the tours for $75pp and I gues they had some left to sell because they did a BOGO on them. The four of us did the tour for $150 total. Sit down lunch with a few goodies to take home.

[Gingee]

Wow What a difference in tours.

[copnlpn2]

Gingee,

 

 

That's what I complained to RCCL about...the lack of uniformity from one ship to another, but all for the same price nowadays...

[FLSteve11]

As Ken mentioned, because people continue to pay for it.

 

Also, once you reach Diamond Plus level, you get free tours of the bridge, galley, and backstage of the theater. Not sure if it has changed lately, but the theater tour used to start at Diamond. Some ships offer that to all.

 

Oasis and Allure were the two ships we did NOT get a backstage tour on when Diamond (Oasis) or D+ (Allure). Got one on every other ship, and Celebrity (as Elite) We did get the bridge and galley tour with Allure though.

[Gingee]

At this point I am in no hurry to do the tour.