Price increase of Behind the Scenes tour and dining packages on Edge

[hcat]

We plan to book the theater tour on our next EDGE  cruise

The full access tour was well worth it..very professional !

[Bo1953]

1 hour ago, MisterBill99 said:

So we're back from our cruises and wanted to mention that the Behind the Scenes tour was excellent. I spoke to the Shore Excursions person onboard about the high online pricing and he said that they had complained to corporate about it. I'm pretty sure he said that they were charging $129 for it so if the price is too high online, wait and book it on board. Also, they added extra tours that were not originally available for booking. I changed to one of the new times and only had 7 people (the list said 11 but 4 were no-shows). The original tour time an hour later had 20+ people on it.

 

I also did the Backstage Access Tour in the theater because I was so impressed with the technology there. It was only $89 when I booked it the week before the cruise and i still had some non-refundable OBC to use. It was well worth it because it was much more thorough than the old Elite theater tour (which is now just a Q&A on Edge). We even got to ride one of the elevator platforms up to the stage! 

 

Bottom line is that I highly recommend both tours!

Thank you for your input as I Am considering the Behind The Scenes tour..

Does anyone know or have experienced a sale of this tour during the flash sales?

 

Thank you again and bon voyage

[vtcruising]

2 hours ago, Bo1953 said:

Thank you for your input as I Am considering the Behind The Scenes tour..

Does anyone know or have experienced a sale of this tour during the flash sales?

 

Thank you again and bon voyage

I'm pretty sure I purchased ours during a flash sale. We paid $99 per person. It was certainly worth it! Here is a link to the description and pictures from the tour from my live thread (seems so long ago) 😉

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2609353-living-on-the-edge-with-vtcruising-a-live-review/?do=findComment&comment=56307245

 

Edited February 13, 2019 by vtcruising

[MisterBill99]

42 minutes ago, vtcruising said:

I'm pretty sure I purchased ours during a flash sale. We paid $99 per person. It was certainly worth it! Here is a link to the description and pictures from the tour from my live thread (seems so long ago) 😉

 

 

You probably just purchased it before they raised the price! That's what I paid as well and it was regular price at the time.

[Bo1953]

7 hours ago, vtcruising said:

I'm pretty sure I purchased ours during a flash sale. We paid $99 per person. It was certainly worth it! Here is a link to the description and pictures from the tour from my live thread (seems so long ago) 😉

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2609353-living-on-the-edge-with-vtcruising-a-live-review/?do=findComment&comment=56307245

 

v - thank you very much....

 

bon voyage

[vtcruising]

7 hours ago, MisterBill99 said:

 

You probably just purchased it before they raised the price! That's what I paid as well and it was regular price at the time.

You are right.  I looked back and I got it for the early price and then went the cost went up, I was happy that I had gotten a good deal. 🙂

[hcat]

I think we paid  $ 119...  and after that it went higher for new res.  Our group was lim to around 20....

 

Do you know the name of your guide?

We had a great  guide from Rome who works in the Excursion Dept. ..can't recall his name but he was very knowledgeable and personable.  As we were disembaking, we saw him escorting a post cruise tour group off the ship.

 

We were very satisfied with the tour.  

[MisterBill99]

58 minutes ago, hcat said:

 

Do you know the name of your guide?

We had a great  guide from Rome who works in the Excursion Dept. ..can't recall his name but he was very knowledgeable and personable.  As we were disembaking, we saw him escorting a post cruise tour group off the ship.

 

We were very satisfied with the tour.  

 

Our guide was Eduardo from Excursions.

 

When we did the backstage tour, the manager of Excursions joined us but the tour was given by the woman who ran the theater. He just came along to learn stuff. I was able to find out how they made it rain and how those rolling boxes of LED lights used in the first show worked. Plus we got up to the platform above the stage where they connect to the flying harnesses and also got to see the crew bar on deck 6 in the front of the ship. They also have a smoking section in front of that (with all sort of green stuff which I don't think you can see from passenger areas (at least I never noticed it). I had been wondering where a bunch of the dancers were heading one night when I saw them get off the elevator on deck 6.

Edited February 13, 2019 by MisterBill99

[vtcruising]

58 minutes ago, hcat said:

I think we paid  $ 119...  and after that it went higher for new res.  Our group was lim to around 20....

 

Do you know the name of your guide?

We had a great  guide from Rome who works in the Excursion Dept. ..can't recall his name but he was very knowledgeable and personable.  As we were disembaking, we saw him escorting a post cruise tour group off the ship.

 

We were very satisfied with the tour.  

We had a great guide from the Excursion Dept - she was American, from the Boston area, I think. She gave us a little inside info on working on a ship, which made it even more interesting. 🙂

 

[vtcruising]

Here are a few more pictures I found when looking for pictures of the guide:

Crew Bar/Coffee/Sodas/Snacks:

 

Bridge Art:

 

View out of Port side of Bridge:

 

 

I liked this view of the water below (they said it might be used to help with docking):

 

 

Captain's Wheel and Chair:

 

Comfy Seats on the Bridge:

 

It was fun to see what they were watching in the control room:

 

This is from the Bridge (? called the Safety or Security Room) - they can zero in on one cabin at any time and get information about temp, window opened/closed, if someone is inside, etc. (the following pictures were from a Bridge tour we were invited to on our Jan cruise):

 

They also can look at whole decks at one time and keep an eye on a variety of things in real time:

 

The Magic Carpet Control:

 

Starboard View with View of MC from Bridge:

 

This was the Captain doing his morning announcements:

And Damian doing his:

 

[MisterBill99]

1 hour ago, vtcruising said:

Here are a few more pictures I found when looking for pictures of the guide:

 

Comfy Seats on the Bridge:

 

 

 

The Magic Carpet Control:

 

 

 

The captain's daughter was playing in the comfy seat area when we were on our tour.

 

Regarding the second picture, that's the Captain's cabin next to the bridge. I asked if he had an IV and he said that he did. But I wonder if his cabin is the 2 IV's plus the regular balcony, or if it ends before the balcony?

[vtcruising]

7 minutes ago, MisterBill99 said:

 

The captain's daughter was playing in the comfy seat area when we were on our tour.

 

Regarding the second picture, that's the Captain's cabin next to the bridge. I asked if he had an IV and he said that he did. But I wonder if his cabin is the 2 IV's plus the regular balcony, or if it ends before the balcony?

I wondered if this was the door to the Captain's cabin? It was on the right just before entering the Bridge. Do you know?

 

 

 

[MisterBill99]

8 minutes ago, vtcruising said:

I wondered if this was the door to the Captain's cabin? It was on the right just before entering the Bridge. Do you know?

 

Sorry, we entered and exited the bridge on the other (port) side so I was not able to look (or ask). But I would certainly expect it to be the last door before you got to the bridge.

 

I also noticed that there were some rooms (offices presumably) in the area between the port and starboard aisles after leaving the bridge. I overheard what appeared to be an HR discussion :).

Edited February 13, 2019 by MisterBill99