RR price question

[JPerry]

We are getting ready to book our reception with RR. Can you bargain with them or are they dead set on their prices?

We were just looking over the wedding enhancements and we have 30 people going so we have to pay another $150 for an extra wedding coordinator, and we are only over by 5 people :mad: . Also the D.J. is $375 per hour and for 2 hours that is very expensive.

 

I think I read on here somewhere that you can bargain with the photographer.....does anyone know if you can?

 

Just trying to save as much as we can.

[Saraloo]

I am not sure but i would be curious to hear what you find out... Good luck, oh by the way what ship are you getting married on?

[sas80]

I am fairly sure that Royal Romance/The Wedding Experience is determined to take as much of your money as possible....

 

But you can always ask!

[TravelGoddess]

Royal Romance has a set price for everything. There is no way to haggle any prices with them.

[JPerry]

I am not sure but i would be curious to hear what you find out... Good luck, oh by the way what ship are you getting married on?

 

Monarch of the Seas

[JPerry]

What about the photography? Can you get them to go down in price?

[cruiseknotter]

DJ is $375/hr? That's expensive! I'm paying a pianist for $300/hr for 2 hrs and thought this is expensive. What ship are you on? I'm doing on Celebrity, and a couple of things I tried to keep the price down:

(1) I didn't make any "special" order such as by sending photos. TWE asked me to send photos, so I collected several photos of bouquet, cake, decorations, etc, but I figure TWE may charge "upgrade" fees for that, so I didn't send any of them.

(2) Bouquet: What I did instead was change the colors of the basic bouquet (white rose to pink) and a cake (white to light green). No extra charge. I sent a photo of my bridesmaid's dress and asked to put the same color ribon for the bouquet.

(3) Cake: TWE first said 2 tier cake costs min $6/ppX35 pp (although I only have 25 pp). So I decided on 1 tier $4/ppX25 PP. Then later TWE let me pay for 25 ppl's portion for a 2 tier by putting a small cake that comes w/the package on top.

TWE said they can add fondant decoration on the cake for no extra charge. I sent a photo of my cake topper and requested simple decoration in white (cake itself is light green).

(4) Buffet for non-alcoholic: I made sure all the minor guests didn't get charged for alcoholic buffet price. I myself don't drink any alcohol, so I asked if I can have non-alcoholic price, surprisingly, TWE was okay with that.

2 most expensive items in my wedding are a canopy rental for a deck wedding and 2 hr pianist. Excluding these 2 things, I think the price is very reasonable.

[dcdiva]

Doubt you will have any luck getting them to drop the cost of the extra coordinator. Especially if you have non-sailing guests. I think it might actually be the cruise line that wants the extra coordinator to ensure that the non-sailing guests get on and off the ship when they are supposed to. ALL 60 of my guests were sailing, and I still could not talk them down.

 

I was able to save be ensuring that I didn't have to pay for liquor for the kids or food for the three kids under age 3. We also cut alot of extras that didn't matter to us like special cake, flowers or decorations. We did pay for an extra hour of photography and it was the best money we spent. But we only purchased the photos we liked. That's probably the best way to save on the photos.

[I2BZ2W8]

I booked my photography directly with http://www.image.com and it was cheaper than going through RR. I know they recently changed their prices but luckily I had a previous quote that they honored. Also instead of the DJ I hear a lot people are using an IPOD...more money for pictures! Here is the newest price list http://www.image.com/pdf/quin_english.pdf. Good luck!

[JPerry]

I havent talked with RR much yet so im not sure what to expect. Do they help you with setting up things the way you want it or do you just tell them what you want like its McDonalds? I hope they will kinda guide me through what i need because im sure i will forget some of it. :confused:

[briseis23]

$375 an hour is ridiculous! I am sailing through Carnival and I think we were told $80/hr for a DJ. However, we went through the group reservations department since we are getting married on the island through a private coordinator. Maybe you can try that?

[sas80]

I havent talked with RR much yet so im not sure what to expect. Do they help you with setting up things the way you want it or do you just tell them what you want like its McDonalds? I hope they will kinda guide me through what i need because im sure i will forget some of it. :confused:

 

Dream on sister!

 

You can pretty much count on the fact that the RR/TWE wedding coordinators are not going to know a thing about how you want your wedding to be "set up". The RR/TWE coordinators are there for the basics... Assembling directing your wedding guests and doing a brief "walk through" before your wedding (like right before you walk down the aisle)

 

Dont believe RR/TWE either when they tell you "sure, sure, we will pass along that info". They may, very well, in factr, pass it along (dont count on it) but that doesnt mean the coordinators on the other end are going to pay the tiniest bit of attention to it!

 

Cover your own arse and write everything down. Elect close family members to be responsible for certain items you want to happen. If you want a table set up for your programs, ask your brother to be in charge of hunting one down. If you want rose petals spread down the aisle where you will be walking, ask your mother to do that for you.

 

If you want anything extra from RR/TWE assume that you will have to arrange/handle it yourself. If you aren't going to pay for it there is a good chance they will tell you "sure" and wont follow through. They don't have to follow through, they aren't contractually bound....

[StlGal]

The only thing that TWE/RR will do is RAISE your prices. Everytime we got a new coordinator (4 times before we finally canceled) they had to always requote everything (apparently lost the notes from the previous coordinator, even though we were told that they had put everything in their system... grrrr) and everytime the prices came back higher & higher.

 

So glad we canceled with them & went with a private island coordinator!

 

Good luck with your negotiations with TWE/RR, unfortunatelly you're going to need it.

[sas80]

The only thing that TWE/RR will do is RAISE your prices. Everytime we got a new coordinator (4 times before we finally canceled) they had to always requote everything (apparently lost the notes from the previous coordinator, even though we were told that they had put everything in their system... grrrr) and everytime the prices came back higher & higher.

 

So glad we canceled with them & went with a private island coordinator!

 

Good luck with your negotiations with TWE/RR, unfortunately you're going to need it.

 

<100% sarcasm>

 

Oh! You sound like such a Bridezilla!!!

 

</100% sarcasm>

 

;)