lighthousemom

Hi, I am on the Transatlantic, and we are trying to organize a sailaway party. Can you please help by telling me which are the biggest outdoor bars? There are over 150 people interested in attending (!) so space is very important. Someone had suggested the Wipeout Bar, but it doesn't look very big on the deck plans. Since you guys have already experienced Harmony, what is your recommendation?

You can respond here or email me at lighthousemom at gmx dot com.

Thanks! Enjoy your cruise.

Any word on when Oasis 4 will be open for booking? Harmony was open about a year and a half out, and Oasis 4 is due in spring 2018....

Can't blame a girl for being excited!! :D

Updated 9/8/16

 

 

What Activity Manager have you come across? If you can find out how long the Activity Manager on board is remaining with the ship, it would be greatly appreciated…..EVERYONE’s help is needed. Thanks!

 

 

Possibly on Vacation: Cici, Tino Carillo, Anjazc, Kitty Xu,, Giovanni DiPasquale, Tino MJ Lopez (began vacation 5/15/16), Hugo Arenas, Belle O’brien (began vacation around 6/27), Cecy del Razo, Daniel Dornas (regular AM on Rhapsody when not on vaca), TT ALgan, Marvin Wilson, Jeremie Gugliemi, Mauricio Diaz, Margot Van Erck (vacation began on 8/31/16), Allison Currie, Elise Milo Stewart(vacation began 9/4/16 – going to Voyager after vacation)

I believe Tino Carillo and Tino MJ Lopez are actually one and the same! July 25-Aug 5 Tino (who was going by the name Tino Jackson - if you've ever seen his Michael Jackson moves, you can understand why) was the AM on Rhapsody. He is set to be the AM on Harmony TA in October! :) Absolutely loved his energy!

On a whim, I checked. All the new cruises are available with prices. I only checked the details for the January 28 South Pacific and NZ. There are few cabins available, but we were able to put a hold on 2 D1s while we figure out the details.

On the original cruise, we were paying $305 per night for a D6. For this sailing, D1s are $395/nt :eek:, D8s are $350/nt, and E1s are $347/nt. I'm not sure how RCI handles it if we change category. There are no D6s available as of now.

Happy shopping and obsessing everyone! :)

Just keep checking the following daily:

http://www.princess.com/find/search.do

I check it every day waiting for my Bucket List Cruise! :eek: :D

 

Just Mike

Thanks for that idea. I bookmarked it, and I've been checking every day.

Jan-May 2018 Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and South Pacific is now available.

Still waiting for Panama Canal and South America! :)

Singapore to Sydney 2017 Nov 23 is on sale(except the suites)

 

Sydney to Singapore is the one leaving on 20 Feb 2017. Now that cruise, I have no idea why. Maybe they are waiting for the people who were on the original sailing to decide first before releasing to the general public?

I believe all of the new Ovation itineraries in the extra month they are staying in AUS/NZ have been shut to the general public until the originally booked passengers have a chance to iron out their plans. We are trying to switch from the Jan 23 to the Jan 28 and we will be able to book our original cabin if it's done by April 28. TA said yesterday RCI told her they couldn't switch it over yet. Don't know if anyone else has been successful for the Jan 28 cruise.

5th April 2016

Dear Ovation of the Seas Guest,

As you may know Royal Caribbean International has today confirmed Australia’s very first new-build cruise ship, the ground-breaking US$1 billion Ovation of the Seas, will extend her maiden season down under with an extra four cruises, to meet the incredible demand from Australian travelers.

This unfortunately does mean that there will be changes to the 23rd January 2017 repositioning cruise from Sydney to Singapore that you currently have reserved. Whilst we can confirm the new departure date for this repositioning cruise will be 20th February 2017, we are currently in the final stages of confirming the new itinerary and therefore we are not yet ready to make any changes to your existing booking.

We would however, like to assure you that you will have the first opportunity to move to the new repositioning cruise – or an alternate cruise of your choice. Rest assured the new and amended voyage itineraries will not be made available for general sale until you have been accommodated.

We thank you for your patience whilst we finalise the details for the extended season and we will be in contact very soon to confirm the options available to you including the revised repositioning itinerary. We understand you will want to start making changes to your air and accommodation however we recommend no changes are made until we confirm the itineraries and are in contact with you to finalise your options.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this change to your cruise and we look forward to working with you to minimise the impact to your travel plans.

Sincerely yours,

Redeployments and Itinerary Changes Royal Caribbean International

Any idea when itineraries for this are usually released? Thanks!

2 New York (Cape Liberty)

00:00 16:00

3 At Sea

4 Boston

5 Portland, Maine

6 Bar Harbor

7 Saint John, New Brunswick *

8 At Sea

9 Halifax, Nova Scotia *

10 At Sea

11 New York (Cape Liberty)

06:00 00:00

There will be 4 cruises...in fall of 2017.

 

BILL

Is that info from the Eskimos? I don't see it on RCCLs site...

Yes, you get both the 30% discount and 70% of your C&A discount because of the order in qhich they apply the discounts. It took a call to the supervisor for me too.

What is the 70% of your C&A discount?? And is the 30% only in the US or also Europe?

Note for the Serenade Iceland cruise: Did put this on courtesy hold last night (accessible balcony) at the $6,500 price. Called the D+ desk just a few minutes ago as the "30% off every ship" wasn't showing. They took it off right away!

 

Looks like we are going to Iceland after all :cool:

That is so good to know! Woo hoo, we're booked too! :)

To put it into perspective - we did a 28 night TP from Ensenada to HNL to SYD in a JS last year on the Legend for just over half - and the south pacific islands have a little more "sex appeal" than Iceland.

 

Did put a hold on the Jewel Rome to SJU though. Well priced. Might make a nice B2B.

Do we know what happens to Jewel once she gets to SJU?

I'm highly anticipating the release of the 2017 summer Europe cruises, specifically in June. Our group wants to do a 9-12 day cruise that stops at Greece and Croatia, possibly Turkey. Since I see there are avid cruisers here, do you recommend a certain ship over another? I've been on Majesty, Serenade, Explorer, Oasis, and will be on Liberty in September. I prefer Voyager class size or larger. Also, would RCCL be a good choice for Europe or is there another cruise line with better ports and shore excursions that I should look into?

Don't hold your breath on Turkey. Almost every cruise line has cancelled stops in Turkey for this summer, and I don't see things getting better over here in the next year. I'm still waiting for RCCL to pull the plug on Rhapsody's stop in Kusadasi this July :(

Serenade seems to sail on a early northern TA from Copenhagen on August 26th 2017 that will head to Oslo and then most likely Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland and would seem to be repositioning for the Canada/NE mini-season from September 2017.

Now THAT is a thing of beauty!! :)

BTW, MADflyer, you are my new best friend with all of your wonderful information!

Humming the final jeopardy song...

Do you know something we don't, Karen?? You seem to be the most cruise-knowledgeable person I know, so I'm glad to see you on this board, too! Can't wait till they release the next schedules!!! :)

When Freedom leaves Port Canaveral next March 6th, Florida will be on EST. When she arrives at St Thomas, the island will be on AST. So if it is 12:00 on the ship, will it be 1:00 on the island? I'm trying to plan a private excursion and I keep confusing myself. :o Thanks. And will if be the same for St Maartin, also on AST?

I don't have an answer, but we have the same question for Allure on March 30!!:eek:

Does anyone know what time Howl at the Moon usually starts? I'm wondering how to plan meals around it, as this is something I'm really interested in!!

Movies take up a lot of storage aand the iPad does not have a lot on its hard drive. Better to put the movies on a flash drive and insert it into the USB. Just copy & paste from your computer to the flash drive.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought iPads don't have USB ports.....

I used to download tv shows to watch while I was at the gym. I used an app called (I think) DVIX. If you Google 'download movies to watch on ipad offline' you will find out your different options.

I am going solo for the first time ever this October. Also doing a B2B, and first time TA. I will start on the NCL Escape maiden voyage out of Hamburg (2 nights), and then jump ship in Southampton for Anthem of the Seas TA.

I am really looking forward to both cruises, and to meeting lots of new people!

I am so confused after reading the policy in detail. Regarding the 60 day rule, it states that Princess won't pay for conditions first presented or diagnosed in the 60 days before the Cancellation Fee Waiver is purchased. Let's assume I don't purchase the policy until final payment, which is 75 days before travel, and I've been healthy up till then. If a week after final payment I am diagnosed with something that prevents me from going on the cruise, then am I entitled to my 75% cash refund (100% since I am Platinum)? What if I cancel because all of a sudden it's announced that my niece is getting married the week of the cruise? Would that fall under the 75% of FCCs?

I guess the thing I don't understand about the 60 days is, if I was diagnosed with something serious 60 days before I even paid for the cruise, I would be canceling the cruise anyway.

Am I missing something here?

Good stuff! I bet for a better price than us Aussies as well?

 

The aussie site was actually only about $60 less, but the US travel agents generally offers better deals with OBC and drink packages....and price drops....

Good stuff! I bet for a better price than us Aussies as well?

 

I just booked the cabin I was wanting for the New Years Eve cruise.

 

Also I note the RCCL website here is still showing the warning at the bottom of the page that online bookings are not working?? Someone forgot to remove it I think.

 

UPDATE - I asked Royal via Facebook about the booking code & 13 minutes ago they replied we will get an email this morning regards that.

Actually, the US price was about $70 more than the AUD price, but we like booking conditions and perks that will be offered by our travel agent over here better!

I have just put a hold on the Repo back to Singapore! The RCC Aust site is currently unavailable for online bookings so I had to go through the U.S. site.

I'm currently on the Legend on the way to Darwin on the Singapore Repo, the future cruise desk yesterday insisted that the cruise wouldn't be available to book until Friday morning, disputed my emails from RCC as incorrect! I'm hoping that this morning I will be able to book with them the cabin that I have on-hold and get the onboard credit! So excited!

I had called RCI in the US today, and they told me nothing would be up for sale until August. Two hours later, I'm booked!

Just checked the website and the cruises are open for bookings now - I've put a hold on an inside cabin on the repo back to Singapore. I'm in Singapore right now after disembarking Quantum after the 3 nighter.....not a booze cruise by any means....but still a big schmozzle! The ship was beautiful and I look forward to a long stretch of sea days on Ovation to fully enjoy all that this class of ship has to offer!

Thanks for the info! We just booked a Sky Loft suite for the Sydney to Singapore! :)

Bonus for you is that the Aussie dollar is weak against the USD at the moment, so all fares quoted here will be about 25% cheaper for you!

 

There is debate about if we pay more through RCCL, I think your T/A's are the ones offering better prices because they can buy in bulk & offer OBC/discounts etc. We have a small population so bulk buying probably isn't practical over here & our T/A's offer no deals in most cases.

 

I think by August you will not have much if any choice of cabin.

 

Maybe book one tomorrow. Then in August if the US deal is better & cabins are available, cancel & rebook?:)

Certainly thinking about the cancel and rebook idea. I just checked prices between the Aus website and the US website for already existing Ovation cruises, and there is a significant price difference. Aus prices are about 50% more than the same cabins from the US website. :eek: This makes no sense to me!! That much difference can't be made up for in OBC and drink packages! I agree, by August, there won't be much left anyway.

Do you guys usually book online or via the call center? I'm debating which way to go tomorrow morning. The phone number I have is +61 800 754 500. Is that correct? Thanks!

Sky loft (Launch Price) for Sydney/Singapore on the 23rd January 2017, is $AU10,999pp.

 

Cheers

Di

Thanks!! I'm assuming that's per room, and not per person.... My sister and I are trying to decide if we should each get our own balcony room (what we usually do) or splurge a bit and get a sky loft.... Hmmm...