livinginyellow

We just got off of Wonder this past Friday and had such a disappointing issue with room 7193. We had an awful sewage smell on Day 2, which we mentioned to guest services. They came in and said they fixed it while we were out on excursion, which I believe they did, but there was a lot of air freshener over the smell. Once the air freshener was gone after dinnertime, the smell was back. We mentioned it again the next day, stayed out of our room while they fixed it, and then came back again to air freshener over a smell. We had my family come and smell the room too, and they not only noticed it in our room, but also up and down the hall. We said something again, and they supposedly came again that night. The next morning, the smell was back and we had to be moved down the hall to another room. I walked past our old room once or twice and noticed people holding their nose and waving their hands in front of their face - it was definitely not just us.

My husband is convinced it was a plumbing issue, but I think it had something to do with the dishwashing room that was just down the hall. Either way, it was DIGUSTING and noticeably gone once we moved to the other room. 

Just a warning for anyone who has a booking on that side of the ship/in that hall.

9 hours ago, crazyank said:

exactly right

Not exactly right. They thoroughly checked ours over last September – I would be fearful to take a wrong test and be denied boarding. Esp. because the person checking us in told us if you come with the wrong documentation, and they find out, you are left responsible for the price, not RCI.

22 hours ago, latebuyer said:

Is sushi making still offered on serenade? Also i thought there was some sort of mystery show offered on rccl. Is it still offered?

Mystery show, not that I am aware of anymore. Sushi making will probably be up to the ship/capacity/what is going on with COVID stuff. 

I've done a handful of holidays on different cruise lines over the years and, honestly, its all up to the cruise line and even the individual ship's entertainment staff. When we did Fourth of July on Princess, they had a huge blowout party, but when we did Thanksgiving on RCI, there was almost nothing (except for a Thanksgiving dinner in the MDR). I echo everyone else who is saying to bring something if you want to ensure that there is a celebration - then, if there is anything onboard, its just icing on the cake 🙂

5 hours ago, crazyank said:

not everywhere,  we got Moderna with exactly 3 weeks between shots

It looks like you are in Germany - in the U.S., we're required to wait four weeks between Moderna shots.

FYI - if you are not fully vaccinated, but fully paid for your cruise (i.e. get turned away at the cruise port) then the cost is on you. We saw a woman get turned away at our cruse in September (she was unvaccinated, which I still don't get how she didn't know because RCI emailed us almost every day about being vaccinated if you're over 12) and mentioned it to a boarding agent. The boarding agent said that there were absolutely no refunds in that case, as RCI did not consider being unvaccinated/not fully vaccinated as a reason to get a refund...

For anyone else having this problem - I called the C&A desk and they were able to give me the discount price - got our beverage package down to ~$52/day!

25 minutes ago, sailing bears said:

When you look at the Royal Caribbean website the prices you see are already discounted.  Note the pink arrow that says "Price shown reflects your discount".

Just looked and I absolutely do not have a a pink arrow 😞

Has anyone else had this happen? We are booked on Wonder in April, and I am receiving maybe 3-4 emails a week with onboard discounts - one of which is buy one get one half off for drink packages. When I go into my RCL account to purchase, however, that discounted price is not shown. What's the best way to redeem these offers?

4 hours ago, Chai_Tea_4_Me said:

We have an Alaskan cruise booked for next June.  We have 3 people booked in a large balcony room (myself, my husband, and our 15 year old son).  According to the deck key, the room we have can hold up to four people.  A friend of mine thinks she would like to come on this cruise with us, which would be great.  I was thinking about booking my son in her room with her, in order for her to not have to pay the single supplement.  It is slightly more expensive to book him in her inside room than our balcony (a price difference she would cover), but significantly less expensive than her paying for the entire inside room. 

 

I had a couple concerns about this.  The first is would they allow my husband and I to keep this same room that allows up to four, even if we are only two people?  Would they allow me to book my son in with my friend?  Would they care that my son would then likely stay in our room?  We're hoping to book across the hall from each other, so we would likely have the same room steward (from a tip perspective). 

 

I appreciate any insight anyone can give us!

 

Thank you!

We actually were going to do something similar for a NextCruise reservation we wanted to make onboard our cruise last week. I suggested it and the agent said he would not only be able to not allow it, but he said if they found out, they would charge us extra $$ on our onboard accounts to accommodate. For what, not sure, but he was pretty serious about it.

They switched over to paper straws ONLY on our sailing last week. Unfortunately, because its a ship on the water, I think swizzle sticks (and plastic straws) are a thing of the past.

On 8/30/2021 at 3:12 PM, thjeepster said:

Hello. My fiancé and I are getting married on the odyssey in 49 more days!  It will be out to sea on a cruising day by the captain. 
 

we were supposed to get married on independence last April 2020 but due to the pandemic we had to change the date 7 times!!!

We did love and marriage on our wedding day in our wedding attire. Super fun, and very much something you can only do on a cruise ship.

2 hours ago, grandgeezer said:

We had poor service there three years ago, that trumps your five years. That makes your point invalid.

LOL not the same logic, but OK. I was just saying that it's ok that people have different opinions....Anyways I hope that people aren't put-off by the negative reviews and people in this thread and do what is that makes THEM comfortable. If you enjoy it, then enjoy it! It's your vacation after all 🙂

On 9/5/2021 at 10:40 AM, ChipCarlton said:

Hi Everyone,

 

Thinking about taking a last minute cruise on FotS.  Playmakers looks awesome.  We are in port at Nassau on Sunday (first week of NFL).  We are big NFL fans...specifically Tennessee Titans (1pm game vs Cardinals) and Cleveland Browns (4:25 game vs Chiefs).  

 

What are the chances we will get these local market games at Playmakers if we stay on the ship at port?  

You'll get it. We watched the Bucs game at Playmakers on Oasis last week. I asked about whether it would get busy during "American Football" time to the staff and they said yes - it was their first priority of what hey were going to be showing on Sundays from now on.

2 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Can the crew get off and enjoy the day also?

It depends on in the individual ship's policies, but maybe not. I would bet they are super wary about COVID on these ships with a ghost crew, as one case would take everyone out. Also, I asked a bunch of staff members if they got off when we were there and got an almost unanimous "no!" - many of them said that, since they are usually working on the island, they don't view it as a place that would be fun to hang out (the 'don't play where you work' kind of philosophy).

Probably to get supplies. When we were there last week, there were a bunch of ships that you could see from Oasis while docked at Coco Cay. I asked a staff member if they were going to dock here too and he said they were all there waiting to be put back into service. He said they stayed close to Coco Cay since no one else is using the ocean space there (therefore no one would tell them to move) and they could come in if need be for supplies, etc. 

32 minutes ago, grandgeezer said:

The point is you should get better service at the current passenger level. The cruise line can't change crewing level week to week, so the staff it at what they think will be the most passengers. Since they have to feed them and pay them they might as well put them to work. Don't think that's the new norm. When/if they ever, get to max passengers and max crew, the service level will change dramatically.

Disagree. We had similar service five years ago. Therefore, in my opinion, your point is invalid. Thank you for offering it.

1 hour ago, grandgeezer said:

See what happens when they have a full ship rather than less than 50% capacity and overstaffed dining/specialty restaurants because they can't adjust staffing levels cruise to cruise.

But....we had a similar experience on Independence DURING that time. Also its unfair to say that - it negates the experience we DID have. So I think, regardless of capacity, it's a great choice 🙂

OMG We ate at Chops last week on Oasis. Hadn't eaten there since we got engaged on Indy in Feb. 2016. It was everything we remembered - and more. The food was FANTASTIC and the best part was the service. Our server kept reminding us that we were in a specialty restaurant and to use it all up - we weren't going to do a salad, but he got us one anyways just to try, and we were so stuffed we didn't want to do dessert, only some ice cream. He got us two slices of some cake to go anyways. It's that kind of thoughtfulness that make a restaurant like that worth it. Sure, it's expensive, but both the food and the experience are not one you are going to get on land. 

2 hours ago, nelblu said:

No masks wearing on island. Only wore masks when to get food. Which was a semi enclosed area. 
Some people take serious precautions

Yes, no masks on the island, but you need one to get on/off the ship. We then kept it in our bag, but there is still a chance it could get wet since we were on the beach and in the pool all day. I never stated they were required, but it is not a bad thing to have 'serious precautions' these days, so please make sure you aren't poking fun at people who have different precaution levels than you, as that is not very polite.

3 hours ago, nelblu said:

Too bad that they did not allow you earlier than the scheduled time.  
 

I had a couple balcony and got 2 cloth masks. Also got cloth masks as replacements at both GS and Starbucks kiosks. All white with RCL logo. Never noticed paper or plastic masks.  

To be very clear - the white and blue RCL logo ones were NOT cloth (I am referring to the ones that we also received in the rooms, which were the same ones that staff members were wearing all throughout the ship). If we want to get really specific, they were polypropylene, which is a type of plastic.

28 minutes ago, luckyinpa said:

the aqua show isnt avaliable to book on my app for my oct. cruise. does this mean it's sold out or they hold back some reservations for onboard . i'm assuming once you get to the dock that counts as on board and you can make reservations then?

 

actually no entertainment is available to book. is this the norm?

Actually, a lot of entertainment wasn't available to book ASAP - some of it didn't appear in the app until the day before it was on (i.e. comedy, etc.) I wouldn't worry about it and just keep a close eye on your app once onboard.

(Also on dock didn't count for me - I tried to make a reservation in the terminal and it didn't really work until I was on the ship). Don't worry, there aren't too many offerings right now, so a lot of offerings repeated - towards the end,  it was super easy to make reservations, so you will see everything you want! 

8 hours ago, MisterBill99 said:

Did they enforce the scheduled check-in time in the terminal? I've read reports from people sailing from other ports that they were able to arrive early and were allowed to board. I have 2pm and can board an hour early since I'm in a suite, but even earlier would be nice.

 

Also, were they still giving out free cloth masks? I'm pretty sure they did on the test cruse, but wondering about the pay sailings.

 

Thanks.

Contrary to other responses, we had a noon check-in time and they wouldn't even let us get in line at 11:59. It wasn't a big deal to us, as we had gotten there before 11 and had just sat in the car on our phones. Once noon rolled around though, we were through the check-in process and onboard in a matter of maybe 20 minutes! 

And yes we had two packaged in our room waiting for arrival - they were the paper/plastic kind though (think the blue ones that they wear at the doctor's office - just, these ones are RCL branded). I think the cloth ones are for suites. They had them around the ship though - I forgot to put mine on when going to the bathroom in the MDR and they handed me one right away when I tried to go back in. We also asked a stateroom attendant for some extras and used those on Coco Cay so our normal ones didn't get wet.

15 hours ago, luckyinpa said:

how was cococay? empty? worth paying for anything extra like a bed or cabana? or empty enough that it didnt matter. 

I also wanna note that not one of the overwater cabanas were being used. Many were talking about how much of a shame it was, since we all would have paid (less) to use them - and obviously how overpriced they were (I think they were around $2k a day) for this cruise. 

5 hours ago, jerseyk said:

Can someone please take a pic of the Scotch drink menu, I would like to see what I can get for under $13😀

Thank You!

Walter

I don't have the paper menu in front of me (all restaurants have one if you request it, but you are pushed towards the app first for cleanliness).  So here are screenshot from the app for Globe and Atlas

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

Shhh, don't say that; the folks that think O class never move enough to cause that may be in for a rude awakening.

Lol i havent had this on an O class before. Im hoping its a one-off thing!