TrojanUSC

Royal is not responsible for the hurricane. They're not responsible for people not bringing enough medication to cover the unexpected. They're already doing a hell of lot giving free credits / refunds / OBC where possible. They're a business and they're not going to give every penny back to the consumer.

No offense but charging people $147 to see a doctor, who is already on staff, in order to obtain live saving medicine is a completely unnecessary profit-making move. I'd understand the normal fee for typical cruise-related illnesses or injuries, but it should be waved or a special set period of consultation should be arranged for those in need of medicine.

As for the poster trying to obtain some, Costa Maya is pretty baron. It's not like Cozumel.

I'm on the ship and I don't want this to come off as not caring about the current terrible event going on. But, we booked Eastern. Switched to Western. Totally okay with that. Cancelled Labadee. No choice. Extended no charge. My flight was cancelled so no charge to rebook. 2 Cozumel stops. 1 costa maya. It's a Mexico cruise. I don't know what should be offered because I haven't been in this situation before but it should be something. Our beverage packages aren't being extended for the additional days unless we pay at 50% off. I feel like that should have been a given. Just my 2 cents.

 

 

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I'm on Allure and I'm not sure what you're expecting. Free food and lodging for three extra days. That's a heck of a lot better than them dropping you off in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow with squalls, flight cancellations and no hotel availability thanks to the west coast people fleeing. If you didn't want the extension you had every right to leave in Jamaica as two of my friends did or Cozumel Monday.

Do think the drink package should be extended for free though.

On Allure now - anyone have any idea if Miami takes a hit will this effect the cell service and Voom? The crew on board seems unclear whether the facilities in Miramar are required for this technology to function. Obviously just hoping to keep in touch with family back in Florida, as much as they can on their end.

On Allure now and I'm a bit worried that if Miami takes a hit with Irma the Voom/Cellular at Sea service will go down, as I think much of that technology is based in Miramar. Obviously a trivial concern but would very much like to keep in contact with family in Florida as the storm passes, as much as they can on their end.

On Allure now. Heard RCI is offering all their land-based employees from Miami who will be effected spots on one of the ships with cancelled voyages to ensure they are out of harm's way.

Thanks for the info on M life.

 

Does anyone know what Diamond Plus on Royal equals in M Life program???

 

We are going to Vegas and will visit the M Life desk once we get there.

 

We have also be playing MY Vegas and collecting free points to be used for buy one get a free buffet at some casinos.

 

Thanks again.

 

Sue

Could be wrong but I don't think your Crown & Anchor status has any effect on Mlife, as one is based off of simply nights sailed while the other is based on money spent.

If you sign up for Mlife you will get some perks when you cruise for Royal but, again, you will lose out on some perks but these could be made up if you plan to visit an Mlife property somewhat often.

Does anyone have the info on how to join M Life (Vegas)

 

Thanks Sue

You must visit an MGM Resorts property and sign up at the MLife desk. If you play tables, they can sign up directly.

Note that you can't double dip with the benefits, from what I understand. Meaning your play can't count toward Mlife and Club Royale. If you want perks (comps, free staterooms, etc) with Royal, you can't sail as an MLife player. Likewise, if you sail as a Club Royale player, you can't get rated for MLife.

Unless there is an MGM Resorts property near to your home that you would frequent or visit more often than when you cruise, it may not be wise to sail as an MLife player.

Does anyone know what ports RCL are keeping their Oasis ship at? If they are not heading back this weekend, where will they be?

 

It would be ironic if one ended up in Galveston.

The current sailings for Oasis-class ships have just been extended.

They are really pushing this meteorologist, on Allure the captain mentioned him twice and plugged his Twitter. The whole handling of this has been odd, when they announced via a tweet two days ago Labadee was cancelled but didn't tell the guests until an hour ago. For that matter, nobody working on board even mentioned the storm until an hour ago. It's felt like the elephant in the room since day 1.

That surf only connection is almost untenable in 2017. Loading images is a challenge, let alone any sort of video. It's good for text only email and mobile messaging.

We are on Allure now and it feels a bit like the elephant in the room no one is talking about. The captain hasn't even acknowledged the hurricane since we departed. Everyone was expecting some kind of "we are aware of this and will be sure to keep you safe" type of announcement during the muster drill announcements and there was nothing. Today is the same. Just silence.

We've heard they had close to 1000 cancellations and no shows due to the storm, so it's possible this is a business decision to avoid mass disembarkation in Cozumel but it's not the best way to handle it.

I can guarantee that whatever they serve in Sorrentos is probably not actually "cheese," but can't guarantee that it is dairy free. Terrible pizza.

Yup, just hoping for fun people and a good DJ. It has been rough on my last couple of Royal sailings.

 

 

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Yeah, Harmony was tough last time I was there. I find Allure to be a bit younger, perhaps the cost is a bit lower.

Nothing is worse than when I sailed out of Bayonne. The "Music Hall" had nothing but a couple families in it dancing until two am with little kids doing the electric slide. Not one other fun group besides us.

Fingers crossed for Harmony in a few weeks. 🤞🏼

 

 

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Harmony has The Attic which is a fun space. Essentially Blaze but a little more open of a dance floor.

I'm on Allure Sept 3 Sailing. We've sailed through hurricanes with RC before, and it's no fun! Both times they assured us we would stay out of the path, and both times we were in it. Even scarier on ship with limited speed!

Due respect, you may have sailed on the outskirts of a hurricane but there is no way the cruise line would take a ship through a storm anywhere close to this size. It would likely not make it. Anthem hit a storm that was a fraction of this and that made the national news for how awful it was.

When I sailed Quantum from Bayonne, they had one WJ station open all night long. It was nice and something I'd been long wanting. However, our group was the only people we saw in there the whole week, other than a few crew members. While it was a very quiet sailing, it did seem like a waste of food and because so few people were taking advantage, the quality was worse than the usual sub-par quality from WJ.

Margaritaville or the jerk chicken place attached to it can be nice change of paces from cruise food but other than that Falmouth is not so fun.

I really hope you meant tobasco and not tobacco......

 

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Oops definitely Tabasco!

Trojan, your wing comment had me laughing. As for the luggage have you sailed from PE since March? If so how long it took you luggage to get to your cabin and was it waiting for you or did it still take a while? We sailed in March and the entire luggage drop off was a cluster ____. We had one bag arrive just before muster and 2 were after sail away.

We sailed in July and it required me to be really forceful by reiterating to every porter that came near "Star Class, right?" By doing so, someone was finally assigned to take the bags up directly via the guest security checkpoint. In this case, they beat us up to the suite. They had an RCI employee a clipboard last time checking Star Class guests in and radioing to the genies. This seemed to help smooth things out a bit. My previous sailings you were kind of on your own unless you had pre-arranged a time with your genie and even then it was 50/50 they were out there.

As far as the wings, it was a mess. The options on the fleet-wide room service menu are "BBQ, Buffalo or Asian." We asked for buffalo. They showed up with BBQ. We asked for buffalo. They apologized saying they were out but the chef would make new sauce in the morning. The next day we ordered buffalo wings and they made a big deal about how excited they were for us to try their delicious buffalo sauce! Alas, it was BBQ sauce with tons of red pepper flakes in it. Someone errantly assumed the only difference between buffalo and BBQ was spice level. Then we explained it to them the next day and they made the wings plain, with a side of tobacco that had a pad of unmelted butter floating in it. The whole thing was a mess. It happened on both Oasis and Allure. Just embarrassing.

Just thought I'd throw this one out there, anyone tired of doing the pre-cruise survey yet?

 

We just finished our third one in less than a year. My answers this time were completely comedy gold and if my wife hadn't changed them they might have died laughing or at least snorted once or twice. That is if someone actually reads it.;)

 

Has anyone here just not done it yet on purpose because they don't want to take the time after doing them over multiple cruises? I am fairly certain it does nothing other than get the cruiser excited for their upcoming cruise, which I bet is highly effective with the one and done cruiser or one and done Star Class cruiser.

 

Just curious.

Andrew

Never once filled one out and no Genie has ever mentioned it to me once. I have a standard email that I copy + paste in response to the Genie's actual introduction email!

Couple things to add to this:

- I've sailed Star Class four times this year, three out of PE and once out of PC. Embarkation at PE for Star Class has always been a mess. The issue seems to be the porters are completely regimented in their routine and anything that deviates (Star Class) throws them for a loop. On the last visit, they had RCI employee (one of the people who usually works behind the desk) waiting by the Star Class kiosk to check you in and ensure the porters got your bags to the right place. If you get passed around to a different porter or two, you must reiterate "Star Class right?" I learned my lesson on Harmony in March when I wasn't quite so proactive about it and the bags were lost for hours upon hours.

- As far as Genie requests, they're usually pretty good about whatever you need. I've found it's way easier to call them for your needs than attempt any other form of communication, which just leads to frustrations. Why they can't just get the Genies company iPhones for iMessage/texting/shoreside communication I'll never know.

Here's a few things we've asked for in the past:

- Suite party for a lot of guests, which had a fully catered menu and open bar.

- Reserved seats in the various shows.

- Reserved table in the night club.

- Private shore excursion arrangements.

- Consistently refilled minibar (beer IS included).

- Specific table requests in the restaurants (i.e. by the window in Coastal Kitchen).

- Room service from specialty restaurants.

- Latest possible departure escort.

- Figure out why buffalo wings were available on the room service menu but nobody on the ship knows what buffalo wings are.

Chops is an embarrassment. Poor quality seafood, bland steaks and absolutely zero creativity into the sides/accompaniments.

Giovanni's is pretty good. Izumi and Sabor are the best food on the Oasis-class ships now, with the exception of Park 150 and Chef's Table, where available.

Colombus is very odd. They spent a fortune on the show but after the first five minutes the script makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's all pop songs though so that's nice. Feels much more "current" than Blue Planet, which is the secondary production show on Allure and hasn't held up well.

Still some of the best food on the ship. My issue with Sabor is the service is consistently terrible. I've eaten there maybe 15 times on various ships and I've never had a positive service experience, no matter how busy or slow the restaurant is. Multiple people helping us, never quite sure who the waiter is. Lot's of waiting for drinks, having to flag down servers, etc.

This cover charge change did make it less busy though.

I did not, intentionally. I did point out that I realized the whole concept was new, and I'm sure that they'll be refining things. I did not voice any displeasure. I don't want to cause issues for him - again, he was a nice guy and seemed to care, and was trying. I asked him (after the third wing incident) if the kitchen/room service had it out for him. Someone dropped the ball, no telling who.

 

Tom

Sorry to dredge up this old thread but the wing incident has been our battle of the cruise. We asked for buffalo wings, as the new room service menu clearly lists buffalo sauce as an option. First day its BBQ sauce, second day we're promised there will be fresh "real buffalo sauce" made - it's BBQ sauce with red pepper flakes. We explain what buffalo wings are on the third day and the chef says he will make it to perfection. This time it's tobacco with a pad of half melted butter in it. So absolutely disgusting.