auntie.emily94

On 12/14/2022 at 5:44 PM, CruisingNole said:

Was the MDR food as mediocre as it was on the cruise prior to yours (which I was on). I think I did 6 Royal cruises this past year and Mariner’s food was by far the worst.

I actually feel it was better than Indy this year. Not as good as I've had on previous longer cruises, especially Oasis class, but noticeably better than Indy. 

On 12/12/2022 at 11:26 AM, myacuna said:

@auntie.emily94 how do you get to the bridge view? I think my son would love that!

You can get to it by going up to deck 12 forward and walking outside towards the front, like you're walking in front of the gym/spa

Hey Ya'll!

Wanted to share some photos and thoughts after being home for a few days.

Some background, DH and I took this trip with a small group from his company, a nice mix of newbies and seasoned cruisers to see different perspectives.

Starting off with our room, 8642 Spacious Balcony

Very similar to a recent stay on Indy OTS this year.

Something about these older boats feels like bigger rooms. 

Oh and we were on the boat by 11:15. Maybe a new record for us.

Rooms were ready by 1:30

First stop was the Flowrider, hubby checked in with the team there to get his white band, signifying he was cleared to do the stand up sessions the whole cruise. This was helpful later on when they had special sessions for "advanced" riders only. Spent about 20 minutes surfing with out a single other guest there. 

New to us was the Bamboo Room, aka the Tiki Bar on the promenade. Quickly a favorite spot on the ship for our group. If you heard us playing aggressive games of Rummy cube in the evening. Sorry not sorry. 

Nice little hidden gem is the spot to look down into the bridge. It was particularly windy this day so no one else was up there, also has a couple screens to see your location and sea conditions. Honestly wish we went up there more.

Room attendant opened our balcony door to our friends room next door, nice little perk of having a neighbor you know. Room service coffee and morning chats were so nice.

Back at full capacity obviously but still plenty of seats on the deck above the pool deck on sea day.

Ellingtons was a great view and fairly quiet if nothing was being hosted at the time.

Best espresso martini I've had on a ship too.

I heard she is slated for dry dock in 2023, will be intresting to see what changes.

General wear and tear was there, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Everyone in our group regardless of cruising history had a great time with no real negative issues. 

I don't think the service was quite up to the levels of most of our previous cruises, but it was never bad service either.

I think in direct comparison, Indy I liked slightly better. But I wouldn't hesitate to book on Mariner again.

We have a group cruise coming up (typical Caribbean 5 day on RC) and one person on our group that has never cruised. She is a seasoned traveler otherwise.

Without overwhelming her, as my personality tends to do, what are so good basic tips we should relay to her?

Anyone have anything put together thats a crash course style?

I'm tempted to sit her down with a power point but I also don't want to scare her 😆

Had $25 OBC for our upcoming 4-day on Independence OTS and then a couple days ago while checking to see if we got our room assignment (GTY Balcony) our OBC is now $125!!!!

I've never had this happen, and honestly that's very generous for such a short cruise!

Rebooked with FCC and haven't gotten our bid invite yet but we're still 60 days out so not to worried. That being said, I didn't miss something about rebooking not qualifying did I? 

Kicking myself because we put in bids on our first booking when they were running a mad special on it and all the bids were around half price if I remember correctly. 

This is the minimum bids on our up coming 3 nights on Independence. I think promotional ones are VERY fairly priced. 

Just put in our bid for 3/4/2022 cruise... booked balcony guarantee, ended up with spacious, and bid for JS. 

Only bid the minimum for kicks and giggles, $50 total. Its a short trip and honestly our current room assignment is just a couple doors from our friends we're with. I HIGHLY doubt we'll get it but it seemed fun to try. We've never done a JS and it would be nice to see if we feel like its worth it for future trips.  

20 minutes ago, rattla said:

I’ve not been on but I’ve seen plenty of pictures from Oasis buffet with Dougnuts... or did you mean ones they make fresh I. Front of you?

I think I remember it being early morning... fresh doughnuts, I think on the boardwalk

Maybe I'm imagining it, because I can't find it again... but I thought I remember reading about fresh doughnuts in the morning on one of the Oasis class ships. I know its not Oasis herself because we recently were on it....but we're about to board Harmony and I'm curious if anyone knows about this. 

Just now, Biker19 said:

That's a non-revenue repo.

What a shame. We're on the 6-9th cruise and will be in FTL for a wedding that weekend...would have been so convent

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:49 PM, BirdTravels said:

We’ll be on the May 6th cruise, the first cruise out of her new home port (after the 1 night repositioning from FLL). 

Is it possible to book on that one night? I don't see it on the RC site.

Does anyone know of any brothers that run excursions for St Thomas and or St Martin?

26 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

Then the OP wouldn’t be able to use it. Photogs don’t let you horn in on your territory, and in my experience, won’t take pictures of that large a group (for free). 

I've never heard of a charge on group photos... so strange. They're allowed to refuse?

We are cruising with a large-ish group (35 maybe? ) on Oasis. Has anyone had a good spot to a take a group photo on formal night with this kind of size?

Does it tend to show up in the preset formal photo areas? Like stairs and such. We're cruising the first week for dec on Oasis with a large group and are trying to pick a good spot for a group photo, but don't celebrate Christmas.

A brief update, none of the reps the travel agent spoke with were as nice as at the ones I did and the price started to rise in the meantime. We ended up paying $30 to upgrade to a standard balcony from a interior balcony guarantee. So I'm pretty happy.... we started off with just a window room so we've definitely worked our way up.

Did you specify that the upgrade was for a guarantee category? I think that's the issue your TA is running into.

Yeah, screencaps included. LOL

I checked on our room, the same room went down by $900, called our online TA and RCC and neither one said they could do anything, no OBC, nothing...…! I understand if it was $100 or $200 but the same room for $900 less.

First and last time on RCC

Wow thats a huge drop!!

I just tried to call RC again and I explained that I knew because of our TA they wouldn't make any changes but I asked them to check our reservation and what they could do for if our TA called back. The super nice rep confirmed that we could get an upgraded room for no cost if the prices were the same, just no money back. Fair enough....hopefully our TA can get the same answer when he calls them back :rolleyes::rolleyes:

I should also add, we didn't book through that TA, we booked separately because we had giftcards to use for a portion of it and we couldn't use them via a TA. So once the giftcards were applied we switched to the TA. Really, just peer pressure because of the group but we're not getting any "perks" they are.

Its beginning of december so we're only about 55 days out i believe.

Since we're in an interior balcony GTY I had high hopes for at least getting switched out to a OV balcony GTY.

Because we booked alot later than everyone else in the group we won't be risking the loss of any "perks", they all have about $300 OBC that we don't have. At this point I would feel awful ditching out TA just to be able to call and make changes ourselves, especially since hes a family friend. But that being said, I hate that if I call RC they won't allow me to anything about our reservation.

He was able to upgrade another cabin in our group but it was a while ago so I assume it was before the 90 days.

We are cruising with a large group in December and have our cruise entirely paid off (minus pre paid gratuities). The price of our interior balcony guarantee just went down by a few hundred dollars and an OV balcony is also currently nearly as cheep. Our TA (we prefer to have full reservation control but due to the large group we went with the TA everyone else did) said when he called, RC considered the OV balcony guarantee an upgrade and wants to charge $280 for it.....meanwhile the OV balcony guarantee is a few hundred less than our current paid amount for an interior balcony. Why would we paid money to upgrade to a room thats currently cheaper!?

Has anyone had success in getting some kind of switch out, OBC, something?

Our TA suggested we call ourselves and try but they RC agents won't tell you ANYTHING when you're booked thru a TA. So I couldn't even attempt it.