The Scurvy Pirate

We landed in Austrailia 3 days before and stayed 2 days after and stayed at the Intercontinental downtown. Most everyting we went to was within easy walking distance.. Absolutely do the bridge climb. Best thing ever. We also did the back stage/extended 2 hour opera house tour, which was pretty cool. Went to the Taranga zoo and did the giraffe and koala encounters. Took a ferry to Manly Beach from downtown, so that got us a "free" harbor cruise. We also walked through the botanical gardens and along the harbor one morning. We wanted to do the sydney tower walk, but didn't quite get to that. If you like wine, we did the Hunter Valley all day wine tour in a small group from Sydney. We hit 3 wineries, including Tyrell's Winery. Wish I coudl remember the name.... our guide, who was in the wine business for 25+ years or so, was super knowledgable. We were doing one or two things every day, but didn't seemed rushed. Probably could have spent one more day there.

Hopefully, the actual sea pass card will still show prime status. Otherwise, the casino bar will have to start running everycard to see if they are prime or not. Just got off a cruise on Monday and was able to simply "flash" my card that showed prime to get a drink....

The Royal web page still shows that junior suites/Sea class still have priority boarding, so who knows...

I was just on a similar cruise. Had bought the refreshment package thinking it would cover coffee/sodas/OJ. Etc. (think I only got two coffee's so it was a complete waste). We are D+ and wife was prime. I think one day we had used 9 of the D+ drinks and everything else we used the prime. Knowing what I know now, I would not buy any package. You just have to pace yourself until the casino opens. We did bring wine on board that we drank at dinner... I would not get any package and if necessary pay as you go. Doubt you will drink anything close to the package price taking into consideration 4+4 (diamond) plus your primes....

I just with they would let us stack the balcony discount with the current "sale" price. I can't tell you the last time I was able to actually use the balcony discount.... pretty much made it worthless with their continual "sales"....

You'll probably start to see a lot more wine drinkers, as they can carry two bottles on (and rum runners being snuck on board). People will start to get creative again. Saw one where they emptied a red bottle of wine, poured dark alcholol in it, and then re-corked and got a wine cap shrink off amazon. Looked like an un opened bottle of wine....

Does anyone have any recent experience on Liberty of the Seas on whether the slot machines have the capability to simply “tap” your sea pass card on the slot machine, or do you have to insert your sea pass card. If you have to insert the card, I thought I had read somewhere I could ask for a “duplicate” card (that was maybe blank/white) so my wife and I could earn tier points towards a single account, so one of us could get to prime quicker. Who do I ask (one of the pit bosses)? Do I need to ask for something specific or just ask “can I get a duplicate card?” Just trying to act like I know what I am doing...

Royal Caribbean and "sale".... But, in the past, around the middle of March they have a spring "sale" that is sometime a little more than their "normal" sale...

I have only used the reward points for OBC. I don't believe you can use reward points to "pay" for your cruise. There is an option to use points for discounts or room upgrades, but not sure how that is done.

Maybe they will add back a 2nd cleaning by your room attendant as part of the VIP treatment....

Makes you wonder what other "VIP Passes" they can come up with?

I have had experience with a bartender at 5 minutes, but that was when I returned a drink that my wife said was undrinkable.... she was trying a "new" drink that didn't work out so well.

I had a 3 day as well and added this find for our fall Harmony cruise. It had been $54.99 ($64.89 with grats), so it was almost buy one get one free... clearly an error by RCI IT (surprised anyone?) as it is the same price as Izumi/sushi....

We did the RCI transfer in October. It was $16/pp. You may be able to find something cheaper once you get off the ship, but it was just two of us and the convenience of knowing there would be no issues was worth any difference. RCI took us to a separate waiting area (4th floor theater) where we were some of the first to disembark. Got our luggage after customs and got on the bus. They took us to a separate check-in area at the airport just for buses, so no super long check in lines. I will say the walk to get to security was a fair distance.

Freqeuently, the current "sale" discount is greater than the D+ discount, so you can only use the "sale" price. So much for loyalty discounts...

I was only going to take one bag of popcorn on the next cruise...

Changing to the drink voucher, at least to me, was a positive change. But, I believe that was the exception to the rule as other than that, I can't think of another "positive" change....

But, what if you pay for an upgraded room, does it then reverts back to $X off the cruise, so you can then get the OBC?

Only one device may be on-line at a time. You can both use it, but only one at a time.

I paid the $89 + VAT today. Paid $89 last year at this time for a different cruise, but no VAT. There was only one ship at the island when we went and really enjoyed it. I thought it was worth the now almost $100 (including the VAT) but definitely not at the $169 price it previously was on the planner.

My cruise "sailed away" as I was trying to book the items. I had tried to delete the Voom as the price increased when it went into my cart, and everything froze at that point. Went to call the main number and it said wait time was 60-90 minutes. Like the person above, called C&A and then #9 and was connected in less than a minute. Was able to "keep" the prices that had previously been shown on the web page (Coco cay beach club ($88.99 +VAT of $17.78)) without the mysterious increase some have been experiencing.

So, who do you trust more to give you accurate information? RCI's IT department (web page info being accurate/up to date) or their customer service operators? Again, most people assume a certain level of competence when calling customer service for any business. If I was concerned enough to call three separate times to make sure of something, I would assume what they told me to be correct. I have done this several times when ordering parts where the web site says one thing (or nothing) and I call customer service to make sure its the right part or will fit. Again, you assume customer service will provide accurate information about their products. Again, as members of CC, we understand what happens when you assume things, especially when it comes to RCI customer interaction (either on the phone or web site). I think another part of her problem is that she felt she could not find/speak with anyone at RCI with sufficient "clearance" to actually look into the situation (or maybe they did but she didn't like the answer). It seems like RCI needs a "same travel day" escalation department with a knowlegable staff that can actully immediately look into situations so that you aren't on hold for hours while everyone around you is boarding the ship. I can only imagine the conversation with the family... "but I called them three separate times to make sure...."

I was on Explorer in early October 2022 and there was no crown at any of the bars, even though bottles of it were for sale on board....

Nor did Carnival show a link between the sale of the full size liquor bottles to those who were unruly passengers. Carnival probably did find out that those that bought the full size bottles were not buying as much ala carte and not buying the packages, so they were losing money...