Needz2Cruise

For anyone interested, here are the scans of Celebrity Today for the 4 night Celebrity Reflection cruise beginning May 6, 2024 from Fort Lauderdale stopping at Key West and CocoCay.

2024-05-06_XCL Reflection_Celebrity Today.pdf 2024-05-07_XCL Reflection_Celebrity Today.pdf 2024-05-08_XCL Reflection_Celebrity Today.pdf 2024-05-09_XCL Reflection_Celebrity Today.pdf

On 4/20/2024 at 1:55 PM, sunsetia said:

On her right now - no free style drink machines!  Just a refresh of rugs & walks!

Thanks for the definitive answer! Was hoping they might get some Freestyle in there while drydocked, but no such luck.

For anyone that has been on Radiance since it's recent drydock. Did they install Coca-Cola Freestyle machines, or is Radiance still without? 

Thanks!

7 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

There is a Royal Caribbean rep in the baggage area at the airport that coordinates the transfer from the airport to the hotel.  At the hotel, you will meet your tour guide, who will discuss plans and the optional excursions.  We just were not aware that she wouldn't be at the hotel until much later and would have flown in later in the day than we did.  We did two days DIY in the Anchorage area before our land tour partially to adjust to the different timezone as we flew in from the east coast.

Good to know! I'll probably shoot for returning the car early afternoon and go from there. Thanks!

9 minutes ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

We started our land tour in Fairbanks, not Anchorage, but we had flown into Anchorage to tour around for a few days prior to our land tour.  We flew Anchorage to Fairbanks early on the morning of our land tour and met a rep at the airport who got us connected with the transfer to the hotel.  Once at the hotel around 10am, we found out the leader of our land tour would not be at the hotel to meet people until 2pm.  This was not told to any of us in advance and we weren't the only ones already at the hotel.  I would really try to get some information from the cruise line about what you schedule is or find a review in the Alaska forum of the same cruise tour.  We knew we were staying at the hotel we were transferred to for a couple of nights but thought the first day wouldn't be just a throw away day.  We ended up getting a shuttle to downtown and doing some stuff on our own but we should have rented a car like another couple did and gone farther on our own as we ended up downtown the next day on the land tour and had already seen most everything that interested us.  The following link should give you an idea of you schedule a bit:

 

https://www.royalcaribbeancruisetours.com/

 

You can also see the optional excursions that you can purchase for your tour under the resources tab.  You book those when you meet your tour guide the first day.  We had decided what we wanted before and were able to just fill out the form we were given and didn't miss out on any of the excursions that don't have a lot of spaces.

 

Thanks for all that info! I've already seen that website, looked at the excursions and the videos, etc. Much more informative than anything I've seen so far.

Are you saying that you meet the land tour at the hotel, and not at the airport? I was under the impression that there was at least a transfer provided from the airport to the tour hotel. No big deal if not; I can always return the car to the airport and uber/lyft from there to the hotel.

7 hours ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

What time will you be picking the car up? Make sure it gets returned by that time on the last day or you'll be charged for an extra day. I always schedule pick-up for a 1/2 hr after my flight arrives and schedule the return for the same time on the last day. They don't care if you pick it up late or return it early, just don't return it late.

I'll be picking it up 8:30 on Saturday night and will return it sometime on Monday, whenever we need to meet someone at the airport for the land tour pickup.I'll definitely stay within the 24 hour window you mention...thanks!

On 3/3/2024 at 9:39 AM, jean87510 said:

Anchorage?  I thought the tours started in Fairbanks?

 

Just drop off rental car at airport.  We are doing the same only we start in Fairbanks.

 

Edit to add I read a few spots we will get the itinerary times closer to cruise (3 weeks or so).  I will be timing mine for whenever.  We got our flights separate from Air2Sea as we didn't like the late departure from Vancouver times.

Some tours start (or end) in Fairbanks, ours starts in Anchorage. I'm planning on returning the car to the airport. I'm just trying to get an idea for when to setup the return time. Maybe I'll make it late afternoon and return early if necessary...we did go with Air2Sea as the fares, for us anyway, were much less than going thru the airlines. We're also doing an overnight in Vancouver post cruise as that's a fun city to explore.

For those of you that have done the RC land tour starting in Anchorage: we're flying in a couple days early and renting a car. Presumably we're to meet our tour guide or RC rep at ANC airport for the first night of the tour. Since I haven't seen any info from RCCL yet, about what time of day should I plan on returning the rental car to ANC, since we won't be coming in on a flight that day? Thanks!

10 hours ago, SparklyPinkCruiser said:

I was really hoping to see a Panama Canal out of LAX in fall 2025. When do those usually come out?

Yeah, I've been hoping for that as well. Had some indication they might have released that the week of Feb. 12 and then last week when LAX cruises were released, but nothing yet. Keeping fingers crossed...

We're doing Radiance in Alaska in May. I was going to ask if they had added Coke Freestyle machines yet, but from everything I've seen so far, it sounds like it does not. I've signed us up for the soda package,  but might cancel it as my wife likes some flavors in the machine that they certainly won't have cans for at the bar. Might revisit this topic after the drydock in March so see if they get installed.

On 1/22/2024 at 12:18 PM, Tree_skier said:

I think they will be released with the week of Feb 12.  

 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/2025-2026_Deployment_Opening_Schedule.pdf

 

 

Well, thanks for that, and there was a lot released this week, but not eastbound Panama Canal. I see Los Angeles is on the list for deployment next week (Feb 19 week), so maybe it'll be then, since some of the Panama Canal cruises have started or ended from there. Any other guesses?

Good to know! Thanks for the info. I thought it might be earlier than that, but we'll see.

2 hours ago, Tree_skier said:

I think they will be released with the week of Feb 12.  

 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2025_2026/2025-2026_Deployment_Opening_Schedule.pdf

 

 

Good to know! I'll be sure to keep looking, especially that week.

Does anyone have any insight on when (or if) RCCL west to east Panama Canal cruises for the fall of 2025 will be released?

It looks like Radiance, Anthem, Quantum and Serenade will be in Alaska for the summer of 2025, so I would think some of them would be candidates. I know the canal has been expanded, but I'm guessing the larger ships might not be able to go thru the canal (?)

Thanks for any insight!

On my previous RCCL cruises, I've been able to get a Soda + VOOM package at a discounted rate. We're going on Symphony in Europe in September and get Emails from RC just about every day. They've been discounting the Deluxe Beverage + VOOM, but I haven't seen the Soda + VOOM this time. Is that something I might see closer to the cruise, or maybe not at all since its Europe or have they dropped that promotion on all cruises?

3 hours ago, Madden05 said:

What did you do instead of Kona?

No substitute. There was an overnight in Hilo.

19 minutes ago, maryjnsteve said:

Maui question, are there car rental shuttles at the port? We are on NCL in November and would like to know how to get to airport for car rental if there are no shuttles. Thank You! Mary

Not at the port, but there is a free shuttle from Budget/Avis that will take you to the ITO airport (10 minutes or so) and bring you back when you return the car. Alamo used to have a shuttle, but does not at this time 

I wound up using my Royal Caribbean holders (the long narrow) and just printed the NCL tags I think at 75% size and they worked fine...

Was on Pride of America 10/1 - 10/8. I can't compare with other cruises since this was my first NCL, but ship was clearly not at capacity. One of the two main dining rooms was closed and some of the specialty dining rooms closed. Whether this was due to staffing issues, reduced capacity or some combination, I wouldn't know...

I'm attaching scans of the Freestyle Daily from Pride of America from October 1 to October 8. This cruise was a little different than most in that there was no stop in Kona due to the Ironman Triathlon weekend. If you look carefully, you may also notice some typos in the daily schedules...for example "all aboard" times listed when staying in port overnight.

2022-10-01_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 1.pdf 2022-10-02_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 2.pdf 2022-10-03_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 3.pdf 2022-10-04_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 4.pdf 2022-10-05_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 5.pdf 2022-10-06_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 6.pdf 2022-10-07_NCL Freestyle Daily_Day 7.pdf

I'm not sure what they're up to. I was able to make Skyline reservations for each night of our 10/1/2022 cruise ahead of time, but they wiped them all out. I heard others had the same experience. However, I *think* some were able to make reservations onboard. Liberty dining room was closed the entire cruise and Skyline clearly wasn't full, I'm sure due to staffing issues/reduced capacity. Not having gone on NCL before, I'd say that "Freestyle" dining was a mess. We generally went down to dinner at Skyline about 6:30 and always had a 30-45 minute wait.

Just off Pride a little over a week ago. Honestly, one of the things that I would have changed if doing this cruise again is that I wouldn't bother with the internet package. Since this is a port intensive cruise with port overnights and a good portion of the cruising done at night, I found that I didn't use the Wi-Fi package much. And, I found that my 5G data plan with my provider was quite a bit faster than NCL's Wi-Fi, at least on my phone. If, as OP said, you're doing some heavy duty internet while away, you might need one of their packages, but on this particular cruise, I felt it unnecessary...

We're booked on a 5 nighter on Brilliance out of Tampa in May '21 that includes stops at Key West and CocoCay. Key West was a good part of why we booked this itinerary (well before last year's elections). Seeing that RC ships are too big for Key West, I'm a little surprised that Royal, and others, are still selling itineraries that include Key West. Is anything going on with this, court appeals, delay in implementation, etc.? I'm inclined to think that they'll pull a fast one and replace KW with Nassau at the last minute, since we'll be at Coco on the same sailing. If that's the case, we'll bail on this one. Final payment is coming up in a few weeks. Any insight or logical guesses are welcome...

On the original question, we have a cruise out of Bayonne on Adventure scheduled for August 13, Costco travel has my final payment scheduled for May 1, so its decision time. I think I'm going to cancel it...When I booked several months ago, there were only 1 or 2 balcony staterooms that I was interested in; looking today there's about 20 and I wouldn't be surprised if more pop up close to final payment date and after. So...I'm going to cancel, but keep an eye on things and may rebook if Royal gets cruising with no incidents, but my guess is we'll wind up going in 2021.

I think it makes zero difference how much you tip the porters. Basically all they do is load it on a cart and maybe get it to the ship. Once on the ship, I'm pretty sure its RC staff that sorts it out by deck, then at the proper deck it sits by a service elevator until someone else gets all of it out to the staterooms.  Last two cruises, both out of same port (Bayonne), both on Adventure OTS, arrival about the same time, tip the porter about the same: first time, I retrieved the luggage from the service elevator area myself since they left it open about 6:00 and the second time it was there almost as soon as they opened up the staterooms at 1 or 1:30.