LB_NJ

It has been a while since we were in Bermuda.

The Bermuda Government web site says no dollars.

How can you pay for the bus?

I am going to try and answer the general question about how good are Royal Carribean tours in general.  As to the specific tours you might want to ask the question in the ports of call forum and also maybe on Tripadvisor and other travel sites.

You might also look at the tours on the other cruise lines since they all seem to use the same tour companies.

In general, I have not been that happy with Royal/Celebrity tours in the Carribean however I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of their tours in the Mediterranean.

They probably oversold and are waiting for a cancellation or someone upgrading.

On 7/19/2024 at 2:58 AM, ispiral said:

We are shortly about to embark on our first Royal Caribbean cruise - having so far have completed 15 cruise with Norwegian and MSC

I have just received an email from Royal Caribbean entitled "Are Your Plans Flexible?" which has asked whether I would like to cancel the specific cruise I have booked and instead book on a different cruise later in the year.  For this I would receive 100% refund of all costs PLUS 100% cruise credit. In addition RCI would cover any non refundable flight and hotel costs

The offer is entirely optional - I can choose to stay with my original booking if I want. 

However, there is no guarantee that I can definitely take up this offer. I have to submit a request to do so - in the same way that I can submit offers for upgrades - and I will not be informed whether my request to cancel has been accepted until a week or so before departure

Has anyone else received this sort of email ?  Is this a Royal Caribbean thing, as I have never had this with Norwegian or MSC?  Nor could I find any reference searching though these boards on Cruise Critic?

It almost sounds like a scam, although I don't see what potential scammers can achieve. The email included our correct booking references.

I am tempted to go for the offer as it does seem a little too good to be true 

Any advice / opinions welcome......

 

I recently got an email from Celebrity with almost the same wording.

I believe that the Royal group is overbooking trying to maximize profits (like the airline industry) and then when not enough people cancel on their own Royal to resort to offers like this before they start to deny boarding to people involuntarily.

19 hours ago, TCNLondon said:

Hi, we will be cruising on Odyssey of the Seas, docking at Rome Civitatecchia at 5am on a Sunday in late August  I'm aware it can take several hours to disembark, and to be honest, we are not morning people so I'm very happy to leave as late as allowed.  I understand we will not be told when our slot to disembark will be until we are already on the ship (would this be the day before?)

Once we leave the ship we need to transfer to a hotel in Rome.  I'm looking into transfer options (e.g. private transfer, maybe train if it's not too difficult) but I'm not sure how to plan it if we don't know what time we will get off.  I'm travelling with two kids so trying to be as efficient as possible.

What do other people do?  If we decide to book a private transfer, do we need to put the latest possible time and and hang about if we get off early?  And if yes, what's a realistic sort of time (again, we will not be volunteering to be first off haha!! but I have no idea if the latest disembarkation is more like 8am or more like 10am etc)

Thank you!

 

We did a ship excursion that hit the highlights in Rome before dropping us at a downtown train station where we got a taxi.

I mention this because it was one of the better excursions I have ever taken on a Royal cruise.

On 7/24/2024 at 6:04 AM, chemmo said:

I also remember when butlers used to come around with the afternoon tea trolley at 4.30pm. It was nice to have a light bite and a hot cup of tea with lemon…It was also a great time for the butler to ‘touch base’ with guests checking everything was going OK.

There are other cruise lines that still do this.

If you volunteered for the program check to see if you are still booked, don't wait for an email.

I agreed to the program and only found out when the cruise no longer showed up in my account.

Cunard does a somewhat proper English afternoon tea, Celebrity does not.

I am trying to get a copy of an invoice showing what I paid pre-cruise showing payments for Flights by Celebrity.

Any idea how?

Tried calling flights by Celebrity and they have no clue.

Neither do the agents at Celebrity's 800 number.

Can you use a FCC for port fees or only the cruise fare if your FCC exceeds the fare?

2 hours ago, snohorules said:

For those of you who got the offer, did you book direct or through a travel agent?

Booked direct.

I agreed to take the 150% FCC and Celebrity seems to have accepted since my reservation got canceled.

They never sent an email letting us know.  I found out by logging in and not seeing the cruise.

Hopefully the rest of the process goes better.

Tried to call flights by celebrity and the message said 1 hour plus hold time.

Wonder if that is because of the software fubar.

On Constellation they let you order off the MDR menu. Never did for mains since preferred Blu mains.

Agree, stop nickel and diming, bring food quality back up.

More pay for experiences won’t help.

Fyi, Oceania includes specialty restaurants and all soft drinks/coffee.

5 hours ago, marci22 said:

Some companies will let you move your insurance to another trip as long as you haven't made any claims.

I wonder if Celebrity would re-imburse.

I have never seen Celebrity say anything if you pour a glass of wine in the cabin and then take it with you.

They were offering 150% FCC for Eclipse 8/4/2024 cruise.

They must have a glitch in software and really overbooked on multiple cruises.

1 minute ago, canderson said:

 

My recommendation would be for the owner of the FCC to just pay for the full cabin fare, and collect the 1/2 share from the other occupant.  That way, the FCC, if more than 1/2 of the fare, would be fully applied.

I am OK with that if Celebrity would let me.

If one person in a cabin has a FCC and the other person doesn't how does that work?

Can the person with the FCC use any extra to pay for the person that doesn't?

If you can't do that can the person with the FCC be listed first when they do the BOGOs so they have a larger fare and use the FCC towards the larger fare?

Since it seems that Celebrity uses dynamic pricing (eg prices change based on demand) do sales flies really mean anything?

I usually do Celebrity excursions to avoid the hassle of trying to do it on my own.

I have learned that there are a large number of inaccuracies in many of their descriptions.

Not just timing but what is and is not included.  One excursion I did said there was a beach break.  There wasn't.

The prices on cruising seems to have gone up faster than some non-cruise based vacation options so seriously considering looking at other alternatives that give more value for the money.

I am also taking into account that the quality of the cruise has gone down. E.g., food.

l agree it is not just Celebrity but the other cruise lines as well.

2 hours ago, jelayne said:

I noticed the filet was gone but in May it was replaced with a sirloin steak.

Looks like they cheapened the children’s menu even though they pay full price.

Anyone have a current copy of the MDR children's menu?