trajan

We are considering a similar choice; 7 days Allure vs 5 days Magic in Nov. Of course I'm sure either one would be great but it's a tough choice. I don't see anything about either ship or itinerary that would be a deal breaker. I don't see any aspect that really puts one over the other. It will likely come down to who is simply offering the best deal. Have always wanted to try Disney cruise lines but we can use myvegas points to save some money on RC and they offer a very good exchange rate for Canadians so right now that is what we are leaning towards.

Very informative thread. Some useful perspectives. Am trying to pick out a cruise in November and this has helped. Ty all.

Question, would sailings around Nov 7 be 'off season?'

So, I'm a liitle baffled as to why people are complaining about getting free stuff from playing a free game. I just booked a 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise and saved $840 over the BOGOHO price. In doing so, I did give up the $200 OBC associated with the BOGOHO discount, but that's still a net savings of $640. I realize it can be frustrating to have to work within the parameters of the MyVegas program, but for gosh sake, it's still a good deal! In addition, I've also seen 3 cirque shows in Vegas for free. I'm happy and wish everyone good luck with their future redemptions :)

It's not free. That is a common misconception. Your time and attention and vacation choices are all commodities worth a fair bit of money.

And any rewards program suffers if there are too many people who blithely accept any negative changes without complaining.

Am sincerely glad it worked out for you but I can see how others might be disappointed. I would say some of these offers are a bit of a scam. Some of them are clearly aimed at misleading folks who don't do their research into thinking they are getting a deal when they are not.

Really frustrating trying to get info on price. Trying to use the 50% off reward and the page for cruises available linked to from the reward shows page 1 only. I try to go to page 2 (or any other pages) to see more available cruises and it takes me to a generic RC offers page. Phoned in and the agent took forever to calculate the price for one cruise around our dates I was able to find. Looked like a saving of about $600 cdn on 7 days Allure so maybe worth it but not easy to navigate.

And just to recap, the obc offer is pretty much worthless because you pay rack rate and it's not combine-able with any other offer? Maybe only good on shorter cruises or am I missing something?

I'll also echo my disappointment on seeing that this diagram

 

Deluxe Balcony Cabin Royal

 

Translates into this balcony

 

Deluxe Balcony Royal

There it is. I was trying to remember what I had been looking at that got me excited about these cabins. It was that drawing. Glad I came here and ty everyone who posted info and pictures!

Imho Princess has basically decided they want to charge people a premium for a balcony but they don't want them spending any time on it away from the revenue generating areas.

I think everyone has priorities when it comes to cruising and we all place importance on different things. Some people really enjoy family time with their kids having breakfast on the deck. Princess has made that impossible with the new ships. We spend our sea days out there, most lunches and even some dinners. We usually book a caribe but last time ended up on Baja because of a last minute deal, it was ok at 40 sq ft. The mini suites on royal and regal have smaller balconies (36sq ft) than the smallest on regular balcony cabins on Ruby ...to me that is completely unacceptable. Other people don't care about balcony size, they want to be around the ship doing things. For them, royal is perfect. No one is right and no one is wrong but princess just turned off a large amount of cruisers because of deck size.

That's us.

I was actually a bit excited about this ship as our two cruises with Princess have been very positive. But now, no way. Just would not work for us. I so hope this does not become standard for all new ships!

Fascinating thread. Ty all who contributed! I have a question; how did they handle tipping on this ship back in the '80's?