DCPIV

I hope to see you on board! 

We had our travel/boarding tests this morning. 

27 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Confident you'll be fine and have a great time.

Me, too! Thanks! 

This dead horse has been thoroughly beaten across CC.

If you are asking about Celebrity, I have seen nothing about a change.  We sail on Saturday, so we'll see.

I'm on a Celebrity sailing in November that only goes to Grand Cayman.  Frankly, I don't care what they end up doing.  I like Grand Cayman, but I'm also happy to have a "private yacht" day if we were to visit a port I didn't care for.  It wouldn't be the first time I never got off between the initial embarkation and the final debarkation!

41 minutes ago, ZoeyVictoria said:

Port fees/taxes may have been over refunded to the credit card, so you received the difference.  Do the cc refund and the FCC add up to what you paid?

I've never seen a deposit allocated toward port taxes.  The deposits I've had refunded due to cancellation all have been 100% refunded as FCC.

It's been 15 years since we took a holiday cruise on RC, but it was done beautifully.  Loads of stuff for our (then) young kids to do, and they ship was decorated to the nines.  From what we've heard from friends and other cruisers, that has not changed.  RC is very family oriented.

As for suites, the only real perk to a Junior Suite is a slightly larger room and the extra point per night.  That's it.  For higher suites, it can almost be like a different world and, most certainly, a different class of service.  At the very least, you will have a much larger and livable stateroom and access to a concierge who can make a lot of things happen.  Just about every ship now has a Suite Lounge, which can be a nice retreat and (when not in COVID protocol) has a nice breakfast bites in the morning and heavy hors d'oeuvres and cocktails in the evening.  You also have a very nice served breakfast in a specialty restaurant (on most ships).  Crew also just tend to go the extra mile for suite guests.

Yeah, it's a little tired, but that probably has more to do with having been on twenty-something RC cruises over twenty-something years (and I know that still hardly gets me out of the "newbie" category around here).  It's still fun, high-energy music to dance to and a mighty fun night.  We have a ball when we show up.

I agree that mixing things up would be nice for the repeaters, but I also agree that many folks love it.  Great!  If the joint were empty every cruise, I imagine they would move on to something else.  As long as folks keep showing up and having fun, disco ain't dead yet!

2 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

We also just asked an agent today. He thought a likely substitute would be Roatan (ugh) or Costa Maya but he didn’t know for sure.  But I’ll be happy just to be onboard!

I can't say I'm thrilled about either of those, but I agree that it'll be good just to be aboard! 

On 7/26/2021 at 6:17 PM, letscutitout said:

Does anyone know the price of ONE non-alcoholic frozen drink on Allure of the Seas?

I'm trying to figure out if the refreshment package is worth the cost for me?

 

Thank you for your help!

 

 

At the current prices, purchasing a beverage package can only be a small mistake, and it may be a great bargain. 

Just an aside, we always get some manner of drink package because we enjoy indulging ourselves on vacation. Pay for the option today, and then don't worry about it while on board. At least, take the price calculation out of it when asking "why not?"

32 minutes ago, slanik said:

I now realize I might look like a drunk walking around in public. A glass in one hand and a bottle in the other.  All I'll need is a brown paper bag.  Maybe we'll stick to drinking the wine with dinner.

I just took a look, and here's what it says for the wine discount with the Deluxe Package: "Plus, we'll give you a discount of 40% off bottles of wine under $100 and 20% off bottles above $100 in bars and dining rooms."

So, maybe they do sell bottles in bars.

However, it's true that you only get the UDP discount in specialty restaurants. 

You still may want to consider the Deluxe Package, though. They're selling it for $50/day right now, and you can typically find wines by the glass that are rather good. 

I don't believe you can buy a bottle at a bar. At least, I don't recall seeing it done. 

You can purchase a bottle through room service, but I don't know that you can take it around with you. 

They really do try to accommodate you where reasonable. Typically, you're looking at something mid-shelf (maybe upper-mid, depending on how you rank things).  We usually have JW Black and Beefeater because we like them, but you can do "better" if your tastes so desire or demand. 

This is why airports have bars. 😉

I expect that they still are sorting it all out and that we'll hear "soon." 🙂

I'm on a November sailing that goes only to Grand Cayman.  Honestly, I don't much care what happens.

2 hours ago, zaxanon6 said:

I saw something similar with my Alaska cruise (8/27/21). Initially, 3-3:30 was the only time available to everyone (which seemed a bit late with a 4p departure). But a few weeks later, the rest of the times populated. So maybe they were still working out the plans behind the scenes.

As I mentioned above, I have the same situation happening for an October sailing.  I'll just keep an eye on it.  It's good to hear someone else looking at the same goofy stuff going on!

1 minute ago, Jim_Iain said:

Has anyone else seen this? 

No, but I have something at least as bizarre.  I have an October booking for Summit out of Miami, and the ONLY booking time that ever has been available was 3:00 PM.  Nothing before or after.

I'm in a RS, so I'll have a chance to chat with the shoreside concierge about that (as well as Summit) and (hopefully) see what the deal is.

We've all seen that there's a lot of flux and struggle with getting travel back on track.  We all just need to account for that when making our plans and roll with the changes when they happen.  Otherwise, we're just shouting at the wind and causing ourselves our own pain.

We have had two trips with Southwest since May and seven more scheduled by year's end.  Nearly all of them have had at least one leg changed, although one also was cancelled.  Fortunately, nearly all those changes have been of little or no signficance, and a couple of them have even been something we preferred.  The most significant ones have been moving an 8am flight to a 6:30am flight (Oof!  Early morning!) and changing a non-stop to a "one stop" flight (i.e., same plane, but a brief layover on the way--added about 80 minutes to the trip).

All that irks us, of course, but none have been a matter of life and death or major inconvenience, especially since the schedule adjustments have been made several weeks or so prior to the flight.  That's allowed us to adjust our own plans (or just make peace with with the change).  

 Obviously, the cancellation also was a problem, but that one really was due to weather, and they worked with us to take care of rescheduling.  I'm not going to hold it against an airline for not flying into a city where the airport is closed because of a blizzard. 🙂

That's always helpful to have handy.

19 hours ago, CruiserRob said:

Thanks.  Unlike the other packages, book now does not appear for me.

It can sell out.  They only sell a limited number.

8 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

Does anyone know if there is a time limit on calling and making these changes? As I described above about my Las Vegas flight, I’m kind of on the edge of whether my seat change matters or not, and if it’s worth my time. Online chat might be doable, but I know they are swamped and it isn’t that big a deal.

There typically is some time limit.  I don't know what it is for Delta, but it's 14 days for Southwest.

3 minutes ago, Texas Bill said:

 

But someone booking for the first time would get that the same discount - Right so what did you actually get extra for being loyal to Royal?????? 

 

It's been that way for a long time.  I can't recall the last time I could combine our C&A discount with another promotion (so we look forward to that changing).  I bet it's been 15+ years, and that was on a last minute booking.

The "advantage" is that you always have a minimum discount, but it seems the publicly offered discounts always were better than the C&A.

I'm glad they offer it for those who want it, although I can't be pleased about jacking up prices and then offering a lesser credit.

We have a $30-40 Uber ride to the airports around here, so we would pass.

I've seen multi-night dining packages on my bookings, but I do have a booking in October that never has had any shore excursions available (and did not a minute ago, as well).

23 minutes ago, MartinsCruise said:

For those of you on the Summit or have a cruise coming up on it, have you been able to select a boarding time yet?  If you have, how many weeks before your cruise were you able to do this?  I was able to do our online check in on the app a few weeks ago but I still do not have the option to select a time.  I only get a message to check back which I do every day.

We board Summit on Saturday and were able to choose a boarding time as soon as check-in was available. 

If the OBC is in your account, it should just apply.  You may need to indicate that you want it to apply when you are checking out, so look out for that, but it should not be an issue.