takevtr1

You haven't really said why you are against switching to MTD....

 

You can call ahead and sit as a group, Or if I am not mistaken, you can request the dining times all at once for the rest or the cruise.

originally, it had to do with having to pre-pay gratuities.

when they raised the pre-pay a couple of weeks ago, we went ahead and pre-paid to keep it to the $12.

we did not even take into consideration that since we pre-paid, we could have switched to MTD.

we do like to eat early so we can see the shows after dinner and have our "evenings" free.

I am probably not making much sense. this would be our first opportunity for MTD, so we may be just lost in the concept.

I still feel that they should allow people to eat outside of their "scheduled" time once in a while - based on space availability.

Mitch..........

DH and I ate in the Windjammer twice last month when doing a B2B on the Indy. Never ate in there for dinner before. The food was very good, lighting dimmed and easy to get a beverage brought to our table. Nice experience 😄

thanks didicruiser

I would have a hard time getting my wife into the buffet, especially for "Dinner." Breakfast yes, lunch maybe.

I think that we may just go to Chops etc on those 2 nights. The only problem is, my family is 4 people, so it get expensive dining there.

Mitch....

Just make sure you have your credit card with you in case your DW causes you to miss the ship. It has happened!

we came very close to missing our ship in Antigua.

The driver did not anticipate the traffic. He decided to take "side" roads, which only made the situation worse.

They were blowing the horn as we pulled up to the dock.

Very scarey.

THANKS!!!

Contact Royal Caribbean through Facebook if you want a lovely canned response that DOES NOTHING:rolleyes:

 

OP, sorry that happened to you at Labadee. I'd have told them NO. If they didn't understand NO, they'd understand me walking away.

maybe Facebook is the way to go.

It is a very public forum that you would think RCCL would have someone monitoring it like Carnival does (John Heald.)

You will have to be ONBOARD by 6:30, if the ship departs at 7....just get back by 6 and head straight to dinner!

you don't know my DW. She has to stay at the beach until the very last second.

she is not the cruise fan in the family, I am. So just getting her to cruise is hard enough.

We are actually considering Chops on those nights, but only 4 out of the 8 in my group are willing to pay "extra" for dining.

Thank you!!

No, you cannot switch to the MTD area for one night. As mentioned above, if you want flexibility, switch to MTD now. Otherwise, if you cannot make your dining time, you can go to a specialty restaurant or Windjammer.

thank you Bob - unfortunately that is not the answer I was hoping for, but what can you do?

No. With traditional seating, your dining time is your dining time. Someone else sits at your table for late seating and the staff needs to completely clear the table and reset them for late seating, so you can't start your dinner at 7:15.

 

Maybe you could switch to My Time Dining and then eat at 6:00pm on most port days and later on late port days.

Would they allow us to sit at an empty table in the My Time Dining section if it were available?

I know that there are 3 levels -and I think one level is just for MTD. I would not expect to sit at the same traditional dining table if we did not show up on time.

Thanks,

Following the "review" portion of this thread.

Sailing the Indy on 8/9/15.

thanks....

Hi all,

Quick question (sorry if this has been answered before, but I need a quick response to this.)

We are on the Indy on 8/9/15.

We have traditional seating for 6pm. Two of our ports are late ones with departures of 7pm (Falmouth) and 7pm (Grand Cayman.)

On the 2 late ports, if we decide to stay as late as possible in the ports and not rush back for our 6pm dinner, can we just go anytime we want (after 6pm) and get seated in the main dining room???

We really do not want to eat in the other venues (windjammer, johnny rockets, or the specialty restaurants.)

Can we just to the main dining room w/o a reservation? I would fully understand if we had to wait a bit for a table - we are group of 8.

THANK YOU,

Mitch............

Laura,

Reading your review is like "looking in the mirror" and seeing my own image in there (well figuratively not literally of course.) I don't know what you look like and I assume you are a female where as I am a male.

But, I do the SAME thing that you do even down to the binder AND the meetings.

I have been organizing travel for my group for over 20 years now.

You have to be organized when you travel with others.

Very glad to see I am not the only one that does this.

I always say the best part of my vacations are the planning stages and not the vacation itself. Once I get my group to wherever are destination is, I can take a deep breath.

Best of luck in your future travel planning.

Mitch.......

p.s.

EXCELLENT REVIEW!!!!!!!

We were on the same cruise. Agree with most of his observations.

Will say--we saw a lot of unhappy workers--we weren't wowed with RCCL this trip. Cruise director was fun.

 

MUST have sand shoes for Labadee--very rocky.

Rent a cabana at Royal Palms in Cayman. We had it for the day--only reason you need shoes is the tile flooring by the bars gets very hot.

2 buckets of beers

2 buckets of water

11 people ate lunch

2 cabanas (each $100)

a cabana guy to take care of you all day.

 

$550--of course it would be much cheaper if we didn't have so much to drink or all eat a big lunch. $550 (after tip) divided by 11 people--$50--best excursion on the cruise.

Water was crystal clear! Bathrooms, swimup pool bar--it was great!

The cabanas are $100 and they are for up to 6 people. Best deal ever. Bus was $4 per person--a steal!

 

We've been to Cayman many other times and have done all the ship excursions in the past so we were looking for something new.

my kind of excursion!!

for grand cayman, we plan on going to the turtle farm, dolphin discovery and hopefully if time permits, spend about 2 hours along 7-mile beach (just not sure exactly where.)

EXCELLENT review.

Keep up the good work.

We are sailing the same ship and itinerary on 8/9/15, so I am loving this.

Question:

Which beach did you go to on Labadee?? Was it crowded?? Were there a lot of young kids there?? Did you walk to it or take the tram.

Thanks,

Mitch..........

Each day will be different, you know....you'll find what you're looking for by strolling around! The 1st beach will always be the most crowded.

thanks for the follow-up.

Since we are not in a suite, it appears are choices for a beach are (somewhat) limited. Especially if we want good swimming and a quieter location.

Mitch......

When we were in Labadee a month or so ago, we went to Columbs Cove. Beach was very nice and is the furthest away from where the ship will dock. Beach was not crowded, but our ship was the only one in port that day. Not too far to walk to the bathrooms, bar, or the picnic area to eat.

 

The water toys are at the beach next to Columbus Cove I think, so most of the kids may be at that beach.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

 

Craig

thank you Craig.

this is the kind of info I was looking for.

Mitch....

Hi Everyone,

Besides all the comments about which beach is rocky, sunny, shady, swimable etc., which beach would be the least crowed?

We are 4 adults with 4 young adult (21-25 yrs old) children and would want to avoid beaches that have "young children/crying babies" (not there is anything wrong with young children.)

The beach does not have to be the closest to the pier, again crowd size and trying to avoid young children are our primary goal.

Of course we want to be close to the action, but willing to make the trek to the roller coaster, zip line etc.

We are there from the Indy on 8/11/15.

Thanks,

On the sailing just before yours. DGD has to start school the next week so that cruise could not work.

 

Is there anybody on your M&M. I seem to be doing a single act on mine. Must have the whole boat to myself. Service should be great:D:p

OK, Keep the ship nice and neat for us.

We have a small M & M group going on in our roll call. We did hit the 25 minimum, so that was very nice. The roll call is not as active as I am used to, but it is starting to pick up steam. It was started back in July of 2014.

I have had roll calls with up to 50 plus people and chatting almost non-stop for about 6 months prior to departure. This will be my first ship/cruise critic sponsored roll call. Partly due to us sailing mostly on Carnival. This will be our second on RCL.

Mitch.......

Thanks going on family trip August 2015 and the pictures are worth a thousand discussions!!!:D

what date are you sailing on the Indy?

I am on the 8/9/15 western Caribbean itinerary.

I see that you made other plans, but thought I would review here as well. We were very very disappointed with our tour in Jamiaca. I would not recommend her (although she is a nice lady and her communication at times was fairly good), the driver we got was terrible (even though it wasnt her, it was her driver). She gave him $ to purchase 4 bottles of water, which he never did. We saw little, got little info - had to ask and then it still wasnt great. Very disappointing, especially bc of the rave reviews I had read. Instead of a very expensive taxi ride, we should have wondered the port and into the street a bit... that was the best part of our stop in Jamaica.

WOW - that is very disappointing.

I am booked with her for our Aug cruise. I have only read good reviews about her. She has been very quick to respond to all my questions etc.

I hope I don't get the driver you had - maybe he was just having a bad day.

Thanks,

Mitch..........

EXCELLENT review.

Sailing the Indy on 8/9/15.

Thanks for all your pictures and input.

I can't wait to sail her.

Mitch.........

Good news... sorta... I emailed her this evening and asked that she get in contact with me asap since we are leaving in 3 days. She got back to me within 10 minutes and asked for my phone number. Here is to hoping all the good reviews payoff and this was just a hiccup.

well that is good news.

Please post a review when you get back.

Also, keep in mind that people down there work on "island time."

Mitch.........

Wow! I emailed her on April 21 and have NOT heard back from her. Like you, I read all the amazing stories on Trip Advisor...but I seem unable to connect w/her. Thanks for your feedback.

this is the address that I have been using:

patbailey52@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Mitch............

Has anyone used her for arranging independent tours? She gets lots of positives on Trip Advisor & seems to cater to cruise customers. Positives or negatives...please share!

Sorry, but I have not used her just yet, BUT I do have a reservation with her for my Aug. visit coming in on the Independence of the Seas.

I booked with her because of all her excellent reviews. She has responded to me every time I reach out to her and she has been helpful in suggesting things to do.

Mitch.........

following.

sailing the Indy 8/9/15.

Mitch.........

We have booked a group/family cruise of 8 cabins and growing going on Independence of the Seas in August. I keep reading not good reviews about the ship all of a sudden, I don't understand because it is the sister ship and newest in the freedom class. Can anyone give me some more insight on the ship, we are looking forward to it but wondering if I should try to move us all to another ship. Also do they have freestyle coke soda machines or plans on them soon. Thanks for the help

What date are you sailing on the Indy?

My group will be on the Aug. 9th. sailing.

I just found your review.

Hope it is not too late to jump on-board.

Sailing the Indy 8/9/15.

Mitch.........