monorail81

10 hours ago, AZCactusCruiser said:

I was on that Freedom cruise in 2014. I was one of the unamused. Lol

Sorry!!! Lol!  Getting stuck in Nassau that long wasn’t much fun. And I wish we had gone to the East instead of Cozumel. 

We were on Freedom in 2014 and they had to take a prop off. They did it over in Nassau. We thought it was fun to watch, from what we could see. Most of the rest of the passengers weren’t amused. They brought in divers and we just sat for hours at the end of the dock watching the glow from under the ship one night. I bet it would have been faster and easier had they pulled into a dry dock…

The only thing I can think of is they are changing the itinerary and haven’t announced it yet. 

2 minutes ago, CFLRetired said:

So are you folks saying as a Diamond + I could use my 2 24 hours worth, then get a package and receive $51.98 or $59.98 off?

No. You can use your 2 24 hours OR get the discount on the package. 

We sail in May. Are you sure you’re looking at the Thrill instead of the Beach Club?  Here are the prices I see for our trip. If yours is truly coming up at that high of a price, take your grandkiddo to one of the Disney waterparks instead. Either would be a fraction of the price and much more worth it.   
 

11 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

It’s called hurricane season. Nowhere to hide in San Juan. 

Careful.  A bunch of people are going to tell you you’re wrong. (Though I with you.)

More will probably show up as the months go by. For our 5 nighter Nassau/Cozumel at the beginning of this month, there were hardly any excursions until about two weeks before. All of the sudden, there were tons. 

On 12/20/2022 at 11:12 PM, cruzzza said:

I don't need the kids getting eyefuls of things they shouldn't see. Starting to doubt my choice of room!

Make sure you don’t take them to the Crazy Quest. We saw things at the last one we’ve never seen at any of the pre-COVID Quests. 🍈🍈🍆

It’s hurricane season. They move a lot of ships’ homeports during hurricane season. 
 

We had an aft balcony on Mariner and there was a lot of light for our eyes’ comfort. We have been on other ships where the balcony lights have not been great. You never can predict what you’ll get. If it’s that important to you, I’d suggest bringing a light just in case. FWIW, we have shifted to Kindles instead of books because they have backlights (in addition to several other reasons). Makes it so we don’t have to worry about lighting anymore. 

On the Mariner on our sailing at the beginning of this month. The energy coming from his elevator was electric. We stood and watched him for a while and the u suspecting passengers. The sad thing was he was SO much better than the guy in the Schooner Bar. He was playing mostly slow and depressing songs. 

2 hours ago, island lady said:

 

The problem is the confusion with the BOGO for the restaurants if you book online in advance.  We have had some that were just fine with it, some confused and not sure what to do, and some got quite nasty about it.  

 

I like to simply book the BOGO as soon as I board, but this recent Serenade cruise....I could not get a reservations in Chops at any time.  Giovanni's was no problem.  

ok. Thanks!  The confusion is what I want to avoid. The nastiness that may be encountered isn‘t worth the extra savings to me.  I’m not so concerned about getting a Chops reservation. We’ve found Chops to be so hit or miss that we hardly eat there anymore. 

On 12/14/2022 at 8:05 AM, gerig said:

I normally prereserve and for nights 1 and 2 at two specialty restaurants and only pay for one person.  Both of us are diamond plus then we show up for our reservation as 2 which counts as the "free". 

Have you ever run into any issues doing it this way once you are aboard?  Because I’d much rather book it ahead of time using the preboarding price than the onboard. 

1 hour ago, John&LaLa said:

 

See Loyalty Ambassador, or call C&A

 

As Diamond you get a welcome gift. Beer or soda, I believe. I get Corona, Laura gets Ginger Ale

 

 

You don’t get the option for beer until you hit D+. Finally just hit + which is why I know. 😂 Only took is 20 years.  Went on our first cruise in 2002 for our honeymoon and then weren’t able to cruise that often because we worked for a certain theme park and wages weren’t conducive for that sort of thing. We left and were finally able to take two non-suite sailings a year about ten years ago. Just started in suites in 2019 and were a few points short at the shut down. So, it took us a while. We never complained about the “lack” of perks for the lower level of the C&A. That’s not how loyalty programs work and we understood that. Long-term loyalty is when you start seeing the benefits. .  

2 hours ago, cruiselvr04 said:

Passports are kept in a special large zip wallet with set sail passes and everything else we need.  We don’t leave the driveway until I pull it out and show it to the DH.  It would be on me and I’d never hear the end of it so yep we check in the driveway.  Last cruise that was 3:45 a.m. but still checked.  
 

So glad this turned out okay for you.  I’d have been in tears.  

That’s exactly what I do!  And the eye roll that I get from him…….😂

46 minutes ago, BND said:

This has been the subject of several threads over the years.  I thought everyone who cruised knew it.  I avoid buying anything with pineapples on it lol.

I hadn’t heard about it up until the last year or so. My favorite backpack

is covered in pineapples in all different directions. I was gonna buy a new one but decided it’d be funnier just to let people wonder and laugh. 

2 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

 

It's not a separate email.  It's in the monthly C&A newsletter.  Did you get that?  It's the last thing.

Nope. I didn’t even know there was a monthly newsletter! 😵‍💫

I got the email about the voucher changes from 12:00am to 5:00am. But, not this one. Royal’s IT has taken the lead away from Disney as being the worst. 

6 minutes ago, footzz said:

What's up with this? No sales on the RC landing page? Is something BIG coming? Is a Holiday sale in the offing? Are they recalibrating the algorithms for the next % off sales? Is it just another IT department glitch? I was ready to drop some $$$ on a cruise, but now I can't possibly book if RC doesn't tell me what great deal I'm getting.

Your internet must be broken today. 

When we sailed on Allure in October, they still had not started offering Blue Planet yet. 

12 hours ago, orville99 said:

Off the coast of Puerto Rico about 2 hours from San Juan. Apparently the speed is affected largely by which landslide service that Starling connects with. We have gotten anywhere from 40 Mbps download to up to 150 Mbps in a mater of a few minutes depending on which service provider Starlink connects with:

Which ship is this?

Just now, Biker19 said:

If you had Surf, those are the typical/normal speed numbers, though the ping is higher (worse) than normal.

It was Surf and Stream. 

30 minutes ago, Jingerwoppy said:

On Allure this past week it was showing $3.50 on my Diamond receipts. 

That’s what it showed for ours on Mariner last week. So, $4.13 after gratuity. 

On 12/10/2022 at 1:59 PM, A&L_Ont said:

We too had horrible internet on Mariner. So bad it couldn’t do a speed test, it would crap out without completing.  
 

In the past we had had great luck on Harmony and we sail on her December 31st.  I’m hoping my live review will go much easier in a few weeks, than my one on Mariner. 

On 12/10/2022 at 1:05 PM, tampadee said:

How about Harmony?  We just returned after a short cruise on Mariner of the Seas.  I have never had such poor internet access.  I was never able to keep a signal more than a couple of hours.  I finally gave up after many trips to the Voom person.  We are going on Harmony in January.

We were on Mariner last week and the internet was horrid despite it saying Starlink. And to add insult injury, the cruise director kept touting how great Starlink was. Maybe they only had it turned on for the crew?

Thank you both! We’ll keep an eye out.