dolphingirl47

I am on Quantum at the moment and the activities manager is Bonnie Bai.

Corinna

that would be either Ron Holmes or Rick Sullivan. I vote for Capt Rick!

I was thinking that Captain Rick would be a good fit for the Symphony.

Corinna

Do you have any Activities Managers that you have sailed with that you feel could be the next one to become CD?

We had Joe Chambers on the Explorer last month on the Transpacific and he was amazing. He was personable with a great sense of humour. I can imagine him as a cruise director.

Corinna

just got off the 24 night Trans-Pacific on Explorer and the drinks were weak. The drinks were measured but if I had tipped the bar staff sometimes they'd do an extra squirt, nothing more. The pricing was ridiculous. Royal Signature cocktails were $17, Royal cocktails were $14, and favorites were $11-$11.50. Then there was the pre-mixed crap that sold for $8.50. This was the Cosmo and Jack 'n Coke among others, they poured it out of a plastic jug.

It just goes to show how different perceptions can be. We were on the same cruise and I found most cocktails way too strong. They tasted like pure alcohol and I could not taste the other ingredients.

Corinna

Explorer - Joe took over from Amy on the second leg of my B2B.

3/30/2017.

I don't know how long his contract would be.

I spoke to Joe on our last sea day on Explorer and he confirmed that he will be on the ship until August. His family name is Chambers.

Corinna

I am on Explorer at the moment and the Activities Manager is called Joe and is from Canada.

Corinna

Thanks Donna for all your hard work.

Corinna

I did promise I would come back with an update once I had heard back from Royal Caribbean. This took a long time. Initially I submitted the contact form via the website and got no answer at all. So I then sent an email from my work email address. I work for a specialist cruise agency so I figured that may encourage an answer. I got an acknowledgement two days later and yesterday, I got a call. Initially he told me that I can upgrade for $10 per day onboard to the Deluxe package. I told him that I am aware of this, but that we are not big drinkers and that I mainly drink wine. He then reassured me that there would be a selection of included wines for me to choose from. He did not go into any more detail than that. However, this still sounds encouraging. He also confirmed that non-alcoholic cocktails are still included. I did not remember that from the original offer, but have seen some flyers from May last year that listed them. I am actually pretty happy with this. We do not have expensive tastes. So if I have a couple of white wines and maybe a rose wine to choose from, I will be happy. My husband would appreciate a couple of red wines. If there is a prosecco included, then even better. I love the idea of being able to have a glass of something sparkly before dinner. My husband likes Virgin Pina Coladas and he was delighted when I told him he can have as many of those as he wants. So this sounds promising.

Corinna

Yes it was quoted as $8 too - Beringer white zinfandel California.

The email said "please keep in mind this is a promotional package and we will honour what it includes". Which is encouraging. Slightly worryingly it also says the price list is a 2016 price list and is subject to change. As I said, I will wait and see and just hope there are at least a couple of wines included that I like. I am not a connoisseur so just easy drinking dryish white wine would be fine.

Thanks. I suppose time will tell. I am with you there. As long as there is two or three white or rose wines to choose from, I am happy.

Pre-paid Gratuities does not cover any Drinks gratuities.

I know. What I meant is that our onboard account normally consists of pages of gratuities (we like our long cruises) so other charges are sometimes hard to see. This time, as we have pre-paid our gratuities, it will be much easier to keep tap on charges.

Corinna

I emailed RCL about this just the other day, as we have the included select drinks package (sailing in April) and I had read that all glasses of wine were now over $8. I only drink wine and so I don't want to upgrade.

RCL emailed to say that RCL will honour the package and that there were glasses of wine (including white wine, which I mentioned I drink) that would be available within the limits. They sent me a drinks menu that included a sparkling wine, a Chardonnay and a Sauvignon Blanc that should be included. We will wait and see, but I will be annoyed if "glasses of wine" are not included when I get onboard (even if the additional cost is minimal) as the cruise was advertised as including beer AND wine.

Thanks for this. This sounds good. Do you happen to remember if the White Zinfandel was on the included list? Traditionally, this was the cheapest wine.

Corinna

Don't be surprised if this (being charged or not) varies between bars and bartenders.Check your bill occasionally.

I have learned very quickly that consistency is not one of their strength. I do check the charges routinely anyway and this time any charge will be very easy to see as we have pre-paid the gratuities so there should be no regular charges.

Corinna

You only pay the difference between what your package allows and the actual cost of the drink you have. As someone said earlier a $9 glass of wine will cost you $1.18 including the tip.

 

I always buy the delux package and use it to try some higher end wines, for me getting $13 a glass off the normal price makes a huge difference :-)

Thanks.

Corinna

Are we sure that they don't honor the Select Package with the new limit on the price for a glass of wine?

 

My husband has the Select Package, too. We sail in 7 days, so we will find out what happens. :confused:

I fired off an email to them to find out what is what for sure. I will update here when I got the answer. I would be grateful if you could share your experience on your return. I still have 8 weeks to go.

Corinna

If the bartender doesn't give it you free, that $9 glass of wine will cost you $1.18.

That is not too bad then. I was kind of under the assumption that if it goes over, then you have to pay the full amount. I can stretch to a Dollar or two and change a day. Thank you.

24 nights :O

 

Can I fit in the suitcase ?

I think I need a really big suitcase. I am getting this request quite a lot recently. ;)

Corinna

In your shoes, I would cancel the package, get my money back, take my two bottles of wine per stateroom on board with me, and buy a glass or bottle of wine on board when I felt like it.

 

ETA: and it is spectacularly easy for the two of you to EACH carry on two bottles. Just get in separate security lines.

I know, we ended up doing this last May. However, in this case cancelling won't do any good as we booked this under UK rules and a "free" select package was included. So we would not get anything back.

Corinna

We booked our upcoming cruise last May and got the Select Drinks Package included. I know that this is no longer available and I assume as such the limits per drink were never changed. When we booked this, we were advised that wines up to $8 per glass were included. I have just seen a recent drinks menu and the cheapest glasses of wine are now $9. Does this mean that I am limited to beer (which I don't drink) and soda? I know that I can upgrade the package to the deluxe package for $10 + gratuities per day on board, but I am hoping to avoid this. Our cruise is 24 nights and I am not a big drinker, but I do like a glass of wine with dinner.

Corinna

I have done both and would not consider it, if I could not swim. The dolphins and manatees are in sea pens and the water can be pretty wild. I also found the walkways extremely slippery. I am a strong swimmer and at times I freaked out when waves were heading my way that were taller than I am.

Corinna

Also, wouldn't it be great if Royal could figure out how to manage the cattle call for excursions in the theater? It's a smooth process with Princess, but every time we've tried it with Royal it's as if they've never run shore excursions before and it's a disorganized mess in the theater to wait for your group to be called.

 

We finally quit booking excursions through Royal and now use our big box store wholesale store travel department, starts with a C end ends with an O, and book shore excursions through them. Their excursions meet on the pier or at the tender port and we avoid the mess in the theater.

It is fascinating how different perceptions can be. We only ever have cruised on three different lines and on one of them (NCL), we just walked off the ship and did our own thing. We both commented on our first Royal Caribbean cruise how organised their excursions are. We have seen much worse on Disney to the point that unless they were really offering something unique and exclusive, we did our own thing or went with a private excursion.

Corinna

We had the best ever dining team on our Navigator cruise last month: Sonny from the Philippines, his assistant server Nataliia from the Ukraine and head server Ali from Singapore. We have never felt so well looked after before.

Corinna

We jumped ship from Disney. There you have always paid for your excursions, speciality dining, etc. when you get on the ship. I can see the advantage of this when you have onboard credit to spend, but I actually like being able to pre-pay in stages. In an ideal world they would offer both just as you can choose to pre-pay gratuities or pay them on the ship.

Corinna

Only on Caribbean cruises. Didn't you leave from UK

 

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Yes, we did. I had not realised that this is only offered on Caribbean cruises. We have not done one of those since straying from Disney yet. Maybe in October.

Corinna

There are no longer lobster nights on seven night itineraries?

 

Dan

 

 

 

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We did the 13 night transatlantic on the Navigator last month and I cannot recall seeing lobster other than the surcharge version.

Corinna

I wondered if there were a lot of staff getting off after our cruise, so they were just worn down. Our cabin attendant left the ship in Boston and we had another for the remainder.

 

So now I'm wondering, did all the kids and the OP and some others that were unhappy just break Navigator? And they were trying to recover during our cruise? :D

I think you maybe on to something. We were on the same cruise that you were on and I could not figure out why we had such a different experience from most people. For us, this was a truly magical cruise if you discount the immigration fiasco. I think you just provided an explanation. Most of the crew members we interacted with had just returned from vacation.

Corinna

Sorry, I have been meaning to post ages ago. We were on Navigator from November 10th to 23rd and Captain Trond Holm was in charge. He started his rotation towards the end of the previous cruise.

Corinna

We had the same sort of problems on Indy a couple of weeks ago. Our clearance at St Thomas started at 7 am and went through to around 4/5 pm with only eight officers to clear the whole ship. The best way to get off as early as pos is to book an RCI excursion ,even if you don't go on it, they do try and get you off on time for the tour.

That did not help on that occasion. We had an excursion booked through Royal Caribbean, which was supposed to leave at 9:15. We were in the theater at 7:30 and they started calling excursions about 30 minutes after this. They called US citizens for our excursion about an hour after we got there and then nothing for about an hour. There were just some announcements that there were some long lines. My husband and I got separated as people came out of the elevators and pushed in. I was finally off the ship at 11:23. Fortunately they still did have trolleys available and I even managed to meet up with somebody for a late lunch. My husband finally cleared immigration at 2:30 and stayed on the ship. He visited Boston last year so was OK to miss it.

We were on this cruise worst cruise we have been on never slept for 5 nights due to creaking walls in the cabin, also never managed to get off in Boston.Disembarkation 3 hours wait for luggage in Maimi meant we missed another trip we had paid for with the ship.Could not wait to get off as well.

That sounds awful. We were supposed to get off the ship at 9:00 and there was some delay. We were called at 9:25 and from there it was very smooth sailing. When we got to the baggage hall, I saw my suitcase and my husband's was not far behind. Customs was incredibly quick and a car rental shuttle pulled up pretty much as soon as we were outside. We were in our rental car at 10:00 (thanks to Skip The Counter).

Corinna