Seawishes

Resurrecting this thread from March...

Anyone have any recent experience with D+ access to Concierge Club on Anthem?  Are they deciding week by week, or is it just a standing no?

Will there be lots of Diamond Plus and Pinnacles on a Dec 26 Holiday Week sailing from Bayonne, or would they not be caught dead anywhere near that floating nursery school?

I'll know soon enough on both counts, but thought I'd get your opinions.

I've seen check-in open up at midnight (I'm on the east coast).  You can start the check-in process on the app and simply choose the earliest boarding time....then go back to fill in all the rest of the information hours later.  It will secure the check-in time as long you click into the "Arrival time" section and choose a time. When I finally had time to enter my passport and vaccine info, I've done it sometimes days later, and my early boarding window was still locked in.

4 minutes ago, GMomKassie said:

So, LeeW, does it mean I do not need to pay for a day pass to Thrill park,I can just pay for zip line or Up, Up and Away separately?

Correct!

I have not seen a two day deal on any of the excursions in the cruise planner.  Each day must be purchased separately for the water park, the cabanas, or the Coco Beach club for example.

July 3rd here also....also seeing the COVID suspension message.

How am I supposed to waste time all day without the cruise planner to click through?!

On Virgin Voyages instagram, people were asking in the comments if they'd be able to explore the ship before or after dinner, and VV was answering comments saying ship tours would be available.  I made reservations for dinner at Pink Agave and then brunch at The Wake the next day.  So excited!

I was also told 50 mile radius during an online chat session with Virgin customer service.  We are staying in downtown Ft Lauderdale precruise, so I wanted to know for sure.  We are doing a side to side cruise on the RCCL Navigator afterward, and my traveling companions are INSISTING that we use the transfer service to take from from one end of Dodge Island to the other.  lol.

Here’s the confusing article...

https://valliantnews.com/2019/12/06/cruise-ship-bound-for-port-everglades-stricken-with-a-stomach-virus/

Boarding the Navigator today, and on the way to the port we saw the Independence pulling in to Port Miami at 9:45am. 
 

Is it off schedule?  Something going on?  I found a strangely written article that is dated today, but has strange dates that don’t make sense in the article. Also, the article makes it sound like the Independence should be in Port Everglades. 
 

Anybody know anything?

Thanks so much for your trip report and for the cruise compasses!! We cruise this itinerary in two and a half weeks, and this is exactly what I needed to help with precruise excitement. 

Just back from the Harmony, with some info on how the 2Nt BOGO Pkg worked onboard.

Our only three choices were Central Park restaurants.....Chops, Jamie's Italian, and 150 Central Park.

Reports from Anthem included Wonderland, so we were hoping Harmony did too. It was a surprise and disappointment on day one. The manager at Wonderland was very nice, and she gave us 30% off Wonderland for later in the cruise. (Though I will skip Wonderland in the future, I'm glad I tried it.)

The fine print does say restaurant selection varies by ship, so here are your only choices on Harmony.

To the OP:

Correct. You don't choose restaurants with any of these deals. With the BOGO...you choose a TIME on night 1, and then RCCL assigns the restaurant as well as the --time and restaurant-- for night 2. Both restaurants can be changed as availability allows, but the package is for night 1 and 2 only. (Although I've read reports about the BOGO package that people have been allowed to move one of the reservations to night 3 when they couldn't be squeezed into their choice on night 2.)

Truth to tell, I actually like booking the restaurants directly and paying more money so I don't have to deal with changing reservations when I get on board. But, a friend I'm traveling with loves a deal...and has pledged to handle all the switching while I drink at a nearby bar.

Like so many things on the cruise planner, I think the price will probably vary by ship and date. Here are the numbers from my Harmony cruise next week.

BOGO 2 Night Dining Package: $33.00pp

3 Night Dining Package: $85.00pp

What we did: booked the BOGO 2 Night for $33, and then booked Jamie's Italian for later in the week for $35. Total....$68. Our plan is to head straight to a dining reservation rep as soon as we board to change whatever they give us to Wonderland and Chops. Those are both $49 for this sailing, so we'll have $133 in specialty dining for only $68.

If tendering operations have to be suspended because of weather or sea condidtions, they won't treat you differently if you were out on your own for the day. Just give yourself plenty of time to get back to the dockside queue, tent, or podium before "all aboard" or "last tender", and the ship's staff will take care of you regardless of whether or not you were on a ship run excursion.

There's no question. I'm letting ppl know the latest info on which beers are excluded from packages....and which beers we thought were excluded, but we're actually included.

Never had to sign a single slip last week, but EVERY drink order was rung in separately and swiped, then two receipts printed out for EVERY drink. Took so much extra time and wasted so much paper with four of us ordering drinks together all week.

"SAVE THE WAVES" and save my time by making that process faster, RCCL.

Just off Oasis yesterday. This sign showed up taped to the bar at the Globe and Atlas on the final night of the cruise.

Beers not available on any of the packages

Fosters

Grolsch

La Fin Monde

SA Double Bock

SA Imperial White

Chimay Blue

This list DOES NOT line up to the asterisks on the Globe and Atlas menu (there are more asterisks on the menu). One member of my group ordered many Red Hook IPAs during the cruise, and she thought the bartender was bending the rules because she's cute. She is....but apparently her beers were allowed with the package anyway.

Just off Oasis yesterday. For all the fevered discussion about the price increase at Johnny Rockets, it was two-for-one every night for dinner.

We didn't even see this sign before we walked in, and were surprised when she told us about the deal.

2 and 5

Pomodoro doesn't look all that Italian to me:

Tandoori Chicken Salad

Rigatoni Pasta

Fish, Seafood, and Mash

Roasted Turkey

Rosemary Lamb Shank

Sweet and Sour Vegetarian Chicken Chunks

Pimiento sounds more like Italian night if you ask me:

Shrimp Isalata Mista

Lasagna al Forno

Garlic Tiger Shrimp

Chicken Marsala

Eggplant Parmigiana

Here's an often posted link to the main dining room menus.

http://www.royalcaribbeanpresscenter.com/press-kit/9/culinary-press-kit/

Though I haven't sailed on RC yet...the names of the menus don't look to me like "themes" so much. On some of the menus, you'll see one or two items that relate to the title, but on others it seems to have no relation at all.

Late in cupcrazy's picture review....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1934144&highlight=compass&page=21

That's the most recent I've seen.

I have a complete set of Compasses that I found from the October 12, 2013 sailing. Let me look around to see if I can find the thread that had them...although search is missing again right now. I'll look around to see how I got to them....but they are out there, so keep looking. If there's no success, I'll work on uploading them.

Formal nights are 2 (First At Sea Day) and 5 (At Sea Day between Falmouth and Cozumel) right? Wouldn't that mean that Mojo and Jasmine are formal nights? I'm actually asking, not trying to be a smarty pants.