maranelloboy05

I was really hoping for some longer Med cruises on an Edge class, wanted to try out the Retreat but not sure I can justify the $$$ on a 7 or 8 day.

Have now been able to upgrade our Oct '24 Beyond cruise to Premium Wifi and Premium Drinks for under the $200 OBC we got, still have $2 left. 🙂

I'm quite perplexed at RCLs suite pricing, it doesnt quite make sense to me to be many times the cost of a balcony for a suite. Parents are in a junior suite next week while my wife and I are in a balcony and they're paying double, that just doesnt work for me especially without all the suite amenities. We RoyalUp'd to a Crown Loft back in March and while it was great to experience the suite life I'm not sure I could say its worth much more than $1k-$1500 more than a balcony IMO. We checked and it wouldve been $18,000 for the two of us to book the Crown Loft outright, thats absolutely insane.

On the other end of things we did book a suite for a cruise next year on Celebrity. $8,000 for a Balcony vs $12,000 for a suite with full Retreat amenities and $1200 in OBC, that is more in line with how I'd expect suite pricing to be, 50% more for an actual suite, not 300% like on RCL.

I got upgraded from balcony to Crown Loft suite back in March the day before boarding, we had a wifi package purchased and the suite concierge just moved it to OBC for us.

17 hours ago, oaktreerb said:

Take the ship shuttle from the dock into town.  At the Visitor Center/Convention Center you should be able to take the bus mentioned above by @JT1962.  The bus does a loop that will take you to the Fortress of the Bears and to the Raptor Center and returns to the Visitor Center.  It’s like a hop on hop off.  

I havent seen any reference to this shuttle in the last couple years, any confirmation it still is running?

12 hours ago, RSWBADGER said:

We drove to Emerald Lake today from Skagway, had our arrive can filled out with our pass code, junked asked for Passports and a couple of questions. 

I believe when they process the Passports the see the info from arrivecan.

Great trip, saw 3 cinnamon black bears.

Did you do a separate one for Skagway or just the one for Victoria?

Thanks all, digging around I did see some reference that for others the ArriveCan they did for Victoria worked for driving across as well and some mention that you cant do a secondary one so might just risk it. They dont seem to be too strict for the cruise ship passengers.

I did a lot of searching earlier this year and could not find anything in Downtown, all the rental places are by the airport.

We did it last year and got a 4Runner, binder and some wraps......back again next month and I just booked an SUV direct through Avis for 1/2 the price. 

Has anyone been successful this season, just curious about Canadian requirements and how that works? Assume I'll need to setup ArriveCAN while onboard?

How would you rate the overall service onboard? Anything closed or seem to be lacking? Booked for end of July and just a bit concerned over some of the staffing issues I've been reading about, have quite a few first time cruisers with us and worried they'll get a bad first impression.

Just got off Harmony on Sunday and RoyalUpd from an oceanview balcony to CLS. Spent $920 total on the upgrade, $830 was the min. Got the email 2 days before embarkation. The one odd thing I did is that I had JS and GS bids in about 30 days prior to sailing, I only tossed in the CLS bid a day or two before it got assigned when I realized the CLS was only minimally more than the GS.

Really glad we got to experience the CLS but I'm mostly happy to confirm (for me at least) its not close to worth the regular prices I've seen. I was worried if we got an upgrade we wouldnt want to go back to a balcony but honestly I have no concern of that now. I certainly saw value in suites, the lounge was great, views were amazing, great big balcony but at the end of the day its not worth 4-5-6x the price of a balcony.

Booked on an Alaska balcony in July and my parents are in a JS, might try and move them back to a balcony, JS is double the balcony cost with no real suite benefits. On the other hand we also booked our first Celebrity cruise for next summer and their suites are less than 50% more than the balcony so thats a bit more in line with where I see the value.

3 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

That is the TBZ5 line on your invoice.

 

The full amount applied shows below the invoice where it lists FCC's applied.  The amount of the TBZ5 line plus the payment line ( minus any cash you have paid on the booking) should equal your FCC 

Yup! I had a weird situation where we had about $2700 applied to a cruise that had a port change so we changed to what was a cheaper sailing and under that $2700. I had to get the CEO's team involved to fix it but part of my confusion was not realizing some of that $2700 was actually applied to lower the price of sailing.

Also note that the 25% additional FCC sometimes gets applied as a discount to the cruise unlike regular FCC. I had an issue where things werent adding up with the amount of FCC and turned out $350 was applied as a discount and I didn't realize that was actually FCC.

Did our first sailing with Unlimited Dining package back in August and had embarkation lunch at Jamie's, absolutely set the mood for the entire trip, we still talk about how nice it was to walk on and sit down immediately for an amazing lunch.

I'm seeing conflicting info on lockers at Magens Bay, has anyone seen any recently? I would like to bring my camera if possible but if no lockers I'd rather leave it behind.

36 minutes ago, taglovestocruise said:

Almost the exact situation.  Switched a $2900.00 fully paid cruise to a $2200.00 new cruise back in first week of Oct. Invoice shows $700 overpayment but nothing has been refunded. TA was on the phone yesterday with Royals resolution department. New FCC should have already been issued and they have no reason for the delay.  New FCC will be issued "soon", less than 45 days.  New FCC will have a use by date of May 31 2022 with a sail date of Dec 31 2022.  Part of the hold up is that we used 5 FCC'S, two of which had come from a cruise we cancelled in 2019 and were applied to a transatlantic in 2020 that was cancelled and a L&S to a 2021 transatlantic that we then cancelled.  TA said that resolution department said that FCC'S now cover taxes and port fees. Covid has been a total PITA.

Thats really interesting they'll cover taxes and fees now, at least for some. I think I had a total of 7 different FCCs on this one and yeah just a complete mess. Luckily we have one cruise end of Feb and another in July so shouldnt be an issue to get them used in time.

I made the change in September so I wouldve hoped it would come in by now. I think the issue is that all $2800 worth of FCCs are showing on the invoice, its not like they left off a remainder amount somewhere to be reissued later or under a new FCC number.

It seems as though they don't really have a good backend for tracking or keeping up with FCC. The customer service person I talked to didn't even understand the issue until I had her add up all the FCCs on the invoice and that value came out well above what the "amount paid" showed.

I'd have to remember, definitely some from CWC but I also think there were a few from cancellations on RCCLs side. I guess I would not have expected it not to be reissued regardless of how it was originally issued, credit is a credit.

Has anyone dealt with this by chance? I had a cruise almost fully paid for using $2800 worth of FCCs from the past 2 years. Swapped to a cheaper booking due to a port change and I now have a cruise with $2800 worth of FCCs applied but Amount Paid is only $1900, remaining balance is only taxes and protection plan. I understand I need to pay cash for the taxes and protection plan but I dont understand what happened to the other $900 worth of FCCs. I've been on with RCCL for 2 hours now and they dont have any idea.

No chance of getting it sooner? Anecdotal but I felt crappy from about 8 hours after the booster until about 30 hours after. That said it was like a light switch, I went from feeling like crap to being 95% normal within the span of about 15 mins.

Did it the first time two weeks ago on Ovation and from a value proposition I think it was absolutely worth it. Walking on and sitting down at Jamie's during embarkation was fantastic and being able to eat at those specialty restaurants was great.

The downside for me was lack of variety. Unfortunately we only got to eat at Izumi once, were not super thrilled with Wonderland so we ended up having basically every meal at Jamie's or Chops. Theres worse things but I did miss the variety of the MDR as I felt going to the MDR was a waste while paying for UDP. Last cruise we did 3 nights at specialty and I think that was a good middle of the road.

Youre probably right, the 72 hour thing really puts a stop to it I guess. If they'd accept a rapid antigen I'd probably try.

On Ovation of the Seas Aug 20th and really would love to grab a Jeep and head up the Klondike highway. With Canadian borders now open is anyone planning to do this in the next week?