ummgood

I enjoyed reading your review. Thanks for taking the time to write it. :)

Thanks for the comment!

Thanks for the review.

 

The cup and tea bag could have been missed between passengers leaving it there just as they left and new ones coming on. Also, the Back to Back passengers are on before new cruisers get on and could have left it there on a walk

I figured that is why it got there. The only reason I mentioned it is that was the very first trash I saw coming onto the ship. I didn't really mention it in my review but it seemed like there was less attention to clearing out things like this by the Navigator crew. For example on Disney if there were empty cups by the pool then the first crew member walking by would have picked them up and put them somewhere. It didn't matter if that person was a pool attendant, officer, whatever. Cups vary rarely sat on tables for more than a minute. On RCCL it seemed to take much longer in every location like the windjammer, pool deck, or in the promenade. It seemed like most of the people on the ship had a job and if their job wasn't to pick up the cup then they didn't.

Long story short I boarded the ship over an hour after the people got off. I would have expected someone to see it and pick it up in that time on Disney.

It is like a good vs ok restaurant. A good restaurant a server who sees an empty water glass will fill it if they have the pitcher even if it isn't their table. An ok restaurant only your server will fill it.

Having also done two Disney cruises, one on the Magic and one on the Wonder, your review was well balanced. Thank you for your review.

 

What a terrible incident to observe at Sabor. Glad the manager stepped in and nixed the kids drinking even when the parents attempted to circumvent the situation.

 

Every ship has it's "personality". We have found different ships, even within the same class, are often different. We really enjoy the Oasis class of ships. Our preference is actually the Allure, even though the two ships currently in this class are nearly identical. We've yet to cruise on them since their recent refurbishments.

 

We'll be on the Navigator next month, so good to read your review.

I agree about the personalities. Navigator is a great ship with some pretty great crew. I think you'll have a good time.

Great review! We also have been on the DCL Wonder and it was a great ship. A year later, we did RCCL FotS and found it to be just as great as the Wonder, but experienced the same things you noted with crew friendliness. We've had annoying issues on every cruise, much like your hot water problems. The way I see it, these ships are so big and complex and being in service all the time, things do go wrong. I'm pretty patient with that sort of stuff. Cleanliness is another issue. We sail the Navigator in October so, we shall see. Thanks for the review!

We have been fortunate so far to have this be the first time with something like a hot water problem. I am pretty patient too I never really got disgruntled by it. We just laughed. My wife was slightly more annoyed because it made it difficult to shave legs.

Thanks for the review, that family in Sabors! They should have been put off the ship for giving the kids alcohol. It's a Mexican restaurant, what a-holes.

It was quite interesting to watch.

Was wondering why the cost of the cruises out of Galveston are so cheap. Now I know!

 

We have sailed on Navigator several times and loved her. Sorry you had a bad experience.

 

We have only sailed RCCL so I can't compare to any other line. We only had one bad experience and that was our room flooding from the toilet or a broken pipe, it happened twice - the first time we were understanding and nice. The second time we asked to be moved. RCCL did move us and it was to an upgrade - no more the drama the rest of the cruise.

 

Hope you have a better experience if you choose RCCL again.

I think they are cheaper because there is less demand. Disney's also tend to be slightly cheaper out of Galveston vs. FL and I think it is just a supply and demand thing and not necessarily the condition of the ship thing.

I didn't really have a bad experience. We had a great vacation just was spelling out what we noticed. It didn't affect our overall vacation. That is great about the flooding and giving you a new room. On our cruise the entire cruise was full so there was no way to move us.

Thanks for your review, I'd like to try Disney sometime.

Thanks we love it! It is costly for a family of 5.

Excellent, balanced review. Glad you were able to roll with the negative and enjoy the positive. Thanks for posting your observations, I hope Royal is listening so they see the strength of their crew.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I hope they are watching too! I did give them lots of feedback (positive and negative). Not sure if they are watching or not. A lot of my feedback could probably be resolved with more attention to detail.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. I wasn't sure if I would be in trouble for having some negative things to say about RCCL. We really did have a good cruise. I was just trying to list what we had observed. I'll try to respond to everyone's comments.

Good Review. Well written. Thanks for taking the time to Report On Your Holiday.

No problem glad I could help.

Thanks a bunch. Been seriously considering a Disney Cruise, just hard to cough up the cash.

We loved Disney and yes it is a big stretch for us. We typically afford it by saving and going every couple to few years. It just has gotten so high that it would take us even longer to save and I would rather start figuring out ways to take more frequent vacations with our kids than take that long. They are growing up so fast!

thank you for the review. we to are Disney cruisers with our first rccl sailing just booked for the oasis. loads of dcl cruises under our belt but it is getting a little to expensive. can we afford it, yes. do we want to, no. hence the oasis booking.

glad to hear you didn't feel nickel and dimed. this was the one thing I worried about before we booked because I kept reading about it. when I put pen to paper I realized what was being said didn't make sense.

anyways, again, thanks for the review. makes me feel like we have made the right choice.

Honestly on RCCL I wasn't as tempted by the stuff for sale as I was on a DCL cruise or land vacation. I don't know how but I spend way more when traveling Disney than I could even fathom. Plus at Disney my kids are really tempted. What we started doing for them is giving them gift cards for $50 and telling them that that was their spending money. It is amazing how well they make decisions on what they want when they have money that is 'theirs'.

Thanks for your thoughts, we did not see any wear or tear on our cruise, your thoughts on entertainment is the reason we love RCCL, have always thought that RCCL was the best in that.

We loved a lot of the entertainment. We also loved the main shows on Disney it was great. One thing we thought RCCL excelled with though was the singers just randomly around the ship. They were definitely better than on Disney. I never saw crowds in the hallways on the Disney ship while a band was playing but that was more often the case than not on RCCL.

Two choices here

 

A. Dark, uncentered blurry photo

 

B. Stolen smartphone or camera.

 

I had never considered a selfie stick. Now I will. I think it will get us some interesting pictures on vacation. For $20 I will look into it.

 

I have an Android, my wife has an iPhone; I am going to assume that a stick works for any/either through Bluetooth or???

 

Any recommendations?

First let me answer this...

We have a Yunteng selfie stick. If you search amazon you'll see it. There is one with a bluetooth remote that can either work with iOS or Android. You pair to the remote and then press the button on the remote to activate the shutter on your camera app.

With that said the reason I have a selfie stick is because it was given to me for my birthday last year. I thought it was the silliest gift. My father-in-law who is 60 bought it for me. He loves it because he can take pictures at locations with his wife without having to ask for assistance. If they are hiking there is often no one around to take their photo. So it is really handy for that.

I have started using it more and more and we just took ours on Navigator a couple weeks ago in our carry on with no problems. We only take it out when we want to take a photo on the beach. No different than if we asked someone else to take our photo.

Like with anything there will always be those that are less considerate than others. This can happen in so many forms. You can either choose to ignore it or avoid it or get disgruntled by it. I choose to have a great time and just sidestep those taking selfies. I haven't had it happen so much it was impossible to avoid.

Intro:

Hi everyone. We just returned from our first RCCL cruise on the Navigator of the Seas on July 12th. Overall we had an amazing vacation. My wife and I decided to leave our kids at home for our 15th anniversary. We have cruised twice with the kids on Disney prior to this cruise. I will warn that the only ship we have to compare to the Navigator is the Disney Wonder. Both of our cruises were on her and we love that ship. I had an open mind going into this and really want to have alternatives to Disney because they are getting too pricey for us. Sorry about lack of photos and usually I take a ton but we really shut down for the week and didn’t really worry about anything. For reference we were in the aft corner balcony 9390.

Please read until the end. We really had a great cruise but I am going to lay out everything we noticed on the cruise. Maybe RCCL will read. I do plan on sending in feedback. I’ll start each section with my gripes. This doesn’t mean I didn’t love the ship but it is what we noticed coming from Disney.

Overall Ship Impressions:

First we noticed that the Navigator has some wear and tear. I was a bit surprised by this. I knew she went through some major refurbishments just over a year ago so I expected less wear than what we saw.

For example on our balcony had some putty to fix some rust areas. This putty was not painted and there were several shades of blue showing because of chipped paint. I realize this is a bit nit picky but we were just surprised. Also a lot of the stain on the natural wood finishes was worn off or sun bleached.

Our initial impression is that the ship isn’t that clean. A couple examples are when we boarded there was a used cup with teabag on the deck 4 outdoor area from the previous cruise (I know this because there is no way a guest who had tea could get back out there until after we sailed). There was also lots of trash bits all over from straw wrappers etc… In our stateroom there was a bunch of food stuck to the back of our curtain to the balcony. (We saw it because we had a door to our balcony and it was visible when we came back in). Another thing was the grout in the public restrooms was pretty gross. Where the baseboards met the tile it was pretty built up with grime. Also the windows looking out from the Windjammer were pretty dirty. Now with that said the ship was not so dirty that it grossed me out and made me want to leave. It was at a level of cleanliness similar to say a nice Hampton Inn.

We also really disliked the smoking situation in the Casino. We only went in there once at the beginning of the cruise to check it out and didn’t like the smell. Turns out through the week it got worse an worse. Towards the end of the week we were avoiding venues immediately adjacent to the casino on deck 4 due to the smoke. It was travelling outside the casino and we could smell it pretty bad. I will say we are pretty sensitive because our daughter has some major asthma and so we notice it more than most even if she isn’t with us.

With all that negativity out of the way the ship was beautiful! It really did look stately. We really liked the features of the ship and how it looked if we looked past the aspects above. I loved the promenade and the ambiance it created for formal nights etc… (Even though we didn’t dress up). I can see now why so many people like to dress up on the ship because the ship really does make it exciting to do so.

Staff:

We had a little mix up the first night in the dining room. We were put at a table for 10. The other 8 at our table was part of a party for 10, which the cruiseline messed up and didn’t put them together even though their reservations were linked. They asked us nicely if we would switch with the other 2 so they could all sit together so we didn’t mind and switched. Then we were at a table for 6 and 4 of the people were a family that spoke Spanish and we didn’t really fit in with them. Not their fault or RCCL. Then at dinner they said they had 2 other family members that were put at the wrong table and asked if we would switch with them. We didn’t mind so we switched again. With that said we asked our waiter to officially switch us because we wanted to make sure our tips made it to the right person. The headwaiter came over and seemed pretty annoyed at us. We were only trying to help and basically helped two groups fix their issue. I guess he had told them there was nothing he could do unless they found someone to switch and they both did so I don’t know why he seemed put out.

In addition our first night in the dining room was BAD. Our assistant waiter was never there. One of our table mates had a mental disorder and stole my wife’s bread. My wife was sweet about it and the family felt really bad but it literally took 20 minutes to get another roll for my wife. My water glass was only filled once after I emptied it over 2 hours. Our waiter took our order and only came back to drop off food but left so fast we really couldn’t ask for anything. I was really discouraged by this and was wondering if we would be eating in the windjammer all week. We had been spoiled by the wait staff on Disney and was hoping for something similar but didn’t have high expectations.

The other area where we had issue was in our stateroom. The first night we realized we didn’t have hot water. We called maintenance. A guy came out and he ran our shower and sink for 3 minutes or so and it started to get warm and he had me feel and said “see it just takes awhile” and I said ok and he left. The next morning it took over 10 minutes to get luke warm water. Our stateroom host ended up calling up maintenance again and they said they fixed it but the next day it still was cold. Then the next day the head of housekeeping came up to wonder why we called maintenance 3 times and I showed him the issue and he said “That isn’t right” and we ended up having the entire faucet in our shower changed out. But in doing that they forgot to turn on our cold water so that night we didn’t have cold water. We boarded on Sunday and I didn’t have a hot shower until Wednesday. Then Thursday the entire hot water shut off in the middle of my shower so I literally had 1 hot shower in the first 5 days of the cruise. It took way too much effort to get it resolved. (RCCL did give us some credit to our next cruise on the last night for this problem). I will say though that by Thursday we had a lot of managers calling us to find out if we were happy. I was glad that they were concerned about it and have some checks/balances if someone calls with a complaint too much.

Now the average. We basically noticed there were a lot of staff on the ship that didn’t say high or acknowledge you if you walked by. This is a petty observation but on Disney most everyone if not everyone would say hi or smile at you when you walked by. It takes little effort but improves the guest satisfaction in my mind. I smile at everyone so it wasn’t like I was frowning and expected a smile back. I had a great cruise and was in a pretty good mood.

Now to the good. We met some great people on this cruise. Our stateroom host was the best we have ever had. He was very concerned about us and the condition of the room. He actually got switched positions and was disappointed at its state when we arrived. We showed him the curtain and it was fixed immediately with a new one. He was always giddy to show me things and we got along great. He also asked how everything was and I said we were having problems with the shower and he took over. If it wasn’t for him calling and getting his manager involved I don’t know if we would have had hot water all week.

Our servers we had at the new table starting on Day 3 (we went to Sabor on formal night so we missed night 2) were amazing. They were great and we loved them. Our waiter specifically would find us on the ship and say hi. To me he was definitely as good as we had on Disney or better. He really was great. (we had great table mates too so all the switching worked out in the long run).

I also have to say this is the best cruise director we have ever had on a cruise. He was awesome. More on him later…

Bars:

We hardly ever drink but we were without the kids this trip so we had a couple. The bar staff was amazing. We thought going in it would be substandard based on other comments on cruise critic but we never had to wait long (except at the pool during the belly flop contest) and there was always someone roaming around taking orders if we didn’t go up to the bar.

I really have no negatives regarding the bars. The drinks were great and they were free pouring from a measuring cup if that makes sense or helps anyone. Also I was tipping $1 dollar bills in addition to the automatic tip just to make their day.

Entertainment:

Let me start with the bad. There wasn’t any!

I will say the late night comedian and the juggler/stair guy were just average. They weren’t bad but not amazing either. The juggler was good but he drew out the ladder trick way too long. It was amazing he could balance on a ladder that long but we felt he was drawing it out for time sake.

For the Quest show we really thought it was funny but it wasn’t as good as the hype in my mind. We did like it but it wasn’t something we continuously talked about. Not like the Love and Marriage show which I’ll talk about later.

Now for the great. We absolutely loved the singing on the ship. I am sure that this is a very opinionated subject but we thought they were all very talented. We definitely were impressed and thought the singers were better than the ones we saw on Disney. We especially loved the Christian Simmon’s band. They had great harmony and the guy who played all the instruments was amazing!

We also loved the ice show. It was great. It was truly amazing what they can do on such a small ice rink.

The best show of the cruise for us was the Love and Marriage game show. It was amazing and truly funny! The longest married couple was married for over 60 years and they were so cute. They got every question right. In addition on one question was a multiple choice and the wife said an answer, which wasn’t even an option and when the husband came out he said the same exact wrong answer has his wife. The audience broke out in applause. It was truly great.

With that said we truly believe the Cruise Director John Perry was awesome. I loved the way he worked with people and got the crowd going. He was truly talented and better than any other cruise director we have had. I previously thought that the Cruise Director roll was cheesy until this cruise. He was that great.

Room Service, Food & Specialty Dining:

Ok they overly controversial food topic. We would say that the food was equivalent to Disney in most regards.

First for the bad…

We every day put out a tag to have hot water delivered to our room. I brought my own Aero Press, Manual Burr Grinder, and Coffee so we could have good coffee in the room. The coffee on the ship was not good at all. We had 2 cups in the promenade and after that we only drank what we brewed in our room.

In addition room service never came when we actually wanted them to. We were on vacation and if we put down we wanted delivery between 8 and 8:30 we expected it in that window. Instead all days of the cruise it showed up at least 20 minutes before the window began. For example the 8 to 8:30 window they would show up at 7:30 or 7:40. We only had one day the entire cruise where it was actually within the window. This is a minor gripe but I would pick a window with enough time for me to get up and get dressed prior to them delivering. But often they would call to tell me it was being delivered 40 minutes early and it would show up 30 minutes early. This would wake me up way before my alarm.

The Pizza in the Promenade was below average like on Disney but the main issue I had is all week all they had is Pepperoni and Cheese. For kids and people who like those that is great but for those of us that prefer some other options I thought it was poor. It isn’t that hard to over a veggie pizza or Hawaiian. This is where Disney’s lackluster pizza offerings were better because they had at least 4 or 5 different types of pizza at any time.

My final poor rating was the policy to allow kids in the specialty dining rooms. We felt that at least one restaurant on the ship should be adults only. We have 3 kids and we love them dearly. Sometimes we just need some time away from kids. I know a common complaint on Disney is kids can’t go to the specialty restaurant and I do agree that Disney could have one restaurant where it is fine dining and kids are welcome to attend. We didn’t actually have any kids in Chops when we dined but having the view of Windjammer kind of brought the environment back into the same category.

With that said the reason I really even thought about this was the family sitting next to us in Sabor. There was a family with 4 kids seated next to us. They were very rude to the wait staff. First they were giving him a hard time because they wanted to order their kids alcoholic drinks. The wait staff refused and then the kids started bashing the waiter with him there. They were claiming that they got to drink in Mexico and this is a Mexican restaurant. The waiter held his ground. Then the parents ordered at least 2 times the amount of drinks as they could consume and when the waiter brought them they immediately gave the drinks to the kids. Then a few minutes later a head waiter came over and informed them that if they didn’t take the drinks away from the kids then they would have to leave. They complied but it was just awkward. They continued to be rude the rest of the night. This situation brought to my attention that kids would not be allowed in Disney’s fine dining restaurants so I figured I would comment on it.

For the average…

The food in the main dining room was decent but not awe-inspiring. To be honest we expected this and were not disappointed. It just didn’t wow us and we didn’t expect it to. Same with the Windjammer.

For the specialty restaurants the food was great. I’ll get to that in a bit. The problem we had with the specialty restaurants was the ambiance in Chops. While dining in Chops we were at the table closest to the entrance. At dinner time this allowed us a great view of the windjammer. We saw people coming in and out in swimsuits, tshirts, etc… I just didn’t feel like we were dining in a restaurant that cost us $70 considering we could have gotten free food in the MDR. I think RCCL could have done a better job separating Chops from the Windjammer but still keep it in the same location. This is definitely where Disney wins. Palo has a grand entrance and the tables are definitely in the restaurant without any view of who might be walking by in the elevator lobby. In addition to the poor view from our table our waiter in Chops seemed either uninterested in his job or bored. He was very knowledgeable and gave us good service but with no personality whatsoever.

For the good…

Sabor was amazing. The food was great, the guac was great, and our server was outstanding. The ambiance was by far way better than Chops. This was by far our favorite food of the week. It was outstanding. I think the tables are also setup better in here to not have a view into the promenade.

Chops also had amazing steaks. I was concerned by all the bad comments on cruise critic. The food was amazing and the desserts were over the top. The red velvet cake was insanely good. We weren’t planning on going but we had the premium package, prepaid our tips, prepaid our excursions, prepaid for Sabor, and had also over $200 in OBC and we were trying to find ways to spend it. I thought based on Disney we would use that money in the shops but we didn’t (I’ll get to that later). So we ended up using some of Starbucks, and ate in Sabor and Chops. We also bought a avocado thingie from Sabor that my wife wanted. We ended up having $4 credit at the end of the cruise so we got a coffee from the Promenade before we departed. That is why we ended up in Chops.

Shops:

Ok I have to say I was severely disappointed with the goods available to purchase on the ship. All of the RCCL branded merchandise seemed beyond cheap. We had a lot of OBC that we planned on spending for souvenirs for the kids and us. When we got into the shop with the RCCL branded merchandise we didn’t buy anything! Everything seemed like Walmart quality sold at a Disney price. We collect coffee mugs and travel mugs and we just couldn’t find one that was nice enough to by. The travel mugs seemed like cheap plastic. The coffee mugs were very plain with no real design to them. I don’t mind paying $16 for a travel mug but not when I feel like I could get the same thing at Walmart for $3 without the logo. It either has to be decent quality or have a really thoughtful design that makes me think it is nice. I felt none of the items in the shop branded RCCL had any of that.

The other shops seemed like a duty free shop at an airport. I travel to Europe at least 2x per year and I see those shops all the time. Exact same thing. I have no desire to buy that stuff because if you shop at home you can get basically the same deal. Some of the deals might be slightly better but it is hard to know. I did see a Tag watch I loved but I wouldn’t risk buying it unless I knew it was a decent deal and I didn’t have internet on the ship so I couldn’t shop around. I knew I would be slammed with tax on it because it was over the allotted allocation so I wasn’t willing to take a risk. Plus every item on the ship that wasn’t branded was available in the port shops at every stop.

With that said we did buy some minor stuff. We got the kids some keychains for their backpacks (they collect keychains) that were RCCL branded. Also on the last sea day they had a sail on t-shirts that weren’t in the ship before and we got the kids some shirts for $10/each. I also got a wallet because mine was pretty ragged and they had one that I would use. I was slightly disappointed we didn’t end up with an RCCL merchandise for ourselves but it just wasn’t enough quality for us.

Family stuff:

Finally I wanted to talk about family stuff for those that have kids and what we observed. I plan on structuring this section slightly different with just observations. One of the things we were thinking going on this cruise was to see if it is a viable option for our family after only cruising Disney. I had several concerns like are the shows appropriate, are the other cruisers inappropriate, how are the clubs, how would dinner time be, and would the kids be bored.

Overall we thought we could take our kids on RCCL. We found the other cruisers for the most part were good. We saw nothing really inappropriate. We did see more teens getting hot and bothered than on Disney but not to the point it concerned us. Plus we had no way of knowing if they were already a couple or if it was kids hooking up on the ship. We have a girl that is just getting to teen years so we’ll have to be on top of that.

The shows we did see that were during normal times (not adult) were fine for our kids. I think they would really like the ice show and the juggler. They weren’t as good as the Disney shows but I feel they would be entertained and not bored.

For the dining room our servers we got after the first night were amazing. I feel they would be good with the kids. Not sure since I didn’t have kids there but the table behind us did and the kids seemed happy and content. I think if we took the kids and we didn’t have that attentive of a wait staff like the first night of our cruise we would ask to move or just eat in the Windjammer with the kids. I never had the situation on Disney where I felt like I needed to ask for someone else.

For the clubs we felt like they were kinda blah. We went and checked them out the first day of the cruise. They didn’t have that wow factor. They were just colorful rooms. I am sure the kids would have a good time but we would have to prepare ourselves if they didn’t.

Finally for the pools. We saw several disgruntled parents with babies/toddlers in diapers because there was nowhere for their babies to play in the water on this ship. I thought this was a huge oversight. We just potty trained our youngest so it doesn’t affect us anymore but I felt bad for those parents. You need at least a splash pad or something for the babies. I felt RCCL dropped the ball on this one and could have added something when they refurbished the ship. Especially since they are trying to sell themselves as a family cruiseline. One set of parents had a great idea though they brought a very small blow up pool for their baby. They pailed some water with a bucket into the pool and put it next to the main pool while they were in the pool. The baby looked pretty happy. I don’t think this would work for a toddler though.

Conclusion:

Now my review might have come across as harsh but I really was trying to write an open review of what we liked and didn’t like on the ship. Overall we loved the vacation. I am still trying to figure out how we can go with the kids on RCCL and use our discount we received because of the hot water issue. The overall experience was good to the point we would give them our money again. We had a great relaxing vacation. None of the items above made us upset or want to get off the ship. We just rolled with it and noted what we saw mentally and sometimes discussed it because we were without kids and had time to think.

Let me close with one final thing. We often heard that RCCL nickel and dimes people to death on their cruises. I can say we definitely didn’t feel that way. In fact we had $0 dollars owed when we left the ship. We prepaid for everything that we could afford. I think if you are used to Disney and buy a beverage package and prepay tips it is very easy to not spend another dime on the ship. On Disney I think they are so good at selling things you don’t feel bad about spending at all and you can spend $1000 before you know it. I always was shocked at the end of my Disney cruises and what I owed. This time I didn’t owe anything because I paid in advance. I think if you compare the price difference, even adding packages, RCCL is still more affordable than Disney for what you get. I do think we would have spent more if the shops had good merchandise but they didn’t. Plus we wouldn’t have eaten at Chops because we would have spent that $70 in the shops.

Also on the survey they emailed to me I was honest and gave them some pretty poor remarks on some things. I haven’t heard back from them but I doubt I will. I did try to make sure I gave the good servers excellent marks because they were great!

Thanks for reading! I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Common sense does not say spend $14 on something that costs about $1 to make. So let's say your house cost $100,000. Would YOU want to spend $1.4 MILLION dollars to buy it?

 

 

 

HELL NO!! that is common sense.

Depends on where the house is located. In La Jolla darn right I would pay 1.4 Million.

We always seem to get back from port early and we love to people watch at a port while people head back to the ship.

I had honestly never considered using OBC to pay tips. Interesting idea though.

That was my plan because I have enough OBC to pay tips. I already prepaid for my excursions and packages so I figured the gratuities could be paid by OBC and we would still have a small amount for some trinkets. Now I prepaid and we'll just use our OBC for something else I am sure.

I understand you think you had a binding contract with the cruise line but that simply isn't the case. Here's the only relevant portions of the cruise contract:

 

"a) 'Agreement' or 'Contract' means the terms and conditions set forth in this Ticket Contract together with the Cruise or CruiseTour Fare due for Your

Cruise or CruiseTour. Together, the items described in the preceding sentence shall constitute an agreement between Passenger and Operator for the

Cruise or CruiseTour."

 

"d) 'Cruise Fare' or 'CruiseTour Fare' includes the amount due for the Cruise or Cruise Tour, whether such amounts are owing and/or have been paid by

the Passenger, but does not include amounts due for other products or services such as air transportation, photographs, gratuities, telephone calls, or medical services which can be purchased separately, nor does it include government or quasi-governmental taxes and fees, whether assessed on a per passenger, per vessel, per berth or per ton basis, nor any fuel surcharges, security surcharges or similar assessments made by airlines, trains, buses, hotels or other third parties which are subject to change and are due and payable by Passenger upon request. For CruiseTours that include air travel, airfare is included in the CruiseTour Fare."

 

This specifically excludes gratuities.

 

Since you admit you can have all or part of the gratuities removed at guest services, then you agree that the gratuities are 'voluntary'. It really doesn't matter if such removal might have real or imagined consequences. They are still 'voluntary'. Since the gratuities are 'voluntary', they cannot be enforced through a contract. If they could be enforced, then they would not be 'voluntary'.

I never said I thought I had a binding contract about this. I just said that RCCL had a published gratuity price when I booked the cruise. I understand there are lots of things in the contract that I don't agree with and frankly if I am on the boat and they don't go anywhere I am not entitled anything according to the contract. But a good cruise company will compensate passengers even with that wording in the contract if something happens like when RCCL couldn't sail for a few days because of the Galveston oil spill. They still provided full refunds even though the contract still entitles them to not pay back a cent. This is what corporations do. They put all protections for themselves and none for the person buying the service. Then they can look like the good guy when they do make things right because someone will always say "you weren't entitled to that compensation because the contract says this" so even a small token seems like they went above and beyond the "contract".

With that said I think there are understood conditions that customers make when they purchase something. In this case I purchased a cruise for X amount of dollars knowing that I would have to also pay a required gratuity of Y. Now that I have paid in full and cannot cancel without losing 50% of my cruise fair that amount Y has been increased. They also raised the price of Chops and the beverage package since I purchased but I don't care about that because I have the option to buy or not. With gratuities it is different because I am automatically charged. In order to not be charged I have to go to guest services and remove them. Then I get potentially a bad rep with the employees because I am on a "list" in the bowels of the ship. That is even if I plan on paying them cash at the end of the cruise. And I shouldn't have to tell them what I plan on tipping or when I plan on tipping to get my service restored because they think I am stiffing them.

To me this is no different than my cable company all of a sudden deciding to start charging me to rent my cable modem. My contract states that I only have a certain price on my internet but then all of a sudden they increase my monthly payment because I now pay a fee to rent my modem. This is the way they raise what I have to pay without any choice of my own without raising a big stink and getting it removed. To me RCCL has stooped to this level.

If they would have done what I posted earlier stating that they were raising the gratuities and would honor the price when I booked but if I would like to increase my tips for stellar service then to come to guest services any time they would have come across much less trying to do whatever they can to increase the cost of my cruise. Which they have because almost everything has gone up. Beverage packages, specialty dining, individual drinks, and now gratuities. The price I had in mind when I booked is significantly more expensive than before. Plus in order to get a cheaper price like for dining or gratuities I have to pay now before I even step foot on the boat. When I sailed on Disney and they raised the price of Palo before my cruise they let me make reservations at the old price BUT I didn't have to pay until my cruise was over. Or RCCL could have just chosen to raise prices on cruises starting > 90 days out so people who can't back out have that choice if they so choose.

Gratuities are between you and those receiving the gratuities. They are not covered by the contract between you and the cruise line.

I don't agree. This was a published cost of the cruise by the cruise line. They will automatically charge this to my stateroom without my interaction so to me it is an arranged cost between me and the cruiseline at the time of booking. It was also mentioned in my documentation when I booked the cruise with my TA. So far I have yet to get any email from my TA or RC that this is changing so if I didn't know I would be charged the extra above what is disclosed in my booking.

Now if my booking agreement stated that it is recommended that you give tips to employees of the ship in a certain amount but RC wasn't planning on doing this for me then that would be between me and the employees. But since RC is going to charge me either way unless I go down to guest services and reverse it PLUS my name gets put on the naughty list in the crew passage ways then I think my hand is being forced. They should have to honor that agreement.

I would think that the better way to approach this is if they sent a message stating that we are raising the standard suggested gratuity levels for employees. Since you booked before this change we will still be charging you the old rate but if you would like to have the new gratuity level added to your stateroom please come to guest services and we will adjust the amount for you.

This appears to be true, however, for people like myself, who found out a week ago about this option, but have a final payment date of today, it really makes no difference because "just adding the prepaid option" still requires an immediate payment. And I wonder about people whose final payment date already passed, what was their option? Like the person above who sails July 5th, what was their option for avoiding the increase when adding prepaid tips is no longer an option?

I was able to prepay my gratuities through my TA just now at the old $12/day/person rate. I was going to use my onboard credit but I'm sure we'll buy some souvenirs for the kids with that anyway so no biggie. I will now pay any extra tips I deem appropriate with cash.

This appears to be true, however, for people like myself, who found out a week ago about this option, but have a final payment date of today, it really makes no difference because "just adding the prepaid option" still requires an immediate payment. And I wonder about people whose final payment date already passed, what was their option? Like the person above who sails July 5th, what was their option for avoiding the increase when adding prepaid tips is no longer an option?

I will call my TA today and find out if I can add them. If I can I'll do so but I am not sure since I paid in full 2 months ago.

I guess the question in my mind is if I pay the 12.95/day/person does that money all go to the staff or not? I have only cruised Disney thus far and they honor the prices when you booked in my experience. I also know when you book Disney and pay your tips they print you coupons to give to the staff and it says the amount they are getting which matches what I paid. Then I slip on some extra money into those envelopes. I assume that they get the amount that is on the slip. If Royal doesn't get the servers the amount I am paying I will be upset. It is gratuities and I expect 100% of the cash I have earmarked for them to go to them. As far as other support staff I spoke to some people on Disney in the past and usually the support staff gets paid a higher wage because they don't get tips. So I thought that the servers and stateroom hosts don't have to share those tips.

I usually tip extra so I am not too worried about this but I am annoyed that I booked my cruise over a year ago and now since I am cruising July 5th I am getting extra charges. It is the way it is handled by the cruise line that makes me upset. The cost of the cruise (minus extras like fine dining) should stay constant from the time I entered contract unless I change something.

With that said I usually tip based on awesome service above the prepaid gratuity. That usually comes as cash in the envelop.

Thanks for your review. We are sailing in exactly 90 days on navigator for our first rccl cruise. We have previously only cruised on Disney.

We love to watch people run to get on the ship too. On our last cruise a family held up the port departure. Then later the ship slowed down and a cruiser got off onto another boat shortly after we departed. Something must have happened in port and some of the family was still on the ship. I couldn't even imagine. I hoped it turned out ok for them.

I bought mine today for my July cruise because I would be shocked if they didn't raise the price in 90 days.

If you are on a ship with the O3B internet (Oasis, Allure, Quantum are all I know so far), then the internet is very fast and it should only take a few minutes each time. If you are on a ship with the slower internet, it could take much longer to download and send email. I had it take 10 minutes on Liberty last week.

Thanks I am on Navigator.

ummgood, Honduras (including Roatan) is covered. If you look on t-mobiles page

http://www.t-mobile.com/optional-services/roaming.html

Honduras is in the South and Central America Section, not the North American and Caribbean.

Thanks I didn't see it!

 

Once my tags are folded I put packing tape over the whole tag then fold it over the handle, staple it then put more packing tape. I literally have to use scissors to get them off :D

Thanks for the idea! I'll definitely do that.

I'm still waiting for the first thread about one of them failing completely and the person complaining that they paid extra for an inside cabin with no balcony.:rolleyes:

If I paid extra for one over a standard interior room and it didn't work I would complain about it or at least expect a refund of the price difference between a standard inside and the virtual balcony.

Now the weird part is I looked on that trip planner a week ago and the cruise ship was covered. Now it isn't. Bummer.

I have Verizon and going on the Oasis March 21st. I never use my phone but this time decided to use it if I could. I called Verizon and they now have a new cruise ship plan/international plan. You can activate and deactivate after your cruise. $40.00 per month for - unlimited incoming text messages, 100 outgoing text messages, 100 voice calls/checking voicemails counts and 100MB for data(internet). This info is on the Verizon Web site. Hope this info helps.

Is the $40 prorated for only the time used in the time?

Yes you have to be careful. For example say your cruise leaves in the middle of your billing cycle. If you start it the day you leave and stop it the day you get back you'll only be charged for $10 BUT you'll also only get 25 minutes of call time instead of 100 etc... You definitely want to make sure you activate it the first day of your billing cycle and cancel it on the last day of your billing cycle to get the full 100 minutes/texts/data. You also have to cancel this because it automatically renews. It isn't a one time add on.

I am planning on using this on our cruise to keep in touch with our kids when we are gone. I found this fact out by doing some research from others that have used the plan. Fortunately our cruise starts on the 5th and our billing cycle starts on the 4th. I am sure it would be a pain if your cruise were to overlap two billing cycles. I guess you could start it mid month and end it mid month so the total is still $40 but you would have to watch your minutes and make sure you only use half of the minutes in one billing cycle and the other half in the next billing cycle. They sure don't make it easy.

I have a coworker with T-mobile and he loves the international aspect of the new T-mobile choice plans. I even considered getting a T-mobile account for our cruise and then cancelling it when I get home since I won't have a contract. The problem is we are on the Honduras, Mexico, Belize route and only Mexico is included in their plan. The ship and the other two ports are not covered while on Verizon's $40 feature every port we will go to is covered.

If you use this link:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/tripplanner/tripplannercontroller

You can see if the ports you are going to have the package available. For RCCL and all of my ports it supposedly works.

I am so happy you got your bag! While it might not seem like a big deal to some not having clean clothes the next morning probably would have sent me into a panic. I always have a fear of stinking to those around me and that would have pushed me over the top :) And unfortunately my wife is petite and I am a larger guy and my kids take after their mom so there was no way that I could have borrowed my kids clothes.

We have a lot of trouble packing carry ons. Our three kids when we last cruised were 2, 5, and 10 and I had every intention of taking a change of clothes and swim suits for everyone but by the time we had everything packed that needed to be carried on there was no way poor old dad could carry anymore. I was carrying a day's worth of diapers, probably 3 stuffed animals, a laptop, 2 iPads, a heavy DSLR camera, cool bag with ice for my son's medicine that had to be kept cold etc... Mom had to be free to chase and carry the 2 yr old when he was trying to rip the ornaments on the mickey tree on the ship or take tiles off the gingerbread house in the lounge on the Disney Wonder. (we cruised at Christmas).

The truth is when you have kids you are barely able to carry what you need just for that day let alone extra clothes and supplies to last a few days IF they lose your luggage. Thankfully they didn't and we got all our stuff. I just want to put perspective on parents that are told to pack extra in their carry ons. That sometimes just isn't possible without breaking someone's back.

This is why we primarily cruise as a family now. Flights are a nightmare, trying to pack for a day at Disney or another theme park is a nightmare. I love having everything available a short 15 minute walk from anything on the ship and not having to carry a diaper bag is amazing! When our two younger kids are more self sufficient and don't need us to be pack mules we'll probably start entertaining other vacation choices but for now we are cruising.

A question for seasoned RCCL cruisers. Do you think people printing their own luggage tags causes more luggage to be lost? I know for DCL they send you luggage tags and those things are so sticky and durable I think it would take an act of God to get them to come off your bag. Do you think just paper tags with staples etc... are part of the reason that bags could be lost on RCCL? (I don't know that they lose the same or more or less bags than DCL and am not trying to start a controversy) I just thought maybe that is part of the problem?

If I bought the 60 minutes and just wanted to log in to retrieve massages on am iPad, log out and compose a message and log in to send about what is people's experience with how long the 60 minutes will last? We want to email a couple times a day to check on our kids.

Why would a business accept a collect call?

 

 

 

And it's a pretty common thing that if you call a call center after hours there might not be a manager on duty as they tend to work normal business hours and shift runner type people work at night.

I fly for business 3 or 4 times a year international and the TA our company uses has a number we can call collect if we need to. That way we have some way to communicate if we are stuck in an airport with no other way to call. That is exactly why we use a TA at work is to deal with these issues for us. They aren't responsible for the mistakes the airline makes but they are responsible for getting us to our destination and if our baggage is lost they will work it out with our destination hotel to have clothes sent to our room at destination.