Starry Eyes

I am sorry for all those issues. I don’t know how to help with most. The changes to your reservation that caused your bid cancellation may be the gty assignment process. Sometimes that happens to me when I have gty and bid; it can be frustrating. Still, if your assignment is now set, shrug it off and re-submit your bids. There seem to be multiple cabins with large, unobstructed balconies available on your cruise; if your bid is in you might win.🤞

Finding that lost passport would be your happiest outcome. Has someone else you trust searched diligently for the passport? Or even yet multiple people (spouse, good friend, house cleaner, etc). Sometimes DH finds my misplaced things or I his. Get some fresh eyes on the job.

Can we see a picture?

We recently sailed b2b on odyssey. Both legs were booked as balcony gty, so Royal could have assigned an obstructed balconies or better for each leg. One leg we got an obstructed balcony all the way forward. The other leg we got non-obstructed midship. With gty balconies on Odyssey, some people will be luckier than others. Don’t try to second guess dumb luck.

Please read further down on your invoice. In bright blue you should find the following statement (it is on my gty invoice that says GTY, 0% issued during that time period): ”If your stateroom is GTY (guarantee) or WLT (waitlist), once your room is assigned or confirmed, you’ll receive an updated invoice advising you of your location. If your stateroom has an obstructed view, you’ll receive details once your room is assigned.” So, per that statement, the 0% at the top was just a placeholder on the invoice until your cabin was assigned. Now that your cabin is assigned they can tell you the actual % obstructed. I think they have now started putting “pending” in that spot so people will not be confused and disappointed.

Someone else would have heard you calling for help. Several years ago I was relaxing on my aft balcony on a Celebrity ship when I heard a woman call “help.” Before going off to enjoy the ship, a teenager had (presumably) inadvertently locked his mother and aunt on the balcony two cabins from mine. I made a call and help arrived promptly.

I’m glad you posted it to the roll call for that voyage as well.

At the restart we began parking at the terminal at PC rather than off site to avoid shared shuttles. DH is now hooked on the convenience. Even if they were to crank up the price, it would be tough to get DH back to off site parking so long as it continues to be very convenient at the terminal

The PC off site parking vendor we used before the shutdown now only offers cruise parking for a single ship, Carnival Marci Gras. Odd choice, though it must simplify their shuttle runs and greatly reduce the number of days they need labor.

I think they will accept a large room service order, but it would be room service (not windjammer service, lol). As mentioned, not all the items may be on the room service menu. With an order that large, you should not expect fast service. To carry the food yourself from your cabin to a different venue, such as WJ, would be a lot of effort and the food would be cold by the time you eat.

What a disappointment. Finding a bonus cruise would be nice, even at short notice.

Plus, the off-site lots at PC are generally considered safe, so one has those options. Not so in Miami. If you stop to think about it, parking is taxable in Florida. So charging tax is a normal event. The tax is being “hidden” when the tax is buried in the price and you are not told about it, lol. Not that I mind.

Again, it is not how I would design the parking payment system; I have seen worse rip-offs by port authorities. I don’t go to Disney, so they will never rip me off😀. But let’s assume you go. I believe your 3 day pass would cover, for example, a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. If you wanted a couple more hours on Monday morning I suspect you would have to pay for that 4th day. You probably don’t want to compare the garage to Disney.

I think each port authority can make its own rules and design their own systems. The parking ramps at PC are generally very convenient to the terminals. While we do not enjoy paying for both arrival and departure days, we do it as we like the convenience at PC. As many of the ramps seem to fill (sometimes fairly early), others also find the price to park at the port reasonable compared to the other options; thus I’m not sure I’d call it a rip-off. We joke about Royal math. Perhaps this is Port Canaveral Math.

Don’t forget the taxman! $17 x 4 days = $68 + 7% tax = 72.76

No, I do not need to see them make my drink. If you do, you can simply use your voucher at a different bar; you have the option to carry that drink into the DL if you want to check to small bites, ask the concierge a question or talk to fellow loyalty members…or just stay at the other bar where there might be live music or an interesting crowd. The vouchers open up your choices; enjoy

Maybe it has changed since March or maybe you did not notice. Nonetheless I looked at the current Oasis cruise. The lunch and dinner menus are not the same. I noticed, for example, that lunch has eggplant parm (not offered at dinner), while dinner has osso bucco not offered at lunch). There are also seem to be differences between G. Kitchen and G. Table. The OP has not told us which ship.

Please look again. “Dinner” is highlighted in that post, not lunch, lol. On our odyssey cruise the lunch and dinner menus were different…osso bucco and fillet were on the dinner menu but not on the lunch menu. Maybe it depends on whether the ship has a Giovanni’s Table or a Giovanni’s Kitchen. What ship, OP?

Ah, last minute booking. Been there, done that. It can be frustrating. Pre-cruise reservations for shows for May cruises probably opened April 1. Saying you “just booked,” you posted the roll call for your cruise on April 6. Many (perhaps all) those reservations may have been filled by then. Other cruisers who had booked their cruise many months ago snapped up pre cruise show reservations as soon as they opened. If you cruise Oasis class again, you might do that, too.

Sure, they could recategorize specific JS’s or, they could just sell any JS with/without amenities until the amenity option is sold out. In the later case, that would mean one week the same JS might house guests who purchased amenities the next week house guests who did not. The SL and CK are primarily for suite guests; if Royal create more suites with fully paid SL/CK access, those guests will indeed get priority over any loyalty members. In my completely hypothetical example above, adding 10 “sky JS” cabins would probably add about 25-30 suite guests and thus lower the threshold for excluding Pins

No, that would be too many, but let’s run a hypothetical with a limited number of special JS. Say they decided they in addition to the 90 full suites, they could manage accommodate an additional 10 JS’s into the full suite amenities. If the base rate averages $800 higher for the Sky JS than regular JS for first two passengers that’s $832,000 per year in additional revenue for that ship. There would be more, as they’d charge more for the 3rd and 4th guests where applicable. There would be some marginal cost increases, of course, for the amenities for the additional guests, but the revenue flow would be positive IF people would pay for those amenities.

As I speculated on that other thread, it is possible they are considering market JS’s two ways as they have on Spectrum: with full suite amenities at a higher price point and without at a lower price point. I’d further speculate only a limited number if “Sky JS” or whatever they call them would be available and that number would vary by ship (depending on amenities offered on that ship and the ship’s ability to accommodate more guests). A test offering could be done via RoyalUp on a ship or two. People in currently in a standard JS or a balcony might be offered the opportunity to bid on the new JS with suite benefits category. They could see if it was a significant revenue enhancement or not. All if the above is, of course, just wild speculation. Isn’t that much if the internet, lol

LOL, yes, Royal does need to improve their IT department. I think it would be a good investment, thought I’m not holding my breath

Yeah, I can understand that they could do that (like MTD), but it would add yet another factor to table assignments, slowing it further. Like you, I just do not think it will happen. And, in the unlikely event they do try it, I don’t think it will last long.

Yes, on most ships early traditional dining has all the seats so MTD is not scheduled to start until 6:45 or so. If there are vacancies (early diners not utilizing the MDR that might), it might be possible that some MTD guests will be seated earlier. If the app were improved, the dining system could work better. Imagine: as a traditional dining guest just by tapping a button on the app you could inform the MDR that your party would not be using your assigned table that evening as you have other plans (the MDR table would be immediately available to other guests, if needed). Imagine: rather than joining a queue, MTD guests could tap a button on the app to signal they’d like a table; they would get an appropriate wait time via the app and a notification when their table was available (claim within 10 minutes). More guest satisfaction, no more long lines, and good for bars, shops and casino.