SRV FAN

1 minute ago, Host Clarea said:

 

If your ship has a Coastal Kitchen (Allure does) and you are in a Grand Suite or better, you can have lunch (even embarkation day) at CK.

That's me! THANKS! 

1 minute ago, Host Clarea said:

 

There wil be a letter in your stateroom with the suite perks.

THANKS...…..

But I know that as well...……………. but we want to have lunch before we get to our Stateroom.... I know all the suite perks..... just need to know where we can have lunch without having to eat in the Windjammer with all the masses. 

Maybe I should rephrase this question...…………… where do the Pinnacles get to have lunch on embarkation day? 

Just now, Biker19 said:

The app will include those for suites as well, like CK.

No, it doesn't. But thanks.

1 minute ago, Tulsacoker said:

Coastal Kitchen 

 I was thinking that.... but can't find anything "certain" about it..... 

THANKS

Just now, Biker19 said:

The RCI app has a good feature for that - just click on one button and shows all eating venues open at that time.

Just looking for SUITE CLASS venues.... I know what all is open to all guests....hoping there is a venue just for Suite guests.... I thought there was....

3 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Recent Allure Compass here, see Day 1:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2690799-“live”-from-allure-of-the-seas-825-91third-time’s-a-charm/?tab=comments#comment-58208325

 

No...I've seen that. I am hoping there is a venue for Suite class guests ...not just what's open for everyone. 

3 minutes ago, Tulsacoker said:

I think its hit or miss if you get a response. If your are in star class with a genie you definitely will. most suite concierge may not reply. Two different emails also might not be helping matters. 

 

What questions are you asking them if you dont mind sharing? 

The main thing I want to know is what dining options are available to us for lunch on embarkation day...we're on Allure. That's all I really NEED to know at this point...

Hi all... I need some Suite Concierge help.... 

We are staying in a suite & received our welcome email... I replied (twice now) & have not heard back. I ask questions that I'd like answers to before we sail.

Do they normally reply to your emails? If so, when? 

They sent the original email to my hubs email addy, (no clue why), so I replied from MY email addy… I am wondering if they are not getting my replies because of that? 

TIA! 

2 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

 

Personally,  I enjoy the suspense 

It gets OLD after a while to me....

16 hours ago, philpcruiser said:

We are 3 days out.  Have put in a very generous bid weeks ago.  Heard nothing yet.  The anticipation is/was not worth it.  Will never bid again.

We're 6 days out..... no one on our Roll Call has heard anything.... I am thinking like you …. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

1 minute ago, getaway101 said:

So we got an email last night from Royal Up for our 10/20 cruise.  Put in minimum bid for Jr Suite, medium bid for Grand Suite and high bid for owners suite.  They took our minimum bid and we already have the cabin #.  Pretty good location too.  One cabin forward of the hump.  I'm happy.  At the time I booked a Jr Suite was over $1500. more so for $400.  good deal.  We are on three b2b cruises so this is the last one of the three.  Travelling with friends the first two weeks and we have side by side cabins.  I was surprised to hear back a month in advance.  Sure am glad I don't have to check my email everyday while on the first two cruises to see if we got upgraded.

WOW!! You ALREADY have been given the upgrade! We are 10 days out now and no one on our Roll call has heard a thing. Lucky you! I thought it was fun (at first)...the excitement - the suspense - the day dreaming.... but now I am so over it.... just tell me...one way or another! LOL

You do know Enchantment is one of Royal's smaller ships? There are not a lot of "bells & whistles" on it, like the Oasis class or even the Voyager or Freedom classes. I am not saying there's nothing to do...it's just limited. Bungee Trampoline. Rock Climbing Wall. Main Pool. Solarium (my fav) Pool. As for shows, there will be shows in the Theater each night...and you will be able to go to them & still do other things. The Love & Marriage Game show is usually a hoot. The Quest is always fun. You will have a lovely cruise....

But if you'd like to have a few more fun things to do on a somewhat larger ship with Waterslides & a Flowrider, Adventure of the Seas will be doing 4-5 night sailings from Galveston starting Nov.2020. 

18 hours ago, legaljen1969 said:

If you do redeem points from an RCCL Visa, when does that $100 in OBC show up?  I redeemed some and it hasn't shown up yet as available.  Will I only see it once I am onboard?  I had some OBC that was given by a TA, but the OBC from my redemption of points is not showing up.  

 

Last week, when I cashed in my RCCL Credit Card points for OBC... it said if I wanted the OBC to be applied to my sailing PRIOR to the cruise (to use in the Cruise Planner)…. I had to call & have them apply it. Otherwise it will be applied onboard to use then or cash out. 

1 hour ago, disneyfan74 said:

Can someone please explain to me the notification of your BID.  I understand that you get an email to say if you received the BID and it could be up until the day before sailing - but i have read some people saying that they have checked the status online - do they mean your normal Royal Account with your upcoming cruises? or another Royal Up account? Thanks.

Go to Royal's main page...scroll down to where you see "Royal Up" … click on it. Then scroll to where you can enter your surname & reservation number. That will show you your current bid (s)s & their status. You can modify your bid from there or click another link (at the bottom of that page) to see other cabins to bid on.... 

9 hours ago, wendyam76 said:

In our case, yes I would do something different. If my bid from an Oceanview balcony on Harmony to Grand Suite was successful I would cancel our internet/Key prepurchases and possibly the unlimited dining package too. Leaving it till the day before probably would mean I couldn’t cancel those. 

Of course I don’t think the bid will be successful!

Wendy 

You can cancel those items once onboard. The $$ amount spent will be given to you as onboard credit. If you don't use it or only partially use it, the balance will be refunded to the CC you used to book it. It's no big deal. 

42 minutes ago, ValleyCruiser said:

Something odd has happened with my RoyalUp bid. I received an email inviting me to bid on a higher class cabin at the beginning of last week via RoyalUp for our Mariner sailing later this month on the 30th. I pondered a few days but decided to bid on an OS (we are in a GS) since the minimum bids per person was $100 ($200 total for cabin).

 

A week ago, I placed a bid of $125/person ($250 total) for the OS, and had been checking in every day to see if the status had changed, not really expecting to win the bid, but still hopeful. Every day since then, until today, the status was "Pending". However, today I attempted to check my bid and got the dreaded "Please ensure your sailing is within the next 30 days" message, which of course it is, and when I click on the link to Modify my offer from RoyalUp that was emailed to me after I placed my bid, I get the screen that states my bid is still "Pending", but at the bottom there is a statement that says "There was an error". I also am blocked from modifying my offer; it says I am "Ineligible".

 

Has this happened to anyone else before who might can explain what their outcome was? I've also been checking with my TA on upgrading directly with them if the price gets within a range I find reasonable, but was curious as to why this is happening.

Yes, lots of others have posted this... and even I have gotten the be sure your within 30 days out message (which i am). It’s more than likely just a glitch on the website, check back later or sign in with a different browser... you may get a different message or maybe get in. Don’t worry about it... it’ll fix itself soon. 

In Galveston…. once you enter the terminal you will see TWO lines....The Priority line is for "The Key"; "Suite guests" & "Pinnacles" only. No Diamond/Diamond+ C&A members anymore. The other line is for "everyone else".... the Zig Zag (think Six Flags Lines)  lines can be VERY long depending on when you arrive at the terminal. It can take an hour or so easily to get to the security scanners. 

Once past security you will go to the Check-In counters... this is where you will see different lines based on C&A status'. Just find the line that corresponds to YOUR status (I am not sure if there is a Priority line for Gold???) but once in that area, it usually doesn't take long at all to get checked-in. 

Then you will go up the elevators to the waiting area...that is divided by C&A status again...if they have not started boarding yet, you will wait in your designated area... Gold status is only one up from no status..... so you will still wait a bit before all the upper tiers are allowed to go …. but at this point it shouldn't take but a few minutes. 

If you want to actually have Priority everything...then purchase The Key or stay in a Full Suite. 

Galveston can be a nightmare at times.... we usually arrive early..... but I've been told arriving later... after 1:00 you can go right in. 

23 hours ago, Host Clarea said:

Something must have been amiss for you to have waited 2.5 hours to board. 

 

If things are running smoothly, the difference between the highest priority boarding and "Gold" will be maybe 10-15 minutes. 

Not in Galveston..... the pre-security lines can be HORRENDOUS. 

This is Day 1 dining options on Allure taken from the August 25th Cruise compass..... showing what is open & the times they are open. 

20 minutes ago, killtheump said:

 

I think you misread it, it says for a CHANCE for Expedited Arrival.

Oh gosh it was so long ago.... I don’t even remember that. LOL

At the time of my “check-in” .... it said if I checked-in via the App, I would get “Expedited Check-in” at the pier.

From y’awls posts it appears that that was something special they were offering at the time & not the norm. 

To me, it was easier to check-in online. But now I wish I had done it via the App, so that I would have “Expedited” on my Set Sail pass just to see what it is all about. 

It seems as if now there isn’t really any difference in the outcome checking in with either source.   

28 minutes ago, generalchadwick said:

We've love using this hotel in this port. Rooms are just fine, nothing special but nothing bad.  Location is nice to walk to food and shops for pre cruise stuff (including TotalWine if you flew in and need to get your 1 bottle of wine.)  I am a very early riser the morning of the cruise.  There is a bridge in walking distance that you can see the whole port and watch the ships come in early in the morning.

Great! THANKS! We have stayed at the Hilton Marina & the former Hyatt Pier 66 on our prior cruises. Both beautiful properties. I got a really good price for the Renaissance (this time). Typically they are a good hotel. We needed the points so that we can get a FREE nights stay at the Renaissance in Aruba when we overnight there next year. We stayed at the Westin on the beach once...but found it too far from everything. 

Yes, we will be visiting Total Wine & More (isn't it TWO bottles of wine  per stateroom?) for our in room/balcony consumption. 

14 minutes ago, generalchadwick said:

if it's just the 2 of you I would highly recommend just using Uber.  Very short trip and I am not one that likes cramming into a van with a lot of people

Yes, we usually do grab a taxi & I did notice the entrance to Port Everglades is practically across the street. I hate shuttles too! But I don't do Uber or Lyft.... I don't mind paying a little extra for taxi service. They are usually right there at the hotels in Ft Lauderdale, so just walk out, at our leisure, grab one & we're off. 

2 hours ago, 5thgirl said:

 

Day 8 - Costa Maya

We’ve never been to Costa Maya so decided to see what types of excursions we could sign up for. At this point we didn’t want to do another beach (got enough sun by now!), so was looking for a cultural or city tour. Since Costa Maya isn’t as developed as some of the other places in MX, there wasn’t much to choose from other than the Mayan Ruins tour. This would normally be right up our alley, but as I looked at our current tab$$ onboard, plus the thought of 3 more days spending more money drinking and what not (yes, I know, no one is forcing me to have that glass of wine…… ) I couldn’t wrap my head around the cost of this excursion. BUT…...YOLO!

 

We went for it. We’ve been to many ruins before and were looking forward to comparing these to Chichen Itza, Tulum, Belize and Copan. These ruins were called Chocchaben. 

 

The drive to get there was about an hour. Because it is underdeveloped, the tour guide was really good about speaking the whole time giving us lots of information about Costa Maya (not its real name, btw, its “stage name” - locals know it as Mahahual), and its culture to keep us occupied. The ruins themselves were interesting and lots of photo ops around the various areas. Unlike some ruins, we were allowed to climb up to a certain extent. Not quite as interesting as others, but I did like these better than Belize. We were glad we did the tour.

 

Allure as we got off

 

Frida Kahlo mural

 

Look for the sign with your tour name and stand in queue

 

Our tour bus, very Jurassic Park-ish

 

We were allowed to climb up about 6 steps

 

 

Smaller ruins

 

So, On our way back, I am used to seeing the usual vendor shops and such right by the cruise port. We did see these shops, many of them. What was so strange to me, was that right smack in the middle of these shops was this giant swimming pool with crowds of people hanging out like it was spring break. I can’t describe it really, I had not seen anything like that before. Does anyone know what this was? A connected hotel? A free pool and lounge area? It was right in the plaza

That is the cruise ship port area. NOT the city. 

3 minutes ago, mizLORInj said:

Next up we're going to try the app--with the uploaded photos.  

 

YES! I am going to do that too! Next time!