Not true, sorry. Enter online, they activate $250. Use as you need. If you spend more they take that amount. If you do not spend it, they return. At least this is the current procesd on SEASIDE
We did not pay on Seaside. Just reserve a sit on one of the many touch screens throughout the ship. You can reserve all at once. There were one or two that you can only reserve once per cruise.
We booked an inside guarantee for May 7 cruise. We were assigned a really nice balcony on deck 13 very shortly. We ignored all of the bid to upgrade offers. Just didn't make sense $wise.
Have to say that no free drinks kept us from partaking too much. We spent about $30/day on alchohol x7 is $210. Can't touch a drink package for that. We invested in refillable water bottles for use on MSC. Enjoy your cruise.
And sickness outbreaks are fairly common on ships with excellent health reports. Reports are only a snapshot in time... those MSC problems could easily and quickly been resolved. (No matter what the fear mongers on here say.)
No thanks. Our experience was obviously much better. What cruise line are you using for comparison? We have 45+ on Royal and we were very pleasantly surprised. Even based on complaints here and reports most were inaccurate.
Any staff. They all have radios. Agree their muster drill is too time consuming. Skip watching in your cabin and put it on the app. And closing the elevators prior to requiring everyone to visit their station was silly.
Stop frightening people. Have you been on the ship since the report? I have and it was much cleaner than any of my other 45+ cruises. Someone listened and resolved the issues, which by the way had impacted zero customers.