Bellamariya

We are considering buying one of the dining packages for our upcoming 12 night cruise. We've never done this before, but after 4 cruises in a relatively short amount of time (totalling 39 nights), it might be nice to have some different lunch and dinner options.

The prices to pre-purchase range from 10-45% off "onboard" prices but my question is, do they discount the price at all once you're on the ship?

Is there a chance it will get cheaper towards the end of the cruise? What have people's experiences been?

We once got the galley tour and bottomless brunch for $20 on the second last day of a cruise, is this sort of thing likely for the specialty restaurants?

I know there's a risk they will get booked out so weighing that up as well.

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Absolutely loved the whole Chef's Table experience.

The first time we went with the menu with no changes and the second time we asked for no seafood. Both choices were delicious! The drinks and dessert alone make it worth the money and the host and service were superb.

We are planning to do it again on our next long cruise as we have a friend coming that has never been on RCI and we think they will appreciate it as much as we do 🙂 

9 minutes ago, Starry Eyes said:

Annoying or not, it is probably the usual driver if pricing:  supply  and demand.

 

If I have the numbers right for Jewel,

there are 238 regular inside cabins and 3 single inside cabins.  Thus the supply of regular inside cabins is often plentiful while the supply of singles is always minimal.

Yes and of the 3, 2 are available, and at that price I'm not surprised.

14 hours ago, little britain said:

So book as a double and have your roomie as a no show? 

Or they can book the regular inside for just over $7k and get a king size bed and double points, which you actually don't get with the 2W 😛

18 hours ago, ARandomTraveler said:

Kind of surprising since Jewel is an older ship without many bells and whistles, but on the other hand, it's a unique itinerary, and those seem to cost more these days. I'm on a 12-night spectrum cruise this summer that is selling junior suites for $10,000, which I think it kinda crazy, but $8700 for an inside is truly insane. 

The annoying thing is this is a tiny inside with a single bed, they can just book a regular inside with king bed for just over $7k. It's so confusing!

12 hours ago, sgmn said:

Maybe in USA/Canada which has more of a tipping culture. In the rest of the world its not so readily understood that its part of the basic wages so more people will opt out and tip as they go.  Some parts of the world its already included in the basic fare

Yes in Australia it is included in our cruise fare and there is no option to opt out, exactly for this reason.

Can smaller ships return to Australia?

While Quantum and Ovation are beautiful ships, they are too large to dock at most of the South Pacific ports and this recent season has seen many cruises ending up being cruises to "nowhere" as conditions were unfavourable for tenders, leading to the cancellation of many port days.

We are looking at booking the 12 night Amsterdam to British Isles on Jewel next year. Interiors are from $3290pp (AUD).

2 of our party are solo travellers and usually book 2W Studio Interior to avoid the single supplement.

Just called RCI to check availability and almost had a heart attack when they told me the price for these sole occupancy cabins for this cruise was $8706.

To me this seems to be a coding error but customer service can only work with what the system is showing them.

Can anyone suggest an email contact that would have the authority to check this?

5 hours ago, Wineaux007 said:

Boro Boro and Moorea were always stops on all the TP's we booked and/or were cancelled.  They were both Tender ports.  Why now drop Boro Boro for Raiatea?  I was looking forward to booking Patrick's Boro Boro excursion.  What's there to do on Raiatea?  They are both tender ports.

On our cruise we have lost Bora Bora and gained another day on Moorea. I was disappointed as Bora Bora had some great excursions. 

12 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

I don’t know about the trans pacific.

Large ships are ban from French Poly  ,Full stop .

And Ovation and Quantum stop at Hawaii has been canceled.

So at the moment there’s nowhere for them to stop on the way. I can’t see them having passengers.

The Bora Bora stop was changed to Moorea due to the large ship ban a few months ago.
When was the Hawaii stop cancelled? I have not heard this at all and considering our embarkation is in Honolulu I think we would have been told? There are dozens of people on the Roll Call for this cruise and not one is talking about this?
 

So relieved!  We are booked on Quantum doing the Transpacific from Honolulu to Brisbane in October and had booked our flights to Hawaii with our fingers crossed. Now we can finally relax!

18 minutes ago, MoniMommy said:

You are more than 60 days out. Did you get half back to your credit card and half back as a FCC?

I had only paid the deposit, final payment was due today but I cancelled instead.  I was told to expect an email with my deposit back as an FCC in 4-6 weeks.

I cancelled my May 17th cruise today and was told it would take 4-6 weeks for the FCC to be issued. I have 2 cruises already booked but will probably use the FCC to book another once this virus issue has died down. 

We've booked a Christmas cruise for 2020. Do they have a special menu in the MDR for Christmas lunch? 

Loved our Alaskan B2B on Radiance and have just booked her for a South Pacific Christmas cruise next year.  Happy to see the Dog House is still there, didn't appear on the website as a food option so thought they'd removed it. 

Your pics are gorgeous! 

On 8/1/2019 at 6:14 AM, ptf2009 said:

Celebrity is a very nice cruise line...for older people. Royal Caribbean is much more FUN. When we get older, we'll enjoy Celebrity more.

My husband and l sailed Celebrity for the first time this year and felt exactly the same! I'd like to try them again in a few years 🙂

Just booked a cruise and logged in to make sure my preferences were set to 'do not upgrade' but there are no options available apart from communication preferences.  Am l going to have to call? 

We have this cruise bookmarked for May next year, getting excited reading your review 🙂

On 1/30/2019 at 1:37 AM, keiki40 said:

Hi Abby, we‘re on the next cruise to the Antarctica, 03/02. Our docs show that Eclipse will tender in Ushuaia. Did you tender as well? Can you please let us know who is the Captain and who is the CD on board? Thanks in advance for your reply and enjoy the rest of your cruise.

We were lucky enough to be able to dock in Ushuaia.

We did tender in Stanley, Falkland Island and that was relatively painless. 

Alejandro is the CD and he is funny! Loved the Latinos VS The Rest of the World game show 🙂

Captain Michael (can't remember his surname) is the captain. 

We have been blessed with wonderful weather and mainly calm seas 🙂

On 12/29/2018 at 11:34 AM, OfTheSeasCruiser said:

Don't have anything RCI related, and don't want to do any logos, but I'm halfway through a travel-themed sleeve so I was thinking of incorporating something subtle. Not sure what yet lol.

Would love to see your sleeve.  This is my travel themed sleeve so far....

If you really want a table for 2, the easiest way is to do Select Dining. Select Dining allows you to eat anytime you wish, but you can also make reservations online ahead of your cruise.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

Do Celebrity do select dining well?

I love RCI but this is one thing they just can't seem to get right so these days l auto book late dining!

Seems like the cafe is the place to go :)

My husband loves desserts so he will be in heaven!

I would suggest you request your desire table for 2 pre cruise. Then as soon as you board the ship go to the MDR and speak with the maitre d and make sure your request was honored. DH and I have always requested a two top table and in only one occasion was our request not honored. That one time we were glad we went to the MDR first thing since the maitre d was able to change our table to a lovely table for two.

That would be great :) How do l do that?

With RCI there is an email address that requests can go to.

Yes you can but you will need to get to the dining room asap after embarkation as tables for 2 are limited

I'll make sure it's one of my first stops :)

Thanks for all the replies :)

Liars club sounds like a lot of fun.

One question about dining? We have late seating, can we request a table for 2?