Tatka

Well..this change to dynamic dining was fleetwide, so it is what it is. You cannot beat not flying + Solarium of this quality. Not flying saves us money, work days etc. 🙂

Yes... I hope though people sail not only because of benefits. We sailed with 8 lines multiple times before we became Diamonds with Royal, but around this time we started sailing more and more with Royal and then we switched almost exclusively to sailing with Royal. Did we become more loyal? Could be... But it is more because of convenience of sailing with Royal from Northeast. They provide us with 5 quality cruises for various seasons and itineraries. If we are stripped from all our Diamond + benefits we will still cruise mostly with Royal.

It is in the app, but it is not clear if it is related to current sailing or your future. I guess it can be double checked on board

I am not sure. If I open menus for my sailing it shows menus for current one (we have 12 dayer, current one is 7 days .. so app has 7 days with 7th being Bon Voyage), so this could be similar.

Interesting... My exclusive benefits just show regular list of benefits available on RCI page. It could be just like with menus... information related to current sailing, not my future.

I think it is not in app, but in doc which is placed in the room. It is not known prior .

It became pretty expensive very soon after we booked. And there were still lots of rooms available.

Why would you voice your opinion about company rules? It is not LA who decides to allow or not D to Crown lounge. It is a RCI decision. Name is changed from Diamond Lounge to Crown Lounge for a reason. It is kind of difficult to explain why Diamonds are not allowed into Diamond lounge. After this it is regulated based on number of people of certain statuses on every sailing. Royal adjusted rules and rather than having Happy Hours with unlimited drinks in lounge all Diamonds get 4 drinks in any bar throughout a day, Diamonds Plus get 5 and Pinnacles get 6. So the only thing that Diamonds are losing is access to this lounge and snacks. If all D, D+ and Pinnacles are allowed it will be suprecrowded and it will be difficult to change anything after the fact. So RCI made a decision to limit access during this time if there are many guests of certain statuses. Confrontation will happen if all people are allowed and there are too many of them and LA will need to start barring people from entrance. This is why rules are announced in the beginning of each cruise. If number of D,D+,P is low then Ds are allowed to CL on that week. Otherwise they are not. And it is only between 5:00 and 8:00 PM. You can complain, but it is a rule

Why? It is a normal practice now. Rules are changing as number of people who get to higher statuses grow. On our sailing there was 705 D and 546 D+ and 120 Pinnacles. This is a huge number of people to handle in one lounge in 3 hours. Many people attend. And you cannot assume they won't. Otherwise you will need to start turning away people at entrance. This will create larger problems and even confrontations. Due to this RCI now gives vouchers to use in other bars. We are D+ now, but we would understand if we were Ds. Name of Diamond lounge was changed to Crown due to this I suspect. LA cannot do anything about this. New rules implemented for 6 months already.

Our 11 day sailing on Anthem on Jan 7th to Southern Carribean was pretty expensive. And it featured 120 Pinnacles. Number is just rising and rising. 🙂

Honestly with removing unlimited drinks in Diamond lounge they already reduced a number of people who go there during HH. For us it is also a location. I like lounges with windows or adjacent to Viking Crown lounges or at least places with windows like on Quantum class. I find that I do not go into DL (now Crown lounge) on Oasis class as it is just in bad location.

She is almost our home away from home. Out of 61 cruises 11 were on her. I almost cried when I disembarked several weeks ago... Last disembarkation. 😞 We actually did not like her in May 2016 when we sailed for the first time, but she so grew on us! Since then all Thanksgivings were in her and lately longer Southern Caribbean cruises in January.

We will be on her for Thanksgiving 2024 and Jan 5th. We should see how this setup will work.

Unfortunately for us as we sail on Thanksgivings and January... Odyssey with only solarium indoor may work better in April.

How did you calculate this? I have not seen internet going over 21.99 per person. ($153.93) When it is package of one person 4 devices it goes even lower per person. Even if you buy 1 device package for everyone it will be $615.96 per week, but it is more economical to buy 1 person 4 devices which allow to login with the same login at 4 devices at the same time.

I think Symphony and Liberty... Voyager/Freedom class (Caribbean/Bermuda/Canada) do not change often as demand is always high.

Have not checked others lately, but this is definitely not the case for Celebrity

Hmmm… so it was ann unusual cruise overall. I know nothing about charters. For my last cruise this January and upcoming one in March internet costs $17.99 per day (I still save more with 4 days of free interment as D+). Those are 11-12 day cruises. For shorter cruises 7-9 days it’s around 18.99-21.99. Still it’s much higher than used to be.

We enjoyed our January cruise on Anthem. Good as always.

In hotels you are already booking category … They already pick your room.

We always book our own cabin because we have a different idea with RCI what is a better cabin. Location is more important to us than a type of cabin. Anyway, we use online agency and book well in advance. Often we pay less for selected room than for GTYs.

I do this cruise yearly and other cruises with multiple nights… I cannot say for sure. It’s all over the place. I’d think lobster night (Royal night) should be dressier, but I don’t see it. It’s dress your best. Also on our last Enchantment cruise first formal night was #3 night, not #2 (Italian)

We had a quality internet in 2023 on Enchantment and Liberty. Both in inside cabins.

I cruise 5 times per year and always have internet, so I’m always hunting for it. I never seen packages with $27 per day per cruise. Is this for several devices?

We had 9-10 cruises with them. Overall like them.. but I like their 90k ships Jewel and Star class. Newer ships Breakaway and later have horrible pool areas imho. Royal designs ships better. Also I cannot understand how NCL runs ships out of NYC area in winter time without indoor pools and solariums. RCI with Quantum class bears them. We like some NCL itineraries. Our last two with them was Star out of Venice in 2018 and Gem out of Boston in 2019 to Caribbeans. Both featured more ports and better ports than RCI on similar itins.