KiwiGal117

Love the cups. I am particularly proud of my Harmony Inaugural Season cup. I use it often - especially filled with adult beverages at my son’s baseball games😬

If you ever can get back into your reservation, just buy the package.  If the price goes down, you can always cancel and repurchase at the lower price.  I admire your mellow attitude about all this - dealing with RC customer service shore side is very frustrating.

2 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

You can buy the package past the first day, but I've never heard of them comping all drinks purchased prior to the package purchase.

That's probably right.  I thought I read somewhere that they did that, but I can why they wouldn't!

I may be wrong, but I had thought that you could by it past the first day, and all drinks purchased beforehand were converted to the beverage package.  We have bought the package for the past two cruises ahead of time, so I admit that I am not up on the latest rules and regs.

2 minutes ago, Tracy Po said:

 

Aaaand it’s back (on my phone, anyway).

I have found if you are not logged in - it’s gone!

Go John! You can do this!! And if it gets desperate some of these count for 2 to 3 reasons (such as the views).

April 2003 - Legend if the Seas from Honolulu around the Hawaiian Islands and up to Ensenada Mexico. I can still remember seeing the ship for the first time and being surprised how massive it was! Then in 2012 we were on Splendour out of Venice and it looked tiny compared to some of the massive ships in port that day!

We tried it out on Harmony. It was fun.  But agree, not a place  you are going to hang out much.  But, some people love it.  My kid enjoys creating his own virgin cocktails.  Given that it's been around for a few years now, and they did put it on SOTS, I doubt its going anywhere, but for those that don't enjoy it, there are lots of other choices.

We have done two Mediterranean cruises - one with and one without the beverage package. They are port intensive days if you plan to tour a lot so you probably don’t need to purchase the deluxe - though it does include bottled water, fresh OJ, coffees (not Starbucks).  If you can find a post showing the price of drinks onboard you can easily do the math to see if it is worthwhile. I like having things prepaid and not having any surprises, so for me it is worth buying.

A few years ago we were on a cruise from Venice, and arrived at the port around 1pm.  It was absolutely jammed.  It took us 45 minutes to check in and board.  I'm not sure why, it may have been all of the people flying in the day of.  In any event, I just wanted to say that it isn't always empty at 1pm, and may be port dependent.

We are normally part of the "early to arrive" camp as well.  I was interested in this thread, as I was thinking that on this next cruise, do we really need to rush?  No, we don't really.  However we have three separate reservations of people (8 people in total, and with two of the reservations books under the US/Canadian rules, and one under the UK rules), all with 4 night dining packages that we need to coordinate, so we will probably go early this time, and spend an hour trying to get that sorted out.  Due to the different country rules, when we've tried to coordinate over the phone, they have not been able to do it.  So,  I'd rather get that done and over with. 

5 hours ago, Russ Lomas said:

How quick was Nexus at the Toronto airport.  We have had Nexus now for a year and only used it to drive across the border (was great).  We fly in March from Toronto and got the retina scans done over the Christmas break.  How long did the check-in process take you using Nexus?  Do you know if the Nexus area is applicable 24 hours per day?  We fly at 6:15 am, so I do not know if it will even be open.  We crossed from Maine into N.B. this summer and the Nexus lane was only open a few hours per day (not when we crossed), so we had to wait an hour in the regular line.

 

By the way, hope your cruise was fantastic (I have just started reading this thread).

I was through US departures using NEXUS last Tuesday- unusually the immigration officer did ask questions of all (for me it was just did I have food or alcohol). But all told to get through security and immigration it was about 10 minutes. Lines in the regular area were so long that they held some flights. Totally worth having NEXUS. I believe that it is open all the time as we were through there around 6:15 am.

Have fun! Looking forward to meeting you on Symphony in March!

was the 25 minutes to get to the terminal due to traffic or is it that far from your hotel?

3 hours ago, fionaandrea said:

1st cruise....

 

what does “7n Dlx Bv” mean?

7 night deluxe beverage package

I still read the reviews and really appreciate them! So Bill - keep up the good work! You too Andrew! That said without the app it isn’t as convenient to pop

in and check so I tend to read the reviews all the way through after they are done.  So I might view once or twice, rather than daily. Also for the first time have joined my cruise group on the social media site that shall not be named. It is active as is the CC roll call. I miss the app

Well... at the risk of being accused a cheer leader - no one is forcing you to submit a bid. If you are happy with your cabin choice - no need to bid!

On ‎11‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 4:40 AM, brillohead said:

Join me on Symphony in March and you just might.  

Chair hogs annoy me.  

 

I will be there!!!  Let's be Chair Hog Ninjas!

Annoyance 

44 minutes ago, mworkman said:

The down side to this program as i see it, if your in a balcony room and want to upgrade to higher catagory room..JS, OS ect...you don't get the perks of 2pts. per day sailing, like you would have if you booked that category room initially.  

True. So I guess the price needs to be right or the desire for more space and the other perks needs to be worth it.

5 hours ago, memoak said:

I have been on numerous zip line tours with cruise lines and on every one I have had to sign a "waiver" before going.  How are they going to get around the fact that they signed this form and knew there were dangers

Negligence in the part of the provider typically can’t be waived.

In my experience (granted limited) they typically have lots of availability on-board. Unless you want the tappanyaki* (hibachi) tables. 

I placed slightly higher than minimum bids for JS and GS on our March cruise the first day the emails rolled out. I checked the Royal UK site to check availability and at that point there were still 13 JS and approx 20 GS showing as available. I also wondered if it might depend on what cabin you have currently- we are in a OV large balcony booked the first day Symphony opened for reservations. They could resell that now for probably $3K or more than what we paid. So possibly a double win for Royal?

On 11/28/2018 at 4:44 PM, John&LaLa said:

 

Huh, do they look elongated on your device?  I need to check on my laptop. 

I’m finding the same issue on my phone 

Nice! Always good when the systems work!

I wonder if it varies depending on how many Diamonds and higher are on board. As an example the Symphony 12 night I believe was the transatlantic and I read here that there were hundred/thousands onboard- so you could see why they would be checking.

The nice thing about Barcelona is that you don't have to clear immigration or anything - just get off, get your luggage (if you don't carry it off) and go outside to grab a taxi.  I think 11 is very doable, as the airport isn't that far from the port (maybe 10 to 15 minutes away).  Try to get their early though, as security can take a while.