2chiefs

The Jax port is definitely close to your home!! You could almost take an Uber and save parking charges and wear and tear on your car! We would be happy with the 5.5 hr drive!

We have never tried NCL but have been meaning too so this gives us a great incentive to do it sooner than later! We live in the Atlanta area and it shaves a few hours off our trip. Can't wait to see the itineraries

I can't remember but I liked it!!!!

I was on the Beyond for 12 days and there were only two non-light beers available on that ship included in the classic package. Period. I don't understand what you are saying. There's nothing else to look at. By the way, I was given a premium draught IPA under my classic package at no extra charge during the football game at the sports bar when they ran out of Heineken. Woo hoo!!

I was actually talking about what's included without an upcharge. Sorry for the confusion. My point was that beer is not that expensive to begin with and more beers could be included in the classic package in my opinion.

We just got off Beyond on Jan 2 and agree with Jelayne. We thought the food was very good. We did not eat in any specialty dining except one night at Fine Cut which, while good, we didn't think was worth the upcharge. Drinks: I'm a cheap date but I was disappointed that there were only 2, non-light, beers available in the Classic Package: Heineken and Corona. You needed a premium package to get an IPA or a Stella for instance. C'mon Celebrity, most beers aren't that expensive, please include some more in the classic package!!!

ROTFLMAO

Supposedly, there is only one scheduled announcement every morning by the captain which has been pretty nice over the years. (Passageway, not cabin) But for some reason on the Adventure last May the cruise director was making announcements all day long (sales, trivia, bingo etc.) and it was very irritating!!! Reminded me of the old days.

We've found that the price is generally the same whether you book direct or with a TA. I think with a TA you can gain other things that you can't by booking direct. We do most of our booking on board and then transfer the reservation to our TA and she handles everything for us from there. The advantage of booking on board is usually lower deposit and depending on sales, sometimes added OBC. Most of the time we also get an added OBC from the TA. Not much, perhaps anywhere from $25 to $100 on top of any OBC offered by Royal. The big plus is that sometimes the TA will have a "group" and transfer us into a group. For instance, we just booked a cruise on board for $3600 for two of us with a $200 deposit. After we got home our TA said she had a group booking for the exact same cabin for a whopping $1400 less but we had to send her the full deposit ($300 more to make it $500). NO brainer, we transferred our booking to the group. We've had other instances of lower prices in the past due to groups with some weird math (losing the on board booking OBC in exchange for a much lower price overall). So in our experience, we believe a good TA is a must and booking on board is best.

I'm not sure what you mean by "group department". I was under the impression that a group was done through a travel agency or other 3rd party entity. Perhaps there are other groups that I don't know anything about. We've booked many "group" cruises through our travel agent due to sometimes lower pricing, more OBC, and refundable fares as some of the available perks. That being the case, we simply call our travel agent for making payments and control of the reservation.

We book Central Park balconies all the time due to the low price. Noise is not a problem and ditto to what FionaMG says about watching your curtains. We have friends from Canada that only book boardwalk balconies that they can view the aqua show from. (Not sure what they do now with the Abyss slides added). I've heard it can be loud but I don't have any first hand experience. In the CP balconies, you can hear the pool music somewhat during the day but otherwise it's quiet and fun to people watch while enjoying a glass of wine on the balcony. We are booked in a CP balcony once again for our cruise on Oasis in January 2025.

Absolutely true!! Our first cruise was in 1996 in an inside cabin on the Monarch of the Seas and we paid $2600 for two (for a 7-day cruise)! We can still find prices that low for OV's and sometimes Balconies today. Of course we didn't know what we were doing so we probably overpaid somewhat.

Generally true, but you can ask for specific room at the front desk at check-in at many hotels. Some, like Hilton, even have floor plans on their app where you pick your room on-line ahead of time at check in. I did it all the time (before I retired) since I was a "road warrior". I don't do that anymore. As long as I'm away from vending, elevators, and staircases, I'm OK!!

Interesting. Hotels used to get dinged for price gouging. Now they just inflate their normal price (check the pricing on the hotel door) sky high and then discount the price to a competitive rate. Then when the demand is high (such as in an emergency) they can jack up the price legally because they've posted the regular price on the door.

I never said it happened a lot. Re-read my post. I said because those people got bumped at the pier, "it brought to light" how cruise lines overbook and there were a lot of articles about it. I'm getting so many flames from this thread. It's as if I was attacking the community!!

Agree!!!!

I wasn't referring to the price of the cruise. I was actually talking about the price difference between the "We pick your room" and the "You pick your room" prices going up and used this particular cruise as an example.

It was a reference to a previous quote. I was asking a specific person if he was confused. He called the lower (advertised) price a discount which it's not. It's exactly what you said, the advertised price. Therefore, it was an upcharge to pick your own room.

Agree. Two of our upcoming cruises, Celebrity Eclipse and RCL Oasis OTS, were booked under a group rate otherwise the prices would have been more than what we would want to spend.

We've been looking at other lines as well. In fact, Celebrity's prices have been much more reasonable (in general for the cruises we've looked at anyway) than Royal's lately. Someone told me HAL was reasonable but the pricing I looked at was much higher for similar itineraries at similar times. We've been kind of re-thinking our cruising lately anyway. Since our first cruise on Royal in 1996, they have changed their target customer quite a bit (and we've gotten almost 30 years older - haha) so we might like something different anyway. We were just on Celebrity Beyond over Christmas and we had a great time and the ship was beautiful, but it wasn't our "cup of tea". For instance, we like traditional dining and that's not an option on Celebrity's new Edge class ships.

How do you know it's not happening. Citation please...

This balcony room is $348 more to simply pick your own cabin. That’s $696.00 more to be able to pick your own room for a cabin of 2. Regardless of whether you want to classify it as insurance not to get bumped, or whether you want to call it something else. I am not going to book a room that they choose for me and I’m not going to pay that much extra so I’ll be looking at alternative vacations or alternative cruise lines. Our TA may be able to help with a group booking (we saved $1400 on a recent Oasis booking). I stand corrected on the gouging comment I made in the initial post. Perhaps a better description would be their lack of transparency in pricing and advertising. Regardless it's tougher to find affordable cruising for our family. Maybe with all the new ships coming out, the supply will outweigh the demand and pricing will be more in line with what my family can afford.

Who's confused???

Citation please

I can see how you feel this way if you have never cruised before the advent of "GTY" or "We pick your cabin" rooms. It never used to be this way. Although it may look like a discount, it's really an increased fee to pick your own because the advertised price (IE: "Cabins starting at") is the price for a GTY inside cabin. If the advertised price "Cabins starting at" was for a "Pick your own cabin", then the "We pick your cabin" would be a discount.