iipa

I don't think there is anything else I could say except I am so sorry to hear this. :(

I can't believe this is happening to us. We're not whiners.

My husband is so angry about this, thanks for understanding.

Background: I was on the November 2016 Splendour of the Seas Suez Canal cruise traveling solo. We made our two ports - Haifa and Ashdod and I had a wonderful 2 days of shore excursions booked with Viator. Convinced my husband that we needed to do this cruise together and booked on the Vision of the Seas and we're on the ship now. We paid a premium for a junior suite on this cruise and a BIG premium of $839.00 per person for the Royal Caribbean offered overnight shore excursion that seemed to cover everything we'd want to see.

Tonight at 10:30 p.m. before reaching Haifa the captain made an in-room announcement that Ashdod would be cancelled in two days because of weather. All tours would be modified. WHAT!!!!!

The skies are clear and sunny at the moment but I realize that can change. My husband and I booked the $839 per person overnight excursion that was to include many highlights including Jerusalem and Bethlehem along with a museum that I didn't get to visit last time. When we got on the ship, we were notified that the tour had changed and didn't include the museum. But our price wouldn't change. That was OK, we probably won't be back to Israel but visit lots of museums so I didn't complain. Now tonight, we learned that Bethlehem is cancelled too and our day 2 is severely shortened. I surely didn't book this pretty expensive cruise to go to Athens, Oman and Dubai yet skip Bethlehem.

There is no time to book anything else. I definitely oversold my husband on how great this cruise would be, and most definitely overpaid for the decimated shore excursion. I saw much more last cruise on my 2 $99 per day per person Viator shore excursions.

Just venting, I guess. We are Pinnacle members and not usually the type to complain AT ALL but this really stinks. This is not the cruise we signed up for.

My husband and I are on a 9 night Jewel of the Seas Greek Islands cruise. One of the bartenders mentioned the 40 percent drink package discount available for pinnacle members. We purchased it on day 3 and it was $545.00 for both of us.

We have a port heavy itinerary but are really enjoying the expanded wine/drink selection.

We booked 4 balcony guarantees for the December 16 Anthem cruise at a crazy good price and ended up with D4s, 2 connecting, one room in between then two other balconies next to each other on deck 13. I was nervous about the "smaller balcony" thing on our reservations but feel much better now. We can live with occasional pool noise, but so glad to have not been assigned DOs. We were assigned our rooms within 30 minutes of booking!

I assume only one group can use the room at a time? Are the time slots really blocked up because of this?

On this cruise there was plenty of availability when boarding using the Royal IQ app. There were staff in The Attic on Deck 4 to help with entertainment bookings as well.

I think the room holds 14, for my time slot there were 8 of us plus Erica the leader.

There is a countdown clock while doing the puzzle and it stops at the end. If everyone in a group wasn't able to go together, it would be fun to have a friendly competition to see whose group finishes faster. It would also be a great cruise critic competition on longer cruises like trans-Atlantics.

You should definitely try it. They have it scheduled throughout the day, and it takes just over an hour. The technical effects are so realistic.

Sounds really intriguing. I'd love to try it.

There wasn't any scientific knowledge needed or hard math. You watch a short video outside the puzzle room and then inside there is another video. The whole room is part of the puzzle, and it involves finding clues, matching, figuring out codes and patterns and luck.

We had a lot of trial and error and - again - some luck. The sound and graphics were quite good as well. Everyone worked really well together.

It was one of the best things I've done on a ship, you should try it!

Can you give any hint on the types of clues or puzzles they have? I am not trying to get you to give anything away. :o

 

For example, do you have a set of mathematical questions to answer? Scientific knowledge required? Or is all of the information contained in the room and you just need to be able to find it and put it together?

It's on Deck 14 just inside the entrance to Adventure Ocean. These is no cost to participate.

Just finished the puzzle room on Harmony. It's a designated room with Hollywood style sound effects and lights. There were 8 of us in my group and our Royal Caribbean leader was Erica (from America). She had a lot of enthusiasm which added to the fun.

It was easy to sign up using the Royal IQ app on board. Participants have to be at least 14 years old.

We did end up solving the puzzle with just over 2 minutes to spare.

I'll post a couple of pictures that don't give anything away next.

All the bottom of the pages except Specialty have the $4.95 late night delivery fee between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. plus VAT for departures sailing from Barcelona.

Hope that helps.

I will repeat my speed tests on the Navigator in Le Havre, but pretty much everything I've tried to use has been dreadful. That's why I added the

zoom plus stream.

On second thought, maybe I should have taken the Indy crossing????

Because on the Navigator, it's not good either way. It was worth $13.00 to me to compare both. In the future, when it doubt, I'll go with "Voom" only.

Just off the Indy TA used the voom internet. I tested the speed with Ookla the $19 a day package (surf) gave a ping 230 ms upload of 0.26 mbps and a download of 0.51 mbps taken at various spots on the ship. On the $28 a day package (surf and stream) I got a ping 188ms upload 8.13 mbps and download 7.37. this package was OK.

The standard surf package is not very good.

I'm on the Navigator TA now and was having a hard time deciding between pre-purchasing Voom Surf and Voom Surf and Stream package. Decided to go with the Voom Surf, didn't think it was likely that surf and stream would be working.

The Surf package has been horrible, I've disconnected and reconnected so many times. It's been like a typical pre-Zoom trans-Atlantic as far as internet goes.

Today I purchased the Surf and Stream with the Diamond Plus discount for the rest of the trip for just over $13.00 - just had to know if I was missing out on better internet.

My surf and stream on a MacBook Air early 2015 using Safari is ping 885 ms, download speed .27 mbps, upload speed .23 mbps.

My surf only on an iPhone 6 using the Speedtest app is ping 1027 ms, download speed .21 mobs and upload speed .31 mbps.

Both devices/packages seem really, really un-Zoomy to me. I'm on deck 9, right under the bridge and the ship left Vigo, Spain a couple of hours ago.

But the rest of the cruise has been excellent with a wonderful crew.

Hope that helps,

Denise

I want to thank everyone for responding to my question and special thanks to iipa and little britain.

 

I have one last question; if I book a 2:30 AM flight how early do I need to leave the ship? I have never been to Dubai and have no idea how long it takes to get to the airport and get checked in for a flight..............thanks again!!

I took the 2:30 a.m. British Air flight to London Heathrow both times I've left Dubai. The airport was crazy busy both times. I would allow 20 minutes to reach the airport and at least 2 hours to check bags and go through passport control and security. If you'll be checking any bags, I believe the counters open 3 hours before the flight.

You'll probably see how long the passport/immigration control can take when you arrive at Dubai.

Safe travels.

I was on the 16 night November Suez Canal cruise on the Splendour with a 2 a.m. flight out of Dubai. It was no problem leaving early, in fact the ship had a bus available at 10:30-11 p.m. They simply asked me to fill out a form so they could notify the Dubai authorities. There were also plenty of cabs available at the port.

Some of the people on my roll call had the same concern but called Royal and were assured it was ok to leave early.

Hope you enjoy your cruise, it was one of my favorites!

Is this true? If so, what can be done about it? I don't post much but the FLL pier agents I've met have been awesome. Wish we had someone like Host Andy on the Royal Caribbean Boards.

Anyway this is from Host Andy on the Celebrity Boards.

I must sadly report, that most, if not all of the pier agents will be losing their jobs on May 31st. In another savings effort, Royal Caribbean has poorly chosen to hire outside agents who will be making much less, and not receiving any of the benefits that the current employees receive. It's decisions like this, that deeply sadden me, as it's a lousy corparate cutback, especially as so many of these wonderful folks have been in the Royal Caribbean family for years. I'm hearing they can re-apply, at the lower salary and no benefits. I wonder if the executive (who's probably making six figures) is proud of their "accomplishment", while hurting many lives. Personally, I think it sucks.

I'm a Diamond Plus on the Allure right now and was very pleased to see the new $60 coupon for internet. I purchased an unlimited package for 2 devices and the total cost was $80 for the 7 night cruise. For one device, it would have been $45.

The internet is very fast, even though we're in the very last boardwalk balcony on Deck 11.

Bad news is the secret balconies on Deck 11/12 on the port side are already under construction and unavailable, starboard side has all furniture removed but still able to access. Kind of a bummer after booking so far in advance.

How did u get LP so quickly, I've been playing since sept and I'm not to 200kLP

I was trying for the select package at 140,000 LPs and have 114,000 right now but the drink packages were gone again this morning.

Joining the My Vegas Chips, Coupons, Discounts and Info group was so helpful for getting friends (at 575 now so 500% bonus on daily spins) and more chips. I play Sheerluck Hound at 800 w/auto spin and the chip count is usually stable.

Playing the challenges on the iPad/phone slots and blackjack games seems to help a lot with extra LPs.

Happy spinning and good luck!

I have been playing this game heavily for 3-4 weeks and am finally close to getting the Select drink package award. Don't see it or the Ultimate drink package any more.

Have any of you more experienced players seen awards gone and later returned?