cmecompute

I agree with you. Sometimes you think your plan is best but something better can happen when you least expect it.

 

How does this "price protection" work?

Kathy

For me, they kept my price to move to another ship for equal or better cabin category, and lots of OBC. We were very happy with the end result.

I am booked on March 28th. Over the last couple years we have fallen into this type of issue 3 times, 2 of those were on the same cruise. Either a short notice dry dock, or the entire ship was chartered. One thing I learned is not to jump ship and wait for the official notice. Royal was very accommodating with OBC, price matching or upgrading, and finding other sailings / ships that worked with our schedule. The most recent was a booking on Indy which ended up chartered, we moved to Majesty which went into dry dock, and ended up on Enchantment doing a B2B with a crazy amount of OBC. It will all work out, not worth stressing about until you get "official" notification.

Radio -

Your sunrise picture is absolutely beautiful. Hope you have a great day in Key West.

It appears that i asked the wrong crew member. . . I stopped at the Schooner Bar before dinner for a coke and asked him the same question.

 

They DO have the Drink Card. The cost is $89.95 for a 10 Drink Card. You can also get an Unlimited 1 Day Drink Package for $60. I asked him if that was for sea days only (what I read) or for any day. . .He wasn't sure about that, but he said he would find out.

 

The Drink Card does NOT include gratuity. . .

 

Radio

;);)

 

 

 

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Thank you for the info, good to know. Glad to see and experience with you, your wonderful vacation. Hope you are able to continue to enjoy the remainder just as much.

Have you seen the "drink coupon cards" being offered at all as of yet on this ship? I am aware of all the packages, but have been reading lately of discounted punch cards for 10 drinks good for one day, or 10 drinks good for multiple days.?

Hope you are having a fantastic day in Coco Cay. We spent the day on Barefoot beach in a clamshell there just 3 weeks ago. It was an absolutely beautiful day. Hope you got to walk around and see the Iquana's, they were huge! I think one of them had to be 7 - 8 feet long.

Have a great trip, we love joining you on your well written live reviews. We will be sailing on Grandeur for the 1st time in April, so we are looking forward to everything you will be sharing with us about "Lady G".

Hope you both have a great time! Yes, we found that this is not that well known among TA's or even Royal booking agents. One of the big secrets - SHHHHHH, don't tell anyone. :)

How easy is to book this room?

Every dates I look it's taken :-0

I booked this over a year out. Seems that people who know about it, book it as soon as they can. One of those secrets of cruising on Freedom class. I usually book everything 1 to 1 1/2 years out personally, so that is when I would normally be looking. It is one of the first cabins to go from what I have seen in the past.

We are booked in the Sweet and its connecting room in July. We've stayed in a promenade room on Voyager so we kind of know what to expect but I am sure the view from this room will be unlike any other. First time I have heard about the grass being mentioned though! Our last cruise on Freedom was in an aft cabin... that was nice too.

 

I am curious though about the concierge and the Labadee cabana? Did you have any trouble arranging that? Did you do it ahead of time or on-board? I would really like one but I was afraid they were hot items and probably be a waiting list type of thing. I think they cost around $250, right?

 

Did the gold keys help with preferred seating just for the 2 occupants of the cow-room or for your other family as well?

 

I think I have read too that you may get some upgraded soap/shampoo and robes as well?

 

The CL is a nice perk... not sure how much we will benefit from it... hopefully some.

 

I appreciate your willingness to answer some questions about this unique room.

I reserved our cabana long long ago, I do not believe you can do that anymore. If you contact the Concierge the first day, he will book it for you, and he controls who gets what. Suite holders have first priority on cabana's before they are available to standard rooms. The Concierge also determines the list of who is in what one. We had a special request for a particular one we like, and he made sure we had it. The cost ranges and is cheaper for those with Suites from those with standard cabins. Also a price difference for over water vs. on the beach. We prefer over deep water where we can dive in from the top of the ladder / rock. Also like being at the end where it is a little more private and quiet. The upgraded BBQ is also a plus, steak, shrimp, and ribs in addition to the standard burgers, dogs, and chicken.

The gold keys are only for the 2 people in the room. Since we were with a wedding party and there were 6 of us total as a group booking, the concierge already knew that and invited the entire family to the lounge as long as we didn't all show up together every night. The reserved seating in the theater really only applied to 2 of us with the gold keys, but we were recognized as a group by those we met and talked with in the lounge, so there was never a question. We also only used that seating twice, we preferred to be down front. The reserved seating is center mezzanine on Freedom - far from the stage.

I can't answer anything about upgraded soap because I didn't even notice. We have a bag we pack for travelling which includes all toiletries, over the counter meds, sun screen, etc.

The benefit of the CL is free drinks / hors d'oeuvres and great conversation between 4:30 and 8pm. You also have access to latte and cappuccino every morning. If you have access to the Diamond Lounge, you get the same thing up there, but the CL is far more comfortable seating and less crowded.

We did have robes, but since we are Diamond, I don't know if they were part of the room, or because we were Diamond, we always get them.

If there is anything else, please ask.

Just back from Freedom in the Ben & Jerry's Sweet Suite. Ask anything you would like. We thought it was a great room, we also had the adjoining room for our 21/22 year old boys. I will say that we have sailed over the past 2 years in Superior Balcony, Jr. Suite, and Royal Family Suite's. This was very different, cozy, but very enjoyable. There are only 4 drawers, and the smaller closet, so you get creative in unpacking. There is plenty of space under the bed for luggage. There is very little storage space behind the mirrors on the desk, they are only about 2 1/2 inches deep, as opposed to the normal 4-5 inches depth we have seen in the past. The view will definitly make you laugh. It is 2 life sized cow butts, complete with plastic grass under the cows, that only you can see looking down. The entire room is cow motif, black and white all over. We each had a coupon each day for 1 scoop of ice cream, a total of 14 scoops, value = $35.00. We also had keys to the concierge lounge. The concierge was wonderful, he even allowed us to bring our family in from the other 2 rooms once in a while, as long as we didn't do it every day. They also allowed us to use the gold keys for the reserved seating in the theater, the conceirge assisted us with the reservation for the perfect location cabana on Labadee, as we were accompanying our son on his "family-moon". Now - the down side, we have only 1. If you are a light sleeper, this could be big. There is a big, metal, crew entrance door in Ben & Jerry's. When it closes you hear it. You get used to it pretty quick, it doesn't happen that often, but when it does you know it. None of us are light sleepers, so once we heard it a few times, it was easy to ignore. We were more curious as to what it was. So we went down, had a cup of coffee and watched until we figured it out. All-in-all I would highly recommend this room to anyone. We had a blast and will ask for its availability anytime we cruise on a Freedom class in the future. I can say - for the price - it was FANTASTIC!!!!

Boarding Freedom on Sunday 2/15, we are in the Sweet-Suite. My wife thought it was a cute idea to try it out. Will be the first time in 10 years without a balcony, so I will let you know. The perks sound nice and have all been confirmed long ago, I think the ice cream is worth more to me then the alcohol.

Virtopia, we are thoroughly enjoying your reveiw. It has given us ideas and changed some plans for our trip next week. Can't wait for the rest, thank you for taking the time and writing such a comprehensive review. Just makes us that much more excited. We leave Saturday on the Jewel.

Looking forward to the rest of your review. I am sailing on the Jewel next week on the same itinerary.

Thank you to all who have posted on this thread, it has been very informative. I am sailing on the Jewel in 2 weeks, and can't wait.

As soon as you go through security and they scan your carry on bags, you will see the store. They had water, soda, wine, and champagne. They also had tons of bottles of liquor but if you bought the liquor, they held it until the end of the cruise.

Once you walk out the store, you go up the stairs and down the walkway to the ship. It takes about 2 minutes so it was very easy to take our carry on bags to the room and walk back down and pick up some more water and champagne for the trip.

Was there a limit? and do you know if they were enforcing it? I am sailing this ship in Oct and have 5 adults in the cabin (2br royal suite) want to have a few bottles of wine and champagne in the room for the balcony.

Just returned from the GEM and my wife brought her curling iron without any issue. There was a blow dryer in every cabin which worked fine. I also packed a small travel steam iron and there were no questions or problems. I always bring it on cruises and have never been stopped, or questioned about it yet.