How are Beach Beds on Chill Island?

[TYMAN]

Here’s some pics from our May trip...

[booplesnoople]

9 hours ago, mmn531 said:

Too funny. I am sure that not being able to book online is in line with the always up and fully functional RCI website 😉

 

Have a great time on the cruise!

"Fully functional RCI website." I'm not sure those words have ever been together in a sentence before now without several "not"s in-between them! 
Thank you! 🙂 (Just 39 days to go now, hurry up October!)

[mmn531]

6 minutes ago, booplesnoople said:

"Fully functional RCI website." I'm not sure those words have ever been together in a sentence before now without several "not"s in-between them! 
Thank you! 🙂 (Just 39 days to go now, hurry up October!)

Yep, felt a little dirty writing it!!!

I can't wait for Sunday to head out to Sea. Will report back on the beach beds and any tips. 

[StacieC]

Are the tops of the beds open or is there a "roof"?

 

Thanks!

[ShelleyUM]

Hi all, just back from Navigator this past weekend and we had booked the "South Beach" beach beds.  We visited Coco Cay in May and saw the beds over by South Beach.  They looked lovely, calm and secluded, so we were excited to give them a try this time around.  However, the move to Chill Island is a definite down grade and I would not spend my money to book the bed again at Chill Island.  Not to mention, at no time were we advised that our "South Beach" beach beds were over at Chill Island.

 

Before arriving at Coco Cay we were assigned our bed while on board.  On arrival, we went looking for the beds over by South Beach and were routed over to Chill Island.  We were assigned to the first row, close to the beach, and the bed itself was lovely.  We were given wrist bands that said "VIP" by the beach bed attendant.  The two beach chairs, cooler stocked with water and floating mats were ready upon arrival and seemed lovely, at first.  Little did we know that we would end up patrolling these items all day long from people walking through the designated beach beds section.  The beds are set-up in a lovely beach section of Chill Island, however, there is no privacy.  You are sharing the beach with everyone else, so I fail to see the reason for the wrist bands, since everyone could just go right through the beach beds section.  I did not have an issue with the people walking through the beach beds section to get to the water.  My issue was with the people who would come to the beach beds and try to set-up camp, as several parties tried to do during the day.  The first incident was with a gentleman who parked himself on the sand right next our beach bed and wouldn't move.  He was not only crazy close to our bed but impeding the water access for anyone behind the beach beds.  It took the beach bed attendant a few tries to get him to move.  The second incident was with a couple who saw two empty beach chairs in front of the sand the belonged to a beach bed and they dropped their stuff off and went for a swim.  In all fairness, there is nothing specifically noting that those two chairs belong to the beach bed, so I'll fault Royal for that one.  They moved along within 10 mins or so, but there should be something noting that the chairs belong to the beach beds and are not for the taking.  The third incident was with a large party that decided to go around the beach beds section and snatch the beach mats belonging to the beach beds.  They then began setting up the beach mats in front of the beach beds, impeding everyone's access.  The beach bed attendant had to come around and advise them that the beach mats were not for them and asked them to move from the area.  A lady in the party was confrontational and rude to the attendant, who was just doing her job.  The large party eventually moved along to another section of the beach, although she and others in her party took a few of the floating beach mats with them.  It was an uncomfortable situation.  Due to these incidents, I would not recommend the beach beds unless they are back at South Beach.  

 

[ShelleyUM]

On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 6:40 PM, StacieC said:

Are the tops of the beds open or is there a "roof"?

 

Thanks!

The beach beds do have a clear, plexiglass type roof on top of a rattan-type roof so they are not open to the sky.

[SherriZ366]

5 hours ago, ShelleyUM said:

The beach beds do have a clear, plexiglass type roof on top of a rattan-type roof so they are not open to the sky.

You get the shade from the draperies on the sides.  I moved around a lot when I rented a Beach Bed in May as I need to stay out of the sun.  

[SherriZ366]

On 9/17/2019 at 3:56 PM, booplesnoople said:

Website seems to be allowing reservations for our sailing, but I almost accidentally booked three beds! I gagged and fixed it when I saw the price in my cart. 😂

I booked two beach beds by accident for our May MA cruise and had to correct.  The price is a good tip off and you can take things out of the cart fairly easily.  

[Cruise a holic]

On 9/16/2019 at 10:01 PM, mmn531 said:

I just booked a beach bed. It was 199. with 2 floating mats. I had never seen it until today on the cruise planner. Had to call to reserve as the website is not set up to take reservations for them. Will let you guys know more when we return from the trip... Only 3 more days of work before vacation !!!!

How did you get a number for the beach bed?  We aren't sailing until Jan but I didn't see any assigned number.

[Anita Latte]

1 hour ago, Cruise a holic said:

How did you get a number for the beach bed?  We aren't sailing until Jan but I didn't see any assigned number.

 

Pretty sure 199 refers to price...that’s what they were in my planner.

[Cruise a holic]

1 hour ago, Anita Latte said:

 

Pretty sure 199 refers to price...that’s what they were in my planner.

Dahaaa!  Yes- that is what I paid

 

Txs

[Cruise a holic]

Also, we used to get a full cabana for $249- at both labadee and coco key last year.   Talk about inflation!

[SherriZ366]

3 hours ago, Cruise a holic said:

Also, we used to get a full cabana for $249- at both labadee and coco key last year.   Talk about inflation!

RCCL will keep charging high prices for cabanas etc if people are buying them.  I think I saw cabanas for aroun $1,400 on some of my future sailings.  

[Cruise a holic]

8 minutes ago, SherriZ366 said:

RCCL will keep charging high prices for cabanas etc if people are buying them.  I think I saw cabanas for aroun $1,400 on some of my future sailings.  

That is insane!  I heard that the "new" prices give access to 7 or 8 guests to the waterpark-  Crazy!  RC wants to become Disney.

[gnargnarz]

Does anyone know if they have moved the day beds to South Beach since ShelleyUM's visit?  An RCI rep sent me this map and said the beds will be in the red circled area when we are there 12/14. 

[ShelleyUM]

32 minutes ago, gnargnarz said:

Does anyone know if they have moved the day beds to South Beach since ShelleyUM's visit?  An RCI rep sent me this map and said the beds will be in the red circled area when we are there 12/14. 

We were just there this past Sunday, 12/1and the beds were in Chill Island, not the area circled in red above. The entire area circled in red above was blocked off by construction equipment and it doesn’t look like they’ll be done in just two weeks. 

[mil76]

We had a Chill Island Beach Bed last week and it was in the bottom left corner of the island in the the maps above.  It is well off the beaten path and nobody working on the island seemed to know where they were.  It was a hike to the tram/food/pools/etc.  We would not have gotten the bed if we knew where it was, seeing how everyone told us the beds were right by a tram stop, and they even directed us to the old location on the island.  My father in law is not very mobile, and they ended up taking almost an hour to get there after getting off the tram at the wrong spot and no one knowing where the beds were.  The attendant told us there are complaints every day from people thinking they fell for a bait and switch.

[Anita Latte]

3 hours ago, mil76 said:

We had a Chill Island Beach Bed last week and it was in the bottom left corner of the island in the the maps above.  It is well off the beaten path and nobody working on the island seemed to know where they were.  It was a hike to the tram/food/pools/etc.  We would not have gotten the bed if we knew where it was, seeing how everyone told us the beds were right by a tram stop, and they even directed us to the old location on the island.  My father in law is not very mobile, and they ended up taking almost an hour to get there after getting off the tram at the wrong spot and no one knowing where the beds were.  The attendant told us there are complaints every day from people thinking they fell for a bait and switch.

 

I noticed that area of beds this past Sunday. Really close visually to the ships...and really far away from everything but not necessarily in a good way. I wondered if that made the beds a better or worse location. It wasn’t appealing to me. Sorry this happened for you. Very disappointing.

[gnargnarz]

Does anyone have photos of the beds in their current location?

[nelblu]

On ‎9‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 11:58 AM, C_hasRedBottoms said:

SURPRISE!!! You guessed it! 😂😂😂😂 The ticket for the bed will be in your stateroom. The tram will drop you off at the beds. There’s a concierge and you will be given your wristbands and told to pick your bed. Your towels, waters, 2 lounge chairs and mats are there as well. 

Any special dining arrangements or is it the same barbecue set up as in Labadee.

[C_hasRedBottoms]

2 hours ago, nelblu said:

Any special dining arrangements or is it the same barbecue set up as in Labadee.

There weren’t any special arrangements. However, the buffet was close to our beds. The food was good. 

[karena1]

There are beach beds over by where the cabanas are by the water sports area and more over on Chill Beach by where the snorkel shack is.  How are they?  No idea as I would never pay for them.  We get our lounger below the snorkel shack with an umbrella for husband and we  are good to go for the day