What is/was your line in the sand?

[MrCruzdoggie]

It sounds like when I spend 600 per person for my wide and I, we seemed to have a better time. If you depend on someome else to ve a good tme, it will never happen.......................................................

 

Stop with the I spent$$$$$$$$$$ and I deserve everything, just stay at home and be bitter.

[Nectarologist]

On 10/5/2019 at 10:02 AM, mandersen12345 said:

So we travel as a family of two parents and three elementary and middle school aged kids.  We've taken 1 Disney cruise (didn't like), 1 Silver Sea (liked) around 8 or 9 Celebrity cruises (liked somewhat), and enough cruises on Royal that we hit Diamond Plus a few weeks ago.  We always travel on Royal in some variation of a two bedroom suite or, if on an Oasis ship, a 2BR Aquatheatre suite.  My wife is a relatively new travel agent only doing cruise sales.

 

And we're done with Royal.

 

The bottom line for me is that we spend a lot of money on cruises.  This past summer we were on Allure for a week in a 2BR aqua theatre.  We spent around $25k.  We were also on Serenade for a Baltic cruise and spent, including pricey shore excursions, over $35k.  Our beef with Royal is for that kind of money we expect to be treated really well.  Like ass kissing well.  Allure's Genie was nice; we'd had Genies before.  But things like quality of food, in-cabin amenities, and other soft product features were just laughable given what we spent (especially true on Serenade where we openly heard other cruises talking about how scant things were that used to be everywhere).

 

Maybe I'm wrong and other people spent tons more onboard and we should just shut up and be happy.  But I don't think so.  You should get what you pay for in life and Royal has not, in our opinion, delivered to us an experience commensurate with dollars spent.

 

What we like, as the parents, is a high quality experience.  Even though we have young children we are not into big and flashy.  Things like that big, multi-story water slide at the back of some of the new ships do nothing for us.  We want to be doted on, dine really well (we think Royal's speciality restaurants aren't that special in terms of food quality and service and the MDR is consistently meh) and leave the vacation feeling relaxed.  

 

Every company has its own business model.  I own a business and I know we have a way of doing things that works for us.  For a company like Royal Caribbean I would think their natural goal would be to attract younger families who have a few extra coins and do what it takes to make them customers for life.  That's where the profit margins are.  Instead, for us, they've pushed us away with overall cut backs and declines in service levels.  We feel we pay a premium when on Royal but get hardly any better an experience than people who pay bottom dollar for an inside cabin.  I'm not trying to come across snobbish.  It's about not receiving an experience commensurate with dollars spent as why we're done with Royal Caribbean.

 

 

I understand what you are saying, and there is nothing wrong with feeling that way.  For me, nothing compares to the The Haven.  I sail all sorts of categories but when I do a suite it's only The Haven (tried DCL concierge and it can't compare).  One story sums it up for me.  When we returned to the cabin in the afternoon the first full day, there were PB&J and other finger sandwiches waiting for us (we didn't ask for it).  Our butler (Lonnie) came to check on us and saw my son didn't eat all his sandwich.  She asked, you're not hungry?  My daughter said he doesn't like the crust.  The next day all the kid sandwiches had the crust cut off.  They were doing stuff for us I didn't even know I wanted, haha.  I'd try it if I were you, you'd love it.  

[young_ens]

3 hours ago, csnarpy said:

 

I'm kindof shocked by this comment, as my family are sailing at the end of November with adjoining OV Balcony cabins for almost $4800 CDN.  Now that includes about $400 off due to Diamond status but at $5200 CDN for 2 cabins is not nearly close to what you are quoting.

 

So i'm not sure where you were trying to book but that is not standard imo.

As said, November and early December are cheap times to fill the ships.  I was thinking of joining another group on the Oasis in July and 1 interior cabin is going for 5800, last time I checked.   

As much as I like to cruise and would be nice to go with another group, I can't justify spending that much for 1 week.  On top of that is still transportation, gas, lodging, food...... 

 

I guess to answer the post question, my line in the sand is definitely pricing, I see little value for price paid since food quality went down, visit less ports/shorter cruises.