pre-cruise deals

[islandwoman]

How close to sailing can you book "pre-cruise" deals on Royal Caribbean?  I'm thinking of buying The Key but wanted to wait until I was sure I wasn't going to get an upgrade. 

[bouhunter]

Meaning complimentary upgrade?  They are very rare.

[Clarea]

36 minutes ago, islandwoman said:

How close to sailing can you book "pre-cruise" deals on Royal Caribbean?  I'm thinking of buying The Key but wanted to wait until I was sure I wasn't going to get an upgrade. 

 

You can normally purchase items via the Cruise Planner until 72 hours before the cruise.

[FionaMG]

You can usually book cruise planner items up to about 3 days before sailing. The exact cut-off date for your sailing should be shown somewhere in the small print at the bottom of the page.

 

That said, if you wait to buy, you may find that The Key has either sold out or gone up in price. You have nothing to lose by booking it now. If you do get an upgrade that means it loses its value you can cancel it.

[islandwoman]

I just tried to purchase The Key, but got an error message that said "inventory not available".  I suppose that means that it has sold out.  So I just saved $138.

[FionaMG]

11 minutes ago, islandwoman said:

I just tried to purchase The Key, but got an error message that said "inventory not available".  I suppose that means that it has sold out.  So I just saved $138.

If you're really interested in buying it, check back daily. It might show up again. That happened on my cruise planner. One day it was showing "sold out" and the next day it was available again. 

 

[islandwoman]

17 hours ago, FionaMG said:

If you're really interested in buying it, check back daily. It might show up again. That happened on my cruise planner. One day it was showing "sold out" and the next day it was available again. 

 

 

The Key showed up today and I bought it.  Unfortunately, it's only 3 days until my cruise and it seems to be too late to reserve seats for the shows. I understand that reservations are required to sit in the preferred seats.  Can I make reservations on board?

Edited November 9, 2019 by islandwoman

[FionaMG]

When I last sailed on a ship that required booking for shows there was definitely the option of booking on board. I think there was a kiosk or something and you could also do it on your stateroom TV. However, this was a number of years ago, long before the key was even a twinkle in a bean counter's eye, so I can't be sure it still works that way.

 

Hopefully someone with up-to-date information will be able to chime in. Or possibly someone on your roll call might know, if it's active.

[Ourusualbeach]

49 minutes ago, islandwoman said:

 

The Key showed up today and I bought it.  Unfortunately, it's only 3 days until my cruise and it seems to be too late to reserve seats for the shows. I understand that reservations are required to sit in the preferred seats.  Can I make reservations on board?

What ship are you on.  You can only reserve shows on Oasis and Quantum class ships 

 

Guessing either Mariner or Navigator leaving on Monday.  You don’t make reservations, it’s all first come first seated.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Ourusualbeach

[islandwoman]

9 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

What ship are you on.  You can only reserve shows on Oasis and Quantum class ships 

 

Guessing either Mariner or Navigator leaving on Monday.  You don’t make reservations, it’s all first come first seated.

 

Yes, the Mariner.  Somewhere I saw that reservations would be "required" to sit in the VIP section if you bought The Key.  I don't see that anymore. So that is one less thing to worry about.

[Ourusualbeach]

1 minute ago, islandwoman said:

 

Yes, the Mariner.  Somewhere I saw that reservations would be "required" to sit in the VIP section if you bought The Key.  I don't see that anymore. So that is one less thing to worry about.

Many times Royal uses generic wording which doesn’t necessarily apply equally to all ships.