Increasing the number of hotels RCCL, Celebrity and Club Azamara offers to pre-and-post hotel package guests

[ShmuelCharlie]

Fellow RCCL cruisers, do you often find yourselves frustrated by the limited choice of hotels in departure or final ports for pre- or post-cruise hotel stays? Do you wish that this cruise line would offer hotels whose names frequently appear on travel magazine best hotels list for various countries and cities? I've had that feeling for years, and wonder why various cruise lines choose a particular hotel or resort to offer their guests participating in pre- or post-cruise hotel stay packages. For example, why does RCCL only offer one hotel in San Juan, PR--the Renaissance La Concha--for its guests when there are plenty of other choices in the Condado neighborhood? Why does RCCL only offer one hotel in Barcelona--the NH Sants--when there are better and more familiar choices such as Hotel Arts, etc., that frequently appear on Travel & Leisure Magazine's World's Best Hotels list? 

[Merion_Mom]

No, because I make my own travel arrangements and would not use a Royal Caribbean hotel package.

 

Solves the problem neatly.

[firefly333]

7 minutes ago, ShmuelCharlie said:

Fellow RCCL cruisers, do you often find yourselves frustrated by the limited choice of hotels in departure or final ports for pre- or post-cruise hotel stays? Do you wish that this cruise line would offer hotels whose names frequently appear on travel magazine best hotels list for various countries and cities? I've had that feeling for years, and wonder why various cruise lines choose a particular hotel or resort to offer their guests participating in pre- or post-cruise hotel stay packages. For example, why does RCCL only offer one hotel in San Juan, PR--the Renaissance La Concha--for its guests when there are plenty of other choices in the Condado neighborhood? Why does RCCL only offer one hotel in Barcelona--the NH Sants--when there are better and more familiar choices such as Hotel Arts, etc., that frequently appear on Travel & Leisure Magazine's World's Best Hotels list? 

I knew they offered air, but first I heard they offer hotels. It must not be a popular choice or would be more posts about it. 

 

I too have always just booked my own hotels. 

[John&LaLa]

Just now, firefly333 said:

I knew they offered air, but first I heard they offer hotels. It must not be a popular choice or would be more posts about it. 

 

I too have always just booked my own hotels. 

 

We booked hotel in Rome thru Celebrity years ago. Overpaid

[ShmuelCharlie]

5 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

I knew they offered air, but first I heard they offer hotels. It must not be a popular choice or would be more posts about it. 

 

I too have always just booked my own hotels. 

Thanks for the reply to my topic posting. I can see how some hotel choices might not be popular because the rates offered are lousy or the location(s) suck. My first two visits to Barcelona in '10 and '11 offered three choices: the Majestic, the Hotel Conde de Barcelona, and the Diagonal respectively. I chose the Majestic in '10 for one night before embarking my 7-night Voyager OTS cruise the next day. I chose the Hotel Conde de Barcelona in '11 for 3 nights before embarking on my 12-night Celebrity Solstice cruise. Which hotel did I like more? The Hotel Conde de Barcelona because it had a modern annex across the street from the main building. Why didn't I choose the Diagonal? Because it was too far from the sights and attractions downtown. All this said, however, I plan to book my own hotel for a post-cruise stay in Barcelona following my 12-night Vision OTS next June.  

 

As for air, sometimes the choices of fares offered are either too high, you're stuck in cattle car class, or the departure times suck. Flying to the Continent sometimes required red-eye flights so that you arrive in the daytime (and hopefully a good night's sleep en-route to the desired city). I also have a new booking engine source: SkyLuxe.com for heavily discounted biz or first class flights. I used them last August '19 for biz class flights to and from AMS. The booking engine also offered a luxury car service to take me to my AMS hotel for a one-night stay at Movenpick. The flight to AMS from Toronto on Air Canada was great, until that airline nearly lost my walker, which wasn't delivered to my Celebrity Refection cabin until 3 days after the ship had sailed AMS. How heavily discounted are these fares? Try this fare on for size: 2500 bucks RT in Biz class from IAD to BCN. Great, huh? Downside? You have to change planes in Turkey and arrive in BCN @ 11-ish PM. 

[goldfish65]

I am only guessing but if they offered more hotels it would add more layers of complication, people wanting to switch, not happy when they see the accomodations, wanting compensation, complaining the rates are too high, etc. 

[BND]

"Do you often find yourself frustrated by the limited choice of hotels"?  Why, no, we don't lol.  Never any problem finding a hotel.  It's called Google, trip advisor, etc.  

[Sunshine3601]

We have used air2sea several times and find the fact you can book refundable airfare to be a very nice convenience and they have some good pricing for open jawed flights too. 

but I have never found their hotel pricing to be anywhere near what you get by booking direct with the hotel or using my amex travel site.     

They charge you per person for the hotel and it usually comes out to be a total of 3 or 4 times the price of what you pay if you booked on your own.     I'll just continue to use my own resources to book hotels. 

[Diego Da Monkey]

I knew they offered air, but first I heard they offer hotels. It must not be a popular choice or would be more posts about it. 
 
I too have always just booked my own hotels. 

Have used this option ( plus airport to hotel/hotel to ship transfers also)...have used from Tokyo to Australia to Rome. Hotels have all been excellent though The costs have been high. The freedom to relax and know everything is backed up by RCCL ensuring your stay and transportation goes a long ways in enjoying a worry free trip.


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[grapau27]

There are lots of hotels in most destinations which we can check on TripAdvisor and Google as well as Day Rooms if you have a late flight so I prefer to book myself.

Graham.

 

[cruisegirl1]

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. I never knew Royal Caribbean offered pre or post cruise hotel packages.

 

I’ve booked my accommodations directly or with the assistance of a travel agent.   
M

 

[3monkeys4me]

I prefer to book my own hotels. Since we do fly to the cruise location and mostly cruise in locations that are an international flight away we tend to book longer stays and plan a land portion to add to the vacation. Depending on location and timing we may stay in several different hotels in different areas or we might get an AirBNB for a week so our family of 5 can spread out. 

 

I do check air to sea prices. For our last cruise that we were able to take I found flights at less than half of the fare offered through air2sea. But on the cruise that was recently canceled we found a great fare on Air2Sea. 

 

For the most part I enjoy looking for the perfect hotel or watching the flight prices. Planning the trip is about 50% of the fun for me so I like to be as involved as I can be.

[davekathy]

On 9/8/2020 at 11:17 AM, ShmuelCharlie said:

Fellow RCCL cruisers, do you often find yourselves frustrated by the limited choice of hotels in departure or final ports for pre- or post-cruise hotel stays? Do you wish that this cruise line would offer hotels whose names frequently appear on travel magazine best hotels list for various countries and cities? I've had that feeling for years, and wonder why various cruise lines choose a particular hotel or resort to offer their guests participating in pre- or post-cruise hotel stay packages. For example, why does RCCL only offer one hotel in San Juan, PR--the Renaissance La Concha--for its guests when there are plenty of other choices in the Condado neighborhood? Why does RCCL only offer one hotel in Barcelona--the NH Sants--when there are better and more familiar choices such as Hotel Arts, etc., that frequently appear on Travel & Leisure Magazine's World's Best Hotels list? 

After you contact RC about your hotel questions, post back the reason(s) why they only offer limited hotels at the different departure or final ports for pre and post cruise hotel stays.  

[Ashland]

41 minutes ago, davekathy said:

After you contact RC about your hotel questions, post back the reason(s) why they only offer limited hotels at the different departure or final ports for pre and post cruise hotel stays.  

I'm going to assume it's because they have a contract with the hotel...Much like airlines have for their flight crews.