pfm18

I typically shy away from non ship affiliated excursions due to the lack of protection if the excursion is late back and misses the ship. I’d rather pay more for an official one. I had a look on the shore excursions on the carnival website but the only port on this cruise that was even on there was Brisbane (the departure port). Does this mean there are no excursions at all in Airlie Beach, Cairns or Port Douglas?

I am considering booking the Great Barrier Reef itinerary on Luminosa but would only want to do it if Carnival have shore excursions that appeal to us. Is there any way of viewing what’s available before we book?

First time on NCL for about 10 years next month, very excited. I cruise RC more often than not but with the occasional jaunt over to NCL which I’ve always loved doing. Does anyone know if there’s a way to view the MDR menus ahead of time on the NCL app? We want to book a specialty restaurant for one of the nights to take advantage of free at sea, but would hate to accidentally miss the best night at the MDR.

Interesting. Does that mean you were 1 hour ahead of local time in Roatan and Harvest Caye?

Um, no. Embarkation should be done at the normal time but no staterooms available until late afternoon IMO.

The last morning of any RC cruise is an occasion to be dreaded. Even on the fairly regular occasion that we have a late flight home, we are still forced to eat breakfast before 8am and vacate our room early. Should be a late checkout option IMO, even for a small fee. However, my recent experience was even worse. I was on the explorer cruise that was diverted to Trieste instead of Ravenna, which I completely understand was a decision made in the interests of safety for both guests and crew. What I didn’t appreciate was the ship docking at 3am and then immediately starting to disembark. Had we gone to Ravenna as planned, the disembarkation would have started hours later and it was unfair to cut short the vacations of people by forcing them to leave the ship at 4am. Even for those of us lucky enough to have a slightly later transfer (still 8am mind, 3-4 hours earlier than I actually wanted), there was no chance of any sleep because the tannoy was going off every few minutes screaming at people to get off the ship. Royal really need to adopt a more relaxed final day.

From my experience they don’t care too much if they’re just sitting having a chat and not bothering anyone, but if they’re being loud and annoying then it will be enforced.

Yeah, I’m not paying for a burger or a hot dog on a cruise when I can get perfectly good ones in the WJ which is about a 20 second walk away. The place doesn’t even have the cool diner vibe it had a decade ago. No thanks.

If they aren’t going to allow opt outs, why bother billing it explicitly at all? Just push the price up by $16 per person per day and remove any expectation of tipping at all.

My recent 7 night cruise, I tipped as follows (after removing the auto gratuities) Room steward - $100 Waiter - $35 (Would have given $50, but we only went to the MDR four times) Assistant waiter - $35 (as above) Head waiter - $20 Two best bartenders got $20 each. That’s $230 total and the auto gratuities would have been $224 for two adults, so I basically tipped the correct amount but directed it towards the staff who actually served me.

RCI should just increase the price of a 7 night cruise by $112 and get rid of gratuities altogether.