ixian

New to Royal Caribbean (not to cruising though): are full suite cabins available any earlier than 1pm or is carry-on drop-off allowed in a full suite...I'm hoping maybe one of those 2 choices is a 'perk' for a suite!

 

Ship is LOS.

 

OP: Thanks for allowing me to interject a question into this thread...not trying to highjack, but figured it's similar info needed and may also help others looking at your original query!

With Suites you have access to the Concierge lounge and can leave carryons there. Or just chill out in the lounge like you are meant to :) Suites in my experience don't open up any earlier than other cabins, though the last few times I've been in one on RCI checked bags did arrive sooner than regular cabins.

I got $44 for Deluxe+Voom on my 7 day Baltic (Serenade) coming up in a couple weeks.

Done both and depends on when/where you are cruising.

Caribbean or warm-weather Med. the Navigator is probably better overall, though if you travel in high season it will seem more crowded as it is a much larger ship.

Mild or cold weather, like the Baltic in summer, Serenade is better - in fact I think it's the the only option of the two there specifically as Navigator may be too large. Smaller ship, great for off-season cruising, basically.

I feel like some are very much under estimating the cost and time involved in replacing dentures.

I pray none of you ever have to find out 1st hand.

Not at all. Having to go without them sucks, and is embarrassing. And costly/time consuming to replace. I think we all get that. What is in question is: Did an RCI cabin steward, out of pure negligence, throw out a pair of dentures sitting openly on the bathroom counter.

The OP assumes that is what happened, because that is where her husband remembered leaving them, and they weren't there when they got back. All the circumstances around how it actually went down may never be known. Whether RCI therefore should up front immediately assume 100% responsibility is the question at hand. I suspect this is not the first (and won't be the last) time something like this has happened on a cruise ship.

They offered 50%. It is likely a calmer, more reasoned attitude may get yet more comps. Probably not a free cruise. And it seems unlikely that they'd admit fault because A) who knows for sure and B) liability issues from that could run wild. What if the husband had complicating factors around his pre-existing gum condition, or otherwise hurt himself by not having the dentures? A good PI lawyer could run wild with that. Unless it is 100% sure the cabin steward threw a pair of dentures that were sitting in the open away there's no way RCI is admitting to such.

Go for what you can get and relax is my advice.

I wonder what happened to the cabin steward?

Hard to say. I feel like there is more to this story. RCI stewards can get busy no question but AWOL for 2 days seems odd. And the service managers/etc. are always going up and down the halls. I mean, RCI isn't a top notch line maybe but they do have the basics of guest services covered pretty well in my 10+ years sailing with them.

Had a partial refit in port last year didn't it? Not a full dry dock overhaul but the one where they take it out of service for 1-2 weeks when it gets to a new port and refresh things beyond regular wear&tear maintenance.

No chance they are admitting fault for this. Too easy for that to escalate. Even if they found the original steward and he/she admitted to it straight up - which seems unlikely, and not what happened from the description the OP gave - they'd back that out real quick.

It is likely they just wanted to placate the situation. 50% is pretty generous considering there's no way to really assess total fault here - my parents have dentures, I know what they look like, it seems unlikely someone would see them and throw them away, I mean that is cruise service 101 right there. Likely they were wrapped in a paper towel or something similar. Which to be fair they still should have checked but...

Take the 50% and see if you can sweet talk services (one of the many contacts posted) in to something else, like a drinks package, dining, whatever. They have a lot of leeway with stuff like that. You could end up with several thousands worth of savings in the end. And try to be less angry about it. Upset and firm, sure. What happened sucked. Yelling and taking a hard line from the get go is likely not going to go as far though. Get some comp. and move on.

Suite attendant, I meant. It was a butler on one ship so I just default to calling them that.

Last time I did in room MTD the attendant stopped by just to make sure everything was good and to see if we needed anything else.

I've had dinner in my suite on RCI when it was just my wife and I before. Everything comes at once, yes, in covered dishes, but that isn't so bad. I mean, we are talking RCI MDR food here. And your butler will usually come check on you at least once if you do this.

I'll give them a heads up when I board this time that I will have 6. It's not the food delivery so much as making sure we have enough chairs, etc. (I think the dining room table in the OS is for two, based on pictures).

My wife and I are booked in the Owner's suite on Serenade for our upcoming Scandinavian cruise.

Question(s):

We have two other couples travelling with us who are in balcony rooms. I assume we can let them in to our suite, correct? Can we get them as guests in to the lounge as well? I know last time I sailed in a suite people seemed to bring in others who may or may not also have been in a suite but checking official policy.

If we do MTD in-room dining, which is an option for suite guests, will they allow up to 6? Or is this just for my wife and I?

Cruised RCI in suites before but not with travel companions.

Going from RCI to Carnival to avoid upselling is the definition of frying pan>fire.

Just ignore it and enjoy your holiday.

How do you get this? Is it something you order on the ship, or AT&T's web site? And what's the per-minute voice rate in the Caribbean?

Edit: NM, found it here: http://www.att.com/att/global/affordable-world-packages/?cruise

Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea this existed. The data is probably a decent deal in port but I'm betting at sea it's terrible. That's a much better deal for voice and texts though.

Edit 2: Actually, this is very specific to "Cellular at Sea". It does *not* apply when you are roaming in-port, for voice, text, or data - it's only when your phone is connected to the Cellular At Sea network on the ship. And furthermore it says only when in International waters which means it might not work in port even on the ship. If that's the case then this deal isn't nearly as good.

So I'll stick with voice since I know I need to make a call. Beware, you'll get charged international roaming on shore unless you buy a regular international package.

Cellular at Sea has worked fine for us. We have AT&T and they charge $2.49 per minute for voice calls. If you are Diamond or better in C&A, you will get a coupon that reduces the cost of calls from your stateroom phone to $2 per minute.

Thanks! I'm only Platinum but I'm in a Crown Loft Suite this time, I should check and see if they do the same deal for suite holders.

If not, my company is getting the bill either way so...:)

As much as my vacation should be a time to unplug it looks like I'm going to have to be on a 30 minute call during one of the sea days on Oasis next week.

I realize it'll probably be expensive but I don't care because my company will pick that up. What I want to know is, is it possible in the Eastern Caribbean and is the quality passable if so? And does that "Cellular at Sea" deal work there? I've only ever cruised in the Mediterranean which is different for a lot of reasons when it comes to calls.

I know it'll probably work in port somewhere but this will definitely come when we're at sea.

My personal opinion is it is unique for about a day :) It's neat to see a mini-park on a ship but it's not *that* neat and it's better experienced walking around in it....like any park :)

You're on a boat, look at the ocean. The only advantage the CP room will give you is if you plan on spending a lot of time on a tiny balcony people-watching.

Could be interesting in some ports (depending on the side) but for the most part you wouldn't see much while it was underway.

Also, I'm no shipwright but I doubt it's even feasible to build one like that in modern cruise ships. They have pretty huge baffles for the hull(s) that low.

Sorry but it's pretty clear that there are several individuals that think the OP wants to bring the 2 year old into the actual falls....

Fair enough but let's not miss the actual point which is climbing or not a lot of us don't think it's a good idea.

If she didn't want folks to weigh in on it she shouldn't have posted it in a public forum - I mean, that's kind of the point, isn't it? Soliciting opinions? Not all of them are going to line up :)

Why wouldn't she? The same advice over, and over, and over, by people who obviously couldn't be bothered to actually read that the OP had NO INTENTION of taking the 2yo climbing.

No offense but I don't think you have been reading either :)

It's perfectly clear she doesn't intend to take the 2 year old climbing, at least to me. The point is that area - around a large waterfall - is no place to take a 2 year old climbing or not. Mature, perfectly healthy and fit *adults* get hurt all the time on excursions like that, climbing or not. As a parent, she can decide if she wants to forge ahead anyway but that doesn't mean RCI has to be party to that decision and blaming them for choosing not to is ridiculous.

Look, I wager a pretty huge percentage of everyone here has at one time or another raised a 2 year old. The grandparents among us, more than once perhaps. It's a wonderful, life-affirming thing to have kids, but with it comes the simple fact that, especially while they are young, there are just certain things you aren't going to be able to do, and taking them to a giant natural waterfall that plunges in to a deep pool surrounded by slippery rocks is one of them.

I've searched around but not found much on this.

My DW and I have a 1:30pm flight out of Ft. Lauderdale the day our August cruise ends. We're in a suite and so I think that means we could get off the ship quickly if we wanted.

However I have no real desire to disembark at 7-8am, go to the airport, and hang out for several hours (the United Club there isn't that great, either). I've read RCI occasionally offers "late departure" - how late is late? How long will they normally let us stay on the ship given that they probably start boarding it again around 11am?

And if we do stay until the last possible minute are the customs lines pretty bad at that port? Ideally we'd take it easy, sleep in, disembark around 9:30-10 after a quick last bite to eat but I'd hate to then go stand in line for an hour then rush to the airport.

Any experiences to share? We'll have luggage of course so bumming around Ft. L in a cab doesn't sound appealing either.

Update - I just checked out the brochure and it's even more detailed than I remember. They already have the app! It's just a standard iOS app that connects to a special section of the shipboard wireless. There's no reason at all they couldn't just offer that for iOS/Android users in general.

Think how massively useful that would be for bigger groups and families. They could even put special events and stuff on the map to drive people to their shopping events and whatnot.

Locking this down to a special iPhone you have to rent is dumb. I wonder how many people lose/drop/ruin those per cruise and have to pay a steep fee. Plus a kid who has his own phone that you wrapped in an Otterbox is going to take better care of it than some "free" thing you hand him/her that doesn't even have all the games and other crap their "real" phone does.

I wish they would just create a cross-platform app - they could do it in the existing RCI app - so that anyone using it could send messages to one another on the ship. All you'd need to do is link users.

That is, from what I remember, essentially what the iPhone they give you does - it's a special app, and the phones are linked together. Yeah, they wouldn't get as many rentals but that doesn't seem to be a big profit center for them anyway.

And if they were smart they'd use it to drive people to the app, which is filled with ads, etc for shopping onboard anyway. It's kind of mind boggling how limited that app is right now considering they have everything they need already to make it really useful at sea.

Then again, software development doesn't seem to be one of RCI's strong suits going by the website :)

I've done both on RCI (Mariner and Liberty) and I would take Barcelona, all else being equal. It's a beautiful city, weather is usually great that time of year, and it's a much, much easier port to deal with.

My mother, who is in a wheelchair, was with us on the Barcelona cruise and it was pretty simple to get her around too, by the way. I've been in and out of the airport there several times (both cities) and Barcelona's is much nicer as well.

And of course the port of Barcelona is actually in Barcelona :) As several others have noted already Civitavecchia is a pretty good drive from Rome proper, and if there's bad traffic - not unheard of - it can be a long journey.

That said Rome is one of the world's great cities and if you haven't been you will love it, just factor in a lot of travelling. You will not begin to see it in a day, just like they couldn't build it that fast :) so really if that's your interest then get there a few days early or leave a few days later and enjoy.

I've sailed many cruise lines and have never ever seen any 1,000 OBC

 

Well, you have now, see attached:

:)

We're arguing in circles at this point so let's just agree to disagree.

The bottom line, no-BS truth is this policy - whatever you want to call it - is to the benefit of RCI. By restricting use of OBC to only when you are physically present on the ship - a policy that many other cruise lines, as mentioned, do not have - they benefit only themselves. It is of zero benefit to you, the consumer. That is a fact, not opinion.

Now, if you want to argue that RCI's policy leads to, on average, more OBC being issued to consumers, that would be a discussion worth having, but my experience (my most recent one aside, and that is a complete anomaly) is that the OBC offered to most consumers is in line with the industry, and primarily meant to "prime the pump" so that consumers get used to spending money on-ship. There are many studies that show "small credit" up front helps consumers break through the "spending barrier" - i.e. you might mentally have trouble spending that first dollar, but if you get that first dollar "free" then the second dollar is much easier to spend. However RCI apparently doesn't believe (and probably has the math to back it up) this yields as much of a return if that "first dollar" is spent off the ship, even if it's for something on it.

This isn't an overall slam on RCI. The cruises I have had with them have been for the most part far above those on other "big ship" lines in terms of service, amenities, and the ships themselves. I like RCI quite a bit but that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that some things they do aren't a little too tilted towards the bottom line. They are in business to make money, I get it, so am I. Just be aware.

I'm glad you haven't. I was thinking I must be doing something wrong.

I was told it was a "new promotion" and the rep said "it was the first one she had done". Maybe it's specific to Loft Suites or even more specific to trying to convince suite bookers to move TO a CL, dunno, but believe me I am happy to get it. It's already shown up on my statement so I'm not dreaming it :)

It can't hurt to ask. Remember I got it direct from RCI so it may not be something a TA can do if they book it.