omro1975

On 2/12/2023 at 7:10 AM, cruisegirl1 said:

The higher the C&A category, the worse the assignment. 😄

m. 

Why?

On 2/11/2023 at 8:03 PM, fredmdcruisers said:

No, but past sending on cruises might.

Not sure what that means?

18 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

That’s not what I thought you were doing. I’m not sure if that’s a good price or not.  Sorry I was confused. I thought you were doing a TA like we did. 

No biggie, I still think your itinerary was an awesome one. 

17 minutes ago, voyager70 said:

@omro1975for that itinerary I would have done the same thing. That’s a big savings on a rare and unique itinerary, and I would rather be up on deck to take in the panoramic views and scenery in that part of the world anyway. Even in the unlikely event you get an obstructed/obscured view balcony it will still be an amazing experience. I would love to do this (or similar) itinerary some day.

 

We'll likely spend a lot of time on deck, but since it was a bucket list cruise for a 50th birthday, we decided to splurge and go guaranteed balcony, rather than oceanview. I'm hopeful that we don't get an obstructed view, but at the same time, if we do, it won't be the end of the world. With the money we've saved, we can buy a whole new cruise. We're actually considering Alaska. Yes, we like glacial scenery.

5 minutes ago, dani negreanu said:

 

I wish... I've only done the short one -- Geiranger, Stavanger, Olden and Bergen.

 

My other half thinks that's enough to get the "gist", but I dream of the Artic Circle....

We'd originally considered just getting the essentials of Norway, but since this is my partner's 50th birthday, we decided to upgrade this to a bucket list level.

4 minutes ago, dani negreanu said:

 

You're paying for an amazing itinerary, not offered very often and which tends to be sold out very quickly.

 

Pre-Covid Royal offered it only once in the season.

Have you done it? 

25 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

Ok that makes sense. We did a 14 night Arctic cruise on Voyager in September from Copenhagen to Boston and it was expensive too. But we didn’t pay nearly what this is costing you. And we originally had Brilliance booked on that cruise in 2020 which of course was cancelled and that was half what we paid. Cruises have gone through the roof! Hope you get an unobstructed room. It’s a beautiful cruise especially Prins Christian Sund. It’s an all day thing and although we were on the upper deck for some time, we also sat on our balcony on the way back down and it was amazing. Breathtaking views from our cabin!

This is the itinerary. 

Day 1 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Day 2 - Cruising
Day 3 - Geiranger, Norway
Day 4 - Molde, Norway
Day 5 - Cruising
Day 6 - Honningsvag, Norway
Day 7 - Tromso, Norway
Day 8 - Arctic Circle (Cruising), Norway
Day 9 - Flam, Norway
Day 10 - Alesund, Norway
Day 11 - Olden, Norway
Day 12 - Bergen, Norway
Day 13 - Cruising
Day 14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands

Your cruise looks like it was amazing. Your cruise also looks like it was sort of a repositioning. I think I'm paying the price for mid summer and the hope for better weather.

24 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Not sure where you got that $8000 price at, the web site I'm looking at has a Guarantee Balcony (XB) for 3 passengers for $6282

Cruises cost more in Canadian dollars. 

5 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

Yes, I understood the itinerary.

Sorry, at the time of your post, I'd not actually detailed it fully. Sorry if that was repetitive.

4 minutes ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

That’s a lot either way for that ship. How many people, how long and where is this cruise?

Two adults, one child. Starts Amsterdam, July 5, 13 nights (my bad, I keep saying 12), up the coast of Norway and back, crossing the Arctic Circle. Jewel of the Seas.

4 minutes ago, Starry Eyes said:

With the RoyalUp bidding for upgrades, Royal Caribbean would not need to give a free upgrade in the situation you describe in your post.  Instead the person in a balcony who placed the highest bid for a JS could be upgraded and Royal Caribbean collects the bid amount.  That upgrade frees up their balcony cabin to be assigned to your balcony gty booking.  You may or may not like the location of the balcony cabin vacated by that high bidder.

I'm not remotely expecting an upgrade. My example was from a few years ago. I'm not sure if Royal Up even existed then. I don't ever recall being asked if I wanted to upgrade my cabin that trip.

26 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

8.5K for a balcony on a 12 night UGH. I'd find another week.

 

I know this isn't helping the guessing related to if status effect stateroom assignment and Loyalty status.  As far as I can tell, assignment of the staterooms is random.

It's an Arctic circle cruise up the coast of Norway. 

2 minutes ago, RD64 said:

Loyal cruisers do not come back and spend on the frills. As a generalization, they come on board and spend a minimal amount. In return they think that their loyalty should be rewarded with every possible free bell and whistle known to the cruising public. These items are a cost to the cruise line. They would much rather have the newbies on board that are willing to spend extravagantly on all the frills.

 

You may very well be right. Extravagant spending isn't limited to newbies though. I'm sure every cruise line has stats on this.

2 hours ago, beachnative said:

Have there been cases where Royal says, "Sorry, we don't have an empty cabin for your guarantee"...and you do not get to go on that cruise?

As I understand it, they expect the ships to be full and there to be cancellations at the point of final payment, which tends to open up inventory. So they certainly hedge their bets there. Once you to the final payment section, all of the guaranteed rooms are assigned somehow and then the system can only sell what continue to be vacant rooms. Again, this is just how I have had this explained to me. 

If they sell every room in a particular class, so much so that there are a few guaranteed rooms needing to be allocated, then they move to the next class up to see if they can place you. While a class upgrade is incredibly unlikely, I have known someone to whom this happened. They booked a balcony guarantee and once they were onboard they actually got a junior suite. This is not something we're even remotely pinning any hopes on.

2 hours ago, Ourusualbeach said:

If anything I would say status could work against you.

 

Say they have 2 cabins left and 2 guarantees to fill, one cabin is great midship location and the other is an obstructed view..  One is a new cruiser and the other is Diamond.  Who do they want to impress to get them back sailing a second time with Royal and who do they know that they have already won their loyalty and will cruise again regardless of room assignment.

I can see what you're saying here, but loyal cruisers actually also more likely to return than a newbie, especially once they've built up status. For instance, we have friends who are newbies, they liked their cruise on Royal, they had a balcony, but they feel no loyalty, they just care about the itinerary and the bottomline cost. They're cruising with Carnival next. Once we have the status, with the benefits that provides, we're more likely to book again and again and again, rather than waste time and money building up status with another line. So, I actually think rewarding someone with status would actually make them more money in the long run.

3 hours ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

We love that class of ship, but would hesitate to book guarantee. For example, along with what was said previously here that there are balcony cabins with obstruction - we book balconies to see the ocean - we wouldn’t book on deck 7 if it’s over any bar that had music until late. We did that once and it was very noisy for us in the cabin.

it all depends on what’s important to you.

I totally get what you're saying, but it was 8.5k for a guaranteed and 13k for pick your own. For that difference, I could book another cruise and still get balcony!

3 hours ago, Jimbo said:

There are some balconies on deck 7, mostly mid ship(other then the bump outs) that when standing at your balcony railing and looking straight down, you don't  see the ocean, you see the  tops of covers over the life boats. You can however look straight out and see plenty of the ocean from those balcony cabins.

We did look at the deck plans before we committed. Looks like the obscured balconies are either what you describe or some sort of ladder. 

We're doing a Norwegian Fjord cruise and decided for $4+k in savings, essentially another cruise, we would take the punt.

That's fair enough. It would have made our willingness to buy guaranteed rooms much higher. Doesn't look like there are that many obscured rooms on Jewel.

Hi, 

We just booked a guaranteed state room on Jewel OTS for next year. It was a $4k difference between guaranteed and selection. By the time we board, the cruises we've taken this year will have tipped us just high enough to cross the Diamond threshold. 

I was wondering if your status with RCI had any bearing on how they assigned your rooms?

Thanks!

Does anyone know if he'll still be there, on Rhapsody, in January?

Hi All,

I used to really like printing off the really nice drawings of the cruise ships on cruise-ships.com as a sort of bingo sheet. I've attached what I like from there. However, this site seems to have died.

Is there an alternative to this site?

Thanks!

Hi, are there any cruise price search engines that allow you to filter by cabin type? Most show you the cheapest interior room first. I don't want to see interior rooms, just balcony rooms and I don't know any sites that filter by that alone.

Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks.

Has anyone stayed in these rooms on board the Jewel (or equivalent on board the Serenade, Brilliance or Radiance).

Just curious if there's much noise in this area of the ship after the shows are completed late at night. The cabins look very close to the lowest level of the theatre.

Thanks!

No worries, she may not have been on when you were aboard. Being one of the founding members of The Supremes, she was very well hyped at the time.

We were on the majesty of the seas in May 1992 for our honeymoon and first cruise. Such great memories. I'm pretty sure it was Cozumel , grand cayman , Ocho rios, st Thomas and cococay but I might have 1 too many stops can't remember for sure. I know for sure we stopped in Cozumel st Thomas and their private island.

Was Mary Wilson onboard as the headliner?