WI-Cruiser

Got it.  Thanks.  You are truly a font of knowledge.

Hmmm, I haven't seen any Military Discount block to check on any of the cruises I've looked at.  Assuming that means there is no military discount for that cruise?  Hate the way they keep 'improving' things.

How do you check to see a military discount is available on a cruise?  I know years ago there was an option to select when booking a cruise, but haven't seen that available in quite a long time.  Also, is there any way to search for cruises that are offering state/military/senior discounts?  Thanks

Looking forward to following along.  We're getting on as you're getting off.

10 hours ago, ReneeFLL said:

If she is prone to them see if her doctor would give her a prescription to have filled before you leave.

This is what DW does.  Carries the meds just in case.   Cheaper than using onboard medical facilities. 

No question.  Go for it!

Cream of Garlic soup in the MDR is one of our favorites.

Have you tried looking under Caribbean Ports of Call?  I've found a lot of port specific information there.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/456-caribbean/

Looking for feedback regarding the quality of laundry services provided by the ship, especially Symphony OTS.  We don’t usually use the laundry services, but don’t see how we can avoid it on our upcoming BTB unless we haul an extra suitcase or two.  What have your experiences been, good or bad?

Starting final prep for our upcoming Symphony cruise and wondering if uploading pictures in advance actually speeds up embarkation.  Thoughts/experiences?

Thanks for the quick responses.

Getting close to our Symphony cruise and will be requesting dining table location preferences shortly.  What I’m not sure about is which dining room decks are used for what.  We have traditional dining.  From what I can ascertain it seems that deck 4 is primarily MTD.  Does anyone recently on the Symphony OTS know how the MDR decks are used?

1 hour ago, kcbookworm said:

We were on Symphony a few weeks ago and had drink packages.  We thought we would just be charged for the oysters - but we were charged the full $10 for the happy hour special.  No discount for having the drink package.

That's what I was afraid of.  Thank you for confirming.

 TravisP provided one on this thread:

Looks pretty comprehensive although I'm not sure that all the prices are up to date.  Regardless, an excellent tool.

Searched the forum and haven’t found a definitive answer.  Does anyone know how the Hooked happy hour works when you have the drink package?  For example, they offer 6 Oysters with wine for $10.  I hate the thought of paying for a drink I've already paid for, but they don't seem to offer a’ la carte pricing.  So, am I stuck with paying $10 for essentially only the 6 oysters?

I've been getting the error on the RCI forum since last night.  Makes me wonder if CC didn't hire some of RCI's 'Stellar' IT staff.

"There was one issue, (it didn't personally happen to us but we felt bad) 2 different times parents brought a child over to the smaller side of the splash area, the children were around 3-4 and the person watching told them that their child was to big for this area.  The dad questioned what they were supposed to do because they originally went over to the other side of the splash area and they were told their child was to small.  The man watching said unfortunately there wasn't anything he could do. The child was very upset because there ended up not being a single place that they could be in the water. A short time later the same thing happened to another child and they also went away in tears.  I think that if they have the splash area and they are to small to use the larger slide then they should be allowed to play in the small side. "

I think the parents should have asked to speak with the supervisor of the individuals involved to get this resolved.  Most likely a misunderstanding of the policies on behalf of the crew.

It's probably the 'most popular' because of it's location and the fact that the Bahama's used to pay cruise lines to stop there.  My understanding is that those payments have been eliminated as they weren't paying the desired dividends, as fewer and fewer passengers disembark and those that do typically spend less money. 

We've been to Nassau probably a dozen times and have two more scheduled stops on our upcoming BTB, but we won't be getting off the ship.  It has nothing to do with the warnings; it is simply because of port fatique. 

I think RCI was prudent to issue these warnings.  Although their travel tips are mostly just common sense for an experienced traveler and really apply to all ports, it is still a good reminder.

On 12/23/2018 at 12:30 AM, NavyCruiser said:

 

Correct.  True.  Agreed.

 

But again, how may (what percentage) of us brings all of our families' physical passport books off the ship at every foreign ports? 

We don't bring the physical passports with us at every port.  What we do is scan copies of all important papers (passport, driver's license, Health Care POA, Insurance information, etc.) and store as encrypted documents on a secure location in 'the cloud'.  We both have passwords/keys as does our emergency contact back home.  

We fully realize that we may have to wait for a replacement passport before being able to return to the U.S. but, considering the ship will at least try to leave your passport behind if you miss the ship, we consider it a risk we;re willing to take.

I've been trying for a couple days to make a cruise payment but it continues to error-out regardless of browser or card.  Payment for drink package worked perfectly online so it seems to be associated only with cruise fare payments.  I'll just call and make the payment next week if it isn't fixed.  You would think RCI would take some corrective action given these incessant web problems, but I guess that would make too much sense.

Agree that the banner advertisement can be confusing although I don't know if it is actually deceptive.  Regardless, we were able to save about $60 per person (total $240 savings on our upcoming Symphony BTB).  I watch the prices carefully and this is the cheapest I've seen for the drink package for our cruise.  I've seen prices vary between ships so this may not be the case in all situations.

I have a follow-up question.  Would the person you're texting with or calling also have to purchase the Package, or just the person initiating the communication?

The hibachi in Izumi's is not a la carte so I would assume that would be included.

The problem appears to be that when you search for posts of a particular ship it defaults to 'Royal Caribbean <ship name>', so that it picks up ANY post containing ANY of those words. So any post on any board which contains the word 'Caribbean' shows up in the search results.  You can refine the search by clicking on 'More Search Options', however, there does not seem to be an option to limit the search to a single board.  At least that's what I'm seeing.  Anyone find any way to limit searchs just to the Royal Caribbean forum?

Latest Compasses and Menus for 8 day Freedom Cruise that I've seen can be found here:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2588475