LeeW

Refresh both the Orders and the tour page after cancelling. If you have a credit this makes it reappear. On the orders page you will see the cancellation credit with the original booking. It also gets rid of the booking conflict so you can book again.

Do NOT use the same email for two people with Diamond photos. If you do then one photo will be highlighted as a favorite and the second will be an additional purchase credit. To get both photos: https://photo.rccl.com/login Usually my password doesn't work so I have to do a password reset at this site. Download the one you picked on the ship with the email owner, then select the additional one from the greyed out ones. Make that a favorite, then you will be given the option to purchase it. You already have a purchase credit in the upper left corner, but it isn't obvious. Purchase the second photo and then download. In general you can only get a free Diamond picture if a Diamond member is in the photo. So group photos work but pictures of only people in the other cabins don't work. And for two Diamond members you have to log on separately to buy these. Also found out on Odyssey that IFly pictures are NOT included and cost minimum of $35 each.

Both ports are VERY safe and most locals speak English. City buses in Aruba are around $5 each way from terminal diagonally across the street from the port entrance and run about every 20 minutes. And most excursions can be booked for 2/3 Royal prices via shoreexcursioneer or shoreexcursionsgroup. Just pick something that offers port pickup. Having been on many tours we (74/75) just take the 10 bus north to somewhere on Palm Beach, walk/swim as far as we like, visit a casino or two and catch bus back to town. For a first-timer I would recommend some kind of island tour, especially the 4x4 Landrovers that take you out of the tourist areas into the desert areas of both islands. In Aruba, DePalm Tours is the major tour operator and can also be booked directly. Catamarans, DePalm Island, Landrover tour of island all good. UTV tour is a blast, although took 3 weeks to get red dust color out of my hair. If you like decorative glass, try Studio Murano Art. Owner of the bar/restaurant worked for Murano and does spectacular work at great prices. Happened to stop there on UTV tour since it is up in the hills above Orangestadt. Haven't been to Ostrich Farm since first trip (on cruise ship tour). Ecch. Snorkeling is pretty good in Aruba, although Antilles shipwreck is in very deep water so the big fish and scuba divers are a long way down. Current strong there, so more work than it is worth. Snorkeling in Curacao at the tugboat tour is kind of mixed on Royal. Snorkeling is good but you do jump 4' off boat and water can be choppy. And 2/3 of tour is spent looking at fancy houses, not snorkeling. Called Jewels/Treasures of Curacao something.

Typically any ship in Fort Lauderdale or Miami, although didn't see it in Miami on Dec 31 on 3 day Freedom cruise. Wasn't looking, though. Normally we use this since airlines won't check luggage until 4 hours before flights and flight we usually book is 4 PM.

Nope, it is a PSEUDO random number generator. Adds patterns of bits to the existing number and then takes a subset of the result as the new number. While the machine is certified by the manufacturer for the percentage wins specified over the long run, it will still run in patterns. Building a truly random RNG is actually a difficult computer problem - if you plot either adjacent numbers or every third number on a graph you often get a visible pattern, not a random bunch of dots. Lots of computers have a single RNG and when you ask for two numbers you are always pulling numbers that are a constant x number of machine cycles apart. On a slot machine the timing of the push on the spin button provides variation. If you want to see this in action try a three line video poker machine and hold three cards. You will notice that the same card often shows up on several lines even though the three "decks" being used are supposedly separate generators.

The 645 start (varies a bit by ship) has been around since before the restart. Royal uses the Mytime dining room for early early seating at around 515 and this is the average time those folks get done eating. Once a significant number leave they open the doors to Mytime. Since we eat at the same time each night we get in the reservation line at around 630 and wait for doors to open. After a few days they either wave us to the table we normally sit at or put us at another in the same server area. Generally the reservation line moves faster than the no-reservation line. Also if the lines are getting long one of the greeters will walk down both lines and ask if anyone wants to be seated immediately on another floor. If so, they escort them there. Lines can still be long on the first night and formal nights but with a 645 reservation we are normally being served by 7. And some nights they ask us to show up earlier than normal to help adjust that surge when they open. When you first get onboard, go to the main dining room that is open for lunch seating. The host can adjust or make dining reservations for you.

Didn't see anything in the onboard casino flyer Dec 28. And don't recall ever getting an email mentioning this for our trips to Nassau for the last few years as Prime.

The one on Freedom was, as others said, reservable onboard. But they ran a ton of sessions on Coco Cay and Nassau days and there was often plenty of walkup availability. The whole ice surface was covered with inflatable walls, so you couldn't see much from the seating area but they did allow you in to watch.

Had thousands get off when hurricane in Florida but not common. Royal does have an approval process.

Shoreexcursioneer and shoreexcursionsgroup will have excursions available, although this far out it is possible to get cancelations.

If you don't mind cost the folks at westquaycars do a great job. Around 140 pounds. They pick up in front of smith's store just to right of international flight exit. We used them to hotel in southampton. App won't download in us but you can set it up with email and call in credit card number later.

Even if the TA is holding a block of cabins, I would think that the OP buddy would have a booking number and the ability to log onto Princess and see that booking. I've certainly seen payment plans on Royal but haven't been interested enough to look at details. We just do the deposit and final payments.

My original Princess password did not have special characters in it and I couldn't get it to work with the Ocean Ready account - that requires a password with special characters. Fix was to change the password on the normal site to add special characters. Then it worked on both sites.

Refundable/Non-refundable only applies prior to the final payment date. Once you have paid in full on that date you hit cancellation fees of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% depending on how close to sailing you decide to cancel. Insurance can reimburse you for that, if you bought it.

We've never had a problem getting the same table and wait staff each night in normal Anytime dining. Tried what is now call Reserve once and the extra menu item never appealed to us and still got the same table each night. At one point they used half the single Anytime dining room for fixed first seating and then also cut out another quarter for Club (Reserve) Class. With only 1/4 of the dining room left for Anytime it was slower to get in. Now it doesn't make much difference since Princess no longer has fixed seating dining.

BabySarge mentioned the obvious thing for us. I have cheap rental car rates from the employer I retired from. For any trip over 3 days it is cheaper to rent one way twice (in our case to and from airport) than it is to park at the terminal. Helps that I am within 10 minutes walking distance from the local rental outfit, but it isn't a big deal to pick up the car the day before and only pay for one day rental. Check the price of rentals and figure out if it pays to park or not. There is an inconvenience factor picking up after a cruise, but we've also done that quite a few times and it isn't that bad.

You won't know before you sail when the earliest flight is allowed for booking the ship shuttle. Normally 11:30 flight for the nearer airport and 1/2 hour later for the farther for Miami and Fort Lauderdale. So Royal isn't going to allow you to take their shuttle. I would suggest a transfer company like SAS: https://www.ridesas.com/html/returningcustomers.php They will pick up a group of people from your ship and take them to the airport. Of course if one couple in the group is running late it could mess you up, but it took us around an hour from getting off the ship to arriving at FLL. We had 8 people in the van. They may recommend you walk off the ship yourself - earliest bag service will likely be 8 AM. You can ask onboard for the earliest group. The ship will schedule you for a departure group based on your flight times but it is easy to take the tags to Guest Services and get earlier tags. Your steward will also likely have earlier tags. The transfer companies also will sell you a transfer for only your group, but this costs more. Not sure the transfer companies have child seats, but the Royal bus doesn't either.

Cruise more - we don't even get motion on land after cruising these days. Of course it can get a bit expensive....

Calendar typically doesn't show your reservations until you connect to the ship wifi. We go by what shows in the Orders page online.

Every time we go there the waves are breaking over the snorkeling pier end. Ride from the other port where Carnival docks can be really rough. The spot you picked can be really quiet and peaceful.

Didn't realize you can do a room charge without putting your card in the machine. Do you enter your room number and then PIN (MMDD)? Normally it gets room number from the card.

That tour goes by various names on various cruise lines but we have done it twice. Assuming you are on a partial transit from Atlantic side you tender off the ship in Gatun Lake and are bussed to the pilot landing at the far end of the lake. Then you proceed through the rest of the canal in the old locks and get back on a bus on the Pacific side. Bus trip back these days is much faster (nice expressway most of the way). Fairly long tour and one time we had to wait for our ship to get tied up in Colon before we could reboard. Good food/snacks on the boat. While there could be a delay, we haven't seen one. You can touch the lock walls as you proceed and view closeup the operation of the mules, which are not used in the new locks. Not sure if we will do it again on our next trip, but if you like traveling through locks this is more interesting than staying on the cruise ship. And you get to see a closeup of the Cut and areas you would only see on a full transit cruise.

Cruise Express works well. Take pier bus to terminal and look left. They are on the far corner of the street. Note that even if you buy online you still need to stand in line to get your return ticket and then they escort everyone onto the next street where the bus loads. Bus parking area is around 15 minute walk from the downtown area through a park. Return bus was on the half hour when we went in August. Note that most restrooms in town are inside sitdown restaurants. There is a public facility next to the bus park area. The bus that meets the ship goes to the railroad station and you would then still need to take the train to Bruges. Every third store there seems to be either waffles or chocolate!

Leonardo (and all other hotels) does NOT have shuttles to pier. Ask at either the desk or the Concierge to arrange a cab for the next morning for you. We asked for 1000 and they recommended 915 for an 1100 port time. That said, the cab was 45 minutes late and people walking along the pier road to the QEII pier were walking faster than he could drive. Next time we might just walk the mile. The people using Uber were having as much problem as we were getting picked up. We did like this hotel for access to the mall - lots of food options. No soda machines. Around a 20 minute walk to the train station if you want to take the train to Salisbury and Stonehenge. Nice indoor swimming pool.

Royal and Celebrity Planners don't let you put more than one "Mytime" dining reservation in the shopping cart at a time. Try going back and selecting a different day, book that and check out, then do it again for the other days.