Luckybee

If you plan to take the cruise, what does it matter what the deposit is?

 

 

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We have trips planned from now until the end of 2019, and only one involves a cruise therefore....

My 91 yr old mother has a major issue and we have to cancel...we lose $500

Dh has a health issue and we have to cancel..,.we lose $500

Our work commitments are such that we have to cancel....we lose $500

I have a medical problem and we have to cancel....we lose $500

We cannot at this point take out the med insurance offered because of the pre existing clause. Fact is if we have to cancel for any reason at this point we're out $500. I can live with the loss if it comes down to that, but it does discourage us from booking further cruises. I could be wrong but I would think that RCCL wants people who normally travel on land to consider cruises. We are booking and paying 19mths in advance for a cruise deposit that we might have to cancel because "life happens" and then we'd be sol on our deposit.

I can neither confirm nor deny where I read those stories ;) I distinctly recall people claiming that the room attendants had gone crazy for bags of candy/cookies/ etc. There are also the people who print cards with their family picture as a memento for the staff members. The clothing thing is also on the theme park boards. The people claim that the housekeepers love when you leave your old clothing behind. Cash people, they want CASH, not trinkets, old clothes, bags of old Halloween candy, or a pretty framed photo of your family. The people who leave those items rather than CASH are idiots

It might just depend though on what the gift is. I wont go into the whole long drawn out story but Im aware of a cabin steward receiving a $3000 wedding dress for her wedding from a passenger as evidenced by her very lovely wedding pictures. Trust me when I say the steward was very grateful for that gift (and she got her tip too :) )

Dh and I spent 4 weeks going back and forth between RCCL star class and NCL's haven for Nov 2018 and we booked with RCCL right after the new deposit policy came in. Because we were booking a suite we were told we had only the non refundable option available. About a week ago we decided to change from the Oasis to the Allure on the same dates and they allowed us to do so without penalty. Today we had a price drop(albeit a small one) on the entire ship, and although our category was no longer available they happily made the change for us and again without penalty.

It is free if you book an owners suite. Or if you have a casino drink card.

 

Upper tier latitudes members and regular suites guests get one bottle for the cruise.

 

 

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Does that mean in a owners suite or DOS one gets as many bottles as they need and replenished, or are there simply a few put in the room at the commencement of the cruise ?

I don't think you'll be able to, at least we couldn't. It is absolute nonsense as is the explanation they give for it which I posted about in a different thread. Dh just went back and forth with them and the only suggestion that could be made was to cancel and rebook paying in US $ (which we are NOT going to do since we would then pay an extra premium with our CC ). The worst of it is that it isn't like RCCL is giving a great discount on the exchange rate either. Imho it is just an easy way for them to avoid redemptions with myvegas.

As an aside, it isn't listed anywhere in the terms and conditions, rather this is what they concluded in the last email to my husband(who had indicated that he had read the terms and conditions and couldn't find anywhere that this "policy " was mentioned), which was almost enough to have us cancel our our Royal suite and go back to NCL because quite frankly we both found this brush off response offensive.

The portion that is relevant to the pricing/currencyissue is shown in the full context in brackets, but it states: “Only valid for new reservations made through Royal Caribbean Reservations at clubroyale@rccl.com.”Because the reservations that have MyVegas Rewards applied are specified as having to be made through the Club Royale department, and because Club Royalebookings are made exclusively in US currency, this prohibits us from applying the reward to a booking made in Canadian currency. This is our final comment on the subject.

Nice eh?? Good luck ....they seem very customer oriented don't they = Not...I have to admit though that we chuckled about this ! Dh and I both are self employed and deal with clients daily and I know how quickly we'd be out of business if we said the following. Must be nice to be in a business where one can say this sort of thing to a customer.... As I said to him, imagine telling one of our clients in a 3rd email , "This is our final comment on the subject"...

Not trying for any discount in our case. We booked our cruise directly with Royal Caribbean. just a week ago and we booked the Royal Suite. Both dh and I claimed rewards and we sent both on to Royal. The only thing they told us in email # 1 (replying to my redemption) was that we could not use the reward because we had booked in Canadian Funds. So my dh cancelled his reward, and then got an email stating that since the reward was cancelled it couldn't be redeemed, so he wrote back stating it was cancelled because of what I had been advised regarding Cdn bookings. Then he got back that gem of a response I provided above.

We have so many MV points it was a good way to burn a few but quite frankly this is nuts and Im not wasting more time going back and forth with them on this.....I'll stick to hotel bookings with MV, which btw if anyone has the numbers to do is quite worthwhile. Dh and I spent 2 wonderful nights in May at LaSamanna in St Maarten courtesy of MV and Destination Club. The process was simple, we were upgraded to an ocean front suite and it was heavenly.

We too have just run into the same thing. Dh and I were originally going to try NC's haven but found a great deal on Royal in a royal suite on Freedom for next year . We both used points for myvegas rewards on Royal. Honestly if it is one reward per stateroom I can live with that because it does show up in the conditions(which I didnt notice until after we booked the rewards). But this nonsense regarding bookings in Canadian dollars makes no sense at all, and based on the response we got back from Royal it is obvious to me that they dont understand the policy either. Dh wrote back to them after our reward was refused because of the Canadian $ issue asking for an explanation and where we would find this in any conditions and the following is the response he received ...and yes this is the verbatim response without any editing ...lol. I seriously couldnt stop laughing after reading the double talk that came no where near answering the question. What I find seriously mind blowing is that this comes from the casino dept....you know the one that tries to encourage play...and well....hmmm they can access MGM records where dh and I are at full RFB level at Bellagio and MGM grand, and on our previous Royal cruise we spent multiples of thousands in the casino. Honestly we arent wasting any further time on this but it truly shows me their short sighted thinking..anyway here is the response :

"Royal Caribbean’s casino offers and programs, be theythrough Club Royale or our partners, such as MyVegas, operate only in USD. Tomake sure all reservations remain combinable with these exciting offers, ourterms and conditions do require that the bookings be created through our ClubRoyale email address – this is done to prevent issues of combinability arisingthat create missed opportunities to use these rewards.

If we can be of further assistance, please don’t hesitateto contact us toll-free at 1 888-561-2234. We are available from 8:00am to10:00pm, Monday through Friday, and from 9:00am to 5:30pm, Saturday and Sunday(Eastern/Miami Time).

Our toll-free number is accessible from most countries byfirst dialing your country’s Exit Code. If you are unable to reach ourtoll-free number, please call us instead at 1-305-539-6000, between 8:00am and5:00pm Eastern time, Monday through Friday, and ask to be transferred to ClubRoyale, Extension 28586."

I certainly can visualize these cheerleaders you speak of, but Rhett Butler, no, I'll need some help there.

Rhett Butler was the lead character in " Gone with the Wind" played by Clark Gable where he uttered the words "frankly my dear I don't give a damn" when he was leaving Scarlett Ohara and she was asking him what she was going to do. Probably the most famous line from a movie in history

We stayed in the DOS on BA and have one booked on Escape. I see the GA booking you have for the DOS is over Thanksgiving so that is driving the price up.

 

That being said, I follow NCL suite prices pretty closely and that rate is one of the highest I've ever seen even factoring in it being a holiday sailing. I personally would never pay anything near that. I think you'd be better served cancelling that and going on RCCL.

 

Yes, PG is fantastic. I got email from them yesterday and they have a new stop added now to Tahiti Iti which is some small remote island as I understand it.

Which is exactly what we did. I cancelled the NCL cruise yesterday and we're doing the RCCL cruise instead !

We've only cruised a few times as we tend to be more land based people but I had hoped to try NCL and the Haven as I think it might be right up our alley and avoid some of the things that we haven't loved about cruising. That said, when we can get a luxury private villa on an island for less than the price of the haven it just isn't worth it for us...and when a suite that is arguably better (without the perks) on a different line is half the price I realized we'd be silly not to go that way.

I have a question though....is the pricing that high perhaps just because we're booking very early ? I ask because after reading your post I checked the week before and after and while the pricing was less the difference was only about $1000 less. Then I also checked the Bliss and for the 3 cruises it was over $5000 more each week for the DOS.

DH and I just got back from STT, and SXM.....on SXM one of the places we stayed was Coral Beach club where we had a beautiful private villa with a pool directly on the beach for about $700 night US (around $1000 CDN)add food at some of the best restaurants anywhere and we're still substantially less....I just cant justify the DOS haven pricing as it now stands in my own mind but we're still open to trying NCL and the Haven at some point if we see the value.

Thanks for your advice !

Which ship and what sailing? Is that for 7 days?

Yes 7 days . Both cruises are November 18, 2018 the NCL cruise is on the Getaway from Miami and we booked the DOS for $19206 for the 2 of us in cdn $ . Yesterday we were able to book the Royal suite on Freedom of the Seas for the same date for $9767 cdn for the 2 of us. After the cruise is over we're planning to spend a week or 2 in either St Maarten or Aruba so the Royal cruise works out better in terms of where we'll be as well.

And before anyone asks, yes I realize that it is US Thanksgiving that week (but it also happens to be a milestone birthday for me so we cant change our dates :) )

Im just frustrated and perhaps once we booked I should have stopped looking, because I did want the Haven.....but how in heavens name do I say no to the Royal suite with the hot tub to boot at half the price....lol ?

Or as dh put it, 3/4 of the price ok....but half???

PS Dexddd...I just looked at your profile page...we too did the Paul Gauguin many moons ago...now that was an amazing cruise :)

Suites are being filled as demand dictates, just to different people. NCL's new model sells what they can at a high rate to those willing to pay the price, then last minute discounts those cabins left to the highest bidder. I suppose FDR justifies that with his statements to the contrary because the cabins weren't offered to the public at that price, just to those already booked. I have to think the plan is maximizing profits or they wouldn't be doing it.

 

 

In the past, with old style upsell, the disparity in price paid for the same cabin was not as obvious as I feel it was less common. The new suite pricing model seems to be causing many more unsold cabins going to the bidding system. I know people here keep saying "You shouldn't worry about what other's paid for their cabin". Some people might be able to do that, but it I found it quite annoying to hear the stories about how they paid half what I did. I had hoped NCL might not be taking into consideration it's customers like you and I that were paying for the suites outright and are not willing to take our chances with winning a bid, and since we find the full price unappealing we are forced to look elsewhere. The larger numbers of unsold suites one month out is evidence past suite purchasers either don't like the system or are unwilling to pay asking prices.

 

 

There will always be a segment of NCL's customers who will pay asking price for the suites even if they doubled or tripled in cost, I think that is what NCL is working on determining right now, how far can they push initial suite purchasers and still have overall profits make sense by filling in the empty cabins with bidders. Unfortunately based on watching some of the reported winning bid amounts and then seeing policies like the one in this thread it seems NCL is not going to change the model anytime soon. Whether losing customers like us matters, it's doubtful. We have been replaced by those willing to take a chance with the bidding system.

Dh and I would be part of the group NCL is trying to obtain...we just booked our first cruise with NCL a few weeks ago in a Deluxe owners suite for the end of Nov 2018. I have to be honest I was quite surprised as to how much we ended up paying which was 14000+ (or 19000+ cdn) for a one week cruise. Because this was a special occasion and we wanted something different from our usual land based trips.we were prepared to bite the bullet, but I compared this with our most recent trip which included Caneel Bay in St JoHn, and La Samanna in St Martin(where we had suites at both places) and astonishingly they were less expensive.

So fast forward to this week and RCCL has a special for the royal suite ,same days and better itinerary for our tastes. I get the suite perks are not as good but we've sailed on RCCL in a royal suite before and it was terrific and OMG it is HALF the price of NCL. When I saw the pricing I seriously thought that RCCL had made an error. So now we're sitting with deposits on both. As much as we'd like to experience the Haven I'm having a hard time believing that it is worth an extra $7000 over and above a RS on RCCL so I'm pretty sure I know what we're going to do.

All of t

And the changes can work well depending on one's own priorities. Dh and I booked for Nov 2018 on the getaway in a deluxe owners suite where we had the UBP,shore credit ,speciality dining and internet included before the new promo. The only alcohol either of us drink is wine with dinner and we were planning to bring our own wine with the corkage fee in any event and being in a haven suite pop was not an issue. we are also getting a water package. For us the UBP was a waste. By dropping the UBP and keeping everything else we could add the $500 on board credit with a add'l cost of $30 . So great addition for our purposes.

Already seen the videos and we've booked this unit because of the private hot tub and deck which is what we want.

What Im more interested in hearing though is whether in terms of the itinerary, the visuals would be better from one "side" (so to speak) or the other. I thought not, but wanted to hear from others.

Thanks all !

A number of years ago we had booked this cabin but ended up doing another land based trip. We've now booked for next year on the western Caribbean route in the dos 15500 but 15000 is also available. I wasn't sure it really made a difference ie port vs starboard given the placement of the suite but what do you all think ?