ARandomTraveler

If your original room is at the front or the back of the ship, and you want to move to a room in the center, there's usually an up-charge of like $40 for that. Could that be where the extra charge is coming from?

My thought off the bat regarding what the "detractors" are as far as the inconvenience to you goes... you can't sit at the bar and relax with your drinks, enjoying the band or conversation with your neighbors or whatever else you'd be doing at the time. You'd have to keep excusing yourself, going to another bar, getting a drink and bringing it back to the bar you were originally hanging out in. This just seems like way more hassle than it's worth to save the $30 cost of 2 glasses of wine. On top of that, the bartender at the bar you're hanging out in is going to notice what you're doing because you'll keep leaving to get a drink from a different bar and bringing it back, and handing it to your wife. It seems like a lot less hassle to just bring on your 2 free bottles of wine (or in your case, since you're in different rooms, you can bring 4 bottles of wine) and let her fill up her own wine glass and drink that. Or, since she drinks so little, just pay out of pocket. Otherwise you're gonna be doing this secret-bar-shuffle game everyday just to save $200.

It sounds like I've either always misunderstood that rule with non-refundable bookings, or it changed since they originally implemented non-refundable in the USA. I always understood it that price drops were allowed with refundable bookings because people could otherwise just cancel and re-book, while non-refundable bookings could not do that as easily. That either changed or I always misunderstood it. That being said, it sounds like the person whose travel agent said they weren't eligible for a price drop is wrong, and it has nothing to do with cruise with confidence or non refundable bookings, so, they should definitely call their agent back. Sorry everyone for my spreading of vicious lies 😂

You might be right. My understanding of it comes from years ago, when they first introduced the non-refundable option, and people were upset upon finding out that when they booked non-refundable rates, they couldn't get price drops, but that may have changed since then.

🤔 hmmm. Maybe I've always misunderstood the rules with that. Are you sure it's not just in the last couple of covid years that you've been able to do this? Have you done it recently with a cruise booked after March 31st 2022?

Same here. I don't have diabetes but by the time I drink the requisite 60oz-80oz of water a day, I don't have much room left for that much liquid. I can fit about 3-4 more drinks in there, but that's pushing it for me. Generally at that point, my water intake is going down in order to increase my "other" drinks. I can do that for a few days of vacation, but anything more than that and I feel like complete crap. Maybe I need to stop being such a boring healthy person so I can have more fun and not feel such a drastic difference in my body when I indulge. Or maybe it's just me feeling the effects of getting old 😂. I also found that with the refreshment package, I was using the freestyle machines to fill my cup with ice and water, and rarely asked for a bottled water. I brought an insulated water bottle to fill with ice water at the freestyle machine when going to the beach because it can hold 40oz and stay cold all day in the hot sun. The bottled water ends up lukewarm, so, even the "Don't forget to count all the bottled water" argument doesn't add up for me.

Price drops are completely different than cruise-with-confidence. Think of a price drop like going into a store, buying a pair of pants, and then going back the next day and seeing those same pants on sale for 50% off. You could return the pants, get your money back, and re-purchase them at the new sale price. This is essentially what people are doing with price drops. The difference is that with a price drop, you don't have to wait for money to be refunded and then put new deposits down, they just adjust the price and give you a new, lower balance due to save everyone the hassle of canceling and rebooking. Price drops make the most sense for people who have refundable rates, because with a refundable rate, you can cancel anytime before the official final payment date and get all of your deposits and other payments refunded to you in full. So, if you see a price drop of any dollar amount, it's a savings for you. If you have a non-refundable rate, then any changes or cancellations will cost you $100 per person, making it so that getting a price drop (which is, essentially, returning your pants and re-purchasing them), costs you $100/person every time. So, your price drop needs to be more than the money you're losing to be worth it. If you have 2 people in a room with a non-refundable rate, the price drop would have to be at least $201 to see any savings, and with that example, your savings would only be $1. With a refundable rate, your savings would be the full $201. I think cruise with confidence had something to do with waiving those fees for non-refundable people, or people who were booking after the official final payment date. I hope that helps make more sense of it for you. edited to add: This is all assuming that the price drop is happening before the official final payment date. After the final payment date, even "refundable" fares become somewhat non-refundable, so price drops don't exist. Think if it like the pants example - you have a receipt that says you can return the pants within the next 30 days, and after 30 days, you can't return them. This may be another area where cruise with confidence comes in for people, I'm not sure. But it's possible that for people who booked their cruise prior to March 31st 2022 are eligible for receiving the amount of any price drops after that final payment date in the form of on board credit. I'm not certain on that though. With the pants example it's like having a receipt that says you can return within 30 days, and any returns after 30 days you just get store credit.

They're correct that you can't get a price drop on a category that isn't available for sale. Technically, there is no current price attached to it because there aren't any. They don't post arbitrary prices on something they can't sell. Keep an eye out though because someone might cancel or change categories and as soon as one Junior suite is available, a price will be associated with it.

Usually, if you're not in a star class suite, you would start making your reservations for dinner and shows for the week as soon as you get on the ship on embarkation day. Since you're star class, the genie will do this for you ahead of time, before boarding day, meaning, you get first choice of everything, and you're not in competition with everyone else to make reservations. If you're not in star class, and you get on the ship and don't start making your reservations right away, this is where people run into trouble (from what I've read anyway, I haven't done an Oasis class sailing yet). There are probably a lot of people who don't read cruise critic who don't know they're supposed to do those things, and they're the "losers" of this competition, as they get what's truly leftover after star class people, and then the people who know to book when they get on board.

I thought similarly for my cruise because it's a holiday sailing, which is usually sold at a premium and sells out. But I've gotten 4 price drops so far, and my cruise is 5 months away still.

Yuck who wants to spend 7 days (or even 1 day) in a hotel room with 14 people!? I like your dueling piano idea though. Those are fun.

My threshold is low. I'd buy it at $42/day, even though I'm unlikely to get my money's worth even at that price point. The reason I'd still buy it is because I do find some monetary value in an "all inclusive" option, even if I don't break even monetarily compared to the cost of drinks. Having a guaranteed maximum charge for the option to drink as much as I want without thinking about it, is worth $350 to me. Anything above that and it's not worth it because the financial cost I'm paying for the "all inclusive option" loses it's psychological value for me personally. I buy the refreshment package for the same reason. Last cruise I paid $19/day (plus 18%), and I paid more for the package than I would have paid out-of-pocket for the drinks I consumed, but I still felt it was a fair value for the added benefit of having the guaranteed maximum spending limit. I bought the refreshment package for my upcoming cruise at $23/day, but if it went to $25/day or more I think I'd skip it. I don't drink a lot though, and I get tired of soda and coffee after about 4 or 5 days. I'm one of those boring water drinkers who brings my running shoes on vacation 😂.

It wouldn't be an easy walk from the cruise port to Eagle or Palm Beaches. I would guess that it would take a healthy, fully mobile walker about an hour. Very easy and quick bus ride though (maybe 10 minutes). There's a bus "station" in the downtown area at the cruise port (I don't remember which shops are next to it, but it's kind of at the end of the shopping area, a local or maybe Google maps could point you to it pretty quickly I think. This station has busses that go to different places so make sure you're getting on the correct one (I don't recall which bus it is but it was easy to figure out). The bus ride is about 10 minutes to get to the Palm Beach area (get off at the bus stop across from the Hilton Hotel). There's also a bus stop near the Riu hotel (the Riu is next door to the Hilton, and that stop will come before the Hilton stop. If you accidentally get off at the Riu stop, you'll be fine, you'll just have to walk a bit further to get to the path that takes you to the beach). The only reason to get off at the Riu stop is if you have a day-pass there, in which case you'll be able to walk through the hotel to get to the beach, rather than needing to use the public outdoor path. The Hilton is right across the street from a small shopping area that has a bunch of restaurants, and the walkway to get to the beach area is right next to the Hilton. This is the best stop to get off at in order to get to the beach. I walked from Palm Beach to Eagle Beach (and then back to Palm Beach) once. I wouldn't recommend it. If you're completely mobile and can walk a mile or two in the heat, carrying all your beach stuff, on a road that doesn't always have a sidewalk, then it's really not that bad, but because there's only intermittent sidewalks, and it's kind of a "long" walk (maybe 30 min?), you'd be better off taking the bus or a taxi. I've never tried taking the bus there so I'm not familiar with where the bus stop is for Eagle Beach, but the bus driver will tell you. I didn't like Eagle Beach as much, but that's because I prefer more calm water where I can sit on a floatie all day (Palm Beach). Eagle Beach has rougher water than Palm Beach, but it's a more quiet beach if you're just looking for a place with a lot of sand to spread out on while reading a book. I've also taken a water taxi (speed boat) from Palm Beach to Eagle Beach (because they keep the jet ski's at Eagle Beach). That ride seemed to take about 5 minutes but maybe it wasn't that long.

I don't think there's a free trolley in Aruba. I've been there a couple times on cruise stops as well as a couple land vacations and I've never seen a free trolley. Last time I was there was in November 2021 (7 months ago). They do have really inexpensive buses, it's like $2 (US dollars) to ride from downtown (cruise port area) to the beaches. There's a stop right in front of the Palm Beach area hotels (Hilton).

Me too, within 36 hours I had 3 price drops. I had one Wednesday night, one Thursday morning, and another one Thursday night, (and a 4th one a week or so ago) for a total of $466 (for one ocean view balcony cabin for 2 people).

I thought your flight was arriving at 12:50 in the afternoon. 12:50am isn't as bad, BUT, I'd still be nervous. In the last year I've taken about 15 southwest flights (6 flights in the last 2 months alone) and only two of them have been on time. The shortest delay has been about 30 minutes. Usually they're about an hour and 15min delayed. The longest...4 hours (and that's happened more than once) 4 flights have been cancelled completely (between November 2021 and January 2022) with no ability to reschedule for at least 3 days. I just cancelled those trips altogether. If I had to fly in on the same day as a cruise and there was only 1 flight option, I'm not sure I'd even consider taking that cruise. But if you're flying through Denver during a non-holiday time where there are likely to be open seats on other flights, and you're ok splitting the kids up onto different flights if need be, then you have a backup plan. If not, make sure you have insurance that will reimburse you if you have a travel delay that causes you to miss the ship, and make sure the insurance plan has a low threshold for the trip delay (like a 3hr delay threshold). I love Southwest Airlines, but they haven't been doing a very good job with being on time lately, and their planes are flying full. All that being said, sometimes the only option is to take a big risk, and if things go the way they should, you should have no problem. I'm just giving you that info in order to prepare for a worst case scenario and have a backup plan.

About 12 hours after getting last night's price drop, I got another $70 this morning. Took me less than 6 minutes on the phone. $298 saved so far. It's not significant in comparison to the cost of the whole trip, but it makes some of the add-ons free, which is fun.

Just checked my cruise price (for the second time today) and there was an unexpected price drop (it's a holiday sailing and the price has been the same since May). I called crown-and-anchor (closed), called the regular 800#, but once I selected the option for "I booked this cruise on the website" it told me they were closed. Called again but this time selected the "I booked this cruise over the phone" option and surprise surprise, they answered right away 🙄. Got another $182 savings (for a total of $228, which pays for one of our refreshment packages, so I'm happy with that.

That's the pattern I've been seeing with my Symphony cruise too. I bought it at $207.99. It's back too $219.99 right now, but will probably be $207.99 for the 4th of July "sale." I'm surprised to see higher prices on the ships with less restaurant options. I wonder what the reason behind this is. Maybe they're trying to keep the number of people who have the UDP lower because there's fewer restaurants to spread them around in 🤔.

What she said

I'm cruising Symphony in November, just checked my cruise planner and 150 Central Park is not available to book individually for my cruise either.

Well this is disappointing. The description for unlimited dining in my cruise planner literally says "For one low price, you can enjoy multiple entrees and visit multiple specialty restaurants every night of your sailing."

Promenade rooms are on floors 6, 7 and 8. I think 7th floor is best, then 6th, then 8th. Reason being is that the 7th floor is a little more "removed" from the promenade in both sound and visibility. It's not a huge difference, but some rooms on the 6th floor will be noisier if above a popular venue. The noise from the actual promenade (like the hallway part, not the stores/restaurants/bars) in general isn't that different between 6th floor and 7th floor. Rooms on 6th floor are more visible to people on the promenade. When they look up, the windows of the 6th floor are what they see first. Again, not a huge deal. 7th floor felt like a nice compromise of being a little removed from the noise/eyes of the promenade, but I did feel like if I had been one floor higher (on the 8th floor) it would be too high to do good people and parade watching.

$133.99 for Symphony Thanksgiving week (listed as 10% off of a regular price of $149.00). While other prices have gone up and down with each sale, the water park price has stayed the same.

Early dining is way too early for West-coast people (that's like eating dinner at 2:30 (pacific time) or 3:30 (mountain time). Late dining is better for us, but seems to conflict with show times, which is why I prefer the buffet so I can be in control of the time I eat, as well as how long it takes for dinner to be done. Unfortunately for me, my daughter has more class than me and prefers more traditional dinners 😂, so I end up in the dining room more often than not. Next cruise we're doing the unlimited dining package so we'll see how that works out time-wise. Might be worse considering the "good" dining times get booked up quickly.